XVIII: Of the Same Romances, Imitated by Barbaric Nations

In the regions of Chaldæa and Syria the barbarians also had their legends of the origin of evil. Among one of these nations in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates it was said that a serpent, meeting a burdened and thirsty ass, asked what the ass carried. “The recipe of immortality,” said the ass; “God has bestowed it upon man, who has laid it on my back. He follows me, but is far off, because he has only two legs. I die of thirst; prithee tell me where there is a stream.” The serpent led the ass to water, and, while it drank, stole the recipe. Hence it is that the serpent is immortal, while man is subject to death and all the pains that precede it.

You will observe that the serpent was thought by all peoples to be immortal because it cast its skin. If it changed its skin, this must have been in order to become young again. I have spoken elsewhere of this naïve theology; but it is well to bring it once more to the notice of the reader, in order to show him the nature of this venerable antiquity, in which serpents and asses played such important parts.

The Syrians rose higher. They told that man and woman, having been created in heaven, desired one day to eat a certain cake; and that they then asked an angel to show them the place of retirement. The angel pointed to the earth. They went thither; and God, to punish them for their gluttony, left them there. Let us also leave them there, and their dinner and their ass and their serpent. These inconceivable puerilities of ancient Syria are not worth a moment’s notice. The detestable fables of an obscure people should be excluded from a serious discussion.

Let us return from these miserable legends to the great saying of Epicurus, which has so long alarmed the whole earth, and to which there is no answer but a sigh: “Either God wished to prevent evil and could not do so; or he was able to do so, and did not wish.”

A thousand bachelors and doctors of divinity have fired the arrows of the school at this unshakeable rock; in this terrible shelter have the Atheists taken refuge. Yet the Atheist must admit that there is in nature an active, intelligent, necessary, eternal principle, and that from this principle comes all that we call good and evil. Let us discuss the point with the Atheist.