Chapter III · What God Is.
Reading edition
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Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.
Notes in this chapter
Note 1 · So of water, however, it may be subject to generation and corruption, as long as it is substance it is not subject to separation and divisioNote 2 · The four first Councils were 1. That of Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great, and under Pope Sylvester I.; 2. That Note 3 · These, among us, are the Astrologers and Fanatics. ↑Note 4 · The Talmud remarks that the Rabbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes from the number of caNote 5 · The versions that we have differ greatly in a thousand places, one with another, until the end of the book. ↑Note 6 · Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should sayNote 7 · These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied withNote 8 · All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appear a thousand instances of extraordinary a