We have explained in another place how the notion of spirits came to be introduced among men, and proved that they were merely phantoms which existed only in their disordered imagination.

The first instructors of mankind were not very explicit in their “lessons to the million” as to the nature of these phantoms, but they could not help saying what they thought of them. One class, reflecting that these shadows melted into thin air and had no consistence, described them as immaterial or incorporeal, having shapes without matter, but coloured and defined. At the same time however, they denied that they were corporeal existences, or that they were coloured or figured; adding that they could clothe themselves with air as with a garment, when they wished to become visible to the eye of men. A second class assert that they were animated bodies, but that they were composed of air, or some still more subtle matter, which they could thicken at their pleasure, when they chose to make their appearance.

If the two sorts of philosophers were opposed to each other in their opinion as to those shadows, they agreed as to their name, viz., Demons; in which respect they were as those who, when dreaming, believe that they see the souls of people departed, and that it is their own soul which they behold when they look into a mirror—or, in short, those who can believe that the reflections of the stars which they see in the water are the souls of the stars themselves. Out of this truly ridiculous belief they wandered into an era no less absurd; believing that these phantoms possessed unlimited power—an idea sufficiently devoid of reason, but current among the ignorant, who suppose that these beings, whom they know not, can exert a fearful influence.

This most absurd creed was invented and promulgated by legislators, in order to support their own authority. They established this belief in spirits under the name of religion, hoping that the dread of these invisible powers which the people would entertain, might keep them to their duty. To give the more weight to their dogma, they classified those spirits or demons as good and bad; the one species being intended to stimulate men to the observance of their laws, and the other to act as a check and prevent their breaking them.

To ascertain what these demons really were, it is only necessary to read the works of the Greek poets and historians, and above all, the Theogany of Hesiod, where he dwells at great length on the origin of the gods.

The Greeks invented them. From that people they passed by means of their colonies into Asia, Egypt, and Italy. In this way the Jews, who were dispersed in Alexandria and elsewhere became acquainted with them. They made the same happy use of them as other nations did—with this difference, that, unlike the Greeks, they did not call them demons, or regard them as good and bad spirits indifferently. They considered them all as bad with one single exception, to whom they gave the name of the Spirit, or God; and they termed those men prophets who said that they were inspired by the good Spirit. Farther, they viewed as the operations of this divine Spirit whatever they considered as a great blessing; and on the other hand, they looked upon whatever they thought to be a great evil, as proceeding from some cacodemon or evil spirit.

This distinction between good and evil led them to the use of the appellation demoniacs, which they applied to lunatics, madmen, furious persons, and epileptics, as also to those who made use of “the unknown tongues.” A man deformed and somewhat deranged, was said to be possessed of an unclean spirit; and a dumb man by a dumb spirit. These words, spirit and demon, became so familiar to them that they used them on every occasion. It follows that the Jews believed with the Greeks, that these phantoms were neither chimerical nor visionary, but real and substantial agents.

Hence it is that the Bible is filled with tales of spirits, and demons, and demoniacs; but in no place of that book is it said how and when they were created—an omission scarcely pardonable on the part of Moses, who undertakes to give an account of the creation both of the heavens and of the earth. Christ who speaks very frequently of angels and spirits, good and bad, does not inform us whether they are material or immaterial. This makes it evident that both of them were ignorant of the fact that the Greeks had instructed their ancestors in this strange belief. Were the case otherwise, Jesus Christ would be no less culpable for his silence on the subject, than he is for his refusal to grant to the majority of the human race, that grace, that faith, and that piety, which he assures them it is in his power to bestow.

But to return to the subject of Spirits. It is certain these words Demons, Satan, Devil, are only proper names intended to apply to any obnoxious individual of our own species; and that, at no period did any but the most ignorant believe in their existence, either amongst the Greeks who invented, or the Jews who adopted the terms. After the latter became infected with such notions, they applied these words which signify enemy, accuser, and destroyer, at one time to invisible Powers, and at another, to those which are visible. Thus, they declared of the Gentiles, that their dwelling was in the kingdom of Satan; there being none other than themselves (by their own account of the matter) who dwelt in the kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ being a Jew, and consequently imbued with these opinions, we need not be surprised when we meet in the gospels and the writing of his disciples the words Devil, Satan, and Hell, as if they were anything real or substantive. We have showed before that there can be nothing more chimerical; but although what was said might suffice to satisfy rational men, we are not the less necessitated to add a few words, in an attempt to convince the bigotted.

All Christians agree that God is the source of everything; that he created all things—that he sustains them, and that without his support they would drop into annihilation.—From these principles, it is certain that he created that being whom they call the Devil, or Satan. Whether he were created good or evil is nothing to the argument; he is incontestibly the work of the great Head, and if he continue to exist, all wicked as they represent him to be, it must only be at the good pleasure of God. Now, how is it possible to conceive that God would preserve one of his creatures, who not only hates him mortally, and blasphemes him without end, but who sets himself to seduce the friends of the Almighty for the sole purpose of mortifying him. How is it possible, I repeat, that God can permit this Devil to exist, who turns aside from his worship the favored and the elect, and who would dethrone him were it in his power?

This is what we wish to say in speaking of God, or rather in speaking of the Devil and Hell. If God is almighty, and if nothing can happen without his permission, how comes it that the devil hates him, blasphemes him, and seduces his worshippers? The Deity either consents to this or he does not. If he consents to it, the Devil in blaspheming him is only doing his duty, since he can do nothing but what God wishes, and consequently it is not the Devil, but God himself who blasphemes himself,—a fearfully absurd supposition. If he does not consent to it he cannot be omnipotent, and there must be two principles, the one of good, and the other of evil—the one aiming at one thing, and the other at its direct opposite.

To what then leads our reasoning? To this; that neither God, nor the Devil, nor Paradise, nor Hell, nor the Soul, are such as religion has represented them to be, and as most reverend divines have maintained. These latter sell their fables for truths, being people of bad faith who abuse the credulity of the ignorant by making them believe whatever they please; as if the vulgar were absolutely unfitted to hear the truth and could be nourished by nothing but those absurdities, in which a rational mind can only discover a vast of nothing, and a waste of folly.

The world has been long infected with these most absurd opinions, yet in every age men have been found—truth-loving men—who have striven against the absurdities of their day. This little treatise has been written from like motives, and in it the lovers of truth will doubtless meet with some things satisfactory. It is to them that I appeal, caring little for the opinion of those who substitute their own prejudices in place of infallible oracles.

Dryden’s Translation of Virgil, Georgics, Book II. l. 700.