Superstition In All Ages (1732) Part 21

They contradict each other in regard to His pretended ascension to heaven; for Luke and Mark say positively that He went to heaven in presence of the eleven apostles, but neither Matthew nor John mentions at all this pretended ascension. More than this, Matthew testifies sufficiently that He did not ascend to heaven; for he said positively that Jesus Christ a.s.sured His apostles that He would be and remain always with them until the end of the world. "Go ye," He said to them, in this pretended apparition, "and teach all nations, and be a.s.sured that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Luke contradicts himself upon the subject; for in his Gospel he says that it was in Bethany where He ascended to heaven in the presence of His apostles, and in his Acts of the Apostles (supposing him to have been the author) he says that it was upon the Mount of Olives. He contradicts himself again about this ascension; for he notes in his Gospel that it was the very day of His resurrection, or the first night following, that He ascended to heaven; and in the Acts of the Apostles he says that it was forty days after His resurrection; this certainly does not correspond. If all the apostles had really seen their Master gloriously rise to heaven, how could it be possible that Matthew and John, who would have seen it as well as the others, pa.s.sed in silence such a glorious mystery, and which was so advantageous to their Master, considering that they relate many other circ.u.mstances of His life and of His actions which are much less important than this one? How is it that Matthew does not mention this ascension? And why does Christ not explain clearly how He would live with them always, although He left them visibly to ascend to heaven? It is not easy to comprehend by what secret He could live with those whom He left.

I pa.s.s in silence many other contradictions; what I have said is sufficient to show that these books are not of Divine Inspiration, nor even of human wisdom, and, consequently, do not deserve that we should put any faith in them.

II.--OF MIRACLES.

But by what privilege do these four Gospels, and some other similar books, pa.s.s for Holy and Divine more than several others, which bear no less the t.i.tle of Gospels, and which have been published under the name of some other apostles? If it is said that the reputed Gospels are falsely attributed to the apostles, we can say the same of the first ones; if we suppose the first ones to be falsified and changed, we can think the same of the others. Thus there is no positive proof to make us discern the one from the other; in spite of the Church, which a.s.sumes to deride the matter, it is not credible.

In regard to the pretended miracles related in the Old Testament, they could have been performed but to indicate on the part of G.o.d an unjust and odious discrimination between nations and between individuals; purposely injuring the one in order to especially favor the other. The vocation and the choice which G.o.d made of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in order to make for Himself of their posterity a people which He would sanctify and bless above all other peoples of the earth, is a proof of it. But it will be said G.o.d is the absolute master of His favors and of His benefits; He can grant them to whomsoever He pleases, without any one having the right to complain or to accuse Him of injustice. This reason is useless; for G.o.d, the Author of nature, the Father of all men, ought to love them all alike as His own work, and, consequently, He ought to be equally their protector and their benefactor; giving them life, He ought to give all that is necessary for the well-being of His creatures.

If all these pretended miracles of the Old and of the New Testament were true, we could say that G.o.d would have had more care in providing for the least good of men than for their greatest and princ.i.p.al good; that He would have punished more severely trifling faults in certain persons than He would have punished great crimes in others; and, finally, that He would not have desired to show Himself as beneficent in the most pressing needs as in the least. This is easy enough to show as much by the miracles which it is pretended that He performed, as by those which He did not perform, and which He would have performed rather than any other, if it is true that He performed any at all. For example, it is claimed that G.o.d had the kindness to send an angel to console and to a.s.sist a simple maid, while He left, and still leaves every day, a countless number of innocents to languish and starve to death; it is claimed that He miraculously preserved during forty years the clothes and the shoes of a few people, while He will not watch over the natural preservation of the vast quant.i.ties of goods which are useful and necessary for the subsistence of great nations, and that are lost every day by different accidents. It is claimed that He sent to the first beings of the human race, Adam and Eve, a devil, or a simple serpent, to seduce them, and by this means ruin all men. This is not credible! It is claimed, that by a special providence, He prevented the King of Gerais, a Pagan, from committing sin with a strange woman, although there would be no results to follow; and yet He did not prevent Adam and Eve from offending Him and falling into the sin of disobedience--a sin which, according to our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers was to be fatal, and cause the destruction of the human race. This is not credible!

Let us come to the pretended miracles of the New Testament. They consist, as is pretended, in this: that Jesus Christ and His apostles cured, through the Deity, all kinds of diseases and infirmities, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, making the lame to walk, curing the paralytics, driving the devils from those who were possessed, and bringing the dead to life.

We find several of these miracles in the Gospels, but we see a good many more of them in the books that our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers have written of the admirable lives of their saints; for in these lives we nearly everywhere read that these pretended blessed ones cured diseases and infirmities, expelled the devils wherever they encountered them, solely in the name of Jesus or by the sign of the cross; that they controlled the elements; that G.o.d favored them so much that He even preserved to them His Divine power after their death, and that this Divine power could be communicated even to the least of their clothing, even to their shadows, and even to the infamous instruments of their death. It is said that the shoe of St. Honorius raised a dead man on the sixth of January; that the staff of St. Peter, that of St. James, and that of St. Bernard performed miracles. The same is said of the cord of St. Francis, of the staff of St. John of G.o.d, and of the girdle of St. Melanie. It is said that St.

Gracilien was divinely instructed as to what he ought to believe and to teach, and that he, by the influence of his prayer, removed a mountain which prevented him from building a church; that from the sepulchre of St. Andrew flowed incessantly a liquor which cured all sorts of diseases; that the soul of St. Benedict was seen ascending to Heaven clothed with a precious cloak and surrounded by burning lamps; that St.

Dominic said that G.o.d never refused him anything he asked; that St.

Francis commanded the swallows, swans, and other birds to obey him, and that often the fishes, rabbits, and the hares came and placed themselves on his hands and on his lap; that St. Paul and St. Pantaleon, having been beheaded, there flowed milk instead of blood; that the blessed Peter of Luxembourg, in the first two years after his death (1388 and 1389), performed two thousand four hundred miracles, among which forty-two dead were brought to life, not including more than three thousand other miracles which he has performed since; that the fifty philosophers whom St. Catherine converted, having all been thrown into a great fire, their whole bodies were afterward found and not a single hair was scorched; that the body of St. Catherine was carried off by angels after her death, and buried by them upon Mount Sinai; that the day of the canonization of St. Antoine de Padua, all the bells of the city of Lisbon rang of themselves, without any one knowing how it was done; that this saint being once near the sea-sh.o.r.e, and calling the fishes, they came to him in a great mult.i.tude, and raised their heads out of the water and listened to him attentively. We should never come to an end if we had to report all this idle talk; there is no subject, however vain, frivolous, and even ridiculous, on which the authors of these "LIVES OF THE SAINTS" do not take pleasure in heaping miracles upon miracles, for they are skillful in forging absurd falsehoods.

It is certainly not without reason that we consider these things as lies; for it is easy to see that all these pretended miracles have been invented but by imitating the fables of the Pagan poets. This is sufficiently obvious by the resemblance which they bear one to another.

III.--SIMILARITY BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN MIRACLES.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers claim that G.o.d endowed their saints with power to perform the miracles related in their lives, some of the Pagans claim also that the daughters of Anius, high-priest of Apollo, had really received from the G.o.d Bacchus the power to change all they desired into wheat, into wine, or into oil, etc.; that Jupiter gave to the nymphs who took care of his education, a horn of the goat which nursed him in his infancy, with this virtue, that it could give them an abundance of all they wished for.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers a.s.sert that their saints had the power of raising the dead, and that they had Divine revelations, the Pagans had said before them that Athalide, son of Mercury, had obtained from his father the gift of living, dying, and coming to life whenever he wished, and that he had also the knowledge of all that transpired in this world as well as in the other; and that Esculapius, son of Apollo, had raised the dead, and, among others, he brought to life Hyppolites, son of Theseus, by Diana's request; and that Hercules, also, raised from the dead Alceste, wife of Admetus, King of Thessalia, to return her to her husband.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers say that Christ was miraculously born of a virgin, the Pagans had said before them that Remus and Romulus, the founders of Rome, were miraculously born of a vestal virgin named Ilia, or Silvia, or Rhea Silvia; they had already said that Mars, Argus, Vulcan, and others were born of the G.o.ddess Juno without s.e.xual union; and, also, that Minerva, G.o.ddess of the sciences, sprang from Jupiter's brain, and that she came out of it, all armed, by means of a blow which this G.o.d gave to his own head.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers claim that their saints made water gush from rocks, the Pagans pretend also that Minerva made a fountain of oil spring forth from a rock as a recompense for a temple which had been dedicated to her.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers boast of having received images from Heaven miraculously, as, for example, those of Notre-Dame de Loretto, and of Liesse and several other gifts from Heaven, as the pretended Holy Vial of Rheims, as the white Chasuble which St. Ildefonse received from the Virgin Mary, and other similar things: the Pagans boasted before them of having received a sacred s.h.i.+eld as a mark of the preservation of their city of Rome, and the Trojans boasted before them of having received miraculously from Heaven their Palladium, or their Idol of Pallas, which came, they said, to takes its place in the temple which they had erected in honor of this G.o.ddess.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers pretend that Jesus Christ was seen by His apostles ascending to Heaven, and that several of their pretended saints were transported to Heaven by angels, the Roman Pagans had said before them, that Romulus, their founder, was seen after his death; that Ganymede, son of Troas, king of Troy, was transported to Heaven by Jupiter to serve him as cup-bearer that the hair of Berenice, being consecrated to the temple of Venus, was afterward carried to Heaven; they say the same thing of Ca.s.siope and Andromedes, and even of the a.s.s of Silenus.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers pretend that several of their saints' bodies were miraculously saved from decomposition after death, and that they were found by Divine Revelations, after having been lost for a long time, the Pagans say the same of the holy of Orestes, which they pretend to have found through an oracle, etc.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers say that the seven sleeping brothers slept during one hundred and seventy-seven years, while they were shut up in a cave, the Pagans claim that Epimenides, the philosopher, slept during fifty-seven years in a cave where he fell asleep.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers claim that several of their saints continued to speak after losing the head, or having the tongue cut out, the Pagans claim that the head of Gambienus recited a long poem after separation from his body.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers glorify themselves that their temples and churches are ornamented with several pictures and rich gifts which show miraculous cures performed by the intercession of their saints, we also see, or at least we formerly saw in the temple of Esculapius at Epidaurus, many paintings of miraculous cures which he had performed.

If our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers claim that several of their saints have been miraculously preserved in the flames without having received any injury to their bodies or their clothing, the Pagans claim that the Holy women of the temple of Diana walked upon burning coals barefooted without burning or hurting their feet, and that the priests of the G.o.ddess Feronie and of Hirpicus walked in the same way upon burning coals in the fires which were made in honor of Apollo.

If the angels built a chapel for St. Clement at the bottom of the sea, the little house of Baucis and of Philemon was miraculously changed into a superb temple as a reward of their piety. If several of their saints, as St. James and St. Maurice, appeared several times in their armies, mounted and equipped in ancient style, and fought for them, Castor and Pollux appeared several times in battles and fought for the Romans against their enemies; if a ram was miraculously found to be offered as a sacrifice in the place of Isaac, whom his father Abraham was about to sacrifice, the G.o.ddess Vesta also sent a heifer to be sacrificed in the place of Metella, daughter of Metellus: the G.o.ddess Diana sent a hind in the place of Iphigenie when she was at the stake to be sacrificed to her, and by this means Iphigenie was saved.

If St. Joseph went into Egypt by the warning of an angel, Simonides, the poet, avoided several great dangers by miraculous warnings which had been given to him.

If Moses forced a stream of water to flow from a rock by striking it with his staff, the horse Pegasus did the same: by striking a rock with his foot a fountain issued.

If St. Vincent Ferrier brought to life a dead man hacked into pieces, whose body was already half roasted and half broiled, Pelops, son of Tantalus king of Phrygia, having been torn to pieces by his father to be sacrificed to the G.o.ds, they gathered all the pieces, joined them, and brought them to life.

If several crucifixes and other images have miraculously spoken and answered, the Pagans say that their oracles have spoken and given answers to those who consulted them, and that the head of Orpheus and that of Policrates gave oracles after their death.

If G.o.d revealed by a voice from Heaven that Jesus Christ was His Son, as the Evangelists say, Vulcan showed by the apparition of a miraculous flame, that Coceculus was really his son.

If G.o.d has miraculously nourished some of His saints, the Pagan poets pretend that Triptolemus was miraculously nourished with Divine milk by Ceres, who gave him also a chariot drawn by two dragons, and that Phineus, son of Mars, being born after his mother's death, was nevertheless miraculously nourished by her milk.

If several saints miraculously tamed the ferocity of the most cruel beasts, it is said that Orpheus attracted to him, by the sweetness of his voice and by the harmony of his instruments, lions, bears, and tigers, and softened the ferocity of their nature; that he attracted rocks and trees, and that even the rivers stopped their course to listen to his song.

Finally, to abbreviate, because we could report many others, if our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers pretend that the walls of the city of Jericho fell by the sound of their trumpets, the Pagans say that the walls of the city of Thebes were built by the sound of the musical instruments of Amphion; the stones, as the poets say, arranging themselves to the sweetness of his harmony; this would be much more miraculous and more admirable than to see the walls demolished.

There is certainly a great similarity between the Pagan miracles and our own. As it would be great folly to give credence to these pretended miracles of Paganism, it is not any the less so to have faith in those of Christianity, because they all come from the same source of error. It was for this that the Manicheans and the Arians, who existed at the commencement of the Christian Era, derided these pretended miracles performed by the invocation of saints, and blamed those who invoked them after death and honored their relics.

Let us return at present to the princ.i.p.al end which G.o.d proposed to Himself, in sending His Son into the world to become man; it must have been, as they say, to redeem the world from sin and to destroy entirely the works of the pretended Devil, etc. This is what our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers claim also, that Jesus Christ died for them according to His Father's intention, which is plainly stated in all the pretended Holy Books. What! an Almighty G.o.d, who was willing to become a mortal man for the love of men, and to shed His blood to the last drop, to save them all, would yet have limited His power to only curing a few diseases and physical infirmities of a few individuals who were brought to Him; and would not have employed His Divine goodness in curing the infirmities of the soul! that is to say, in curing all men of their vices and their depravities, which are worse than the diseases of their bodies! This is not credible. What! such a good G.o.d would desire to preserve dead corpses from decay and corruption; and would not keep from the contagion and corruption of vice and sin the souls of a countless number of persons whom He sought to redeem at the price of His blood, and to sanctify by His grace! What a pitiful contradiction!

IV.--OF THE FALSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

Let us proceed to the pretended visions and Divine Revelations, upon which our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers establish the truth and the certainty of their religion.

In order to give a just idea of it, I believe it is best to say in general, that they are such, that if any one should dare now to boast of similar ones, or wish to make them valued, he would certainly be regarded as a fool or a fanatic.

Here is what the pretended Visions and Divine Revelations are:

G.o.d, as these pretended Holy Books claim, having appeared for the first time to Abraham, said to him: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee."

Abraham, having gone there, G.o.d, says the Bible, appeared the second time to him, and said, "Unto thy seed will I give this land," and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. After the death of Isaac, his son, Jacob going one day to Mesopotamia to look for a wife that would suit him, having walked all the day, and being tired from the long distance, desired to rest toward evening; lying upon the ground, with his head resting upon a few stones, he fell asleep, and during his sleep he saw a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to Heaven; and beheld the angels of G.o.d ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said: "I am the Lord, G.o.d of Abraham thy father, and the G.o.d of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And he was afraid, and said: "How dreadful is this place! this is none other than the house of G.o.d, and this is the gate of Heaven." And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and made at the same time a vow to G.o.d, that if he should return safe and sound, he would give Him a t.i.the of all he might possess.

Here is yet another vision. Watching the flocks of his father-in-law, Laban, who had promised him that all the speckled lambs produced by his sheep should be his recompense, he dreamed one night that he saw all the males leap upon the females, and all the lambs they brought forth were speckled. In this beautiful dream, G.o.d appeared to him, and said: "Lift up now thine eyes and see that the rams which leap upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for I have seen all that Laban does unto thee. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred." As he was returning with his whole family, and with all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the Bible, a wrestle with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking of the day, and as this man had not been able to subdue him, He asked him who he was. Jacob told Him his name; and He said: "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with G.o.d and with men, and hast prevailed."

This is a specimen of the first of these pretended Visions and Divine Revelations. We can judge of the others by these. Now, what appearance of Divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain? As if some foreigners, Germans, for instance, should come into our France, and, after seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should claim that G.o.d had appeared to them in their country, that He had told them to go into France, and that He would give to them and to their posterity all the beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this kingdom which extend from the rivers Rhine and Rhone, even to the sea; that He would make an everlasting alliance with them, that He would multiply their race, that He would make their posterity as numerous as the stars of Heaven and as the sands of the sea, etc., who would not laugh at such folly, and consider these strangers as insane fools!

Now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by these pretended Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in regard to the Divine Revelations which they claim to have had. As to the inst.i.tution of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices, the Holy Scriptures attribute it to G.o.d. As it would be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of this kind of sacrifices, I refer the reader to Exodus. [See chapters xxv., xxvii., xxyiii., and xxix.]

Were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring G.o.d by tearing into pieces, butchering, and burning His own creatures, under the pretext of offering them as sacrifices to Him? And even now, how is it that our Christ-wors.h.i.+pers are so extravagant as to expect to please G.o.d the Father, by offering up to Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son, in remembrance of His being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which He died? Certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of mind.

In regard to the detail of the sacrifices of animals, it consists but in colored clothing, blood, plucks, livers, birds' crops, kidneys, claws, skins, in the dung, smoke, cakes, certain measures of oil and wine, the whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic. What is most horrible of all this is, that the law of this detestable Jewish people commanded that even men should be offered up as sacrifices. The barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law, commanded to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the G.o.d of the Jews, whom they called Adonai: and it is according to this execrable precept that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that Saul wanted to sacrifice his son.

But here is yet another proof of the falsity of these revelations of which we have spoken. It is the lack of the fulfillment of the great and magnificent promises by which they were accompanied, for it is evident that these promises never have been fulfilled.

The proof of this consists in three princ.i.p.al points: