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|1643||[[Thomas Browne]] ascribes authorship of such a work to [[Bernardino Ochino]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Minois |first1=Georges |title=The Atheist's Bible: The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed |date=2012 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-53029-1 |page=52 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mt0mn5XKDvAC&pg=PA52 |language=en}}</ref>
|1643||[[Thomas Browne]] ascribes authorship of such a work to [[Bernardino Ochino]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Minois |first1=Georges |title=The Atheist's Bible: The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed |date=2012 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-53029-1 |page=52 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mt0mn5XKDvAC&pg=PA52 |language=en}}</ref>
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|1656||[[Henry Oldenburg]] reports that at Oxford a politicised "three impostors" theory is current.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Force |first1=J. E. |last2=Popkin |first2=R. H. |title=Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology |date=2012 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-94-009-1944-0 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KOHUBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA35 |language=en}}</ref>
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|1669||[[John Evelyn]] publishes a work under a "three impostors" title, aimed at [[Sabbatai Zevi]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Popkin |first1=Richard Henry |title=The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought |date=1992 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-09324-9 |page=363 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xTtT28JstAgC&pg=PA363 |language=en}}</ref> The others named were [[Padre Ottomano]], and Mahomed Bei, pseudonym of the adventurer Joannes Michael Cigala.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keynes |first1=Geoffrey |title=John Evelyn a Study in Bibliophily |date=1934 |publisher=CUP Archive |page=196 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YCo8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA196 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Matar |first1=Professor Nabil |last2=Matar |first2=Nabil |title=Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 |date=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-62233-2 |page=62 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dRoGHSFa1swC&pg=PA62 |language=en}}</ref>
|1669||[[John Evelyn]] publishes a work under a "three impostors" title, aimed at [[Sabbatai Zevi]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Popkin |first1=Richard Henry |title=The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought |date=1992 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-09324-9 |page=363 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xTtT28JstAgC&pg=PA363 |language=en}}</ref> The others named were [[Padre Ottomano]], and Mahomed Bei, pseudonym of the adventurer Joannes Michael Cigala.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keynes |first1=Geoffrey |title=John Evelyn a Study in Bibliophily |date=1934 |publisher=CUP Archive |page=196 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YCo8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA196 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Matar |first1=Professor Nabil |last2=Matar |first2=Nabil |title=Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 |date=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-62233-2 |page=62 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dRoGHSFa1swC&pg=PA62 |language=en}}</ref>

Revision as of 09:11, 17 February 2020

Not to be confused with The Three Impostors.

The Treatise of the Three Impostors (Latin: De Tribus Impostoribus) was a supposed book denying all three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The three "impostors" of the title were Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad. The existence of such a book was rumoured from the 11th to the late 17th centuries. Hoaxes then supplied texts. Authorship of such a book is also laid at the door of various Jewish and Muslim writers.[1]

Timeline of the myth

Date Event
10th century Abu Tahir al-Jannabi uses a "three impostors" slogan for political ends.[2]
1239 Pope Gregory IX in an encyclical ascribes a view of the Abrahamic religions as founded by "three impostors" to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.[3]
Later in the 13th century Thomas de Cantimpré ascribes such views to Simon of Tournai (c. 1130–1201).[4]
14th century Opponents of Averroism father on Averroes the "three impostors" view.[5]
1643 Thomas Browne ascribes authorship of such a work to Bernardino Ochino.[6]
1656 Henry Oldenburg reports that at Oxford a politicised "three impostors" theory is current.[7]
1669 John Evelyn publishes a work under a "three impostors" title, aimed at Sabbatai Zevi.[8] The others named were Padre Ottomano, and Mahomed Bei, pseudonym of the adventurer Joannes Michael Cigala.[9][10]
1680 As De tribus impostoribus magnis, Christian Kortholt the elder publishes an attack on Edward Herbert of Cherbury, Thomas Hobbes and Benedict Spinoza.[11]
1680s? De imposturis religionum was an anonymous attack on Christianity that surfaced late in the 17th century. Internal evidence makes it unlikely that the work was completed before 1680.[12] It became known at the auction in 1716 of the library of the Greifswald theologian Johann Friedrich Mayer. This work is attributed to the jurist Johannes Joachim Müller (1661–1733).[13]
1680s Likely initial composition of the Traité sur les trois imposteurs, in association with Spinozan publicists. See below for its adaptation and promotion from the Netherlands.
1693 Bernard de la Monnoye writes to Pierre Bayle, claiming that no "three impostors" tract exists.[14]
1770 Voltaire publishes Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs, a response to the hoax. It contains his remark "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

Traité sur les trois imposteurs

A work by this name was published by the early eighteenth century. It can be traced to the circle around Prosper Marchand, who included Jean Aymon and Jean Rousset de Missy. It purported to be a text handed down from generation to generation detailing how the three major figures of Biblical religion: Muhammad, Jesus and Moses were in fact misrepresenting what had happened to them.

According to Silvia Berti, the book was originally published as La Vie et L'Esprit de Spinosa (The Life and Spirit of Spinoza), containing both a biography of Benedict Spinoza and the anti-religious essay, and was later republished under the title Traité sur les trois imposteurs.[15] The creators of the book have been identified by documentary evidence as Jean Rousset de Missy and the bookseller Charles Levier.[16] The author of the book may have been a young Dutch diplomat called Jan Vroesen or Vroese.[15][16] Another candidate, to whom Levier attributed the work, is Jean-Maximilien Lucas.[17] Israel places its composition in the 1680s.[18]

The content of the Traité has been traced primarily to Spinoza, but with subsequent additions drawn from the ideas of Pierre Charron, Thomas Hobbes, François de La Mothe Le Vayer, Gabriel Naudé and Lucilio Vanini. The reconstruction of the group of authors, given the original text, goes as far as Levier and others such as Aymon and Rousset de Missy. An account based on the testimony of the brother of the publisher Caspar Fritsch, an associate of Marchand, has Levier in 1711 borrowing the original text from Benjamin Furly.[18]

References

  1. ^ Averroes
  2. ^ Pines, S.; Yovel, Y. (2012). Maimonides and Philosophy. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 239–240. ISBN 978-94-009-4486-2.
  3. ^ Minois, Georges (2012). The Atheist's Bible: The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed. University of Chicago Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-226-53029-1.
  4. ^ Shagrir, Iris (2019). The Parable of the Three Rings and the Idea of Religious Toleration in European Culture. Springer Nature. p. 52. ISBN 978-3-030-29695-7.
  5. ^ Deanesly, Margaret (2004). A History of the Medieval Church: 590-1500. Routledge. p. 205. ISBN 978-1-134-95533-6.
  6. ^ Minois, Georges (2012). The Atheist's Bible: The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed. University of Chicago Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-226-53029-1.
  7. ^ Force, J. E.; Popkin, R. H. (2012). Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 35. ISBN 978-94-009-1944-0.
  8. ^ Popkin, Richard Henry (1992). The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought. Brill. p. 363. ISBN 978-90-04-09324-9.
  9. ^ Keynes, Geoffrey (1934). John Evelyn a Study in Bibliophily. CUP Archive. p. 196.
  10. ^ Matar, Professor Nabil; Matar, Nabil (1998). Islam in Britain, 1558-1685. Cambridge University Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-521-62233-2.
  11. ^ De tribus impostoribus: Anno MDIIC;2. mit einem neuen Vorwort versehene (in German). Henninger. 1876. p. vi.
  12. ^ Bloch, Olivier (1999). L'identification du texte clandestin aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: Actes de la journée de Créteil du 15 mai 1998 (in French). Presses Paris Sorbonne. p. 28. ISBN 978-2-84050-130-5.
  13. ^ Tournoy, Gilbert (1999). Humanistica Lovaniensia: Journal of Neo-Latin Studies. Leuven University Press. p. 432. ISBN 978-90-6186-972-6.
  14. ^ Laursen, John Christian (1994). New Essays on the Political Thought of the Huguenots of the Refuge. Brill. p. 92. ISBN 978-90-04-24714-7.
  15. ^ a b Berti's essay in Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment edited by Michael Hunter and David Wootton. Clarendon, 1992. ISBN 0-19-822736-1
  16. ^ a b Jacob, Margaret C. (2001). The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-312-23701-1.
  17. ^ Israel, Jonathan I. (2002). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750. OUP Oxford. pp. 696–7. ISBN 9780191622878.
  18. ^ a b Israel, Jonathan I. (2002). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750. OUP Oxford. p. 695. ISBN 9780191622878.

Further reading

  • Andersen, Abraham (1997). The Treatise of the Three Imposters and the Problem of the Enlightenment. A New Translation of the Traité des Trois Imposteurs (1777 Edition). Lenham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8476-8430-X.
  • Presser, Jacob (1926). Das Buch "De Tribus Impostoribus" (Von den drei Betrügern). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: H. J. Paris (Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam, with the highest distinction, written and published in German); 169 p.

External links

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