Inspired by this revelation, Bruno was the first to envisage religions as human growths, just as laws and customs are human growths, expressing the higher or lower needs and aspirations of the people and age in which they exist. His famous satire, _The Expulsion of the Beast Triumphant_,[31] has a far deeper purpose than to travesty classic mythology, or to ridicule the abuses of Romanists and Protestants, or to scoff at the exaggerated pretensions of the Pope. Under the form of an allegory, it is a prophecy of the ultimate passing away of all anthropomorphic religion. It shows how the god whom men have worshiped hitherto has been endowed by them with human passions and attributes, “writ large,” to be sure, but still unworthy of being associated with that Soul of the World which is in all things, yet above all things. Everywhere he assails the doctrine that faith, without good works, can lead to salvation. He denounces celibacy, and other unnatural rules of the Catholic Church. He denounces still more vigorously the monstrous theory of original sin, according to which an assumedly just God punishes myriads of millions of human beings for the alleged trespass of two of their ancestors. Bruno also cites the discovery of new races in America as evidence that mankind are not all descended from Adam and Eve; whence he infers that, since the Mosaic cosmogony is too narrow to explain the creation and growth of mankind, the Hebrew scheme of vicarious punishment and vicarious redemption must be inadequate. He laughs at the idea of a “chosen people.” Over and over again Bruno derides the assertion that, in order to be saved, we must despise our divinest guide, Reason, and be led blindly by Faith, reducing ourselves so far as we can to the level of donkeys. His satire, _La Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo_, which supplements _The Beast Triumphant_, is a mock eulogy of this “holy asininity, holy ignorance, holy stupidity, and pious devotion, which alone can make souls so good that human genius and study cannot surpass them.” “What avails, O truth-seeker,” he exclaims in one of his finest sonnets, “your studying and wishing to know how Nature works, and whether the stars also are earth, fire, and sea? Holy donkeydom cares not for that, but with clasped hands wills to remain on its knees, awaiting from God its doom.” [31] This, the most famous of Bruno’s works, was until recently so rare that only two or three copies of it were known to exist. Hence numerous blunders and misconceptions by critics who wrote about it from hearsay. For a detailed analysis of “The Beast Triumphant” I may refer the reader to _The New World_ for September, 1894. Lucian’s satire, “Zeus in Heroics,” may have given the hint to Bruno.