Histoire critique de Jésus-Christ, ou Analyse raisonnée des Evangiles.
Estimation :
200 / 300
Adjudication :
220 €
Description
“Holbach’s All-Out Assault on the Christian Gospels. This is the last of five works listed by the Encyclopedia of Philosophy as being important to Holbach’s “second phase” of writing activity which consisted of a relentless militancy against organized religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular". “The theme recurring throughout these books represented a vehement restatement of almost all the arguments for unbelief current in eighteenth-century France. The most characteristic are the following: the idea and cult of God sprang from the ignorant terror of primitive man seeking to placate the destructive powers of nature, and they have survived ever since through superstition; religious history is a catalogue of senseless disputes, intolerance, prejudice, persecution and crime; the clergy is ordinarily engaged in exploiting the gullibility of the people for its own profit; religions have invariably support tyrannical governments to further their own ambitions of domination; scriptural ‘proofs’ of Christianity are worthless as objective historical evidence; theological dogmas are a maze of delusion and mystification on which no rational, just of useful social institution can be built.” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. IV, pp.49-50). Old ms. notes on pp. 242-243-244. Bookseller’s stamp.
