_Crooked or Distorted Intellect._
We have blind, one-eyed, cross-eyed, and squinting people--visions long,
short, clear, confused, weak, or indefatigable. All this is a faithful
image of our understanding; but we know scarcely any _false_ vision:
there are not many men who always take a cock for a horse, or a
coffeepot for a church. How is it that we often meet with minds,
otherwise judicious, which are absolutely wrong in some things of
importance? How is it that the Siamese, who will take care never to be
overreached when he has to receive three rupees, firmly believes in the
metamorphoses of Sammonocodom? By what strange whim do men of sense
resemble Don Quixote, who beheld giants where other men saw nothing but
windmills? Yet was Don Quixote more excusable than the Siamese, who
believes that Sammonocodom came several times upon earth--and the Turk,
who is persuaded that Mahomet put one-half of the moon into his sleeve?
Don Quixote, impressed with the idea that he is to fight with a giant,
may imagine that a giant must have a body as big as a mill, and arms as
long as the sails; but from what supposition can a man of sense set out
to arrive at a conclusion, that half the moon went into a sleeve, and
that a Sammonocodom came down from heaven to fly kites at Siam, to cut
down a forest, and to exhibit sleight-of-hand?
The greatest geniuses may have their minds warped, on a principle which
they have received without examination. Newton was very wrong-headed
when he was commenting on the Apocalypse.
All that certain tyrants of souls desire, is that the men whom they
teach may have their intellects distorted. A fakir brings up a child of
great promise; he employs five or six years in driving it into his head,
that the god Fo appeared to men in the form of a white elephant; and
persuades the child, that if he does not believe in these metamorphoses,
he will be flogged after death for five hundred thousand years. He adds,
that at the end of the world, the enemy of the god Fo will come and
fight against that divinity.
The child studies, and becomes a prodigy; he finds that Fo could not
change himself into anything but a white elephant, because that is the
most beautiful of animals. The kings of Siam and Pegu, say he, went to
war with one another for a white elephant: certainly, had not Fo been
concealed in that elephant, these two kings would not have been so mad
as to fight for the possession of a mere animal.
Fo's enemy will come and challenge him at the end of the world: this
enemy will certainly be a rhinoceros; for the rhinoceros fights the
elephant. Thus does the fakir's learned pupil reason in mature age, and
he becomes one of the lights of the Indies: the more subtle his
intellect, the more crooked; and he, in his turn, forms other intellects
as distorted as his own.
Show these besotted beings a little geometry, and they learn it easily
enough; but, strange to say, this does not set them right. They perceive
the truths of geometry; but it does not teach them to weigh
probabilities: they have taken their bent; they will reason against
reason all their lives; and I am sorry for them.
Unfortunately, there are many ways of being wrong-headed, 1. Not to
examine whether the principle is true, even when just consequences are
drawn from it; and this is very common.
2. To draw false consequences from a principle acknowledged to be true.
For instance: a servant is asked whether his master be at home, by
persons whom he suspects of having a design against his master's life.
If he were blockhead enough to tell them the truth, on pretence that it
is wrong to tell a lie, it is clear that he would draw an absurd
consequence from a very true principle.
The judge who should condemn a man for killing his assassin, would be
alike iniquitous, and a bad reasoner. Cases like these are subdivided
into a thousand different shades. The good mind, the judicious mind, is
that which distinguishes them. Hence it is, that there have been so many
iniquitous judgments; not because the judges were wicked in heart, but
because they were not sufficiently enlightened.
WOMEN.
_Physical and Moral._
Woman is in general less strong than man, smaller, and less capable of
lasting labor. Her blood is more aqueous; her flesh less firm; her hair
longer; her limbs more rounded; her arms less muscular; her mouth
smaller; her hips more prominent; and her belly larger. These physical
points distinguish women all over the earth, and of all races, from
Lapland unto the coast of Guinea, and from America to China.
Plutarch, in the third book of his "_Symposiacs_," pretends that wine
will not intoxicate them so easily as men; and the following is the
reason which he gives for this falsehood:
"The temperament of women is very moist; this, with their courses,
renders their flesh so soft, smooth, and clear. When wine encounters so
much humidity, it is overcome, and it loses its color and its strength,
becoming discolored and weak. Something also may be gathered from the
reasoning of Aristotle, who observes, that they who drink great draughts
without drawing their breath, which the ancients call '_amusisein_' are
not intoxicated so soon as others; because the wine does not remain
within the body, but being forcibly taken down, passes rapidly off. Now
we generally perceive that women drink in this manner; and it is
probable that their bodies, in consequence of the continual attraction
of the humors, which are carried off in their periodical visitations,
are filled with many conduits, and furnished with numerous pipes and
channels, into which the wine disperses rapidly and easily, without
having time to affect the noble and principal parts, by the disorder of
which intoxication is produced." These physics are altogether worthy of
the ancients.
Women live somewhat longer than men; that is to say, in a generation we
count more aged women than aged men. This fact has been observed by all
who have taken accurate accounts of births and deaths in Europe; and it
is thought that it is the same in Asia, and among the negresses, the
copper-colored, and olive-complexioned, as among the white. _"Natura est
semper sibi consona."_
We have elsewhere adverted to an extract from a Chinese journal, which
states, that in the year 1725, the wife of the emperor Yontchin made a
distribution among the poor women of China who had passed their
seventieth year; and that, in the province of Canton alone, there were
98,222 females aged more than seventy, 40,893 beyond eighty, and 3,453
of about the age of a hundred. Those who advocate final causes say, that
nature grants them a longer life than men, in order to recompense them
for the trouble they take in bringing children into the world and
rearing them. It is scarcely to be imagined that nature bestows
recompenses, but it is probable that the blood of women being milder,
their fibres harden less quickly.
No anatomist or physician has ever been able to trace the secret of
conception. Sanchez has curiously remarked: _"Mariam et spiritum sanctum
emisisse semen in copulatione, et ex semine amborum natum esse Jesum."_
This abominable impertinence of the most knowing Sanchez is not adopted
at present by any naturalist.
The periodical visitations which weaken females, while they endure the
maladies which arise out of their suppression, the times of gestation,
the necessity of suckling children, and of watching continually over
them, and the delicacy of their organization, render them unfit for the
fatigue of war, and the fury of the combat. It is true, as we have
already observed, that in almost all times and countries women have been
found on whom nature has bestowed extraordinary strength and courage,
who combat with men, and undergo prodigious labor; but, after all, these
examples are rare. On this point we refer to the article on "Amazons."
Physics always govern morals. Women being weaker of body than we are,
there is more skill in their fingers, which are more supple than ours.
Little able to labor at the heavy work of masonry, carpentering,
metalling, or the plough, they are necessarily intrusted with the
lighter labors of the interior of the house, and, above all, with the
care of children. Leading a more sedentary life, they possess more
gentleness of character than men, and are less addicted to the
commission of enormous crimes--a fact so undeniable, that in all
civilized countries there are always fifty men at least executed to one
woman.
Montesquieu, in his "Spirit of Laws," undertaking to speak of the
condition of women under divers governments, observes that "among the
Greeks women were not regarded as worthy of having any share in genuine
love; but that with them love assumed a form which is not to be named."
He cites Plutarch as his authority.
This mistake is pardonable only in a wit like Montesquieu, always led
away by the rapidity of his ideas, which are often very indistinct.
Plutarch, in his chapter on love, introduces many interlocutors; and he
himself, in the character of Daphneus, refutes, with great animation,
the arguments of Protagenes in favor of the commerce alluded to.
It is in the same dialogue that he goes so far as to say, that in the
love of woman there is something divine; which love he compares to the
sun, that animates nature. He places the highest happiness in conjugal
love, and concludes by an eloquent eulogium on the virtue of Epponina.
This memorable adventure passed before the eyes of Plutarch, who lived
some time in the house of Vespasian. The above heroine, learning that
her husband Sabinus, vanquished by the troops of the emperor, was
concealed in a deep cavern between Franche-Comté and Champagne, shut
herself up with him, attended on him for many years, and bore children
in that situation. Being at length taken with her husband, and brought
before Vespasian, who was astonished at her greatness of soul, she said
to him: "I have lived more happily under ground than thou in the light
of the sun, and in the enjoyment of power." Plutarch therefore asserts
directly the contrary to that which is attributed to him by Montesquieu,
and declares in favor of woman with an enthusiasm which is even
affecting.
It is not astonishing, that in every country man has rendered himself
the master of woman, dominion being founded on strength. He has
ordinarily, too, a superiority both in body and mind. Very learned women
are to be found in the same manner as female warriors, but they are
seldom or ever inventors.
A social and agreeable spirit usually falls to their lot; and, generally
speaking, they are adapted to soften the manners of men. In no republic
have they ever been allowed to take the least part in government; they
have never reigned in monarchies purely elective; but they may reign in
almost all the hereditary kingdoms of Europe--in Spain, Naples, and
England, in many states of the North, and in many grand fiefs which are
called "feminines."
Custom, entitled the Salic law, has excluded them from the crown of
France; but it is not, as Mézeray remarks, in consequence of their
unfitness for governing, since they are almost always intrusted with the
regency.
It is pretended, that Cardinal Mazarin confessed that many women were
worthy of governing a kingdom; but he added, that it was always to be
feared they would allow themselves to be subdued by lovers who were not
capable of governing a dozen pullets. Isabella in Castile, Elizabeth in
England, and Maria Theresa in Hungary, have, however, proved the falsity
of this pretended bon-mot, attributed to Cardinal Mazarin; and at this
moment we behold a legislatrix in the North as much respected as the
sovereign of Greece, of Asia Minor, of Syria, and of Egypt, is
disesteemed.
It has been for a long time ignorantly assumed, that women are slaves
during life among the Mahometans; and that, after their death, they do
not enter paradise. These are two great errors, of a kind which popes
are continually repeating in regard to Mahometanism. Married women are
not at all slaves; and the Sura, or fourth chapter of the Koran, assigns
them a dowry. A girl is entitled to inherit one-half as much as her
brother; and if there are girls only, they divide among them two-thirds
of the inheritance; and the remainder belongs to the relations of the
deceased, whose mother also is entitled to a certain share. So little
are married women slaves, they are entitled to demand a divorce, which
is granted when their complaints are deemed lawful.
A Mahometan is not allowed to marry his sister-in-law, his niece, his
foster-sister, or his daughter-in-law brought up under the care of his
wife. Neither is he permitted to marry two sisters; in which particular
the Mahometan law is more rigid than the Christian, as people are every
day purchasing from the court of Rome the right of contracting such
marriages, which they might as well contract gratis.
_Polygamy._
Mahomet has limited the number of wives to four; but as a man must be
rich in order to maintain four wives, according to his condition, few
except great lords avail themselves of this privilege. Therefore, a
plurality of wives produces not so much injury to the Mahometan states
as we are in the habit of supposing; nor does it produce the
depopulation which so many books, written at random, are in the habit of
asserting.
The Jews, agreeable to an ancient usage, established, according to their
books, ever since the age of Lameth, have always been allowed several
wives at a time. David had eighteen; and it is from his time that they
allow that number to kings; although it is said that Solomon had as
many as seven hundred.
The Mahometans will not publicly allow the Jews to have more than one
wife; they do not deem them worthy of that advantage; but money, which
is always more powerful than law, procures to rich Jews, in Asia and
Africa, that permission which the law refuses.
It is seriously related, that Lelius Cinna, tribune of the people,
proclaimed, after the death of Cæsar, that the dictator had intended to
promulgate a law allowing women to take as many husbands as they
pleased. What sensible man can doubt, that this was a popular story
invented to render Cæsar odious? It resembles another story, which
states that a senator in full senate formally professed to give Cæsar
permission to cohabit with any woman he pleased. Such silly tales
dishonor history, and injure the minds of those who credit them. It is a
sad thing, that Montesquieu should give credit to this fable.
It is not, however, a fable that the emperor Valentinian, calling
himself a Christian, married Justinian during the life of Severa, his
first wife, mother of the emperor Gratian; but he was rich enough to
support many wives.
Among the first race of the kings of the Franks, Gontran, Cherebert,
Sigebert, and Chilperic, had several wives at a time. Gontran had within
his palace Venerande, Mercatrude, and Ostregilda, acknowledged for
legitimate wives; Cherebert had Merflida, Marcovesa, and Theodogilda.
It is difficult to conceive how the ex-Jesuit Nonnotte has been able, in
his ignorance, to push his boldness so far as to deny these facts, and
to say that the kings of the first race were not polygamists, and
thereby, in a libel in two volumes, throw discredit on more than a
hundred historical truths, with the confidence of a pedant who dictates
lessons in a college. Books of this kind still continue to be sold in
the provinces, where the Jesuits have yet a party, and seduce and
mislead uneducated people.
Father Daniel, more learned and judicious, confesses the polygamy of the
French kings without difficulty. He denies not the three wives of
Dagobert I., and asserts expressly that Theodoret espoused Deutery,
although she had a husband, and himself another wife called Visigalde.
He adds, that in this he imitated his uncle Clothaire, who espoused the
widow of Cleodomir, his brother, although he had three wives already.
All historians admit the same thing; why, therefore, after so many
testimonies, allow an ignorant writer to speak like a dictator, and say,
while uttering a thousand follies, that it is in defence of religion? as
if our sacred and venerable religion had anything to do with an
historical point, although made serviceable by miserable calumniators to
their stupid impostures.
_Of the Polygamy Allowed by Certain Popes and Reformers._
The Abbé Fleury, author of the "Ecclesiastical History," pays more
respect to truth in all which concerns the laws and usages of the
Church. He avows that Boniface, confessor of Lower Germany, having
consulted Pope Gregory, in the year 726, in order to know in what cases
a husband might be allowed to have two wives, Gregory replied to him, on
the 22nd of November, of the same year, in these words: "If a wife be
attacked by a malady which renders her unfit for conjugal intercourse,
the husband may marry another; but in that case he must allow his sick
wife all necessary support and assistance." This decision appears
conformable to reason and policy; and favors population, which is the
object of marriage.
But that which appears opposed at once to reason, policy, and nature, is
the law which ordains that a woman, separated from her husband both in
person and estate, cannot take another husband, nor the husband another
wife. It is evident that a race is thereby lost; and if the separated
parties are both of a certain temperament, they are necessarily exposed
and rendered liable to sins for which the legislators ought to be
responsible to God, if--
The decretals of the popes have not always had in view what was suitable
to the good of estates, and of individuals. This same decretal of Pope
Gregory II., which permits bigamy in certain cases, denies conjugal
rights forever to the boys and girls, whom their parents have devoted to
the Church in their infancy. This law seems as barbarous as it is
unjust; at once annihilating posterity, and forcing the will of men
before they even possess a will. It is rendering the children the slaves
of a vow which they never made; it is to destroy natural liberty, and to
offend God and mankind.
The polygamy of Philip, landgrave of Hesse, in the Lutheran community,
in 1539, is well known. I knew a sovereign in Germany, who, after having
married a Lutheran, had permission from the pope to marry a Catholic,
and retained both his wives.
It is well known in England, that the chancellor Cowper married two
wives, who lived together in the same house in a state of concord which
did honor to all three. Many of the curious still possess the little
book which he composed in favor of polygamy.
We must distrust authors who relate, that in certain countries women are
allowed several husbands. Those who make laws everywhere are born with
too much self-love, are too jealous of their authority, and generally
possess a temperament too ardent in comparison with that of women, to
have instituted a jurisprudence of this nature. That which is opposed to
the general course of nature is very rarely true; but it is very common
for the more early travellers to mistake an abuse for a law.
The author of the "Spirit of Laws" asserts, that in the caste of Nairs,
on the coast of Malabar, a man can have only one wife, while a woman may
have several husbands. He cites doubtful authors, and above all Picard;
but it is impossible to speak of strange customs without having long
witnessed them; and if they are mentioned, it ought to be doubtingly;
but what lively spirit knows how to doubt?
"The lubricity of women," he observes, "is so great at Patan, the men
are constrained to adopt certain garniture, in order to be safe against
their amorous enterprises."
The president Montesquieu was never at Patan. Is not the remark of M.
Linguet judicious, who observes, that this story has been told by
travellers who were either deceived themselves, or who wished to laugh
at their readers? Let us be just, love truth, and judge by facts, not by
names.
_End of the Reflections on Polygamy._
It appears that power, rather than agreement, makes laws everywhere, but
especially in the East. We there beheld the first slaves, the first
eunuchs, and the treasury of the prince directly composed of that which
is taken from the people.
He who can clothe, support, and amuse a number of women, shuts them up
in a menagerie, and commands them despotically. Ben Aboul Kiba, in his
"Mirror of the Faithful," relates that one of the viziers of the great
Solyman addressed the following discourse to an agent of Charles V.:
"Dog of a Christian!--for whom, however, I have a particular
esteem--canst thou reproach me with possessing four wives, according to
our holy laws, whilst thou emptiest a dozen barrels a year, and I drink
not a single glass of wine? What good dost thou effect by passing more
hours at table than I do in bed? I may get four children a year for the
service of my august master, whilst thou canst scarcely produce one, and
that only the child of a drunkard, whose brain will be obscured by the
vapors of the wine which has been drunk by his father. What, moreover,
wouldst thou have me do, when two of my wives are in child-bed? Must I
not attend to the other two, as my law commands me? What becomes of
them? what part dost thou perform, in the latter months of the pregnancy
of thy only wife, and during her lyings-in and sexual maladies? Thou
either remainest idle, or thou repairest to another woman. Behold
thyself between two mortal sins, which will infallibly cause thee to
fall headlong from the narrow bridge into the pit of hell.
"I will suppose, that in our wars against the dogs of Christians we lose
a hundred thousand soldiers; behold a hundred thousand girls to provide
for. Is it not for the wealthy to take care of them? Evil betide every
Mussulman so cold-hearted as not to give shelter to four pretty girls,
in the character of legitimate wives, or to treat them according to
their merits!
"What is done in thy country by the trumpeter of day, which thou callest
the cock; the honest ram, the leader of the flock; the bull, sovereign
of the heifers; has not every one of them his seraglio? It becomes thee,
truly, to reproach me with my four wives, whilst our great prophet had
eighteen, the Jew David, as many, and the Jew Solomon, seven hundred,
all told, with three hundred concubines! Thou perceivest that I am
modest. Cease, then, to reproach a sage with luxury, who is content with
so moderate a repast. I permit thee to drink; allow me to love. Thou
changest thy wines; permit me to change my females. Let every one suffer
others to live according to the customs of their country. Thy hat was
not made to give laws to my turban; thy ruff and thy curtailed doublets
are not to command my doliman. Make an end of thy coffee, and go and
caress thy German spouse, since thou art allowed to have no other."
_Reply of the German._
"Dog of a Mussulman! for whom I retain a profound veneration; before I
finish my coffee I will confute all thy arguments. He who possesses four
wives, possesses four harpies, always ready to calumniate, to annoy, and
to fight one another. Thy house is the den of discord, and none of them
can love thee. Each has only a quarter of thy person, and in return can
bestow only a quarter of her heart. None of them can serve to render thy
life agreeable; they are prisoners who, never having seen anything, have
nothing to say; and, knowing only thee, are in consequence thy enemies.
Thou art their absolute master; they therefore hate thee. Thou art
obliged to guard them with eunuchs, who whip them when they are too
happy. Thou pretendest to compare thyself to a cock, but a cock never
has his pullets whipped by a capon. Take animals for thy examples, and
copy them as much as thou pleasest; for my part, I love like a man; I
would give all my heart, and receive an entire heart in return. I will
give an account of this conversation to my wife to-night, and I hope she
will be satisfied. As to the wine with which thou reproachest me, if it
is an evil to drink it in Arabia, it is a very praiseworthy habit in
Germany.--Adieu!"
XENOPHANES.
Bayle has made the article "Xenophanes" a pretext for making a panegyric
on the devil; as Simonides, formerly, seized the occasion of a wrestler
winning the prize of boxing in the Olympic games, to form a fine ode in
praise of Castor and Pollux. But, at the bottom, of what consequence to
us are the reveries of Xenophanes? What do we gain by knowing that he
regarded nature as an infinite being, immovable, composed of an infinite
number of small corpuscles, soft little mounds, and small organic
molecules? That he, moreover, thought pretty nearly as Spinoza has since
thought? or rather endeavored to think, for he contradicts himself
frequently--a thing very common to ancient philosophers.
If Anaximenes taught that the atmosphere was God; if Thales attributed
to water the foundation of all things, because Egypt was rendered
fertile by inundation; if Pherecides and Heraclitus give to fire all
which Thales attributes to water--to what purpose return to these
chimerical reveries?
I wish that Pythagoras had expressed, by numbers, certain relations,
very insufficiently understood, by which he infers, that the world was
built by the rules of arithmetic. I allow, that Ocellus Lucanus and
Empedocles have arranged everything by moving antagonist forces, but
what shall I gather from it? What clear notion will it convey to my
feeble mind?
Come, divine Plato! with your archetypal ideas, your androgynes, and
your word; establish all these fine things in poetical prose, in your
new republic, in which I no more aspire to have a house, than in the
Salentum of Telemachus; but in lieu of becoming one of your citizens, I
will send you an order to build your town with all the subtle manner of
Descartes, all his globular and diffusive matter; and they shall be
brought to you by Cyrano de Bergerac.
Bayle, however, has exercised all the sagacity of his logic on these
ancient fancies; but it is always by rendering them ridiculous that he
instructs and entertains.
O philosophers! Physical experiments, ably conducted, arts and
handicraft--these are the true philosophy. My sage is the conductor of
my windmill, which dexterously catches the wind, and receives my corn,
deposits it in the hopper, and grinds it equally, for the nourishment of
myself and family. My sage is he who, with his shuttle, covers my walls
with pictures of linen or of silk, brilliant with the finest colors; or
he who puts into my pocket a chronometer of silver or of gold. My sage
is the investigator of natural history. We learn more from the single
experiments of the Abbé Nollet than from all the philosophical works of
antiquity.
XENOPHON,
AND THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND.
If Xenophon had no other merit than that of being the friend of the
martyr Socrates, he would be interesting; but he was a warrior,
philosopher, poet, historian, agriculturist, and amiable in society.
There were many Greeks who united these qualities.
But why had this free man a Greek company in the pay of the young
Chosroes, named Cyrus by the Greeks? This Cyrus was the younger brother
and subject of the emperor of Persia, Artaxerxes Mnemon, of whom it was
said that he never forgot anything but injuries. Cyrus had already
attempted to assassinate his brother, even in the temple in which the
ceremony of his consecration took place--for the kings of Persia were
the first who were consecrated. Artaxerxes had not only the clemency to
pardon this villain, but he had the weakness to allow him the absolute
government of a great part of Asia Minor, which he held from their
father, and of which he at least deserved to be despoiled.
As a return for such surprising mercy, as soon as he could excite his
satrapy to revolt against his brother, Cyrus added this second crime to
the first. He declared by a manifesto, "that he was more worthy of the
throne of Persia than his brother, because he was a better magus, and
drank more wine." I do not believe that these were the reasons which
gained him the Greeks as allies. He took thirteen thousand into his pay,
among whom was the young Xenophon, who was then only an adventurer. Each
soldier had a daric a month for pay. The daric is equal to about a
guinea or a louis d'or of our time, as the Chevalier de Jaucourt very
well observes, and not ten francs, as Rollin says.
When Cyrus proposed to march them with his other troops to fight his
brother towards the Euphrates, they demanded a daric and a half, which
he was obliged to grant them. This was thirty-six livres a month, and
consequently the highest pay which was ever given. The soldiers of
Cæsar and Pompey had but twenty sous per day in the civil wars. Besides
this exorbitant pay, of which they obliged him to pay four months in
advance, Cyrus furnished them four hundred chariots, laden with wine and
meal.
The Greeks were then precisely what the Swiss are at present, who hire
their service and courage to neighboring princes, but for a pay three
times less than was that of the Greeks. It is evident, though they say
the contrary, that they did not inform themselves whether the cause for
which they fought was just; it was sufficient that Cyrus paid well.
The greatest part of these troops was composed of Lacedæmonians, by
which they violated their solemn treaties with the king of Persia. What
was become of the ancient aversion of the Spartans for gold and silver?
Where was their sincerity in treaties? Where was their high and
incorruptible virtue? Clearchus, a Spartan, commanded the principal body
of these brave mercenaries.
I understand not the military manoeuvres of Artaxerxes and Cyrus; I see
not why Artaxerxes, who came to his enemy with twelve hundred thousand
soldiers, should begin by causing lines of twelve leagues in extent to
be drawn between Cyrus and himself; and I comprehend nothing of the
order of battle. I understand still less how Cyrus, followed only by six
hundred horse, broke into the midst of six thousand horse-guards of the
emperor, followed by an innumerable army. Finally, he was killed by the
hand of Artaxerxes, who, having apparently drunk less wine than the
rebel, fought with more coolness and address than this drunkard. It is
clear that he completely gained the battle, notwithstanding the valor
and resistance of thirteen thousand Greeks--since Greek vanity is
obliged to confess that Artaxerxes told them to put down their arms.
They replied that they would do nothing of the kind; but that if the
emperor would pay them they would enter his service. It was very
indifferent to them for whom they fought, so long as they were paid; in
fact, they were only hired murderers.
Besides the Swiss, there are some provinces of Germany which follow this
custom. It signifies not to these good Christians whether they are paid
to kill English, French, or Dutch, or to be killed by them. You see them
say their prayers, and go to the carnage like laborers to their
workshop. As to myself, I confess I would rather observe those who go
into Pennsylvania, to cultivate the land with the simple and equitable
Quakers, and form colonies in the retreat of peace and industry. There
is no great skill in killing and being killed for six sous per day, but
there is much in causing the republic of Dunkers to flourish--these new
Therapeutæ on the frontier of a country the most savage.
Artaxerxes regarded the Greeks only as accomplices in the revolt of his
brother, and indeed they were nothing else. He betrayed himself to be
betrayed by them, and he betrayed them, as Xenophon pretends; for after
one of his captains had sworn in his name to allow them a free retreat,
and to furnish them with food, after Clearchus and five other commanders
of the Greeks were put into his hands, to regulate the march, he caused
their heads to be cut off, and slew all the Greeks who accompanied them
in this interview, if we may trust Xenophon's account.
This royal act shows us that Machiavellism is not new; but is it true
that Artaxerxes promised not to make an example of the chief mercenaries
who sold themselves to his brother? Was it not permitted him to punish
those whom he thought so guilty? It is here that the famous retreat of
the ten thousand commences. If I comprehend nothing of the battle, I
understand no more of the retreat.
The emperor, before he cut off the heads of six Greek generals and their
suite, had sworn to allow the little army, reduced to ten thousand men,
to return to Greece. The battle was fought on the road to the Euphrates;
he must therefore have caused the Greeks to return by Western
Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Ionia. Not at all; they were made to
pass by the East; they were obliged to traverse the Tigris in boats
which were furnished to them; they returned afterwards by the Armenian
roads, while their commanders were punished. If any person comprehends
this march, in which they turn their backs on Greece, they will oblige
me much by explaining it to me.
One of two things: either the Greeks chose their route themselves--and
in this case they neither knew where they went, or what they wished--or
Artaxerxes made them march against their will--which is much more
probable--and in this case, why did he not exterminate them?
We may extricate ourselves from these difficulties, by supposing that
the Persian emperor only half revenged himself; that he contented
himself with punishing the principal mercenary chiefs who sold the Greek
troops to Cyrus; that having made a treaty with the fugitive troops, he
would not descend to the meanness of violating it; that being sure that
a third of these wandering Greeks would perish on the road, he abandoned
them to their fate. I see no other manner of enlightening the mind of
the reader on the obscurities of this march.
We are astonished at the retreat of the ten thousand; but we should be
much more so, if Artaxerxes, a conqueror, at the head of a hundred
thousand men--at least it is said so--had allowed ten thousand fugitives
to travel in the north of his vast states, whom he could crush in every
village, every bridge, every defile, or whom he could have made perish
with hunger and misery.
However, they were furnished, as we have seen, with twenty-seven great
boats, to enable them to pass the Tigris, as if they were conducted to
the Indies. Thence they were escorted towards the North for several
days, into the desert in which Bagdad is now situated. They further
passed the river Zabata, and it was there that the emperor sent his
orders to punish the chiefs. It is clear that they could have
exterminated the army as easily as they inflicted punishment on the
generals. It is therefore very likely that they did not choose to do so.
We should, therefore, rather regard the Greek wanderers in these savage
countries as wayward travellers, whom the bounty of the emperor allowed
to finish their journey as they could.
We may make another observation, which appears not very honorable to the
Persian government. It was impossible for the Greeks not to have
continual quarrels for food with the people whom they met. Pillages,
desolations, and murders, were the inevitable consequence of these
disorders; and that is so true, that in a road of six hundred leagues,
during which the Greeks always marched irregularly, being neither
escorted nor pursued by any great body of Persian troops, they lost four
thousand men, either killed by peasants or by sickness. How did it
happen, therefore, that Artaxerxes did not cause them to be escorted
from their passage of the river Zabata, as he had done from the field of
battle to the river?
How could so wise and good a sovereign commit so great a fault? Perhaps
he did command the escort; perhaps Xenophon, who exaggerates a little
elsewhere, passes it over in silence, not to diminish the wonder of the
"retreat of the ten thousand"; perhaps the escort was always obliged to
march at a great distance from the Greek troop, on account of the
difficulty of procuring provisions. However it might be, it appears
certain that Artaxerxes used extreme indulgence, and that the Greeks
owed their lives to him, since they were not exterminated.
In the article on "Retreat," in the "Encyclopædical Dictionary," it is
said that the retreat of the ten thousand took place under the command
of Xenophon. This is a mistake; he never commanded; he was merely at the
head of a division of fourteen hundred men, at the end of the march.
I see that these heroes scarcely arrived, after so many fatigues, on the
borders of the Pontus Euxinus, before they indifferently pillaged
friends and enemies to re-establish themselves. Xenophon embarked his
little troop at Heraclea, and went to make a new bargain with a king of
Thrace, to whom he was a stranger. This Athenian, instead of succoring
his country, then overcome by the Spartans, sold himself once more to a
petty foreign despot. He was ill paid, I confess, which is another
reason why we may conclude that he would have done better in assisting
his country.
The sum of all this, we have already remarked, is that the Athenian
Xenophon, being only a young volunteer, enlisted himself under a
Lacedæmonian captain, one of the tyrants of Athens, in the service of a
rebel and an assassin; and that, becoming chief of fourteen hundred men,
he put himself into the pay of a barbarian.
What is worse, necessity did not constrain him to this servitude. He
says himself that he deposited a great part of the gold gained in the
service of Cyrus in the temple of the famous Diana of Ephesus.
Let us remark, that in receiving the pay of a king, he exposed himself
to be condemned to death, if the foreigner was not contented with him,
which happened to Major-General Doxat, a man born free. He sold himself
to the emperor Charles VI., who commanded his head to be cut off, for
having given up to the Turks a place which he could not defend.
Rollin, in speaking of the return of the ten thousand, says, "that this
fortunate retreat filled the people of Greece with contempt for
Artaxerxes, by showing them that gold, silver, delicacies, luxury, and a
numerous seraglio, composed all the merit of a great king."
Rollin should consider that the Greeks ought not to despise a sovereign
who had gained a complete battle; who, having pardoned as a brother,
conquered as a hero; who, having the power of exterminating ten thousand
Greeks, suffered them to live and to return to their country; and who,
being able to have them in his pay, disdained to make use of them. Add,
that this prince afterwards conquered the Lacedæmonians and their
allies, and imposed on them humiliating laws; add also that in a war
with the Scythians, called Caducians, towards the Caspian Sea, he
supported all fatigues and dangers like the lowest soldier. He lived and
died full of glory; it is true that he had a seraglio, but his courage
was only the more estimable. We must be careful of college declamations.
If I dared to attack prejudice I would venture to prefer the retreat of
Marshal Belle-Isle to that of the ten thousand. He was blocked up in
Prague by sixty thousand men, when he had not thirteen thousand. He took
his measures with so much ability that he got out of Prague, in the most
severe cold, with his army, provisions, baggage, and thirty pieces of
cannon, without the besiegers having the least idea of it. He gained two
days' march without their perceiving it. An army of thirteen thousand
men pursued him for the space of thirty leagues. He faced them
everywhere--he was never cast down; but sick as he was, he braved the
season, scarcity and his enemies. He only lost those soldiers who could
not resist the extreme rigor of the season. What more was wanting? A
longer course and Grecian exaggeration.
YVETOT.
This is the name of a town in France, six leagues from Rouen, in
Normandy, which, according to Robert Gaguin, a historian of the
sixteenth century, has long been entitled a kingdom.
This writer relates that Gautier, or Vautier, lord of Yvetot, and grand
chamberlain to King Clotaire I., having lost the favor of his master by
calumny, in which courtiers deal rather liberally, went into voluntary
exile, and visited distant countries, where, for ten years, he fought
against the enemies of the faith; that at the expiration of this term,
flattering himself that the king's anger would be appeased, he went back
to France; that he passed through Rome, where he saw Pope Agapetus, from
whom he obtained a letter of recommendation to the king, who was then at
Soissons, the capital of his dominions. The lord of Yvetot repaired
thither one Good Friday, and chose the time when Clotaire was at church,
to fall at his feet, and implore his forgiveness through the merits of
Him who, on that day, had shed His blood for the salvation of men; but
Clotaire, ferocious and cruel, having recognized him, ran him through
the body.
Gaguin adds that Pope Agapetus, being informed of this disgraceful act,
threatened the king with the thunders of the Church, if he did not make
reparation for his offence; and that Clotaire, justly intimidated, and
in satisfaction for the murder of his subject, erected the lordship of
Yvetot into a kingdom, in favor of Gautier's heirs and successors; that
he despatched letters to that effect signed by himself, and sealed with
his seal; that ever since then the lords of Yvetot have borne the title
of kings; and--continues Gaguin--I find from established and
indisputable authority, that this extraordinary event happened in the
year of grace 539.
On this story of Gaguin's we have the same remark to make that we have
already made on what he says of the establishment of the Paris
university--that not one of the contemporary historians makes any
mention of the singular event, which, as he tells us, caused the
lordship of Yvetot to be erected into a kingdom; and, as Claude Malingre
and the abbé Vertot have well observed, Clotaire I., who is here
supposed to have been sovereign of the town of Yvetot, did not reign
over that part of the country; fiefs were not then hereditary; acts were
not, as Robert Gaguin relates, dated from the year of grace; and lastly,
Pope Agapetus was then dead; to this it may be added that the right of
erecting a fief into a kingdom belonged exclusively to the emperor.
It is not, however, to be said that the thunders of the Church were not
already made use of, in the time of Agapetus. We know that St. Paul
excommunicated the incestuous man of Corinth. We also find in the
letters of St. Basil, some instances of general censure in the fourth
century. One of these letters is against a ravisher. The holy prelate
there orders the young woman to be restored to her parents, the ravisher
to be excluded from prayers, and declared to be excommunicated, together
with his accomplices and all his household, for three years; he also
orders that all the people of the village where the ravished person was
received, shall be excommunicated.
Auxilius, a young bishop, excommunicated the whole family of Clacitien;
although St. Augustine disapproved of this conduct, and Pope St. Leo
laid down the same maxims as Augustine, in one of his letters to the
bishop of the province of Vienne--yet, confining ourselves here to
France--Pretextatus, bishop of Rouen, having been assassinated in the
year 586 in his own church, Leudovalde, bishop of Bayeux, did not fail
to lay all the churches in Rouen under an interdict, forbidding divine
service to be celebrated in them until the author of the crime should be
discovered.
In 1141, Louis the Young having refused his consent to the election of
Peter de la Châtre, whom the pope caused to be appointed in the room of
Alberic, archbishop of Bourges, who had died the year preceding,
Innocent II. laid all France under interdict.
In the year 1200, Peter of Capua, commissioned to compel Philip Augustus
to put away Agnes, and take back Ingeburga, and not succeeding,
published the sentence of interdict on the whole kingdom, which had been
pronounced by Pope Innocent III. This interdict was observed with
extreme rigor. The English chronicle, quoted by the Benedictine
Martenne, says that every Christian act, excepting the baptism of
infants, was interdicted in France; the churches were closed, and
Christians driven out of them like dogs; there was no more divine
office, no more sacrifice of the mass, no ecclesiastical sepulture for
the deceased; the dead bodies, left to chance, spread the most frightful
infections, and filled the survivors with horror.
The chronicle of Tours gives the same description, adding only one
remarkable particular, confirmed by the abbé Fleury and the abbé de
Vertot--that the holy viaticum was excepted, like the baptism of
infants, from the privation of holy things. The kingdom was in this
situation for nine months; it was some time before Innocent III.
permitted the preaching of sermons and the sacrament of confirmation.
The king was so much enraged that he drove the bishops and all the other
ecclesiastics from their abodes, and confiscated their property.
But it is singular that the bishops were sometimes solicited by
sovereigns themselves to pronounce an interdict upon lands of their
vassals. By letters dated February, 1356, confirming those of Guy, count
of Nevers, and his wife Matilda, in favor of the citizens of Nevers,
Charles V., regent of the kingdom, prays the archbishops of Lyons,
Bourges, and Sens, and the bishops of Autun, Langres, Auxerre, and
Nevers, to pronounce an excommunication against the count of Nevers, and
an interdict upon his lands, if he does not fulfil the agreement he has
made with the inhabitants. We also find in the collection of the
ordinances of the third line of kings, many letters like that of King
John, authorizing the bishops to put under interdict those places whose
privileges their lords would seek to infringe.
And to conclude, though it appears incredible, the Jesuit Daniel relates
that, in the year 998, King Robert was excommunicated by Gregory V., for
having married his kinswoman in the fourth degree. All the bishops who
had assisted at this marriage were interdicted from the communion, until
they had been to Rome, and rendered satisfaction to the holy see. The
people, and even the court, separated from the king; he had only two
domestics left, who purified by fire whatever he had touched. Cardinal
Damien and Romualde also add, that Robert being gone one morning, as was
his custom, to say his prayers at the door of St. Bartholomew's church,
for he dared not enter it, Abbon, abbot of Fleury, followed by two women
of the palace, carrying a large gilt dish covered with a napkin,
accosted him, announced that Bertha was just brought to bed; and
uncovering the dish, said: "Behold the effects of your disobedience to
the decrees of the Church, and the seal of anathema on the fruit of your
love!" Robert looked, and saw a monster with the head and neck of a
duck! Bertha was repudiated; and the excommunication was at last taken
off.
Urban II., on the contrary, excommunicated Robert's grandson, Philip I.,
for having put away his kinswoman. This pope pronounced the sentence of
excommunication in the king's own dominions, at Clermont, in Auvergne,
where his holiness was come to seek an asylum, in the same council in
which the crusade was preached, and in which, for the first time, the
name of pope (papa) was given to the bishop of Rome, to the exclusion of
the other bishops, who had formerly taken it.
It will be seen that these canonical pains were medicinal rather than
mortal; but Gregory VII. and some of his successors ventured to assert,
that an excommunicated sovereign was deprived of his dominions, and that
his subjects were not obliged to obey him. However, supposing that a
king can be excommunicated in certain serious cases, excommunication,
being a penalty purely spiritual, cannot dispense with the obedience
which his subjects owe to him, as holding his authority from God
Himself. This was constantly acknowledged by the parliaments, and also
by the clergy of France, in the excommunications pronounced by Boniface
VII., against Philip the Fair; by Julius II., against Louis XII.; by
Sixtus V., against Henry III.; by Gregory XIII., against Henry IV.; and
it is likewise the doctrine of the celebrated assembly of the clergy in
1682.
ZEAL.
This, in religion, is a pure and enlightened attachment to the
maintenance and progress of the worship which is due to the Divinity;
but when this zeal is persecuting, blind, and false, it becomes the
greatest scourge of humanity.
See what the emperor Julian says of the Christians of his time: "The
Galileans," he observes, "have suffered exile and imprisonment under my
predecessor; those who are by turns called heretics, have been mutually
massacred. I have recalled the banished, liberated the prisoners; I have
restored their property to the proscribed; I have forced them to live in
peace; but such is the restless rage of the Galileans, that they
complain of being no longer able to devour each other."
This picture will not appear extravagant if we attend to the atrocious
calumnies with which the Christians reciprocally blackened each other.
For instance, St. Augustine accuses the Manichæans of forcing their
elect to receive the eucharist, after having obscenely polluted it.
After him, St. Cyril of Jerusalem has accused them of the same infamy in
these terms: "I dare not mention in what these sacrilegious wretches wet
their ischas, which they give to their unhappy votaries, and exhibit in
the midst of their altar, and with which the Manichæan soils his mouth
and tongue. Let the men call to mind what they are accustomed to
experience in dreaming, and the women in their periodical affections."
Pope St. Leo, in one of his sermons, also calls the sacrifice of the
Manichæans the same turpitude. Finally, Suidas and Cedrenus have still
further improved on the calumny, in asserting that the Manichæans held
nocturnal assemblies, in which, after extinguishing the flambeaux, they
committed the most enormous indecencies.
Let us first observe that the primitive Christians were themselves
accused of the same horrors which they afterwards imputed to the
Manichæans; and that the justification of these equally applies to the
others. "In order to have pretexts for persecuting us," said
Athenagoras, in his "Apology for the Christians," "they accuse us of
making detestable banquets, and of committing incest in our assemblies.
It is an old trick, which has been employed from all time to extinguish
virtue. Thus was Pythagoras burned, with three hundred of his disciples;
Heraclitus expelled by the Ephesians; Democritus by the Abderitans; and
Socrates condemned by the Athenians."
Athenagoras subsequently points out that the principles and manners of
the Christians were sufficient of themselves to destroy the calumnies
spread against them. The same reasons apply in favor of the Manichæans.
Why else is St. Augustine, who is positive in his book on heresies,
reduced in that on the morals of the Manichæans, when speaking of the
horrible ceremony in question, to say simply: "They are suspected
of--the world has this opinion of them--if they do not commit what is
imputed to them--rumor proclaims much ill of them; but they maintain
that it is false?"
Why not sustain openly this accusation in his dispute with Fortunatus,
who publicly challenged him in these terms: "We are accused of false
crimes, and as Augustine has assisted in our worship, I beg him to
declare before the whole people, whether these crimes are true or not."
St. Augustine replied: "It is true that I have assisted in your worship;
but the question of faith is one thing, the question of morals another;
and it is that of faith which I brought forward. However, if the persons
present prefer that we should discuss that of your morals, I shall not
oppose myself to them."
Fortunatus, addressing the assembly, said: "I wish, above all things, to
be justified in the minds of those who believe us guilty; and that
Augustine should now testify before you, and one day before the tribunal
of Jesus Christ, if he has ever seen, or if he knows, in any way
whatever, that the things imputed have been committed by us?" St.
Augustine still replies: "You depart from the question; what I have
advanced turns upon faith, not upon morals." At length, Fortunatus
continuing to press St. Augustine to explain himself, he does so in
these terms: "I acknowledge that in the prayer at which I assisted I did
not see you commit anything impure."
The same St. Augustine, in his work on the "Utility of Faith," still
justifies the Manichæans. "At this time," he says, to his friend
Honoratus, "when I was occupied with Manichæism, I was yet full of the
desire and the hope of marrying a handsome woman, and of acquiring
riches; of attaining honors, and of enjoying the other pernicious
pleasures of life. For when I listened with attention to the Manichæan
doctors, I had not renounced the desire and hope of all these things. I
do not attribute that to their doctrine; for I am bound to render this
testimony--that they sedulously exhorted men to preserve themselves from
those things. That is, indeed, what hindered me from attaching myself
altogether to the sect, and kept me in the rank of those who are called
auditors. I did not wish to renounce secular hopes and affairs." And in
the last chapter of this book, where he represents the Manichæan doctors
as proud men, who had as gross minds as they had meagre and skinny
bodies, he does not say a word of their pretended infamies.
But on what proofs were these imputations founded? The first which
Augustine alleges is, that these indecencies were a consequence of the
Manichæan system, regarding the means which God makes use of to wrest
from the prince of darkness the portion of his substance. We have spoken
of this in the article on "Genealogy," and these are horrors which one
may dispense with repeating. It is enough to say here, that the passage
from the seventh book of the "Treasure of Manes," which Augustine cites
in many places, is evidently falsified. The arch heretic says, if we can
believe it, that these celestial virtues, which are transformed
sometimes into beautiful boys, and sometimes into beautiful girls, are
God the Father Himself. This is false; Manes has never confounded the
celestial virtues with God the Father. St. Augustine, not having
understood the Syriac phrase of a "virgin of light" to mean a virgin
light, supposes that God shows a beautiful maiden to the princes of
darkness, in order to excite their brutal lust; there is nothing of all
this talked of in ancient authors; the question concerns the cause of
rain.
"The great prince," says Tirbon, cited by St. Epiphanius, "sends out for
himself, in his passion, black clouds, which darken all the world; he
chafes, worries himself, throws himself into a perspiration, and that it
is which makes the rain, which is no other than the sweat of the great
prince." St. Augustine must have been deceived by a mistranslation, or
rather by a garbled, unfaithful extract from the "Treasure of Manes,"
from which he only cites two or three passages. The Manichæan Secundums
also reproaches him with comprehending nothing of the mysteries of
Manichæism, and with attacking them only by mere paralogisms. "How,
otherwise," says the learned M. de Beausobre--whom we here
abridge--"would St. Augustine have been able to live so many years among
a sect in which such abominations were publicly taught? And how would he
have had the face to defend it against the Catholics?"
From this proof by reasoning, let us pass to the proofs of fact and
evidence alleged by St. Augustine and see if they are more substantial.
"It is said," proceeds this father, "that some of them have confessed
this fact in public pleadings, not only in Paphlagonia, but also in the
Gauls, as I have heard said at Rome by a certain Catholic."
Such hearsay deserves so little attention that St. Augustine dared not
make use of it in his conference with Fortunatus, although it was seven
or eight years after he had quitted Rome; he seems even to have
forgotten the name of the Catholic from whom he learned them. It is
true, that in his book of "Heresies," he speaks of the confessions of
two girls, the one named Margaret, the other Eusebia, and of some
Manichæans who, having been discovered at Carthage, and taken to the
church, avowed, it is said, the horrible fact in question.
He adds that a certain Viator declared that they who committed these
scandals were called Catharistes, or purgators; and that, when
interrogated on what scripture they founded this frightful practice,
they produced the passage from the "Treasure of Manes," the falsehood of
which has been demonstrated. But our heretics, far from availing
themselves of it, have openly disavowed it, as the work of some impostor
who wished to ruin them. That alone casts suspicion on all these acts of
Carthage, which "_Quod-vult-Deus_" had sent to St. Augustine; and these
wretches who were discovered and taken to the church, have very much the
air of persons suborned to confess all they were wanted to confess.
In the 47th chapter on the "Nature of Good," St. Augustine admits that
when our heretics were reproached with the crimes in question, they
replied that one of their elect, a seceder from the sect, and become
their enemy, had introduced this enormity. Without inquiring whether
this was a real sect whom Viator calls Catharistes, it is sufficient to
observe here, that the first Christians likewise imputed to the Gnostics
the horrible mysteries of which they were themselves accused by the Jews
and Pagans; and if this defence is good on their behalf, why should it
not be so on that of the Manichæans?
It is, however, these vulgar rumors which M. de Tillemont, who piques
himself on his exactness and fidelity, ventures to convert into positive
facts. He asserts that the Manichæans had been made to confess these
disgraceful doings in public judgments, in Paphlagonia, in the Gauls,
and several times at Carthage.
Let us also weigh the testimony of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, whose
narrative is altogether different from that of St. Augustine; and let us
consider that the fact is so incredible and so absurd that it could
scarcely be credited, even if attested by five or six witnesses who had
seen and would affirm it on oath. St. Cyril stands alone; he had never
seen it; he advances it in a popular declamation, wherein he gives
himself a licence to put into the mouth of Manes, in the conference of
Cascar, a discourse, not one word of which is in the "Acts of
Archælaus," as M. Zaccagni is obliged to allow; and it cannot be alleged
in defence of St. Cyril that he has taken only the sense of Archælaus,
and not the words; for neither the sense nor the words can be found
there. Besides, the style which this father adopts is that of a
historian who cites the actual words of his author.
Nevertheless, to save the honor and good faith of St. Cyril, M.
Zaccagni, and after him M. de Tillemont, suppose, without any proof,
that the translator or copyist has omitted the passage in the "Acts"
quoted by this father; and the journalists of Trévoux have imagined two
sorts of "Acts of Archælaus"--the authentic ones which Cyril has copied,
and others invented in the fifth century by some historian. When they
shall have proved this conjecture, we will examine their reasons.
Finally, let us come to the testimony of Pope Leo touching these
Manichæan abominations. He says, in his sermons, that the sudden
troubles in other countries had brought into Italy some Manichæans,
whose mysteries were so abominable that he could not expose them to the
public view without sacrificing modesty. That, in order to ascertain
them, he had introduced male and female elect into an assembly composed
of bishops, priests, and some lay noblemen. That these heretics had
disclosed many things respecting their dogmas and the ceremonies of
their feast, and had confessed a crime which could not be named, but in
regard to which there could be no doubt, after the confession of the
guilty parties--that is to say, of a young girl of only ten years of
age; of two women who had prepared her for the horrible ceremony of the
sect; of a young man who had been an accomplice; of the bishop who had
ordered and presided over it. He refers those among his auditors who
desire to know more, to the informations which had been taken, and which
he communicated to the bishops of Italy, in his second letter.
This testimony appears more precise and more decisive than that of St.
Augustine; but it is anything but conclusive in regard to a fact belied
by the protestations of the accused, and by the ascertained principles
of their morality. In effect, what proofs have we that the infamous
persons interrogated by Leo were not bribed to depose against their
sect?
It will be replied that the piety and sincerity of this pope will not
permit us to believe that he has contrived such a fraud. But if--as we
have said in the article on "Relics"--the same St. Leo was capable of
supposing that pieces of linen and ribbons, which were put in a box, and
made to descend into the tombs of some saints, shed blood when they were
cut--ought this pope to make any scruple in bribing, or causing to be
bribed, some abandoned women, and I know not what Manichæan bishop,
who, being assured of pardon, would make confessions of crimes which
might be true as regarded themselves, but not as regarded their sect,
from whose seduction St. Leo wished to protect his people? At all times,
bishops have considered themselves authorized to employ those pious
frauds which tend to the salvation of souls. The conjectural and
apocryphal scriptures are a proof of this; and the readiness with which
the fathers have put faith in those bad works, shows that, if they were
not accomplices in the fraud, they were not scrupulous in taking
advantage of it.
In conclusion, St. Leo pretends to confirm the secret crimes of the
Manichæans by an argument which destroys them. "These execrable
mysteries," he says, "which the more impure they are, the more carefully
they are hid, are common to the Manichæans and to the Priscillianists.
There is in all respects the same sacrilege, the same obscenity, the
same turpitude. These crimes, these infamies, are the same which were
formerly discovered among the Priscillianists, and of which the whole
world is informed."
The Priscillianists were never guilty of the crimes for which they were
put to death. In the works of St. Augustine is contained the
instructional remarks which were transmitted to that father by Orosius,
and in which this Spanish priest protests that he has plucked out all
the plants of perdition which sprang up in the sect of the
Priscillianists; that he had not forgotten the smallest branch or root;
that he exposed to the surgeon all the diseases of the sect, in order
that he might labor in their cure. Orosius does not say a word of the
abominable mysteries of which Leo speaks; an unanswerable proof that he
had no doubt they were pure calumnies. St. Jerome also says that
Priscillian was oppressed by faction, and by the intrigues of the
bishops Ithacus and Idacus. Would a man be thus spoken of who was guilty
of profaning religion by the most infamous ceremonies? Nevertheless,
Orosius and St. Jerome could not be ignorant of crimes of which all the
world had been informed.
St. Martin of Tours, and St. Ambrosius, who were at Trier when
Priscillian was sentenced, would have been equally informed of them.
They, however, instantly solicited a pardon for him; and, not being able
to obtain it, they refused to hold intercourse with his accusers and
their faction. Sulpicius Severus relates the history of the misfortunes
of Priscillian. Latronian, Euphrosyne, widow of the poet Delphidius, his
daughter, and some other persons, were executed with him at Trier, by
order of the tyrant Maximus, and at the instigation of Ithacus and
Idacus, two wicked bishops, who, in reward for their injustice, died in
excommunication, loaded with the hatred of God and man.
The Priscillianists were accused, like the Manichæans, of obscene
doctrines, of religious nakedness and immodesty. How were they
convicted? Priscillian and his accomplices confessed, as is said, under
the torture. Three degraded persons, Tertullus, Potamius, and John,
confessed without awaiting the question. But the suit instituted against
the Priscillianists would have been founded on other depositions, which
had been made against them in Spain. Nevertheless, these latter
informations were rejected by a great number of bishops and esteemed
ecclesiastics; and the good old man Higimis, bishop of Cordova, who had
been the denouncer of the Priscillianists, afterwards believed them so
innocent of the crimes imputed to them that he received them into his
communion, and found himself involved thereby in the persecution which
they endured.
These horrible calumnies, dictated by a blind zeal, would seem to
justify the reflection which Ammianus Marcellinus reports of the emperor
Julian. "The savage beasts," he said, "are not more formidable to men
than the Christians are to each other, when they are divided by creed
and opinion."
It is still more deplorable when zeal is false and hypocritical,
examples of which are not rare. It is told of a doctor of the Sorbonne,
that in departing from a sitting of the faculty, Tournély, with whom he
was strictly connected, said to him: "You see that for two hours I have
maintained a certain opinion with warmth; well, I assure you, there is
not one word of truth in all I have said!"
The answer of a Jesuit is also known, who was employed for twenty years
in the Canada missions, and who himself not believing in a God, as he
confessed in the ear of a friend, had faced death twenty times for the
sake of a religion which he preached to the savages. This friend
representing to him the inconsistency of his zeal: "Ah!" replied the
Jesuit missionary, "you have no idea of the pleasure a man enjoys in
making himself heard by twenty thousand men, and in persuading them of
what he does not himself believe."
It is frightful to observe how many abuses and disorders arise from the
profound ignorance in which Europe has been so long plunged. Those
monarchs who are at last sensible of the importance of enlightenment,
become the benefactors of mankind in favoring the progress of knowledge,
which is the foundation of the tranquillity and happiness of nations,
and the finest bulwark against the inroads of fanaticism.
ZOROASTER.
If it is Zoroaster who first announced to mankind that fine maxim: "In
the doubt whether an action be good or bad, abstain from it," Zoroaster
was the first of men after Confucius.
If this beautiful lesson of morality is found only in the hundred gates
of the "Sadder," let us bless the author of the "Sadder." There may be
very ridiculous dogmas and rites united with an excellent morality.
Who was this Zoroaster? The name has something of Greek in it, and it is
said he was a Mede. The Parsees of the present day call him Zerdust, or
Zerdast, or Zaradast, or Zarathrust. He is not reckoned to have been the
first of the name. We are told of two other Zoroasters, the former of
whom has an antiquity of nine thousand years--which is much for us, but
may be very little for the world. We are acquainted with only the latest
Zoroaster.
The French travellers, Chardin and Tavernier, have given us some
information respecting this great prophet, by means of the Guebers or
Parsees, who are still scattered through India and Persia, and who are
excessively ignorant. Dr. Hyde, Arabic professor of Oxford, has given us
a hundred times more without leaving home. Living in the west of
England, he must have conjectured the language which the Persians spoke
in the time of Cyrus, and must have compared it with the modern language
of the worshippers of fire. It is to him, moreover, that we owe those
hundred gates of the "Sadder," which contain all the principal precepts
of the pious fire-worshippers.
For my own part, I confess I have found nothing in their ancient rites
more curious than the two Persian verses of Sadi, as given by Hyde;
signifying that, although a person may preserve the sacred fire for a
hundred years, he is burned when he falls into it.
The learned researches of Hyde kindled, a few years ago in the breast of
a young Frenchman, the desire to learn for himself the dogmas of the
Guebers. He traversed the Great Indies, in order to learn at Surat,
among the poor modern Parsees, the language of the ancient Persians, and
to read in that language the books of the so-much celebrated Zoroaster,
supposing that he has in fact written any.
The Pythagorases, the Platos, the Appolloniuses of Thyana, went in
former times to seek in the East wisdom that was not there; but no one
has run after this hidden divinity through so many sufferings and perils
as this new French translator of the books attributed to Zoroaster.
Neither disease nor war, nor obstacles renewed at every step, nor
poverty itself, the first and greatest of obstacles, could repel his
courage.
It is glorious for Zoroaster that an Englishman wrote his life, at the
end of so many centuries, and that afterwards a Frenchman wrote it in an
entirely different manner. But it is still finer, that among the ancient
biographers of the poet we have two principal Arabian authors, each of
whom had previously written his history; and all these four histories
contradict one another marvellously. This is not done by concert; and
nothing is more conducive to the knowledge of the truth.
The first Arabian historian, Abu-Mohammed Mustapha, allows that the
father of Zoroaster was called Espintaman; but he also says that
Espintaman was not his father, but his great-great-grandfather. In
regard to his mother, there are not two opinions; she was named Dogdu,
or Dodo, or Dodu--that is, a very fine turkey hen; she is very well
portrayed in Doctor Hyde.
Bundari, the second historian, relates that Zoroaster was a Jew, and
that he had been valet to Jeremiah; that he told lies to his master;
that, in order to punish him, Jeremiah gave him the leprosy; that the
valet, to purify himself, went to preach a new religion in Persia, and
caused the sun to be adored instead of the stars.
Attend now to what the third historian relates, and what the Englishman,
Hyde, has recorded somewhat at length: The prophet Zoroaster having come
from Paradise to preach his religion to the king of Persia, Gustaph, the
king said to the prophet: "Give me a sign." Upon this, the prophet
caused a cedar to grow up before the gate of the palace, so large and so
tall, that no cord could either go round it or reach its top. Upon the
cedar he placed a fine cabinet, to which no man could ascend. Struck
with this miracle, Gustaph believed in Zoroaster.
Four magi, or four sages--it is the same thing--envious and wicked
persons, borrowed from the royal porter the key of the prophet's chamber
during his absence, and threw among his books the bones of dogs and
cats, the nails and hair of dead bodies--such being, as is well known,
the drugs with which magicians at all times have operated. Afterwards,
they went and accused the prophet of being a sorcerer and a poisoner;
and the king, causing the chamber to be opened by his porter, the
instruments of witchcraft were found there--and behold the envoy from
heaven condemned to be hanged!
Just as they are going to hang Zoroaster, the king's finest horse falls
ill; his four legs enter his body, so as to be no longer visible.
Zoroaster hears of it; he promises to cure the horse, provided they will
not hang him. The bargain being made, he causes one leg to issue out of
the belly, and says: "Sire, I will not restore you the second leg unless
you embrace my religion." "Let it be so," says the monarch. The prophet,
after having made the second leg appear, wished the king's children to
become Zoroastrians, and they became so. The other legs made proselytes
of the whole court. The four envious sages were hanged in place of the
prophet, and all Persia received the faith.
The French traveller relates nearly the same miracles, supported and
embellished, however, by many others. For instance, the infancy of
Zoroaster could not fail to be miraculous; Zoroaster fell to laughing as
soon as he was born, at least according to Pliny and Solinus. There
were, in those days, as all the world knows, a great number of very
powerful magicians; they were well aware that one day Zoroaster would be
greater than themselves, and that he would triumph over their magic. The
prince of magicians caused the infant to be brought to him, and tried to
cut him in two; but his hand instantly withered. They threw him into the
fire, which was turned for him into a bath of rose water. They wished to
have him trampled on by the feet of wild bulls; but a still more
powerful bull protected him. He was cast among the wolves; these wolves
went incontinently and sought two ewes, who gave him suck all night. At
last, he was restored to his mother Dogdu, or Dodo, or Dodu, a wife
excellent above all wives, or a daughter above all daughters.
Such, throughout the world, have been all the histories of ancient
times. It proves what we have often remarked, that Fable is the elder
sister of History. I could wish that, for our amusement and instruction,
all these great prophets of antiquity, the Zoroasters, the Mercurys
Trismegistus, the Abarises, and even the Numas, and others, should now
return to the earth, and converse with Locke, Newton, Bacon,
Shaftesbury, Pascal, Arnaud, Bayle--what do I say?--even with those
philosophers of our day who are the least learned, provided they are not
the less rational. I ask pardon of antiquity, but I think they would cut
a sorry figure.
Alas, poor charlatans! they could not sell their drugs on the
Pont-neuf. In the meantime, however, their morality is still good,
because morality is not a drug. How could it be that Zoroaster joined so
many egregious fooleries to the fine precept of "abstaining when it is
doubtful whether one is about to do right or wrong?" It is because men
are always compounded of contradictions.
It is added that Zoroaster, having established his religion, became a
persecutor. Alas! there is not a sexton, or a sweeper of a church, who
would not persecute, if he had the power.
One cannot read two pages of the abominable trash attributed to
Zoroaster, without pitying human nature. Nostradamus and the urine
doctor are reasonable compared with this inspired personage; and yet he
still is and will continue to be talked of.
What appears singular is, that there existed, in the time of the
Zoroaster with whom we are acquainted, and probably before, prescribed
formulas of public and private prayer. We are indebted to the French
traveller for a translation of them. There were such formulas in India;
we know of none such in the Pentateuch.
What is still stranger, the magi, as well as the Brahmins, admitted a
paradise, a hell, a resurrection, and a devil. It is demonstrated that
the law of the Jews knew nothing of all this; they were behindhand with
everything--a truth of which we are convinced, however little the
progress we have made in Oriental knowledge.
DECLARATION OF THE AMATEURS, INQUIRERS, AND DOUBTERS,
WHO HAVE AMUSED THEMSELVES WITH PROPOSING TO THE LEARNED THE PRECEDING
QUESTIONS IN THESE VOLUMES.
We declare to the learned that being, like themselves, prodigiously
ignorant of the first principles of all things, and of the natural,
typical, mystical, allegorical sense of many things, we acquiesce, in
regard to them, in the infallible decision of the holy Inquisition of
Rome, Milan, Florence, Madrid, Lisbon, and in the decrees of the
Sorbonne, the perpetual council of the French.
Our errors not proceeding from malice, but being the natural consequence
of human weakness, we hope we shall be pardoned for them both in this
world and the next.
We entreat the small number of celestial spirits who are still shut up
in the mortal bodies in France, and who thence enlighten the universe at
thirty sous per sheet, to communicate their gifts to us for the next
volume, which we calculate on publishing at the end of the Lent of 1772,
or in the Advent of 1773; and we will pay _forty_ sous per sheet for
their lucubrations.
We entreat the few great men who still remain to us, such as the author
of the "Ecclesiastical Gazette"; the Abbé Guyon; with the Abbé Caveirac,
author of the "Apology for St. Bartholomew"; and he who took the name
of Chiniac; and the agreeable Larcher; and the virtuous, wise, and
learned Langleviel, called La Beaumelle; the profound and exact
Nonnotte; and the moderate, the compassionate, the tender Patouillet--to
assist us in our undertaking. We shall profit by their instructive
criticisms, and we shall experience a real pleasure in rendering to all
these gentlemen the justice which is their due.
The next volume will contain very curious articles, which, under the
favor of God, will be likely to give new piquancy to the wit which we
shall endeavor to infuse into the thanks we return to all these
gentlemen.
Given at Mount Krapak, the 30th of the month of Janus, in the year of
the world, according to
Scaliger............................... 5,022
According to Les Etrennes Mignonnes.... 5,776
According to Riccioli.................. 5,956
According to Eusebius.................. 6,972
According to the Alphosine Tables...... 8,707
According to the Egyptians............. 370,000
According to the Chaldæans............. 465,102
According to the Brahmins.............. 780,000
According to the Philosophers.......... ----