Hence, by the law, and by the policy of the priests, the people of God were kept in a profound ignorance, in an abject superstition, in an unsocial and savage aversion for the rest of mankind; in an inveterate hatred of other forms of worship, and in a barbarous and sanguinary intolerance towards every foreign religion. All the neighbors of the Hebrews, were, therefore, their enemies. If the holy nation was the object of the love of the most high, it was an object of contempt and horror to all who had occasion to know it—a fact admitted by their own historian, Josephus. For this it was indebted to its religious institutions, to the labors of its priests, to its diviners, and its prophets, who continually profitted by its credulity, in displaying wonders and kindling its delirium.
Under the guidance of Moses, and of generals or judges who governed them afterwards, the Jewish people distinguished themselves only by massacres, unjust wars, cruelties, usurpations, and infamies, which were enjoined them in the name of the Eternal. Weary of the government of their priests, which drew on them misfortunes and bloody defeats, the descendants of Abraham demanded kings; but, under these, the state was perpetually torn with disputes between the priesthood and the government. Superstition aimed at ruling over policy. Prophets and priests pretended to reign over kings, of whom such as were not sufficiently submissive to the interpreters of heaven, were renounced by the Lord, and, from that moment, unacknowledged and opposed by their own subjects. Fanatics and impostors, absolute masters of the understandings of the nation, were continually ready to rouse it, and excite in its bosom the most terrible revolutions. It was the intrigues of the prophets that deprived Saul of his crown, and bestowed it on David, the man according to God's own heart—that is to say, devoted to the will of the priests. It was the prophets, who, to punish the defection of Solomon in the person of his son, occasioned the separation of the kingdoms of Judea and Israel. It was the prophets who kept these two kingdoms continually at variance; weakened them by means of each other, desolated them by religious and fatal wars, conducted them to complete ruin, a total dispersion of their inhabitants, and a long captivity among the Assyrians.
So many calamities did not open the eyes of the Jews, who continued obstinate in refusing to acknowledge the true source of their misfortunes. Restored to their homes by the bounty of Cyrus, they were again governed by priests and prophets, whose maxims rendered them turbulent, and drew on them the hatred of sovereigns who subdued them. The Greek princes treated with the greatest severity a people whom the oracles and promises of their prophets rendered always rebellious, and ungovernable. The Jews, in fine, became the prey of the Romans, whose yoke they bore with fear, against whom impostors often incited them to revolt, and who, at last, tired of their frequent rebellions, entirely destroyed them as a nation.
Such, in a few words, is the history of the Jewish people. It presents the most memorable examples of the evils which fanaticism and superstition produce; for it is evident that the continual revolutions, bloody wars, and total destruction of that nation, had no other cause than its unwearied credulity, its submission to priests, its enthusiasm, and its furious zeal, excited by the inspired. On reading the Old Testament, we are forced to confess, that the people of God (thanks to the roguery of their spiritual guides) were, beyond contradiction, the most unfortunate people that ever existed. Yet the most solemn promises of Jehovah seemed to assure to that people a flourishing and puissant empire. God had made an eternal alliance with Abraham and his posterity; but the Jews, far from reaping the fruits of this alliance, and far from enjoying the prosperity they had been led to expect, lived continually in the midst of calamities, and were, more than all other nations, the sport of frightful revolutions. So many disasters, however, were incapable of rendering them more considerate; the experience of so many ages did not hinder them from relying on oracles so often contradicted; and the more unfortunate they found themselves, the more rooted were they in their credulity. The destruction of their nation could not bring them to doubt of the excellence of their law, of the wisdom of their institutions, or of the veracity of their prophets, who successively relieved each other, either in menacing them in the name of the Lord, or in re-animating their frivolous hopes.
Strongly convinced that they were the sacred and chosen people of the Most High, alone worthy of his favors, the Jews, in spite of all their miseries, were continually persuaded that their God could not have abandoned them.—They, therefore, constantly looked for an end to their afflictions, and promised themselves a deliverance, which obscure oracles had led them to expect. Building on these fanatical notions, they were at all times disposed to listen with avidity to every man who announced himself as inspired by heaven; they eagerly ran after every singular personage who could feed their expectations; they followed whoever had the secret of astonishing them by impostures, which their stupidity made them consider supernatural works, and unquestionable signs of divine power. Disposed to see the marvellous in the most trifling events, every adroit impostor was on the watch to deceive them, and was certain of making more or less adherents, especially among the populace, who are every where destitute of experience and knowledge.
It was in the midst of a people of this disposition that the personage appeared whose history we write. He very soon found followers in the most despicable of the rabble. Seconded by these, he preached, as usual, reformation to his fellow citizens, he wrought wonders; he styled himself the envoy of the Divinity. He particularly founded his mission on vague, obscure, and ambiguous predictions, contained in the sacred books of the Jews, which he applied to himself. He announced himself as the messiah or messenger, the deliverer of Israel, who for so many ages was the object of the nation's hope. His disciples, his apostles, and afterwards their successors, found means to apply to their master the ancient prophecies, wherein he seemed the least perceptibly designed. The Christians, docile and full of faith, have had the good fortune to see the founder of their religion predicted in the clearest manner throughout the whole Old Testament. By dint of allegories, figures, interpretations, and commentaries, their doctors have brought them to see, in this shapeless compilation, all that they had an interest in pointing out to them. When passages taken literally did not countenance deceit agreeably to their views, they contrived for them a two-fold sense: they pretended that it was not necessary to understand them literally, but to give them a mystical, allegorical, and spiritual meaning. To explain these pretended predictions, they continually substituted one name for another; they rejected the literal meaning, in order to adopt a figurative one; they changed the most natural signification of words they applied the same passages to events quite opposite; they retrenched the names of some personages plainly designed, in order to introduce that of Jesus; and, in all this, they did not blush to make the most crying abuse of the principles of language.
The third chapter of Genesis furnishes a striking example of the manner in which the doctors of the Christian religion have allegorized passages of scripture, in order to apply then to Jesus. In this chapter, God says to the serpent, convicted of having seduced the woman, the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head. This prophesy appears with so much the more difficulty to apply to Jesus, that these words follow—and thou shalt bruise his heel. We do not comprehend, why the seed of the woman must be understood of Jesus. If he was the Son of God, or God himself, he could not be produced from the seed of the woman. If he was man, he is not pointed out in a particular manner by these words, for all men, without exception, are produced from the seed of women. According to our interpreters, the serpent is sin, and the seed of the woman that bruises it is Jesus incarnate in the womb of Mary. Since the coming of Jesus, however, sin, typified by the serpent, has at all times existed; from which we are led to conclude, that Jesus has not destroyed it, and that the prediction is neither literally nor allegorically accomplished.
In the twenty-second chapter of Genesis, God promises to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. What we style prosperity, the Hebrews termed blessings.