De Tribus Impostoribus, A. D. 1230: The Three Impostors: Translated (with notes and comments) from a French manuscript of the work written in the year 1716, with a dissertation on the original treatise and a bibliography of the various editions
Religion
De Tribus Impostoribus, A. D. 1230: The Three Impostors: Translated (with notes and comments) from a French manuscript of the work written in the year 1716, with a dissertation on the original treatise and a bibliography of the various editions
De tribus impostoribus -- Bibliography; Rationalism
No one, I say, has a knowledge of God, moreover eye has not seen him,
and he dwells in unapproachable light, and from the time of revelation
till now, in allegory. But I suppose every one knows how clear an
allegory is. Wherefore do you indeed believe that God makes such
demands? or is it from the desire of the intellect to surmount the
limitations of its own capacity in order to comprehend everything more
perfectly than it does, or from something else? Who of you is there
who speaks from special revelation? Good God! what a hodge-podge of
revelations. Do you point to the oracles of the heathen? Antiquity
has already held them up to ridicule. To the testimony of your
priests? I can show you priests who will contradict them. You may
protest in your turn, but who will be the judge? Who will put an end
to these disputes? Do you call attention to the writings of Moses,
the Prophets and Apostles? I bring to your notice the Koran, which
says that, according to a new revelation, these are corrupt and its
author boasts of having settled by the sword the corruptions and
altercations of Christians as did Moses those of the heathen. For
by the sword Mahomet and Moses subjugated Palestine, each instructed
by great miracles. And the writings of the Sectarians as well as of
the Vedas and the Brahmins 1300 years back, are in opposition, to say
nothing of the Sinenses. [52] You, who in some remote spot in Europe
are disputing about such things disregard or deny these writings. You
yourself should see very clearly that with equal ease they deny your
writings. And what proofs not miraculous, would be sufficient to
convince the inhabitants of the world, if it were evident from the
first three books of Veda, that the world was contained in and came
from an egg of a scorpion, and that the earth and first elements
of things was placed on the head of a bull, if some envious son of
the Gods had not stolen these first three volumes. In our times this
would be laughed at; and among those people there would not be this
strange argument to establish their religion if it did not have its
origin in the brains of these priests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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