Jean Meslier's Mon Testament (1762) ________________________________________ HGourmelon (translating from Jean Meslier) Thoughts and Feelings of the Author As a consequence, after taking advantage of the weakness, the credulity and the ignorance of the weakest and the most ignorant, those sly, cunning politicians easily had them believe whatever they wanted. Consequently, they made them accept with respect and submission, willingly or not, all the laws they wanted to establish. By those means, some got honored and respected, or even worshiped as deities, or as people of extraordinary sanctity, elected by some deities to tell their will to the rest of the world. The others, using those contrivances, became rich, powerful and redoubtable, all the more so that when they had grown powerful enough to be feared and obeyed, they openly and tyrannically subjected their fellow men to their laws. With this aim in view, they also used the quarrels, the dissensions and the animosities that often arise between individuals, for most men very often differ in their moods, their minds and inclinations; they cannot get on very long without disagreeing and quarreling. And when those dissensions occur, those who are the strongest, the boldest, and possibly the most malicious never fail to profit by those chances to achieve their goals and become more easily the rulers of all. This, my friends, is the true root and the real origin of all those ills that trouble the human society and that make men miserable in life. This is the root and the origin of all the mistakes, all the impostures, all the superstitions, all the fake deities and all the idolatries that have unfortunately spread all over the world. This is the root and the origin of all that is held up as holiest and most sacred, in what you are told to call reverently "religion." This is the root and the origin of all those allegedly holy and sacred laws that you are told to obey so strictly, under the pretexts of devotion and religion, as laws edicted on behalf of God himself. This is the origin of all those pompous, but vain and ridiculous, ceremonies, that your priests pretend to lead with ostentation, in the celebration of their fake mysteries and their bogus divine worship. In a word, this is the root and the origin of all that you are made to pay respect to and worship like deities, or like divine objects. This is also the root and origin of all those magnificent titles and names of lord, prince, king, monarch and potentate, who all, under the pretext of governing you as sovereigns, oppress you as tyrants. Pretending to act for the public good, they rob you from all the best and the most beautiful things you have; and, putting forward the fact that they got their authority from some deity, they get to be obeyed, feared and respected as gods. Finally, this is the root and the origin of all those other vain titles of noble, gentleman, count and so on, which swarm in this world, like an author says. They are nearly all like greedy wolves who, pretending to use their rights and their authority, trample you underfoot, mistreat you, plunder you and steal all the best you have. This is likewise the root and the origin of all those allegedly holy and sacred characters of order and ecclesiastical and spiritual powers that your priests and bishops claim to have (up-)on you: on a plea of bestowing the spiritual good of a purely divine grace and favour upon you, they subtly rob you of goods that are incomparably more real and more secure than those that they pretend to grant you. On the pretext of willing to drive you to heaven, they prevent you from enjoying your life on earth in any way; and finally, pretending to keep you away in some other life from the imaginary pains of a hell that does not exist — and neither does that other eternal life that they try to keep alive in your hopes and fears, vainly for you and uselessly for them — they compel you to suffer in this life, which is the only one that you can claim to, the pains of a real hell. And since the strength of those kinds of tyrannical governments only subsist on the very principles and means that established them, and since it is dangerous to resist and struggle against the fundamentals of a religion, as well as to try and shake the fundamental laws of a state or a republic, one must not be astonished if the wise and enlightened people comply with the general laws of a state, unfair though they may be, or if they obey, apparently at least, the rites and the principles of a religion that they find established. Although they acknowledge sufficiently the errors and the vanity of that religion, and reluctant though they may be when it comes to submitting to it, it is nevertheless far more useful and advantageous for them to live quietly, keeping what they can, rather than putting themselves in danger trying to counter the flow of common errors, or trying to resist the authority of a sovereign that wants to rule everything. Moreover, in big states and governments, as in kingdoms and empires, it is impossible for the sovereigns to provide for everything. Therefore, to maintain their power and authority in such big expanses of land, they make a particular point of establishing officers, administrators, governors and lots of other people, to uphold their authority, so that nobody actually dares to make it his responsibility to resist, nor even to contradict openly such an absolute authority, without putting himself into serious danger. This is why the wisest and the most enlightened are reduced to silence, although they can clearly see the disorders and abuses of such an unfair and odious government. Add to this the particular views and inclinations of all those who own the big, the medium and even the smallest charges, either within the civil state, or in the ecclesiastical state, or those who aspire to own them. Certainly none of them is sincerely trying to work for the public good of all, rather than working for his own profit and making his own pile. None of them gets involved in those charges but by some views of ambition and interest, or by some other views that flatter one's flesh and blood. Those who set their heart on getting the jobs and charges in a state will not be those who will oppose the pride, the ambitions or the tyranny of a prince who wants to dictate his laws over everything: on the contrary, they will foster his bad passions and his evil purposes, hoping to improve their position and getting bigger in the favour of his authority. Neither will those who set their hearts on the benefits or the dignities of the church be those who will oppose it, since they will get those positions using the very favor and the power of those princes, or they will maintain their dignities by doing so. Therefore, far from trying to turn those princes away from their evil intentions, they are the first who approve them and flatter them in everything they do. Neither will those be the ones who will blame the established errors, or uncover the lies, the delusions or the impostures of a fake religion, since their dignities, with the power and the revenues that they ensure, are based on those lies and errors. Rich misers will not oppose the injustice of the prince, neither will they publicly blame the errors and abuses of a fake religion, since they most often got their lucrative employment within the state, or their rich benefits within the church, from the favors of the prince. They will rather strive to pile up riches and treasures than to destroy errors and public abuses, which they all profit by. Neither will those who enjoy the pleasure of a sweet life be those who will oppose the abuses that I am talking about; they prefer by far to profit quietly by the pleasures and sweetnesses of life, than to risk suffering persecution for wanting to resist the flow of common errors. The hypocritical devout persons will not oppose them either, since they only like to cover themselves with virtue and to use a specious pretext of piety and religious zeal, in order to hide their most awful vices, and to reach with more accuracy the goals that they are aimed at, always seeking for their own interests and satisfactions, and deceiving the others with their nice virtuous looks. Finally, neither the weak nor the ignorant will resist those evil purposes, because, having no power or knowledge whatsoever, they cannot possibly uncover all those errors and impostures that they are entertained with; neither can they resist the force of such a flow of errors, which undoubtedly would wash them away if they tried to counter it. Besides, there are such tight links of subordination and interdependence among all the conditions and states of all people, and there is nearly always so much envy and jealousy, so much perfidiousness and treachery, even among close relatives, that they cannot trust each other; therefore, they cannot do or make anything without the risk of being uncovered and betrayed by somebody. It would not even be secure to trust a friend, not even a brother, in such a serious matter as wanting to reform such a bad government. So that, since nobody can nor will resist so many errors and impostures and the tyranny of the great of the earth, nobody needs to be surprised if those vices rule this world so powerfully and so universally. Now, this is how abuses, errors, superstition and tyranny have established themselves in this world. One might think at least in such a case that religion and politics should not agree with each other, and that they should have totally opposite views and purposes, since it seems that the goodness and the piety of a religion should condemn the harshness and the injustice of a tyrannical government. From another point of view, the cautiousness of a wise policy should condemn and repress the abuses, the errors and the impostures of a fake religion. This is indeed the way it should work; but it definitely does not happen every time. Thus, although it seems that religion and politics should be completely opposed and contradict each other in their principles and their maxims, they nevertheless get on very well, once they have entered into an alliance and made friends. One could say that they are as thick as thieves, for then they defend and support each other. Religion backs up the government, terrible though it may be; conversely, the government backs up religion, dumb and vain though it may be. On the one hand, the priests, who are the ministers of religion, strongly recommend to everyone to obey magistrates, princes and sovereigns, as established by God to rule the others, under pain of curse and eternal damnation; on the other hand, princes have their people pay respect to priests, and give those priests good salaries and revenues, and maintain them in the vain and abusive office of their fake ministry. They compel the people to regard as sacred and holy everything those ministers do and everything they order the others to do or to believe in, under that beautiful and fallacious pretext of religion and divine cult. There again, this is the way abuses, errors, superstition, delusion and deceit have established themselves in the world, and how they remain in spite of all the misfortunes that they cause to the poor peoples, who moan under such painful and heavy yokes. Perhaps you will think, my dear friends, that in such a number of
fake religions in this world my intention was at least to exclude
from that number the Catholic religion, which all of us profess, and
which we say to be the only one which teaches pure truth, the only
one which acknowledges and worships the true God as it should, and
the only one who leads men on the true way to salvation and eternal
happiness. But open your eyes, my dear friends, open your eyes and
get rid of everything that your pious and ignorant priests, or your
mocker, self-seeking doctors, show zeal in telling you and in having
you believe, under the fake pretext of the infallible certainty of
their would-be sacred and divine religion. You are not more beguiled
nor more abused than those who have been abused and beguiled the
most. You are not less in error than those who have been the deepest
in it. Your religion is not less vain or superstitious than any
other; it is not less fake in its principles, nor less ridiculous
and absurd in its dogmas and maxims. You are not less idolatrous
than those whom you are not afraid to blame and condemn for their
idolatry. The ideas of pagans and yours only differ by their name
and appearance. In one word, everything your doctors and priests
preach with so much zeal and eloquence about the splendour, the
excellence and the holiness of the mysteries that they make you
worship, everything they tell you so solemnly about the certitude of
their alleged miracles, and everything they recite with so much
self-confidence concerning the magnificence of the rewards of
heaven, and touching the dreadful castigations of hell, are nothing
but delusions, errors, lies, fictions and impostures. They were made
up in the first place by sly and cunning politicians; then, some
seducers and impostors carried them on; next, they were admitted and
believed by ignorant and coarse peoples; and finally, they were
maintained by the authority of the greats and sovereigns of the
earth who favored abuses, errors, superstitions and impostures, and
who allowed them by their laws, in order to keep a tight rein on the
bulk of men. This is how, my dear friends, those who have governed
or still govern keep their peoples under control, take advantage
presumptuously and with impunity of the name and the authority of
God to get feared and respected, rather than to have their people
worship and serve the imaginary God whose power they scare you with.
This is how they abuse the specious names of piety and religion to
make the weak and the ignorant believe everything they want them to
believe; and this is how they establish on the whole world a
detestable mystery of lies and injustice, when they should all be
striving to establish the reign of peace, justice and truth, which
would make all the peoples happy on earth. I say that they establish
everywhere a mystery of iniquity, since all the hidden motives of
the most subtle policy, as well as the maxims and the most pious
ceremonies of religion, are indeed nothing but mysteries of
iniquity. I say "mysteries of iniquity" for all the poor peoples,
who are the unfortunate dupes of all those tricks, as well as the
playthings and victims of the power of the greats. Well ! My dear friends, if you knew of the vanity and the foolishness of the nonsense that you are being entertained with under the pretext of religion, and if you knew how unfairly and how shamefully the tyrants that dominate you take advantage of the authority that they have encroached upon you, you would certainly feel nothing but contempt for everything that you are told to respect and worship, and you would feel nothing but hatred and indignation towards all those who deceive you, who govern you so badly, and who mistreat you so shamefully. This reminds me of a wish that was made formerly by a man, who had neither knowledge nor learning. However, that man had apparently enough wisdom and insight to judge sanely all the detestable deceptions and all the detestable ceremonies that I am blaming here. He was brilliant in the way he expressed his thoughts, and he could understand deeply enough the ins and outs of the mystery of iniquity that I have just discussed, since he could see clearly who was involved and who was responsible for that state of affairs. For all those reasons, he wished that all the great of this world and all the nobles be hanged and strangled with the guts of the priests.(1) That expression certainly sounds rude and gross, but one has to admit that it is frank and guileless. It is short, yet expressive, since it expresses in fairly few words all that those people deserve. As far as I am concerned, my dear friends, if I had a wish to utter on the subject and I would certainly make it if only it could come true I would wish that I had the arms and the strength of a Hercules to rid the world of all vice and iniquity, and to have the pleasure of braining all those monsters of nonsense and iniquity, that make all the peoples of the earth groan so miserably. Do not think, my dear friends, that I am prompted here by any particular desire of revenge, nor any particular interest or animosity. No, my dear friends, no passion is giving me those feelings, or urging me to talk and write thus. I am only motivated by my personal zeal for justice and truth that are so shamefully down-trodden, on the one hand, and by my hatred of vice and iniquity which, as far as I can see, rule everywhere, on the other hand. One can but hate and despise those people who are responsible for so many detestable evils, and who deceive their neighbours so universally. Why, would one not be right to ban and chase away from a town and a province some unashamed, deceitful charlatans who, while pretending to charitably give away salutary remedies and efficient medication, would actually sell at a high price harmful drugs and pernicious ointments? Certainly, one would be right to ban them and chase them as infamous deceivers. In the same way, would one not be right to blame openly and severely punish all those crooks and thieves who spend their time robbing, killing and slaughtering inhumanly those who have the ill luck to fall into their hands? Yes, beyond any doubt, it would serve them right to be severely punished, and one would be right to hate and dislike them; and it would even be a crime to bear that they remain unpunished for their robberies. All the more reason, my dear friends, are we entitled to blame, to hate and to dislike, as I do now, all those ministers of nonsense and iniquity who dominate you so tyrannically, using their power either on your consciences, or on your bodies and your assets. The ministers of religion, who dominate your consciences, are the greatest deceivers of the peoples, whereas the princes and the other great of this world, who dominate your bodies and your assets, are the biggest thieves and murderers on earth. All those who have come, said Jesus-Christ, are robbers and thieves. Omnes quotquot venerunt, fures sunt et latrones.(2) You may say, my dear friends, that I am partly talking against myself, since I myself am of the same character and profession as those whom I hereby call the greatest deceivers of peoples. I am indeed talking against my own profession, but not against my own inclination or feelings. For, since I have never been inclined to frivolous beliefs or superstition, and since I never was foolish enough to adhere to any of the mysterious follies of religion, I never was inclined to practice them either, let alone to speak highly about them, or to approve them in any way. On the contrary, I would always have willingly displayed all the contempt that I have for them, had I been allowed to speak my mind and feelings freely about them. And thus, although I was easily driven to enter priesthood when I was young, to please my parents who were delighted to see me there, because they considered priesthood as a milder, more quiet and more honorable way of life than for the average man I can however say truly that never the sight of a worldly benefit ever inclined me to like the practice of a profession so full of errors and imposture. I never came to like the taste of most of those fellows and fine gentlemen who enjoy so much taking and receiving greedily the lavish remunerations they are given for the vain functions of their ministry. I still have a stronger aversion for the bantering, farcical humour of those other gentlemen, who can think of nothing but entertaining themselves with all the income and benefits they own, who make fun between themselves of the mysteries, the principles and the ceremonies of their religion, and who laugh at the simplicity of those who believe them, and who provide them so piously and so abundantly with goods that help them entertain themselves and live at their ease. I could cite that pope(3) who laughed at his own dignity, and that other(4) who said, while joking with his friends, "Well, did we not get rich with that Christ story!". I do not blame them for the good laughs they have about the vanity of the mysteries and mummeries of their religion, since they deserve nothing more indeed than mockery and contempt; so simple and ignorant are those who do not see the vanity of it. I however blame that strong, burning, insatiable cupidity which they have in profiting by public errors, and that contemptible pleasure that they take in mocking the simplicity of those who are ignorant and whom they entertain in error. If their so-called character and the good income that they own enable them to live in so much comfort at the expense of the public, at least they should be sensitive to the misfortunes of that very public! At least they should not make the yoke of those poor people heavier through multiplying sometimes with a feigned zeal the amount of nonsense and superstitions! At least, they should not mock the simplicity of those who, for the good sake of piety, do them so much good and exhaust themselves for them. For it is enormous ingratitude and detestable perfidiousness to behave that way with your benefactors. The peoples are indeed the benefactors of the ministers of religion, since the latter take all their benefits and make a comfortable living out of the former's work and sweat. I do not think, my dear friends, that I ever happened to make you wonder if I was subject to the feelings that I hereby blame. On the contrary, you will certainly have noticed several times that I presented totally opposite feelings and that I was very sensitive to your pains. You will also have noticed that I was not particularly attached to that pious lucre of the functions of my ministry, having quite often accomplished them without seeking after their payments, as I could have done; I never hatched substantial benefits, neither was I a mess seeker nor an offertory collector. I would always have taken more pleasure in giving than receiving, had I had the means to follow my own inclination; and I would always have had more consideration for the poor than for the rich, thus following that maxim of Christ, who said that it is better to give than to receive, beatius est magis dare quam accipere,(5) and following that other from Lord Montaigne, who advised his son to always look for he who holds out his hand, rather than to he who turns his back. I would have gladly done as good as Job did in the times of his prosperity. "I was, he said, the father of the poor, I was the eye of the blind, I was the foot of the limp"; oculus fui coeco et pes claudo, pater eram pauperum...(6) I would as gladly have taken the prey away from the hands of the malicious as he did, and I would certainly have broken their teeth and their jaws as well : conterebam malas iniqui, et de dentibus illius auferebam praedam.(7) Only the great hearts, said the wise Mentor to Telemachus,(8) seek after the glory they can find in being good. And concerning the false and fabulous mysteries of your religion, and all those pious, but vain and superstitious, duties and practices that your religion lays down on you, you also know very well, or at least you might have noticed, that I am not attached to bigotry, and that I never made a case for advising you to practise it. I was nevertheless compelled to teach you your religion and to tell you about it at least sometimes, to carry out that false duty that I had committed myself to do as the vicar of your parish, and then I had the displeasure of finding myself annoyingly obliged to act and speak totally against my own feelings, to entertain you with foolish nonsense and vain superstition that I hated, condemned and disliked in my heart. I however protest that I never did it without great pain and extreme repugnance; this is also why I hated that much the vain functions of my ministry, particularly all those idolatrous and superstitious celebrations of masses, and those vain and ridiculous administerings of sacraments, that I had to carry out. I cursed them thousands and thousands of times in my heart, when I was obliged to do them, and particularly when I had to carry them out with a bit more attention and a bit more solemnity than usual. For, as I saw that you would then go to your Churches with a little more devotion, to attend some vain solemnities, or to hear a bit more devoutly, what you are made to believe to be the word of God himself, it seemed to me that I was even more contemptibly deceiving your good faith, and thereby that I deserved all the more blame and reproach. This increased my aversion for all those sorts of vain, formal functions that, hundreds of times, I found myself on the verge of publicly and indiscreetly bursting out in indignation, for I could hardly hide my resentment or restrain my indignation on those occasions. I however managed to curb it, and I will try to restrain it till my death, since I do not want to lay myself open to the indignation of priests, nor to the cruelty of tyrants, who would not seem to find harsh enough tortures to punish that alleged rashness on my behalf. I am really glad, my friends, to die as peacefully as I have lived. Besides, given the fact that I never gave you any reason to wish me any harm, or to be delighted if any of this happens to me, I do not think that you would be glad to see me persecuted or tyrannized for that matter; that is the reason why I decided to remain silent. But since that reason forces me into silence, at least I shall try to talk to you after my death. In this view, I have begun writing this, to open your eyes, as I said, on all that nonsense and all those superstitions with which you were brought up and fed, not to say nursed. For long enough, the poor peoples have been miserably deceived by all kinds of idolatries and superstitions; for long enough, the rich and the great of the earth have been plundering and oppressing the poor peoples. It is time to disillusion those peoples about everything, and to let them know the entire truth. And if, in order to sweeten the gross and fierce nature of the average man, one needed in the past to divert him with vain and superstitious religious practices, in order to keep a tight rein on him, it is even more necessary now to open his eyes on all those vanities, since the remedy that was once used turned out, as the time went by, to be worse than the original illness. This would have to be done on all the sensible people, all those wise persons who are trained to think seriously, and work hard on such an important matter, opening the eyes of the peoples on the errors, where they are; making the excessive authority of the great of the earth hatable and despicable everywhere; inciting the peoples all around to throw off the unbearable yoke of the tyrants, and generally convincing the people of the truth of the next two statements: firstly, to improve in their crafts, which are useful to society and which they must dedicate their efforts to in the main, they must follow nothing but the lights of human reason; secondly, to establish good laws, they must follow only the rules of human cautiousness and wisdom, that is, the rules of honesty, justice and natural equity, without really caring about what impostors might say, or what fanatic idolaters might do; which generally would do for all men countless times as much good, satisfaction and peace of mind, as all those false maxims, and all the vain practices of their superstitious religions. But since nobody takes it upon himself to give those enlightenments to the peoples, or rather since nobody dares to try and do so, or even, since the books and writings of those who have already tried to do so are not publicly published in the world; since nobody can see them; since they are suppressed on purpose; since they are hidden away from the peoples so that nobody can see them, and so that they do not discover, by those means, the abuses, the nonsense and the impostures of which they are the victims; since they are only shown books written by a multitude of pious ignoramuses or hypocritical seducers, who, under the pretext of piety, only strive on repeating or multiplying the abuses, errors and superstitions; since, as I said, those who, by their knowledge and their wisdom, would be the fittest to carry such a praiseworthy task that is, opening the eyes of the people for the good of all peoples, only apply themselves, in the writings that they give to the public, to favour, maintain and increase the number of the errors, and to aggravate the yoke of superstitions, instead of striving on abolishing them and making them despicable; since they only commit themselves to flatter the great and cravenly offer them countless contemptible praises, instead of harshly blaming them for their vices, and generously telling them the truth; since the only reason for such a vile and cowardly attitude is either contemptible complaisance, or cowardly motives of a particular interest, in order to curry favour with the greats, for them and their family or associates to be in favour with them; I will try, for all my weakness and my lack of spirit, I will hereby try, my dear friends, to ingenuously show you the truth, and to make you see the vanity and fallacy of all the allegedly so great, so sane, so divine and so adorable mysteries which your priests, your preachers and your doctors compel you to believe, under pain of eternal damnation, as they say. I will try, as I said, to show you the vanity and fallacy of it. As for the priests, preachers, doctors and all those who are responsible for such lies, such nonsense and such impostures, let them be scandalized and shocked as much as they like after my death; let them call me an impious person, an apostate, a blasphemer and an atheist if they like; let them shower me with insults and curse me as much as they like, I will not feel embarrassed about it, since this will not worry me a bit. In the same way, let them do whatever they want with my body; let them chop it into pieces, roast it or fricassee it, even eat it, if they want, with whatever sauce they like, it will cause me no grief at all. I will be out of their reach then; I shall no longer fear anything. I can only foresee that my friends and my family may, on that occasion, feel sorrowful and annoyed to see or hear everything that might be done or said indignantly about me after my death. I would gladly spare them that displeasure; but that consideration, strong though it may be, will not hold me back: the zeal of truth and justice, the zeal of the public good, and the hatred and indignation that arise in me, from seeing the errors and impostures of religion, as well as the pride and the injustice of the great, so imperiously and tyrannically dominate the earth, will override the former consideration, for all its strength. Besides, I do not think, my dear friends, that this undertaking
will make me so odious, or make so many enemies for me as one might
think. I could even take credit for having, at least amongst honest
and wise people, as many approvers as bad censors, if those
writings, unformed and imperfect as they are (being done hastily and
written in precipitation), move about farther than your hands, or if
they happen to become public, and if one examines carefully the
reasons and feelings on which they are based; and I can say right
now that several of those who, by their character or by their
profession of judges or lawyers, or otherwise, would have to
publicly condemn me for the sake of human respect would actually
approve me in their hearts. |