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First edition of a work against all religions by 'L'une des figures les plus curieuses de la Révolution'

CLOOTS (or CLOOTZ), dit Ana(r)charsis, Jean Baptist de.
La certitude des preuves du mahométisme, ou réfutation de l'examen critique des apologistes de la réligion mahométane. Par Ali-Gier-Ber, Alfaki.





London (= Holland, probably Amsterdam), 1780. Sm.8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine gilt, with red title-label, gilt binding edges. (4), 1-336, 313*-336*, 313**-330**, 337-636 pp.

With:
(IDEM). Lettre sur les Juifs, à un ecclésiastique de mes Amis, lue dans la séance publique du Musée de Paris, le XXI Novembre 1782. Par. M. le B. d. C. d. V. d. G.
Berlin, 1783. 8vo. XII, 90 pp.

Ad 1: Rare first edition, probably published at Amsterdam, of the first of the revolutionary works by Jean Baptiste Baron Cloots (1755-1794), a German utopist from Berlin, who called himself Anacharsis Cloots, 'L'une des figures les plus curieuses de la Révolution'.
Anacharsis Cloots, a Prussian by birth, became obsessed with the French revolutionary spirit of the 18th century, and named himself 'Orator of the Human Race'. Fanatically devoted to humanitarian ideals and to the liberal ideas of the Encyclopédie, he came to Paris in 1776 and spent his large fortune for the advancement of those ideas. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, he headed (1790) a delegation of foreigners as 'ambassadors of the human race' to the National Assembly; he was elected to the Convention, the revolutionary assembly, where he was an ardent supporter of the liberation of Europe in the name of the ideals of the Revolution and expounded a doctrine of cosmopolitanism and the cult of reason in writings such as L'Orateur du genre humain (1791) and La République universelle (1792). . He voted in support of the death penalty for the King, demanding the death penalty for the Prussian King as well. Still, his endless speeches and exalted behaviour began to annoy people, and on the instigation of Robespierre he was banned from the Club des Jacobins as a nobleman and being rich. He then was branded a traitor together with Hébert and others, and in spite of his obvious innocence he was condemned to death andwas executed when the faction of the Hébertists fell in March 1794, during the Reign of Terror.
Cloots was convinced that a united world republic was near. As a consequence he also started his attacks on all religions. The present work is the first result. It is written in defence of Holbach, against the violent attack of Abbé Bergier. It is a parody on the latter's La Certitude des preuves du Christianisme, which was in itself a reply to N. Fréret's Examen critique des apologistes de la religion chrétienne. The pseudonym Gier-Ber under which the present work is written is in fact an anagram of the priest Nicolas Sylvester Bergier (1708-1790). Cloots showed that the same arguments used by Bergier to prove that Christianity was the true religion, could also be used to prove that Mohammedanism was the true religion. He extensively argued that the Islam was no religion but an invention of the believers themselves, and in the extensive notes, taking up more space throughout the book than the original text itself, he claimed the same for Christianity. The work consists of two parts and is written in the form of letters to teach and convince a friend. At the end are added: 'Lettres d'une philosophe à une jeune théologien', now openly attacking Christian religion; and a: 'Supplement' in which objections are raised by a priest, a believer and a Jesuit respectively, followed by dialogues between the priest and a free thinker, a believer and a non-believer, and a Jesuit and the author himself.
Ad 2: First edition of the 'Letter on the Jews', which is often found added at the end of La Certitude des preuves, because in essence the Lettre contains the same arguments in disclaiming any 'raison d'être' for the Jewish religion as the author presented in La Certitude for both the Mohammedan and Christian religions.
Cloots's life and writings perfectly represent in practice the revolutionary theories of the French philosophers of the Enlightenment. 

Fine copy.- (Without the final Errata leaf).
Ad 1: Martin-Waller 7753 E. Laut Weller, Die falschen und fingierten Drucke, in Holland erschienen, i.v.; Francois Labbe, Anacharsis Cloots, la Prussien francophile: Un philosophe au service de la Revolution francaise et universelle (1999).

Related Subjects: France  Hebraica & Judaica  Islamitica  Philosophy  Religion 

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