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                                  THE
                            THREE IMPOSTORS.



                               TRANSLATED
                    (WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS,)
                  FROM THE FRENCH EDITION OF THE WORK,
                     PUBLISHED AT AMSTERDAM, 1776.



                            RE-PUBLISHED BY
              G. VALE, "BEACON" OFFICE, 3 FRANKLIN-SQUARE,
                               NEW-YORK:
                                 1846.







NOTE BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHER.


We publish this valuable work, for the reasons contained in the
following Note, of which we approve:--



NOTE BY THE BRITISH PUBLISHER.

The following little book I present to the reader without any
remarks on the different opinions relative to its antiquity; as the
subject is amply discussed in the body of the work, and constitutes
one of its most interesting and attractive features. The Edition
from which the present is translated was brought me from Paris by
a distinguished defender of Civil and Religious Liberty: and as my
friend had an anxiety from a thorough conviction of its interest and
value, to see it published in the English Language, I have from like
feelings brought it before the public; and I am convinced that it is
an excellent antidote to Superstition and Intolerance, and eminently
calculated to promote the cause of Freedom, Justice, and Morality.


J. MYLES.







PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR.


The Translator of the following little treatise deems it necessary to
say a few words as to the object of its publication. It is given to
the world, neither with a view to advocate Scepticism, nor to spread
infidelity, but simply to vindicate the right of private judgment. No
human being is in a position to look into the heart, or to decide
correctly as to the creed or conduct of his fellow mortals; and the
attributes of the Deity are so far beyond the grasp of limited reason,
that man must become a God himself before he can comprehend them. Such
being the case, surely all harsh censure of each other's opinions and
actions ought to be abandoned; and every one should so train himself
as to be enabled to declare with the humane and manly philosopher


    "<DW25> sum, nihil humania me alienum puto."


                                                 Dundee, September 1844.







CONTENTS OF THE PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.


DISQUISITIONS on the book entitled "The Three Impostors."

ANSWER to the dissertation of M. de la Monnoye on the work entitled
"The Three Impostors."

COPY of Part 2d, Vol. 1., Article ix. of "Literary Memoirs," published
at the Hague by Henry du Sauzet, 1716.







                             DISQUISITIONS
                          ON THE BOOK ENTITLED
                          THE THREE IMPOSTORS.


It has long been a disputed point if there was at anytime a book
printed and bearing the title of "The Three Impostors."

M. de la Monnoye, having been informed that a learned German [1]
intended to publish a dissertation the object of which was to prove
that this work had really been printed, wrote a letter, in refutation,
to one of his friends; this letter was given by M. Bayle to M. Basnage
de Bauval, who in February 1694, gave an extract from it in his
"History of the works of celebrated and learned men." At a later
period M. de la Monnoye entered more fully into the subject, in a
letter dated at Paris 16th of June, 1712, and addressed to President
Bouhier, in which letter, he says, will be found an abridged but
complete account of this remarkable book.

He condemns at once the opinion of those who attribute the work
to the Emperor Frederick. The false charge, he says, took its rise
from a passage in the appendix to a discourse concerning Antichrist,
and published by Grotius, wherein he speaks as follows [2]: "Far
be it from me to attribute the book called 'The Three Impostors,'
either to the Pope, or to the opponents of the Pope; long ago the
enemies of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa set abroad the report
of such a book, as having been written by his command; but from that
period nobody has seen it; for which reason I consider it apocryphal."

Colomiez quotes this, page 28 of his "Historical Miscellanies;"
but he adds that there are some blunders--