Letters To Eugenia; Or, A Preservative Against Religious PrejudicesHolbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Religion
Letters To Eugenia; Or, A Preservative Against Religious Prejudices
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Christianity -- Controversial literature
They will not fail to tell me, that in the end the divine, patience
became tired of the excesses of the Jews; that the immutable God, who
had sworn an eternal alliance with the race of Abraham, wished at length
to break the treaty, which he had, however, assured them should last
forever. It is pretended that God had determined to reject the Hebrew
nation, in order to adopt the Gentiles, whom he had hated and despised
nearly four thousand years. I reply, that this discourse is very little
conformable to the ideas we ought to have of a God who _changes not_,
whose mercy is _infinite_, and whose goodness is _inexhaustible_. I
shall tell them, that in this case the Messiah announced by the Jewish
prophets was destined for the Jews, and that he ought to have been their
liberator, instead of destroying their worship and their religion. If
it be possible to unravel any thing in these obscure, enigmatical, and
symbolical oracles of the prophets of Judea, as we find them in the
Bible,--if there be any means of guessing the meaning of the obscure
riddles, which have been decorated with the pompous name of prophecies,
we shall perceive that the inspired writers, when they are in a
good humor, always promised the Jews a man that will redress their
grievances, restore the kingdom of Judah, and not one that should
destroy the religion of Moses. If it were for the Gentiles that the
Messiah should come, he is no longer the Messiah promised to the Jews
and announced by their prophets. If Jesus be the Messiah of the Jews, he
could not be the destroyer of their nation.
Should I be told that Jesus himself declared that he came to fulfil the
law of Moses, and not to abolish it, I ask why Christians do not observe
the law of the Jews?
Thus, in whatever light we regard Jesus Christ, we perceive that he
could not be the man whom the prophets have predicted, since it is
evident that he came only to destroy the religion of the Jews, which,
though instituted by God himself, had nevertheless become disagreeable
to him. If this inconstant God, who was wearied with the worship of the
Jews, had at length repented of his injustice towards the Gentiles, it
was to them that he ought to have sent his Son. By acting in this way
he would at least have saved his old friends from a frightful _deicide_,
which he forced them to commit, because they were not able to recognize
the God he sent amongst them. Besides, the Jews were very pardonable in
not acknowledging their expected Messiah in an artisan of Galilee, who
was destitute of all the characteristics which the prophets had related,
and during whose lifetime his fellow-citizens were neither liberated nor
happy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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