and as the sands of the sea, etc., who would not
laugh at such folly, and consider these strangers as insane fools!

Now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by
these pretended Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in regard to
the Divine Revelations which they claim to have had. As to the
institution of bloody sacrifices, the Holy Scriptures attribute it to
God. As it would be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of
this kind of sacrifices, I refer the reader to Exodus. [See chapters
xxv., xxvii., xxyiii., and xxix.]

Were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring God by
tearing into pieces, butchering, and burning His own creatures, under
the pretext of offering them as sacrifices to Him? And even now, how is
it that our Christ-worshipers are so extravagant as to expect to please
God the Father, by offering up to Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son,
in remembrance of His being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which He
died? Certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of
mind.

In regard to the detail of the sacrifices of animals, it consists but in
colored clothing, blood, plucks, livers, birds' crops, kidneys, claws,
skins, in the dung, smoke, cakes, certain measures of oil and wine, the
whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and
contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic. What is most
horrible of all this is, that the law of this detestable Jewish people
commanded that even men should be offered up as sacrifices. The
barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law,
commanded to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the God of
the Jews, whom they called Adonai: and it is according to this execrable
precept that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that Saul wanted to
sacrifice his son.

But here is yet another proof of the falsity of these revelations of
which we have spoken. It is the lack of the fulfillment of the great and
magnificent promises by which they were accompanied, for it is evident
that these promises never have been fulfilled.

The proof of this consists in three principal points:

Firstly. Their posterity was to be more numerous than all the other
nations of the world.

Secondly. The people who should spring from their race were to be the
happiest, the holiest, and the most victorious of all the people of the
earth.

Thirdly. His covenant was to be ever