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CHAP. IV.: Consequences from the Character of the Christian Religion, and that of the Mahometan. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

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The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. IV.

Consequences from the Character of the Christian Religion, and that of the Mahometan.

FROM the characters of the Christian and Mahometan religions, we ought, without any further examination, to embrace the one, and reject the other: for it is much easier to prove, that religion ought to humanize the manners of men, than that any particular religion is true.

It is a misfortune to human nature, when religion is given by a conqueror. The Mahometan religion, which speaks only by the sword, acts still upon men with that destructive spirit with which it was founded.

The history of Sabbaco* , one of the pastoral kings of Egypt, is very extraordinary. The tutelar god of Thebes appearing to him in a dream, ordered him to put to death all the priests of Egypt. He judged, that the gods were displeased at his being on the throne, since they commanded him to commit an action contrary to their ordinary pleasure; and therefore he retired into Æthiopia.

[* ]See Diodorus, lib. 2.