The Atheist's Bible

The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed

Georges Minois, Lys Ann Weiss

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Hardback

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English

Chicago University Press
12 October 2012

European history; Religion & beliefs; Church history

A comprehensive biography of the Treatise of the Three Impostors, a controversial nonexistent medieval book.

Like a lot of good stories, this one begins with a rumor: in 1239, Pope Gregory IX accused Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, of heresy. Without disclosing evidence of any kind, Gregory announced that Frederick had written a supremely blasphemous book—De tribus impostoribus, or the Treatise of the Three Impostors—in which Frederick denounced Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as impostors. Of course, Frederick denied the charge, and over the following centuries the story played out across Europe, with libertines, freethinkers, and other “strong minds” seeking a copy of the scandalous text. The fascination persisted until finally, in the eighteenth century, someone brought the purported work into actual existence—in not one but two versions, Latin and French. Although historians have debated the origins and influences of this nonexistent book, there has not been a comprehensive biography of the Treatise of the Three Impostors. In The Atheist’s Bible, the eminent historian Georges Minois tracks the course of the book from its origins in 1239 to its most salient episodes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, introducing readers to the colorful individuals obsessed with possessing the legendary work—and the equally obsessive passion of those who wanted to punish people who sought it. Minois’s compelling account sheds much-needed light on the power of atheism, the threat of blasphemy, and the persistence of free thought during a time when the outspoken risked being burned at the stake.

By: Georges Minois
Translated by: Lys Ann Weiss
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 22mm, Width: 15mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 397g
ISBN: 9780226530291
ISBN 10: 0226530299
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 12 October 2012
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Georges Minois is the author of History of Old Age: From Antiquity to the Renaissance and History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture, the former published by the University of Chicago Press. Lys Ann Weiss is an independent scholar in medieval studies who works in book publishing as an editor, indexer, and translator.

Reviews for The Atheist's Bible: The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed

"""The Treatise of the Three Impostors is a book that enjoyed centuries of notorious nonexistence until (as Voltaire would say) it became necessary to invent it. Georges Minois writes with empathy, erudition, and a novelist's sense of buildup and timing, weaving in the parallel story of Europe's courageous freethinkers. In the face of today's social and even legal pressures against criticizing religion, it is good to see an honorable French tradition asserting itself."" -Joscelyn Godwin, author of The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance"""