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FIFTH QUESTION

After our own holy religion, which indubitably is the only good one, what religion would be the least objectionable?

Would it not be that which should be the simplest; that which should teach much morality and very few dogmas; that which should tend to make men just, without making them absurd; that which should not ordain the belief of things impossible, contradictory, injurious to the Divinity, and pernicious to mankind; nor dare to threaten with eternal pains whosoever should possess common sense? Would it not be that which should not uphold its belief by the hand of the executioner, nor inundate the earth with blood to support unintelligible sophisms; that in which an ambiguous expression, a play upon words, and two or three supported charters, should not suffice to make a sovereign and a god of a priest who is often incestuous, a murderer, and a poisoner; which should not make kings subject to this priest; that which should teach only the adoration of one God, justice, tolerance, and humanity.

SIXTH QUESTION

It has been said, that the religion of the Gentiles was absurd in many points, contradictory, and pernicious; but have there not been imputed to it more harm than it ever did, and more absurdities than it ever preached?

Show me in all antiquity a temple dedicated to Leda lying with a swan, or Europa with a bull. Was there ever a sermon preached at Athens or at Rome, to persuade the young women to cohabit with their poultry? Are the fables collected and adorned by Ovid religious? Are they not like our Golden Legend, our Flower of the Saints? If some Brahmin or dervish were to come and object to our story of St. Mary the Egyptian, who not having wherewith to pay the sailors who conveyed her to Egypt, gave to each of them instead of money what are called "favors," we should say to the Brahmin: Reverend father, you are mistaken; our religion is not the Golden Legend.

We reproach the ancients with their oracles, and prodigies; if they could return to this world, and the miracles of our Lady of Loretto and our Lady of Ephesus could be counted, in whose favor would be the balance?

Human sacrifices were established among almost every people, but very rarely put in practice. Among the Jews, only Jephthah's daughter and King Agag were immolated; for Isaac and Jonathan were not. Among the Greeks, the story of "Iphigenia" is not well authenticated; and human sacrifices were very rare among the ancient Romans. In short, the religion of the Pagans caused very little blood to be shed, while ours has deluged the earth. Ours is doubtless the only good, the only true one; but we have done so much harm by its means that when we speak of others we should be modest.

SEVENTH QUESTION

If a man would persuade foreigners, or his own countrymen, of the truth of his religion, should he not go about it with the most insinuating mildness and the most engaging moderation? If he begins with telling them that what he announces is demonstrated, he will find a multitude of persons incredulous; if he ventures to tell them that they reject his doctrine only inasmuch as it condemns their passions; that their hearts have corrupted their minds; that their reasoning is only false and proud, he disgusts them; he incenses them against himself; he himself ruins what he would fain establish.

If the religion he announces be true, will violence and insolence render it more so? Do you put yourself in a rage, when you say that it is necessary to be mild, patient, beneficent, just, and to fulfil all the duties of society? No; because everyone is of your own opinion. Why, then, do you abuse your brother when preaching to him a mysterious system of metaphysics? Because his opinion irritates your self-love. You are so proud as to require your brother to submit his intelligence to yours; humbled pride produces the wrath; it has no other source. A man who has received twenty wounds in a battle does not fly into a passion; but a divine, wounded by the refusal of your assent, at once becomes furious and implacable.

EIGHTH QUESTION

Must we not carefully distinguish the religion of the state from theological religion? The religion of the state requires that the imans keep registers of the circumcised, the vicars or pastors registers of the baptized; that there be mosques, churches, temples, days consecrated to rest and worship, rites established by law; that the ministers of those rites enjoy consideration without power; that they teach good morals to the people, and that the ministers of the law watch over the morals of the ministers of the temples. This religion of the state cannot at any time cause any disturbance.

It is otherwise with theological religion: this is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind. A bonze asserts that Fo is a God, – that he was foretold by fakirs, that he was born of a white elephant, and that every bonze can by certain grimaces make a Fo. A talapoin says, that Fo was a holy man, whose doctrine the bonzes have corrupted, and that Sammonocodom is the true God. After a thousand arguments and contradictions, the two factions agree to refer the question to the dalai-lama, who resides three hundred leagues off, and who is not only immortal, but also infallible. The two factions send to him a solemn deputation; and the dalai-lama begins, according to his divine custom, by distributing among them the contents of his close-stool.

The two rival sects at first receive them with equal reverence; have them dried in the sun, and encase them in little chaplets which they kiss devoutly; but no sooner have the dalai-lama and his council pronounced in the name of Fo, than the condemned party throw their chaplets in the vice-god's face, and would fain give him a sound thrashing. The other party defend their lama, from whom they have received good lands; both fight a long time; and when at last they are tired of mutual extermination, assassination, and poisoning, they grossly abuse each other, while the dalai-lama laughs, and still distributes his excrement to whosoever is desirous of receiving the good father lama's precious favors.

RHYME

Rhyme was probably invented to assist the memory, and to regulate at the same time the song and the dance. The return of the same sounds served to bring easily and readily to the recollection the intermediate words between the two rhymes. Those rhymes were a guide at once to the singer and the dancer; they indicated the measure. Accordingly, in every country, verse was the language of the gods.

We may therefore class it among the list of probable, that is, of uncertain, opinions, that rhyme was at first a religious appendage or ceremony; for after all, it is possible that verses and songs might be addressed by a man to his mistress before they were addressed by him to his deities; and highly impassioned lovers indeed will say that the cases are precisely the same.

A rabbi who gave a general view of the Hebrew language, which I never was able to learn, once recited to me a number of rhymed psalms, which he said we had most wretchedly translated. I remember two verses, which are as follows:

 
Hibbitu clare vena haru
Ulph nehem al jeck pharu.
 

"They looked upon him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed."

No rhyme can be richer than that of those two verses; and this being admitted, I reason in the following manner:

The Jews, who spoke a jargon half Phœnician and half Syriac, rhymed; therefore the great and powerful nations, under whom they were in slavery, rhymed also. We cannot help believing, that the Jews – who, as we have frequently observed, adopted almost everything from their neighbors – adopted from them also rhyme.

All the Orientals rhyme; they are steady and constant in their usages. They dress now as they have dressed for the long series of five or six thousand years. We may, therefore, well believe that they have rhymed for a period of equal duration.

Some of the learned contend that the Greeks began with rhyming, whether in honor of their gods, their heroes, or their mistresses; but, that afterwards becoming more sensible of the harmony of their language, having acquired a more accurate knowledge of prosody, and refined upon melody, they made those requisite verses without rhyme which have been transmitted down to us, and which the Latins imitated and very often surpassed.

As for us, the miserable descendants of Goths, Vandals, Gauls, Franks, and Burgundians – barbarians who are incapable of attaining either the Greek or Latin melody – we are compelled to rhyme. Blank verse, among all modern nations, is nothing but prose without any measure; it is distinguished from ordinary prose only by a certain number of equal and monotonous syllables, which it has been agreed to denominate "verse."

We have remarked elsewhere that those who have written in blank verse have done so only because they were incapable of rhyming. Blank verse originated in an incapacity to overcome difficulty, and in a desire to come to an end sooner.

We have remarked that Ariosto has made a series of forty-eight thousand rhymes without producing either disgust or weariness in a single reader. We have observed how French poetry, in rhyme, sweeps all obstacles before it, and that pleasure arose even from the very obstacles themselves. We have been always convinced that rhyme was necessary for the ears, not for the eyes; and we have explained our opinions, if not with judgment and success, at least without dictation and arrogance.

But we acknowledge that on the receipt at Mount Krapak of the late dreadful literary intelligence from Paris, our former moderation completely abandons us. We understand that there exists a rising sect of barbarians, whose doctrine is that no tragedy should henceforward be ever written but in prose. This last blow alone was wanting, in addition to all our previous afflictions. It is the abomination of desolation in the temple of the muses. We can very easily conceive that, after Corneille had turned into verse the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," some sarcastic wag might menace the public with the acting of a tragedy in prose, by Floridor and Mondori; but this project having been seriously executed by the abbé d'Aubignac, we well know with what success it was attended. We well know the ridicule and disgrace that were attached to the prose "Œdipus" of De la Motte Houdart, which were nearly as great as those which were incurred by his "Œdipus" in verse. What miserable Visigoth can dare, after "Cinna" and "Andromache," to banish verse from the theatre? After the grand and brilliant age of our literature, can we be really sunk into such degradation and opprobrium! Contemptible barbarians! Go, then, and see this your prose tragedy performed by actors in their riding-coats at Vauxhall, and afterwards go and feast upon shoulder of mutton and strong beer.

What would Racine and Boileau have said had this terrible intelligence been announced to them? "Bon Dieu"! Good God! from what a height have we fallen, and into what a slough are we plunged!

It is certain that rhyme gives a most overwhelming and oppressive influence to verses possessing mere mediocrity of merit. The poet in this case is just like a bad machinist, who cannot prevent the harsh and grating sounds of his wires and pulleys from annoying the ear. His readers experience the same fatigue that he underwent while forming his own rhymes; his verses are nothing but an empty jingling of wearisome syllables. But if he is happy in his thoughts and happy also in his rhyme, he then experiences and imparts a pleasure truly exquisite – a pleasure that can be fully enjoyed only by minds endowed with sensibility, and by ears attuned to harmony.

RESURRECTION

SECTION I

We are told that the Egyptians built their pyramids for no other purpose than to make tombs of them, and that their bodies, embalmed within and without, waited there for their souls to come and reanimate them at the end of a thousand years. But if these bodies were to come to life again, why did the embalmers begin the operation by piercing the skull with a gimlet, and drawing out the brain? The idea of coming to life again without brains would make one suspect that – if the expression may be used – the Egyptians had not many while alive; but let us bear in mind that most of the ancients believed the soul to be in the breast. And why should the soul be in the breast rather than elsewhere? Because, when our feelings are at all violent, we do in reality feel, about the region of the heart, a dilatation or compression, which caused it to be thought that the soul was lodged there. This soul was something aerial; it was a slight figure that went about at random until it found its body again.

The belief in resurrection is much more ancient than historical times. Athalides, son of Mercury, could die and come to life again at will; Æsculapius restored Hippolytus to life, and Hercules, Alceste. Pelops, after being cut in pieces by his father, was resuscitated by the gods. Plato relates that Heres came to life again for fifteen days only.

Among the Jews, the Pharisees did not adopt the dogma of the resurrection until long after Plato's time.

In the Acts of the Apostles there is a very singular fact, and one well worthy of attention. St. James and several of his companions advise St. Paul to go into the temple of Jerusalem, and, Christian as he was, to observe all the ceremonies of the Old Law, in order – say they – "that all may know that those things whereof they were informed concerning thee are nothing, but that thou thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the law." This is clearly saying: "Go and lie; go and perjure yourself; go and publicly deny the religion which you teach."

St. Paul then went seven days into the temple; but on the seventh he was discovered. He was accused of having come into it with strangers, and of having profaned it. Let us see how he extricated himself.

But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council – "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." The resurrection of the dead formed no part of the question; Paul said this only to incense the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other.

"And when he had so said there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees; and the multitude was divided.

"For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both."

It has been asserted that Job, who is very ancient, was acquainted with the doctrine of resurrection; and these words are cited: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that one day His redemption shall rise upon me; or that I shall rise again from the dust, that my skin shall return, and that in my flesh I shall again see God."

But many commentators understand by these words that Job hopes soon to recover from his malady, and that he shall not always remain lying on the ground, as he then was. The sequel sufficiently proves this explanation to be the true one; for he cries out the next moment to his false and hardhearted friends: "Why then do you say let us persecute Him?" Or: "For you shall say, because we persecuted Him." Does not this evidently mean – you will repent of having ill used me, when you shall see me again in my future state of health and opulence. When a sick man says: I shall rise again, he does not say: I shall come to life again. To give forced meanings to clear passages is the sure way never to understand one another; or rather, to be regarded by honest men as wanting sincerity.

St. Jerome dates the birth of the sect of the Pharisees but a very short time before Jesus Christ. The rabbin Hillel is considered as having been the founder of the Pharisaïc sect; and this Hillel was contemporary with St. Paul's master, Gamaliel.

Many of these Pharisees believed that only the Jews were brought to life again, the rest of mankind not being worth the trouble. Others maintained that there would be no rising again but in Palestine; and that the bodies of such as were buried elsewhere would be secretly conveyed into the neighborhood of Jerusalem, there to rejoin their souls. But St. Paul, writing to the people of Thessalonica, says:

"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep.

"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Does not this important passage clearly prove that the first Christians calculated on seeing the end of the world? as, indeed, it was foretold by St. Luke to take place while he himself was alive? But if they did not see this end of the world, if no one rose again in their day, that which is deferred is not lost.

St. Augustine believed that children, and even still-born infants, would rise again in a state of maturity. Origen, Jerome, Athanasius, Basil, and others, did not believe that women would rise again with the marks of their sex.

In short, there have ever been disputes about what we have been, about what we are, and about what we shall be.

SECTION II

Father Malebranche proves resurrection by the caterpillars becoming butterflies. This proof, as every one may perceive, is not more weighty than the wings of the insects from which he borrows it. Calculating thinkers bring forth arithmetical objections against this truth which he has so well proved. They say that men and other animals are really fed and derive their growth from the substance of their predecessors. The body of a man, reduced to ashes, scattered in the air, and falling on the surface of the earth, becomes corn or vegetable. So Cain ate a part of Adam; Enoch fed on Cain; Irad on Enoch; Mahalaleel on Irad; Methuselah on Mahalaleel; and thus we find that there is not one among us who has not swallowed some portion of our first parent. Hence it has been said that we have all been cannibals. Nothing can be clearer than that such is the case after a battle; not only do we kill our brethren, but at the end of two or three years, when the harvests have been gathered from the field of battle, we have eaten them all; and we, in turn, shall be eaten with the greatest facility imaginable. Now, when we are to rise again, how shall we restore to each one the body that belongs to him, without losing something of our own?

So say those who trust not in resurrection; but the resurrectionists have answered them very pertinently.

A rabbin named Samaï demonstrates resurrection by this passage of Exodus: "I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and swore to give unto them the land of Canaan." Now – says this great rabbin – notwithstanding this oath, God did not give them that land; therefore, they will rise again to enjoy it, in order that the oath be fulfilled.

The profound philosopher Calmet finds a much more conclusive proof in vampires. He saw vampires issuing from churchyards to go and suck the blood of good people in their sleep; it is clear that they could not suck the blood of the living if they themselves were still dead; therefore they had risen again; this is peremptory.

It is also certain that at the day of judgment all the dead will walk under ground, like moles – so says the "Talmud" – that they may appear in the valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies between the city of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. There will be a good deal of squeezing in this valley; but it will only be necessary to reduce the bodies proportionately, like Milton's devils in the hall of Pandemonium.

This resurrection will take place to the sound of the trumpet, according to St. Paul. There must, of course, be more trumpets than one; for the thunder itself is not heard more than three or four leagues round. It is asked: How many trumpets will there be? The divines have not yet made the calculation; it will nevertheless be made.

The Jews say that Queen Cleopatra, who no doubt believed in the resurrection like all the ladies of that day, asked a Pharisee if we were to rise again quite naked? The doctor answered that we shall be very well dressed, for the same reason that the corn that has been sown and perished under ground rises again in ear with a robe and a beard. This rabbin was an excellent theologian; he reasoned like Dom Calmet.

SECTION III

Resurrection of the Ancients

It has been asserted that the dogma of resurrection was much in vogue with the Egyptians, and was the origin of their embalmings and their pyramids. This I myself formerly believed. Some said that the resurrection was to take place at the end of a thousand years; others at the end of three thousand. This difference in their theological opinions seems to prove that they were not very sure about the matter.

Besides, in the history of Egypt, we find no man raised again; but among the Greeks we find several. Among the latter, then, we must look for this invention of rising again.

But the Greeks often burned their bodies, and the Egyptians embalmed them, that when the soul, which was a small, aerial figure, returned to its habitation, it might find it quite ready. This had been good if its organs had also been ready; but the embalmer began by taking out the brain and clearing the entrails. How were men to rise again without intestines, and without the medullary part by means of which they think? Where were they to find again the blood, the lymph, and other humors?

You will tell me that it was still more difficult to rise again among the Greeks, where there was not left of you more than a pound of ashes at the utmost – mingled, too, with the ashes of wood, stuffs and spices.

Your objection is forcible, and I hold with you, that resurrection is a very extraordinary thing; but the son of Mercury did not the less die and rise again several times. The gods restored Pelops to life, although he had been served up as a ragout, and Ceres had eaten one of his shoulders. You know that Æsculapius brought Hippolytus to life again; this was a verified fact, of which even the most incredulous had no doubt; the name of "Virbius," given to Hippolytus, was a convincing proof. Hercules had resuscitated Alceste and Pirithous. Heres did, it is true – according to Plato – come to life again for fifteen days only; still it was a resurrection; the time does not alter the fact.

Many grave schoolmen clearly see purgatory and resurrection in Virgil. As for purgatory, I am obliged to acknowledge that it is expressly in the sixth book. This may displease the Protestants, but I have no alternative:

 
Non tamen omne malum miseris, nec funditus omnes
Corporea excedunt pestes…
 
 
Not death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long contracted filth even in the soul remains.
The relics of inveterate vice they wear,
And spots of sin obscene in every face appear…
 

But we have already quoted this passage in the article on "Purgatory," which doctrine is here expressed clearly enough; nor could the kinsfolks of that day obtain from the pagan priests an indulgence to abridge their sufferings for ready money. The ancients were much more severe and less simoniacal than we are notwithstanding that they imputed so many foolish actions to their gods. What would you have? Their theology was made up of contradictions, as the malignant say is the case with our own.

When their purgation was finished, these souls went and drank of the waters of Lethe, and instantly asked that they might enter fresh bodies and again see daylight. But is this a resurrection? Not at all; it is taking an entirely new body, not resuming the old one; it is a metempsychosis, without any relation to the manner in which we of the true faith are to rise again.

The souls of the ancients did, I must acknowledge, make a very bad bargain in coming back to this world, for seventy years at most, to undergo once more all that we know is undergone in a life of seventy years, and then suffer another thousand years' discipline. In my humble opinion there is no soul that would not be tired of this everlasting vicissitude of so short a life and so long a penance.

SECTION IV

Resurrection of the Moderns

Our resurrection is quite different. Every man will appear with precisely the same body which he had before; and all these bodies will be burned for all eternity, excepting only, at most, one in a hundred thousand. This is much worse than a purgatory of ten centuries, in order to live here again a few years.

When will the great day of this general resurrection arrive? This is not positively known; and the learned are much divided. Nor do they any more know how each one is to find his own members again. Hereupon they start many difficulties.

1. Our body, say they, is, during life, undergoing a continual change; at fifty years of age we have nothing of the body in which our soul was lodged at twenty.

2. A soldier from Brittany goes into Canada; there, by a very common chance, he finds himself short of food, and is forced to eat an Iroquois whom he killed the day before. This Iroquois had fed on Jesuits for two or three months; a great part of his body had become Jesuit. Here, then, the body of a soldier is composed of Iroquois, of Jesuits, and of all that he had eaten before. How is each to take again precisely what belongs to him? and which part belongs to each?

3. A child dies in its mother's womb, just at the moment that it has received a soul. Will it rise again fœtus, or boy, or man?

4. To rise again – to be the same person as you were – you must have your memory perfectly fresh and present; it is memory that makes your identity. If your memory be lost, how will you be the same man?

5. There are only a certain number of earthly particles that can constitute an animal. Sand, stone, minerals, metals, contribute nothing. All earth is not adapted thereto; it is only the soils favorable to vegetation that are favorable to the animal species. When, after the lapse of many ages, every one is to rise again, where shall be found the earth adapted to the formation of all these bodies?

6. Suppose an island, the vegetative part of which will suffice for a thousand men, and for five or six thousand animals to feed and labor for that thousand men; at the end of a hundred thousand generations we shall have to raise again a thousand millions of men. It is clear that matter will be wanting: "Materies opus est, ut crescunt post era saecla."

7. And lastly, when it is proved, or thought to be proved, that a miracle as great as the universal deluge, or the ten plagues of Egypt, will be necessary to work the resurrection of all mankind in the valley of Jehoshaphat, it is asked: What becomes of the souls of all these bodies while awaiting the moment of returning into their cases?

Fifty rather knotty questions might easily be put; but the divines would likewise easily find answers to them all.