Curiously enough it is precisely a change of order, a change in the order of precedence in the court of heaven itself, which this most hateful of all devils has been attempting to make.
He speaks. "The feigned severity of his voice, his apparent calmness, deceive the blinded crowd: 'Monarchs of hell, ye know that I have always been opposed to violence; we shall only prevail by gentleness, by argument, by persuasion. Let me spread among my worshippers and among the Christians themselves those principles which dissolve the ties of society and undermine the foundations of empires!'"
Compare with this the description of the philosophers of the day: "These disciples of a vain science attack the Christians, praise a life of retirement, live at the feet of the great, and ask for money. Some of them occupy themselves seriously with the idea of forming a sort of Platonic commonwealth, peopled by sages, who will spend their lives together as friends and brothers; others meditate profoundly on the secrets of nature. Some see everything in mind, others seek everything in matter; some, although they live under a monarchy, preach a republic, asserting that society ought to be demolished and rebuilt upon a new plan; others, in imitation of the Christians, attempt to teach the people morality. Divided as regards what is good, of one accord in all that is evil, swollen with vanity, taking themselves for great geniuses, these sophists invent all manner of extraordinary notions and systems. At their head is Hieroclos, a man worthy to be the leader of such a battalion.... There is something cynical and shameless in his face; it is easy to see how unfit his ignoble hands are to wield the sword of the soldier, how fit to handle the pen of the atheist or the sword of the executioner."
These assertions are made of Rome and of Hieroclos, but Paris and Voltaire are so plainly indicated that proof is unnecessary.
French literature had now come the length of representing Voltaire, the man who time after time struck the sword out of the hands of the Catholic executioners and extinguished the flames in which they were preparing to burn innocent victims, as a man specially cut out for the trade of executioner. And so careless had the champions of orthodoxy become that they forgot his obstinate faith in God, and, desiring to paint the devil as black as possible, represented him as an atheist. Now, whatever else Satan and his comrades may be, they neither are nor can be atheists.[1]