De tribus impostoribus; Rationalism; Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677
A journalist at Leipsic, in his "acta eruditarum," dated Jan. 1709,
pp. 36 and 37, gives the following extract from a letter addressed to
him: "Having occasion to be in Saxony I saw, in the Library of M...,
a book entitled "The Three Impostors." It is an 8vo volume, in Latin,
without the name of the printer or the date of its publication;
but to judge from the letter it appears to have been published in
Germany. It was to no purpose that I tried to obtain permission to
read the whole work. The proprietor of the book, a man of sensitive
piety, would not consent to it. I have since learned that a celebrated
professor at Stuttgard had offered a great sum of money for the
volume. Shortly afterwards I went to Nuremberg, and in talking of
this work to M. Andre Mylhdorf, a man respectable alike for his
age, and from his learning, he assured me he had read it, and that
M. Wolfer a clergyman had lent it to him. From the manner in which
he spoke, I thought it might be a copy of the one alluded to above,
and I concluded that it was unquestionably the book referred to;
but not that it was in octavo, nor of so old a date, nor perhaps so
accurate." The writer of the foregoing was able to throw more light
upon the subject and ought to have done so; for it is not enough to
say that he had seen the book--he must produce evidence that he had
seen it, otherwise he ought to be classed with those who promulgate
opinions founded on mere report; in which category we must include
all the authors to whom reference is made in this disquisition.
The first who makes mention of the book as it existed in 1543,
is William Postel, in his treatise on the agreement of the Alcoran
with the doctrines of the Lutherans or the Evangelists. He calls
the work "Anevangelistes," and attempts in it to bring the Lutheran
doctrines into utter disrepute by proving that they lead straightway
to Atheism. To support his argument he instances three or four
productions written, as he says, by Atheists, whom he declares to have
been the first disciples of this new Gospel. He adds, "my opinion
can be vindicated by reference to an infamous pamphlet written by
Villanovanus relative to three works respectively entitled 'The Cymbal
of the World,' 'Pantagruel,' and the 'New Islands;' the authors of
which works were the standard-bearers of the Atheistical party."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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