No More Learning

The son of God also adds, that it
is not fit to pay attention to Satan, because he is a seducer, but
that himself alone is worthy of belief. This, however, is evidently the
language of a man who is an impostor earnestly endeavouring to prevent,
and previously guarding himself against, the attempts of those who think
differently from and oppose him. But, according to the Christians, the
son of God is punished by the devil, who also punishes us in order
that through this we may be exercised in endurance. These assertions,
however, are perfectly ridiculous. For it is fit, I think, that the
devil should be punished, and not that men should be threatened with
punishment who are calumniated by him.

"Further still: If God, like Jupiter in the comedy, being roused from
a long sleep, wished to liberate the human race from evils, why did
he send only into a corner of the earth this spirit of whom you boast?
though he ought in a similar manner to have animated many other bodies,
and to have sent them to every part of the habitable globe. The comic
poet indeed, in order to excite the laughter of the audience in the
theatre, says that Jupiter, after he was roused from his sleep, sent
Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedæmonsians:--but do not

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you think that it is a much more ridiculous fiction to assert that God
sent his son to the Jews?

"Many--and these, men whose names are not known,--both in temples and
out of temples, and some also assembling in cities or armies, are easily
excited from any casual cause, as if they possessed a prophetic power.
Each of these likewise is readily accustomed to say, 'I am God, or the
son of God, or a divine spirit. But I came because the world will soon
be destroyed, and you, O men! on account of your iniquities will perish.
I wish, however, to save you, and you shall again see me, returning with
a celestial army. Blessed is he who now worships me; but I will cast
all those who do not, into eternal fire, together with the cities and
regions to which they belong. Those men also that do not now know the
punishments which are reserved for them, shall afterwards repent and
lament in vain: but those who believe in me I will for ever save.
'
Extending to the multitude these insane and perfectly obscure
assertions, the meaning of which no intelligent man is able to
discover,--for they are unintelligible and a mere nothing,--they afford
an occasion to the stupid and to jugglers of giving to them whatever
interpretation they please.

"Again, they do not consider, if the prophets of

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the God of the Jews had predicted that this would be his son, why did
this God legislatively ordain through Moses, that the Jews should enrich
themselves and acquire power; should fill the earth with their progeny;
and should slay and cut off the whole race of their enemies, which Moses
did, as he says, in the sight of the Jews; and besides this, threatening
that unless they were obedient to these his commands, he should consider
them as his enemies;--why, after these things had been promulgated by
God, did his son, a Nazarean man, exclude from any access to his father,
the rich and powerful, the wise and renowned? For he says that we ought
to pay no more attention than ravens do, to food and the necessaries of
life*, and that we should be less concerned about our clothing than the
lilies of the field. Again, he asserts, that to him who smites us on
one cheek we should likewise turn the other**. Whether, therefore, does
Moses or Jesus lie? Or, was the Father who sent Jesus forgetful of what
he had formerly said to Moses? Or, condemning his own laws, did he alter
his opinion, and send a messenger to mankind with mandates of a contrary
nature?

* Luke xii. 24.

** Luke vi. 29.

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"The Christians again will say, How can God be known unless he can be
apprehended by sense? To this we reply, that such a question is not the
interrogation of man, nor of soul, but of _the flesh_. At the same time,
therefore, let them hear, if they are capable of hearing any thing, _as
being a miserable worthless race, and lovers of body! _ If, closing the
perceptive organs of sense, you look upward with the visive power of
intellect, and, averting the eye of the _flesh,_ you excite the eye
of the soul, you will thus alone behold God*. And if you seek for the
leader of this path, you must avoid impostors and enchanters, and those
who persuade you to pay attention to [real] idols; in order that you may
not be entirely ridiculous, by blaspheming as idols other things which
are manifestly Gods**, and venerating that which is in reality more
worthless than any image, and which is not even an image, but _a dead
body_***; and by investigating a Father similar to it.