Jean Meslier (; also Mellier; 15 June 1664 – 17 June 1729) was a French Catholic priest (

abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for lowe ...

) who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

and

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...

. Described by the author as his "testament" to his parishioners, the text criticizes and denounces all religions.

Life

Jean Meslier was born in Mazerny in the

Ardennes The Ardennes (french: Ardenne ; nl, Ardennen ; german: Ardennen; wa, Årdene ; lb, Ardennen ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Be ...

. He began learning

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

from a neighbourhood priest in 1678 and eventually joined the

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...

; he later claimed, in the Author's Preface to his ''Testament'', this was done to please his parents. At the end of his studies, he took Holy Orders and, on 7 January 1689, became priest at Étrépigny, in

Champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, spe ...

. One public disagreement with a local nobleman aside, Meslier was to all appearances generally unremarkable. However, he was twice reproved by clerical authorities for inappropriately employing young servant women, whom the atheist and Meslier biographer

Michel Onfray Michel Onfray (; born 1 January 1959) is a French writer and philosopher with a hedonistic, epicurean and atheist worldview. A highly-prolific author on philosophy, he has written over 100 books. His philosophy is mainly influenced by such thinke ...

speculates he preyed upon sexually. "Discreetly and secretly, the curé had to practice the joy of free love advocated in his work," writes Onfray. He lived like a pauper, and every penny left over was donated to the poor. When Meslier died in Étrépigny, there were found in his house three copies of a 633-page

octavo Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, 8º, or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multip ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

in which the village

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...

denounces organised religion as "but a castle in the air" and theology as "but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system".

Thought

In his ''Testament'', Meslier repudiated not only the God of conventional Christianity, but even the generic God of the

natural religion Natural religion most frequently means the "religion of nature", in which God, the soul, spirits, and all objects of the supernatural are considered as part of nature and not separate from it. Conversely, it is also used in philosophy to describe s ...

of the

deists Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of t ...

Maria Rosa Antognazza Maria Rosa Antognazza (born 1964) is an Italian-British philosopher who serves as professor of philosophy at King's College London. Academic career Antognazza was educated at the Catholic University of Milan. She has held research fellowships a ...

(2006). "Arguments for the existence of God: the continental European debate", pp. 734–735, in Haakonssen, Knud. ''The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy'', vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. For Meslier, the existence of evil was incompatible with the idea of a good and wise God.Fonnesu, Luca (2006). "The problem of theodicy", pp. 766, in Haakonssen, Knud. ''The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-century Philosophy'', vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. He denied that any spiritual value could be gained from suffering, and he used the deist's

argument from design The teleological argument (from ; also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world wh ...

against god, by showing the evils that he had permitted in this world. To him, religions were fabrications fostered by ruling elites; although the earliest Christians had been exemplary in sharing their goods, Christianity had long since degenerated into encouraging the acceptance of suffering and submission to tyranny as practised by the

kings of France France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the first ...

: injustice was explained away as being the will of an all-wise Being.John Hedley Brooke (1991), ''Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives'', p. 171. Cambridge University Press. None of the arguments used by Meslier against the existence of God were original. In fact, he derived them from books written by orthodox theologians in the debate between the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

Cartesians Cartesianism is the philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes and its subsequent development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza. Descartes is of ...

, and

Jansenists Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by ...

. Their inability to agree on a proof for God's existence was taken by Meslier as a good reason not to presume that there were compelling grounds for belief in God. Meslier's philosophy was that of an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

.Peter France, (1995), ''The new Oxford companion to literature in French'', p. 523. Oxford University Press He also denied the existence of the

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

and dismissed the notion of

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...

. In Chapter V, the priest writes, "If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational never to think of Him at all". Meslier later describes God as "a

chimera Chimera, Chimaera, or Chimaira (Greek for " she-goat") originally referred to: * Chimera (mythology), a fire-breathing monster of Ancient Lycia said to combine parts from multiple animals * Mount Chimaera, a fire-spewing region of Lycia or Cilicia ...

" and argues that the supposition of God is not prerequisite to morality. In fact, he concludes that "Whether there exists a God or not ..men's moral duties will always be the same so long as they possess their own nature". In chapters XXXIII and XXXIV, Meslier challenged Jesus' mental health by implying that Jesus "was really a madman, a fanatic" (''étoit véritablement un fou, un insensé, un fanatique''). In his most famous quote, Meslier refers to a man who "wished that all the great men in the world and all the nobility could be hanged, and strangled with the guts of the priests." Meslier admits that the statement may seem crude and shocking, but comments that this is what the priests and nobility deserve, not for reasons of revenge or hatred, but for love of justice and truth. Equally well-known is the version by

Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominen ...

: "And

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

the guts of the last priest let's strangle the neck of the last king." During the political unrest of May 1968, the radical students of the

Sorbonne Occupation Committee The Sorbonne Occupation Committee (French: ''Comité d'Occupation de la Sorbonne'') was a politically radical student group that occupied the Sorbonne during the May 1968 events in France. The Sorbonne student occupation began Monday, 13 May, af ...

paraphrased Meslier's epigram, stating that "humanity won’t be happy till the last capitalist is hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat." Meslier also vehemently attacked social injustice and sketched out a kind of rural proto-

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. All the people in a region would belong to a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in which wealth would be held in common, and everybody would work. Founded on love and brotherhood, the communes would ally to help each other and preserve peace.

Voltaire's ''Extrait''

Various edited abstracts (known as "extraits") of the ''Testament'' were printed and circulated, condensing the multi-volume original manuscript and sometimes adding material that was not written by Meslier. Abstracts were popular because of the length and convoluted style of the original.

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

often mentions Meslier (referring to him as "a good priest") in his correspondence, in which he tells his daughter to "read and read again" Meslier's only work, and says that "every honest man should have Meslier's ''Testament'' in his pocket." However, he also described Meslier as writing "in the style of a carriage-horse". Voltaire published his own expurgated version as ''Extraits des sentiments de Jean Meslier'' (first edition, 1762). Voltaire's edition changed the thrust of Meslier's arguments (or drew on other Extraits which did this) so that he appeared to be a

deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...

—like Voltaire—rather than an atheist. The following passage is found at the end of Voltaire's ''Extrait'', and has been cited in support of the view that Meslier was not really an atheist. However, the passage does not appear in either the 1864 complete edition of the ''Testament'', published in Amsterdam by Rudolf Charles, or in the complete works of Meslier published 1970–1972. Another book, ''Good Sense'' (french: link=no, Le Bon Sens), published anonymously in 1772, was long attributed to Meslier, but was in fact written by

Baron d'Holbach Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (; 8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789), was a French-German philosopher, encyclopedist, writer, and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Land ...

. The complete ''Testament'' of Meslier was published in English translation (by Michael Shreve) for the first time in 2009.

Legacy

In his book ''In Defense of Atheism'' (2007) the atheist philosopher

describes Meslier as the first person to write an entire text in support of atheism: Prior to announcing Meslier as the first atheist philosopher, Onfray considers and dismisses

Cristóvão Ferreira 170px, Ferreira was interred in the gravesite of his son-in-law Sugimoto Chūkei's family. Cristóvão Ferreira (c. 1580–1650) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and Jesuit missionary who committed apostasy after being captured and tortured ...

, a Portuguese and former Jesuit who renounced his faith under Japanese torture in 1633 and went on to write a book titled ''The Deception Revealed''. However, Onfray decides that Ferreira was not such a good candidate as Meslier, since Ferreira converted to

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

. The

Situationist The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

cultural theorist

Raoul Vaneigem Raoul Vaneigem (; born 21 March 1934) is a Belgian writer known for his 1967 book ''The Revolution of Everyday Life''. He was born in Lessines ( Hainaut, Belgium) and studied romance philology at the Free University of Brussels from 1952 to 195 ...

praised Meslier's resistance to hierarchical authority, claiming that "the last full-fledged exemplars of priests genuinely loyal to the revolutionary origins of their religion were Jean Meslier and

Jacques Roux Jacques Roux (, 21 August 1752 – 10 February 1794) was a radical Roman Catholic priest who took an active role in politics during the French Revolution. He skillfully expounded the ideals of popular democracy and classless society to crowds of ...

fomenting

jacquerie The Jacquerie () was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the early summer of 1358 during the Hundred Years' War. The revolt was centred in the valley of the Oise north of Paris and was suppressed after a few week ...

and riot".Raoul Vaneigem, ''The Revolution of Everyday Life'', trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, PM Press, 2012, p. 148. According to Colin Brewer (2007), who co-produced a play about Meslier's life,

Historians argue about who was the first overt, post-Classical atheist but Meslier was arguably the first to put his name to an incontrovertibly atheist document. That this important event is largely unrecognised (Meslier was absent from both
Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
’ and
Jonathan Miller Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 19 ...
's recent TV series on atheism) is due partly to Voltaire who published, in 1761, a grossly distorted "Extract" that portrayed Meslier as a fellow-deist and entirely suppressed Meslier's anti-monarchist, proto-communist opinions.

Bibliography

*Meslier, Jean (2009). ''Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier.'' Translated by Michael Shreve. Prometheus Books. .

References

External links

* * * *

1732 English
Le bon sens du curé J. Meslier, suivi de son testament
published 1830 includes correspondence of

on Meslier's testament, a biography of Meslier by Voltaire, ''Le bon sens'', by d'Holbach, and the ''Extrait'' of the ''Testament'' produced by Voltaire. * 1864 complete editio
Volume 1Volume 2
an
Volume 3

Jean Meslier and "The Gentle Inclination of Nature"
by

translated by Marvin Mandell * Archive o
Jean Meslier Papers
at the

International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figur ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meslier, Jean 1664 births 1729 deaths 17th-century atheists 17th-century French Roman Catholic priests 18th-century atheists 18th-century French Roman Catholic priests 18th-century French male writers Atheist philosophers Critics of religions French atheist writers French communists French male writers French materialists French philosophers People from Ardennes (department)