DISQUISITIONS ON THE BOOK ENTITLED THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

It has long been a disputed point if there was at anytime a book printed and bearing the title of “The Three Impostors.”

Colomiez quotes this, page 28 of his “Historical Miscellanies;” but he adds that there are some blunders—that it was not Frederick I. (Barbarossa,) on whom they intended to fix the authorship, but Frederick II. his grandson. This he says, is apparent from the letters of Pierre des Vignes, the secretary and chancellor of the second Frederick, and from Matthew Paris; inasmuch as they record, that this monarch was blamed for having said that the world had been led aside by “Three Impostors;” but by no means that he had written a book having such a title. The Emperor denied in the strongest terms, that he ever made use of any expression to that effect. He detested the blasphemy with which they charged him, and declared that it was an atrocious calumny; more shame to Lipsius and other writers who have condemned him without sufficiently looking into the evidences.

Since then, many people have written with great freedom on this same subject.

We read in the works of Thomas de Catimpre, that M. Simon de Tournay had said that “Three Seducers”—Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet, had “mystified mankind with their doctrines.” This is evidently the M. Simon de Churnay, of whom Matthew Paris relates some other improprieties, and the same individual whom Polydore Virgil styles de Turwai, the orthography in both instances having been mismanaged.

The Manuscripts of the Vatican, quoted by Odomir Rainoldo in the nineteenth volume of his Ecclesiastical Annals, mention one Jeannin de Solcia, a canon at Bergame, a doctor of civil and canon law, known from a decree of Pope Pius II., as Javinus de Solcia. He was condemned on the 14th November 1459 for having maintained this impiety—that Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet had ruled the world at their pleasure. “Mundum pro suarem libito voluntatum rexisse.”

Herman Ristwyk, a Dutchman, burned at the Hague in 1512, sneered at the Jewish and Christian religions. He does not speak of the Mahometan creed; but a man who could regard Moses and Jesus Christ as impostors, could entertain no better opinion of Mahomet.

Now we must turn to an author, name unknown, but accused of blasphemy against Jesus Christ. The charge was founded upon some papers discovered at Geneva in 1547, amongst the documents belonging to M. Gruet. An Italian, named Fausto da Longiano, had begun a work which he entitled “The Temple of Truth,” in which he undertakes no less than to overturn all religions. “I have,” he says, “begun another work entitled ‘The Temple of Truth.’ It is probable that I may divide it into thirty books. In this work will be found the extinction of all sects—Jews, Christian, Mahometan, and other superstitions; and matters will be brought back to their first principles.”

Now, amongst the letters of Aretino addressed to Fausto, there is not one to be met with which alludes in any way whatever to this work. Perhaps it had never been written, and although it had been published, it must have been a very different book from the one in question; of which, they pretend that there are some copies in the libraries in Germany, printed in folio, and written in High Dutch.

Tentzelius, trusting to one of his friends, a pretended ocular witness, gives a description of the book, and specifies the number of leaves and sheets; and attempting to prove in chap. III. of his work that the ambition of legislators is the only source of all religions, he gives as examples Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet. Struvius, after Tentzelius, enters into the same subject, but finding nothing but what a clever fabulist might invent, he seems much inclined to disbelieve in the existence of the book.

A journalist at Leipsic, in his “acta eruditarum,” dated Jan. 1709, pp. 36 and 37, gives the following extract from a letter addressed to him: “Having occasion to be in Saxony I saw, in the Library of M..., a book entitled “The Three Impostors.” It is an 8vo volume, in Latin, without the name of the printer or the date of its publication; but to judge from the letter it appears to have been published in Germany. It was to no purpose that I tried to obtain permission to read the whole work. The proprietor of the book, a man of sensitive piety, would not consent to it. I have since learned that a celebrated professor at Stuttgard had offered a great sum of money for the volume. Shortly afterwards I went to Nuremberg, and in talking of this work to M. Andre Mylhdorf, a man respectable alike for his age, and from his learning, he assured me he had read it, and that M. Wolfer a clergyman had lent it to him. From the manner in which he spoke, I thought it might be a copy of the one alluded to above, and I concluded that it was unquestionably the book referred to; but not that it was in octavo, nor of so old a date, nor perhaps so accurate.” The writer of the foregoing was able to throw more light upon the subject and ought to have done so; for it is not enough to say that he had seen the book—he must produce evidence that he had seen it, otherwise he ought to be classed with those who promulgate opinions founded on mere report; in which category we must include all the authors to whom reference is made in this disquisition.

The first who makes mention of the book as it existed in 1543, is William Postel, in his treatise on the agreement of the Alcoran with the doctrines of the Lutherans or the Evangelists. He calls the work “Anevangelistes,” and attempts in it to bring the Lutheran doctrines into utter disrepute by proving that they lead straightway to Atheism. To support his argument he instances three or four productions written, as he says, by Atheists, whom he declares to have been the first disciples of this new Gospel. He adds, “my opinion can be vindicated by reference to an infamous pamphlet written by Villanovanus relative to three works respectively entitled ‘The Cymbal of the World,’ ‘Pantagruel,’ and the ‘New Islands;’ the authors of which works were the standard-bearers of the Atheistical party.”

This Villanovanus, whom Postel asserts to be the author of the book “The Three Impostors,” was Michel Servetus the son of a notary, born in 1509, at Villanueva in Aragon, who assumed the name of Villanovanus, in a preface to a Bible which was printed for him at Lyons, 1542, by Hugues de la Porte. In France his designation was Villeneuve, under which title he was impeached, after he had published at Vienna, in Dauphiny, 1553, (the year before his death) the work entitled “Christianity restored;” a book extremely rare, on account of the trouble which they took at Geneva to find out the copies of the work and get them burned. In the authentic list of the writings of Servetus, however, we do not find mention made of “The Three Impostors.” Neither Calvin nor Beza, nor Alexander Morus, nor any other defender of the Huguenot party who wrote against Servetus, and whose interest it was to justify his punishment, and to convict him of having written this work, has laid it to his charge. Postel, an ex-Jesuit, was the first to do so, without grounds.

Florimond de Remond, a councillor in the Senate at Bordeaux, writes decidedly that he had seen this book in print. His words are; “James Curio, in his Chronology 1556, asserts that the Palatinate was filled with scoffers at religion, the Lievanistes, viz. a sect who considered the Sacred Writings as fabulous, and more especially those of Moses, the great Lawgiver of God. Is there not a book, ‘The Three Impostors,’ defaming the three religions which alone acknowledge the true God—the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahometan?—a book composed in Germany, but printed elsewhere at the exact moment when these heretics are employing this individual to spread abroad their doctrines? The very title shows the character of the age which has dared to publish so impious a treatise. I would have referred to it unless Osius and Genebrard had spoken to me on the subject. I recollect that in my earlier days I saw a copy of this work at the College of Presle. It belonged to Ramus, a man distinguished for his extraordinary learning, and who was then employed in deep researches into the mysteries connected with religious belief; which subject he intended to treat in a philosophical manner. At this time they were circulating this iniquitous work amongst the learned, who were very desirous to see it.” A curious inquirer into secrets!

Is that the way to identify this impious book? and Genebrard, forsooth had seen it! And can it be, that in the present day people will attempt to get up regular proof to show that such a work exists? It is a well known fact that, in all ages, many lies have been palmed off in reference to books which could never be discovered, although individuals declare that they had seen them and even went so far as to mention the places where they had been favoured with their perusal.

It has been said that this work was in the library of M. Salvius, the Swedish ambassador, at Munster, and that Queen Christina, unwilling to ask it of him while he lived, immediately sent M. Bourdelet, her chief physician, to entreat his widow to satisfy her curiosity, when he was informed that M. Salvius, having been seized with remorse of conscience on the night of his death, made them burn the work in his presence. A short time afterwards Christiana enquired eagerly after the “Colloquium Heptaplomers” by Bodin, a manuscript, at that period extremely rare; after a long search it was found, but whatever desire the Queen had to see the work in question, and although it was sought after in all the libraries of Europe, she died without having discovered it. Ought we not therefore to conclude that it was never in existence? Without doubt the pains taken by Christina would have led to the discovery of that book which Postel declares was printed in 1543, and which Florimond de Remond says appeared in 1556. Since then different individuals have assigned to it other dates.

Cardan goes still farther wrong in the eleventh of his discourses “On Sophistry,” where, after minutely comparing Paganism, Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometanism, and setting the one to contradict the other, without expressing belief in any of them, he finishes rashly in this way; “his igitur arbitrio victoriæ relictes,” that is, he leaves it to chance to decide the victory; an expression however which he himself corrected in the second edition of his work.—This retraction did not save him from being most bitterly attacked three years afterward by Joseph Scaliger, on account of the fearful import of the language he had made use of, and of the indifference it showed on the part of Cardan as to which of the four parties might gain the victory, and as to whether that victory were gained by argument or arms.

To this list may be added that notable atheist Julius Cæsar Vanini, burned at Toulouse under the name of Lucilius Vaninus, who was accused of having circulated this vile work in France some years before he was put to death.

If there are writers so credulous and devoid of common sense as to believe in these incoherencies, asserting that the book was publicly sold in many quarters of Europe, they ought to set the matter at rest by producing a single copy; for it cannot be in the case supposed, that the work is so rarely to be met with. But no person has seen a copy, neither of the edition said to have been published by Christian Wechel at Paris, about the middle of the 16th century, nor of that which they attribute to Nachtegal, as printed at the Hague, 1614 or 1615. Father Theophylus Reynaud states that the former had sunk into extreme poverty from the visitations of heaven; and Muller relates of the latter that he was banished from the Hague with infamy. Bayle in his dictionary (article Wechell) clearly refutes the calumny against this printer; and in regard to Nachtegal, Spizelius informs us that he was a native of Alkmaer, and banished, not for having published this suppositious work, but for having given utterance to other blasphemies. Now, when we look over with attention and patience what Vincent Placcius says in the folio edition of his immense work concerning “Anonymous writers, and authors who write under false names,” and what Christian Kertholt says in his work revised by his son Sebastian regarding “The Three Impostors,” and finally what Struvius advances in his treatise (1706) on “Learned Impostors,” we can find nothing at all to prove that such a work ever existed; and it is astonishing that Struvius, who in spite of the most specious evidence which Tentzelius had offered him to prove its existence, had always maintained the contrary, was at last persuaded to believe that there really was such a work; and that too, for the most frivolous reason which it is possible to conceive.

Although the works of Michael Servetus may never be met with, it has always been well known that they were printed, and moreover where they were printed. Before the publication of the two modern editions of the “Cymbalum Mundi,” composed by Bonnaventure de Perrieres, writing under the assumed name of Thomas du Clevier, who says that he had translated it from the Latin, and of which work only two ancient copies remain, the one in the King’s library and the other in that of M. Bigot at Rouen;—before the publication of the the modern editions, it was an ascertained fact that the work had been printed, and the date and name of the bookseller were known. The case is exactly the same as regards “The Blessings of Christianity, or the Scourge of the Faith,” the author of which, Geoffrey Vallee a native of Orleans, was hanged and burned at Greve, on the 9th February 1573, after having adjured his errors. It is a small octavo work of thirty pages, without date, or the name of the place where it was printed; a trifle, feebly reasoned, and now become so rare that perhaps the copy belonging to Monsieur the Abbe d’Estrees is the only one to be found. But although all these works had absolutely perished, no one could doubt their previous existence, the facts on record concerning them being as true, as those concerning ‘The Three Impostors’ are apocryphal.