"Add to this," said the Imans, "that these men have invented the most insidious of all systems of wickedness,—the absurd and impious obligation of recounting to them the most intimate secrets of actions and of thoughts (confessions); so their insolent curiosity has carried their inquisition even into the sanctuary of the marriage bed,* and the inviolable recesses of the heart."
* Confession is a very ancient invention of the priests, who
did not fail to avail themselves of that means of governing.
It was practised in the Egyptian, Greek, Phrygian, Persian
mysteries, etc. Plutarch has transmitted us the remarkable
answer of a Spartan whom a priest wanted to confess. "Is it
to you or to God I am to confess?" "To God," answered the
priest: "In that case," replied the Spartan, "man, begone!"
(Remarkable Savings of the Lacedemonians.) The first
Christians confessed their faults publicly, like the
Essenians. Afterwards, priests began to be established,
with power of absolution from the sin of idolatry. In the
time of Theodosius, a woman having publicly confessed an
intrigue with a deacon, bishop Necterius, and his successor
Chrysostom, granted communion without confession. It was
not until the seventh century that the abbots of convents
exacted from monks and nuns confession twice a year; and it
was at a still later period that bishops of Rome generalized
it.
The Mussulmen, who suppose women to have no souls, are
shocked at the idea of confession; and say; How can an
honest man think of listening to the recital of the actions
or the secret thoughts of a woman? May we not also ask, on
the other hand, how can an honest woman consent to reveal
them?
Thus by mutual reproaches the doctors of the different sects began to reveal all the crimes of their ministry—all the vices of their craft; and it was found that among all nations the spirit of the priesthood, their system of conduct, their actions their morals, were absolutely the same:
That they had everywhere formed secret associations and corporations at enmity with the rest of society:*
* That we may understand the general feelings of priests
respecting the rest of mankind, whom they always call by the
name of the people, let us hear one of the doctors of the
church. "The people," says Bishop Synnesius, in Calvit.
page 315, "are desirous of being deceived, we cannot act
otherwise respecting them. The case was similar with the
ancient priests of Egypt, and for this reason they shut
themselves up in their temples, and there composed their
mysteries, out of the reach of the eye of the people." And
forgetting what he has before just said, he adds: "for had
the people been in the secret they might have been offended
at the deception played upon them. In the mean time how is
it possible to conduct one's self otherwise with the people
so long as they are people? For my own part, to myself I
shall always be a philosopher, but in dealing with the mass
of mankind, I shall be a priest."
"A little jargon," says Geogory Nazianzen to St. Jerome
(Hieron. ad. Nep.) "is all that is necessary to impose on
the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire.
Our forefathers and doctors of the church have often said,
not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity
dictated to them."
"We endeavor," says Sanchoniaton, "to excite admiration by
means of the marvellous." (Proep. Evang. lib. 3.)
Such was the conduct of all the priests of antiquity, and is
still that of the Bramins and Lamas who are the exact
counterpart of the Egyptian priests. Such was the practice
of the Jesuits, who marched with hasty strides in the same
career. It is useless to point out the whole depravity of
such a doctrine. In general every association which has
mystery for its basis, or an oath of secrecy, is a league of
robbers against society, a league divided in its very bosom
into knaves and dupes, or in other words agents and
instruments. It is thus we ought to judge of those modern
clubs, which, under the name of Illuminatists, Martinists,
Cagliostronists, and Mesmerites, infest Europe. These
societies are the follies and deceptions of the ancient
Cabalists, Magicians, Orphies, etc., "who," says Plutarch,
"led into errors of considerable magnitude, not only
individuals, but kings and nations."
That they had everywhere attributed to themselves prerogatives and immunities, by means of which they lived exempt from the burdens of other classes:
That they everywhere avoided the toils of the laborer, the dangers of the soldier, and the disappointments of the merchant:
That they lived everywhere in celibacy, to shun even the cares of a family:
That, under the cloak of poverty, they found everywhere the secret of procuring wealth and all sorts of enjoyments:
That under the name of mendicity they raised taxes to a greater amount than princes: