s of fraud, which are visible
to every one who examines it without prejudice.

I imagine, Madam, that what I have just stated will suffice to show
you what opinion you ought to entertain respecting the founder of
Christianity and his first sectaries. These have been either dupes or
fanatics, who permitted themselves to be seduced by deceptions, and by
discourses conformable to their desires, or by dexterous impostors,
who knew how to make the best of the tricks of their old master, to
whom they have become such able successors. In this way did they
establish a religion which enabled them to live at the people's
expense, and which still maintains in abundance those we pay, at such
a high rate, for transmitting from father to son the fables, visions,
and wonders which were born and nursed in Judea. The propagation of
the Christian faith, and the constancy of their martyrs, have nothing
surprising in them. The people flock after all those that show them
wonders, and receive without reasoning on it every thing that is told
them. They transmit to their children the tales they have heard
related, and by degrees these opinions are adopted by kings, by the
great, and even by the learned.

As for the martyrs, their constancy has nothing supernatural in it.
The first Christians, as well as all new sectaries, were treated, by
the Jews and pagans, as disturbers of the public peace. They were
already sufficiently intoxicated with the fanaticism with which their
religion inspired them, and were persuaded that God held himself in
readiness to crown them, and to receive them into his eternal
dwelling. In a word, seeing the heavens opened, and being convinced
that the end of the world was approaching, it is not surprising that
they had courage to set punishment at defiance, to endure it with
constancy, and to despise death. To these motives, founded on their
religious opinions, many others were added, which are always of such a
nature as to operate strongly upon the minds of men. Those who, as
Christians, were imprisoned and ill-treated on account of their faith,
were visited, consoled, encouraged, honored, and loaded with
kindnesses by their brethren, who took care of and succored them
during their detention, and who almost adored them after their death.
Those, on the other hand, who displayed weakness, were despised and
detested, and when they gave way to repentance, they were compelled to
undergo a rigorous penitence, which lasted