New? If--according to this manner of
interpreting allegorically all that is said, done, and practiced in the
ancient law of the Jews--we should interpret in the same allegorical way
all the discourses, the actions, and the adventures of the famous Don
Quixote de la Mancha, we would find the same sort of mysteries and
ridiculous figures.

It is nevertheless upon this absurd foundation that the whole Christian
religion rests. Thus it is that there is scarcely anything in this
ancient law that the Christ-worshiping doctors do not try to explain in
a mystical way to build up their system. The most false and the most
ridiculous prophecy ever made is that of Jesus, in Luke, where it is
pretended that there will be signs in the sun and in the moon, and that
the Son of Man will appear in a cloud to judge men; and this is
predicted for the generation living at that time. Has it come to pass?
Did the Son of Man appear in a cloud?

VII.--ERRORS OF DOCTRINE AND OF MORALITY.

The Christian Apostolical Roman Religion teaches, and compels belief,
that there is but one God, and, at the same time, that there are three
Divine persons, each one being God. This is absurd; for if there are
three who are truly God, then there are three Gods. It is false, then,
to say that there is but one God; or if this is true, it is false to say
that there are really three who are God, for one and three can not be
claimed to be one and the same number. It is also said that the first of
these pretended Divine persons, called the Father, has brought forth the
second person, which is called the Son, and that these first two persons
together have produced the third, which is called the Holy Ghost, and,
nevertheless, these three pretended Divine persons do not depend the one
upon the other, and even that one is not older than the other. This,
too, is manifestly absurd; because one thing can not receive its
existence from another thing without some dependence on this other; and
a thing must necessarily exist in order to give birth to another. If,
then, the Second and the Third persons of Divinity have received their
existence from the First person, they must necessarily depend for their
existence on this First person, who gave them birth, or who begot them,
and it is necessary also that the First person of the Divinity, who gave
birth to the two other persons, should have existed before them; because
that which does not exist can not beget anything. Nev