4. Holbach's next book was La Contagion sacrée ou l'Histoire naturelle de la Superstition, Londres (Amsterdam), 1768. In his preface Holbach attributed the alleged English original of this work to John Trenchard but that was only a ruse to avoid persecution. The book is by Holbach. It has gone through many editions and been translated into English and Spanish. The first edition had an introduction by Naigeon. According to him manuscripts of this book became quite rare at one time and were supposed to have been lost. Later they became more common and this edition was corrected by collation with six others.
[PG transcriber's note: at this point there appears to be a break
in the original text. A sentence introducing the fifth book in
this list, "Letters to Eugenie", has evidently been lost.]
The letters were written in 1764, according to Lequinio (Feuilles posthumes), who had his information from Naigeon, to Marguerite, Marchioness de Vermandois in answer to a very touching and pitiful letter from that lady who was in great trouble over religion. Her young husband was a great friend of the Holbachs, but having had a strict Catholic bringing up she was shocked at their infidelity and warned by her confessor to keep away from them. "Yet in their home she saw all the domestic virtues exemplified and beheld that sweet and unchangeable affection for which the d'Holbachs were eminently distinguished among their acquaintances and which was remarkable for its striking contrast with the courtly and Christian habits of the day. Her natural good sense and love for her friends struggled with her monastic education and reverence for the priests. The conflict rendered her miserable and she returned to her country seat to brood over it. In this state of mind she at length wrote to the Baron and laid open her situation requesting him to comfort, console, and enlighten her." [47:7] His letters accomplished the desired effect and he later published them in the hope that they would do as much for others. They were carefully revised before they were sent to the press. All the purely personal passages were omitted and others added to hide the identity of the persons concerned. Letters of the sort to religious ladies were common at this time. Fréret's were preventive, Holbach's curative, but appear to be rather strong dose for a dévote. Other examples are Voltaire's Epître à Uranie and Diderot's Entretien d'un Philosophe avec la Maréchale de....
6. In 1769 Holbach published two short treatises on the doctrine of eternal punishment which claimed to be translations from English, but the originals are not to be found. The titles are De l'intolérance convaincue de crime et de folie as it is sometimes given, and—
7. L'Enfer détruit ou Examen raisonné du Dogme de l'Eternité des Peines. Londres, Amsterdam, 1769. This letter was translated into English under the title Hell Destroyed! "Now first translated from the French of d'Alembert without any mutilations," London 1823, which led Mr. J. Hibbert to say, "I know not why English publishers attribute this awfully sounding work to the cautious, not to say timid d'Alembert. It was followed by Whitefoot's 'Torments of Hell,' now first translated from the French." [47:8]
Of Holbach's remaining works on religion two, Histoire critique de Jésus Christ and Tableau des Saints, date from 1770 when he began to publish his more philosophical works.
8. The Histoire critique de Jésus Christ ou Analyse raisonnée des Evangiles was published without name of place or date. It was preceded by Voltaire's Epître à Uranie. It is an extremely careful but unsympathetic analysis of the Gospel accounts, emphasizing all the inconsistencies and interpreting them with a literalness that they can ill sustain. From this rationalistic view-point Holbach found the Gospels a tissue of absurdities and contradictions. His method, however, would not be followed by the critique of today.
9. The Tableau des Saints is a still more severe criticism of the heroes of Christendom. Holbach's proposition is "La raison ne connaît qu'une mesure pour juger et les hommes et les choses, c'est l'utilité réelle et permanente, qui en résulte pour notre espèce," (p. 111). Judged by this standard, the saints with their eyes fixed on another world have fallen far short. "Ils se flattèrent de mériter le ciel en se rendant parfaitement inutile à la terre" (p. xviii). Holbach much prefers the heroes of classical antiquity. The book is violent but learned throughout, and deals not only with the Jewish patriarchs from Moses on but with the church fathers and Christian Princes down to the contemporary defenders of the faith. After a rather one-sided account of the most dreary characters and events in Christian history, Holbach concludes: "Tel fut, tel est, et tel sera toujours l'esprit du Christianisme: il est aisé de sentir qu'il est incompatible avec les principes les plus évidens de la morale et de la saine politique" (p. 208).
10. In Recueil philosophique, Londres (Amsterdam), 1770, edited by Naigeon. Réflexions sur les craintes de la Mort. Problème important—La Religion est-elle nécessaire à la morale et utile à la Politique. Par M. Mirabaud.
11. Essai sur les préjugés, ou De l'influence des opinions sur les moeurs et sur le bonheur des Hommes. Londres (Amsterdam), 1770, under name of Dumarsais. The book pretended to be an elaboration of Dumarsais' essay on the Philosophe published in the Nouvelles libertés de penser, 1750.