Traité des trois imposteurs

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"Traité des trois imposteurs" or "L'Esprit de Spinoza"

The anonymous French-language, religion-critical Traité des trois imposteurs: Moïse, Jésus-Christ, Mahomet (German: "Treatise on the three deceivers: Moses, Jesus Christ. Mohammed") or L'Esprit de Spinoza (German: "The Spirit of Spinozas ") is a legendary key document of the materialistic-atheistic radical enlightenment . The first print from 1719 appeared under the double title La Vie et L'Esprit de Mr. Benoit (sic!) De Spinosa (sic!) In The Hague . According to the current state of research (2015), this blasphemous pamphlet is dated to the period between 1677 and 1700:

"Everything that the French philosophy of the seventeenth century developed negatively in the theological sphere is involved here and is often presented with striking brevity."

- Karl Rosenkranz : The Doubt in Faith , 1830

The French-language treatise on the three deceivers or The Spirit of Spinoza must not be confused with the Latin text De tribus impostoribus , the title of which must be translated in the same way. Like this work of criticism of religion, the Theophrastus redivivus, which is comparable in this respect, or the Mémoire of Jean Meslier , it belongs to the genre of clandestine literature.

Edition and reception history

Edition history

Frontispiece to an anonymous edition of Les trois Imposteurs from the 18th century

The first printed version of the cheat treatise appeared in 1719 under the double title La Vie et L'Esprit de Mr. Benoit (sic!) De Spinosa (sic!) . It was preceded by a brief biography of Baruch Spinoza : La vie (de Spinosa) , which is ascribed to the French Huguenot refugee Jean-Maximilien Lucas. Spinoza was considered a heretical , "wicked" philosopher by contemporaries . For example, the Lutheran theologian Christian Kortholt argued against Baruch de Spinoza in 1680:

“De Benedictus Spinosa (sic!) . Occupet extremum scabies. Quis vero seine? Benedictus est de Spinosa (sic!) (Quem rectius Maledictum dixeris); quod spinosa ex divina maledictione terra (Gen. III. 17,18) maledictum magis hominem, & cujus monumenta tot spinis obsita ... (German: About Benedictus Spinosa (sic!). May he be the worst of all. Who is he In truth? Benedictus "Praised" means de Spinosa (sic!), (but more correctly one should call him Maledictum , the "cursed", because God [after the fall] cursed the earth to bear thorns (Gen. 3, 18). "

- Christian Kortholt : De tribus impostoribus magnis liber, Kiel 1680

Spinoza's sentence Deus sive Natura (German: God or also nature), which can be found in the fourth book of his ethics , is the formula for equating God and nature. This philosophical position of Spinoza, according to which God is identical with the universe, is called pantheism .

“Anyone who, like Spinoza, denied the existence of an otherworldly God and a substantially immortal soul was contrary to widely accepted beliefs. Even during his lifetime, Spinoza was regarded by many as a subversive thinker, so that it seemed dangerous to profess his philosophy ... "

- Wolfgang Röd : Benedictus de Spinoza: An introduction .

L'esprit de Spinosa , the main part of the first edition, comprised 21 chapters. The text has been expanded to include excerpts from the writings of Gabriel Naudé and Pierre Charron . Later editions usually appeared without a preceding Spinoza biography and had different chapter divisions.

Reception history

The fraudulent tract was first passed from hand to hand in secret as a manuscript. It only became known to the educated public through the print version from 1719. Much of the edition was burned, but copies and translations into Italian and German were in circulation. In 1768 the materialist radical enlightener , collector and publisher of clandestine writings Baron D'Holbach edited a heavily revised version, Traité des trois imposteurs , which was intended to appeal to the general public. As it turns not only against the revealed religions, but also against natural theology , it also attracted the attention of the philosophers. As early as 1769 Voltaire published a counter- writ , Épitre à l'auteur du livre des trois imposteurs, with the well-known quote:

“Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer ... Ah! Laissons aux humains la crainte et l'espérance "

- Voltaire: Épitre à l'auteur du livre des trois imposteurs

"If God did not exist, one would have to invent him ... Oh, let's leave people fear and hope"

The Traité influenced the Marquis de Sade , who often took up motifs such as priestly deception and almost literally adopted sections on the criticism of the concept of God and traditional ethics in the Histoire de Juliette of 1796.

Sources from the anonymous author

The traité is composed to a considerable extent of paraphrases and occasionally verbatim translations of passages from various texts of the 17th century. The anonymous author has made use of literature critical of religion since antiquity, for example from Philo of Alexandria , the Platonist Kelsus (handed down in Origen 's Contra Celsum ) and the Emperor Julian . Lucilio Vanini , François de La Mothe le Vayer , Guillaume Lamy (1644–1682), Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza provided essential suggestions :

“The passages, which the Traité owes to Spinoza's ethics , are paraphrases , which are replaced by e.g. In some cases, considerable shifts in emphasis and abbreviations have been fitted into the framework of the philosophy of the Traité. "

- Winfried Schröder

Spinoza paraphrases are borrowed from the appendix of the First Book of Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata and the Tractatus theologico-politicus . There are also paraphrases from works by Hobbes (I, 5; II, 1; III, 2–9, 11; VI, 1–6), Vanini (I, 5; II, 11; III, 13–15, 22 ), La Mothe Le Vayer (III, 12, 17-18) and Guillaume Lamy (V, 2-7).

Structure and content of the work

Structure of the treatise

The work is divided into six large chapters, each of which is divided into subsections:

First chapter: «De Dieu» - “About God.” This 1st chapter is divided into six numbered sections.
Second chapter: "Des raisons qui ont engagé les hommes à se figurer un Être invisible qu'on nomme communément Dieu", - "About the reasons that have moved people to imagine an infinite being who is commonly called God." Chapter 2 has 11 subsections.
Third chapter: "Ce que signifie ce mot RELIGION: comment et pourquoi il s'en est introduit un si grand nombre dans le monde" - "What the word RELIGION means: how and why such a large number has spread in the world. “The 3rd chapter is divided into 23 sections; BX Section “About Moses”, XII. Section “About Jesus Christ”, XXII. Section “About Mohammed”.
Fourth chapter: “Vérités sensibles et évidentes” - “Sensual and evident truths.” The fourth chapter is divided into 6 sections.
Fifth chapter: «De l'âme» - “On the soul.” The fifth chapter is divided into 7 sections.
Sixth chapter: "Des esprits qu'on nomme démons" - "About the spirits that are called demons." The 6th and last chapter is divided into 7 sections and ends with a quote from Virgil :
Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, streptitumque Acheronis avari.
Happy who has been able to see the causes of things
And all fears and the inexorable fate
And the rustling of the insatiable Acheron
Forced under the feet.
Virgil, Georgica , Book Two, verses 490–492

Content of the treatise

“The radical Enlightenment movement that began in the late 17th century left no text that was expressly intended as its programmatic writing. But no other text could claim this title with greater justification than the «Traité des trois imposteurs» "

- Winfried Schröder

Anonymus takes the metaphysical counter-position to the basic consensus of his age: through his atheism, his rejection of a world creation, the immortality of the soul and free will.

Winfried Schröder goes on to explain that in the treatise on the three deceivers not only the founder figures of the three Abrahamic religions are depicted as deceivers. Even the Deism is suspected of fraud. Which is also natural theology , natural theology or philosophical theology exposed as a bunch of prejudice:

“With this radical program culminating in the rejection of the existence of God, the Traité des trois imposteurs is at the same time an early key document in the history of atheism, which was an exception in European philosophy well into modern times ... Up until the early 18th century there was hardly any Religious critic atheist. "

- Winfried Schröder

Possible authors

Extensive historical source studies by the Italian historian Silvia Berti have shown that the anonymous author was the Dutch lawyer Jan Vroese (1672–1725).

In his edition of the work, Raoul Vaneigem names the French Huguenot refugee Jean Rousset de Missy as a possible author.

For the philosophy historian, translator and editor of various clandestine texts, Winfried Schröder, on the other hand, the question of the authorship of the Traité des trois imposteurs remains completely open. Miguel Benítez and Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach & Andrew W. Fairbairn are of the same opinion: “unanswerable in our current state of ignorance”.

Work editions

Translations

translation to German

  • Spinoza II. Or Subiroth Sopim . Rome, by the widow Bona Spes, Berlin 1787 (?): Subiroth Sopim . If one anagrams the enigmatic words Subiroth Sopim by reading backwards, one obtains impostoribus .
  • Anonymous: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German. Editor Winfried Schröder, ISBN 9783787311743 .

Secondary literature

  • Silvia Berti, Françoise Charles-Daubert, Richard H. Popkin (editors): Heterodoxy, Spinozism and free thought in early-eighteenth-century Europe: Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs , Springer 1996, ISBN 9789048147410 : [1]
  • Silvia Berti: L'Esprit de Spinosa: ses origines et sa première édition dans leur contexte spinozien , in: Heterodoxy, Spinozism and free thought in early-eighteenth-century Europe: Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs , pp. 3–52, ISBN 9789048147410 : page 3
  • Christian Kortholt : De tribus impostoribus magnis liber, cura editus Cristiani Kortholti, Kiel 1680, reprint Nabu Press 2011, ISBN 9781173359584 : Bayerische StaatsBibliothek digital
  • Christian Kortholt: De tribus impostoribus magnis liber, denuo editus cura Sebastiani Kortholti, Hamburg 1701, [2]
  • Fritz Mauthner : Atheism and its history in the West. Volume 1. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart / Berlin 1920, pp. 306–331.
  • Georges Minois : Le Traité des trois imposteurs. Histoire d'un livre blasphématoire qui n'existait pas. Editions Albin Michel, 2009, ISBN 2226183124
  • Martin Mulsow: The three rings. Tolerance and clandestine learning from Mathurin Veyssière La Croze (1661–1739). Hallesche's Contributions to the European Enlightenment 16, Niemeyer, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3484810165 .
  • Friedrich Niewöhner : Veritas sive Varietas. Lessing's tolerance parable and the book about the three tricksters. Schneider, Heidelberg 1988, ISBN 3-7953-0761-9 .
  • Karl Rosenkranz : The Doubt in Belief: Critique of the Scriptures: De Tribus Impostoribus , Halle and Leipzig 1830, Reprint: Nabu Press 2012, ISBN 9781275180444 .
  • Winfried Schröder : Origins of Atheism. Studies on metaphysical and religious criticism in the 17th and 18th centuries (= Quaestiones, 11). 2nd Edition. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2012, ISBN 978-3-7728-2608-5 (Appendix, § 8).
  • Winfried Schröder: Spinoza in the German Early Enlightenment , Königshausen a. Neumann 1987, ISBN 3884792873
  • Baruch de Spinoza, Complete Works, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1998, Vol. 7: Spinoza - Descriptions of life and documents , edited by Manfred Walther. In it: translation of the Spinoza biography by J.-M. Lucas into German by Carl Gebhardt , pp. 21–47, ISBN 3787306994 .
  • Voltaire : Épître à l'auteur du nouveau livre: Des Trois Imposteurs, 1768 - Scan at Gallica

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Spinosa (sic!) Written with s , see: La vie et l'esprit de Mr. Benoit de Spinosa, 1917
  2. ↑ Silvia Berti: L'Esprit de Spinosa: ses origines et sa première édition dans leur contexte spinozien , in: Heterodoxy, Spinozism and free thougt in early-eighteenth-century Europe: Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs , pp. 3–52 , ISBN 978-90-481-4741-0 : page 6
  3. ↑ Winfried Schröder: Origins of Atheism. Studies on metaphysical and religious criticism in the 17th and 18th centuries (= Quaestiones, 11). 2nd Edition. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2012, ISBN 978-3-7728-2608-5 (Appendix, § 7, pp. 452–464)
  4. ^ Jean-Maximilien Lucas: Vie de Spinoza , 1735 (?) , Traduit par E. Saisset, réédité 1842
  5. ↑ A German translation of this Spinoza biography by J.-M. Lucas can be found in: Baruch de Spinoza, Complete Works, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1998, Vol. 7: Spinoza - Biographies and Documents , edited by Manfred Walther, translation of the Spinoza biography by Carl Gebhardt , pp. 21–47, ISBN 3787306994 .
  6. ↑ Christian Kortholt : De tribus impostoribus magnis liber, Kiel 1680, reprint Nabu Press 2011, ISBN 9781173359584 : Sectio III. De Spinosa , S. II . The spelling “Spinosa” is an allusion to the etymology of this Portuguese family name, which means “thorny”: Latin: spinosus, -a, -um - “thorny” Portuguese: espinhoso, -a - “thorny” Spanish: espinoso, -a - "thorny".
  7. ↑ Baruch de Spinoza: Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata - ethics. Treated in a geometrical way in five parts Preface to Book Four ''
  8. ↑ UTB Online Lexicon Philosophy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.philosophie-woerterbuch.de
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Röd : Benedictus de Spinoza: An introduction . Reclam 2002, ISBN 3150181933 , p. 342.
  10. ↑ Anonymous: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German. Editor Winfried Schröder, ISBN 9783787311743 , S. XXVI: Synoptic overview of the chapter division of the editions 1719 and 1768 .
  11. ^ Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'Holbach: Traité des trois imposteurs: Moïse, Jésus-Christ, Mahomet , 1777
  12. ^ Voltaire : Épître à l'auteur du nouveau livre: Des Trois Imposteurs, 1768 - Scan - Gallica
  13. ↑ Anonymous: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German. Editor Winfried Schröder, ISBN 9783787311743 , Introduction III, p. XLI.
  14. ↑ Winfried Schröder: Origins of Atheism. Studies on metaphysical and religious criticism in the 17th and 18th centuries (= Quaestiones, 11). 2nd Edition. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2012, ISBN 978-3-7728-2608-5 (Appendix, § 8, p. 463).
  15. ↑ Anonymous: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German. Editor Winfried Schröder, ISBN 9783787311743 , foreword III, p. XXX.
  16. ↑ Anonymous: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German. Editor Winfried Schröder, ISBN 9783787311743 , foreword III, p. XXIX.
  17. ↑ Anonymous: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German. Editor Winfried Schröder, ISBN 9783787311743 , foreword III, p. XXIX.
  18. ↑ Based on the edition published by Winfried Schröder, based on the text from 1768. - Anonymus: Treatise on the three deceivers / Traité des trois imposteurs , Philosophical Library Meiner, 1992, French / German, ISBN 9783787311743 , editorial notes , p. XLIV
  19. ↑ a b Winfried Schröder (editor) in: Anonymos treatise on the three fraudsters , Introduction I, p. VIII
  20. ↑ Winfried Schröder (editor) in: Anonymos treatise on the three fraudsters. Introduction, pp. IX, X
  21. ↑ Silvia Berti: L'Esprit de Spinosa: ses origines et sa première édition dans leur contexte spinozien, in: Heterodoxy, Spinozism and free thougt in early-eighteenth-century Europe: Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs, pp. 3–52 , ISBN 978-90-481-4741-0 : page 3
  22. ^ Raoul Vaneigem (author of the foreword and editor): L'Art de ne croire en rien suivi de Livre des trois imposteurs , pages 125-233, Payot & Rivages 2002, ISBN 9782743610029
  23. ↑ Winfried Schröder : Origins of Atheism. Studies on metaphysical and religious criticism in the 17th and 18th centuries (= Quaestiones, 11). 2nd Edition. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2012, ISBN 978-3-7728-2608-5 (Appendix, § 8, p. 463).
  24. ↑ page V.
  25. ↑ Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach & Andrew W. Fairbairn: Structure of our Traité des trois imposteurs , in: Heterodoxy, Spinozism and free thougt in early-eighteenth-century Europe: Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs , pp. 75-130, ISBN 978 -90-481-4741-0 : page VII