M. d'Asterac spoke again:

"The Bible, my son, and especially the books of Moses, contains
grand and useful verities. Such an opinion may appear absurd and
unreasonable, in consequence of the treatment the theologians have
inflicted on what they call the Scriptures, and of which they have
made, by means of their commentaries, explications, and meditations,
a manual of errors, a library of absurdities, a magazine of foolery,
a cabinet of lies, a gallery of stupidities, a lyceum of ignorance,
a museum of silliness, and a repository of human imbecility and
wickedness. Know, my son, that at its origin it was a temple filled
with celestial radiance.

"I have been fortunate enough to re-establish it in its primal
splendour. Truth obliges me to acknowledge that Mosaide has very
much assisted me with his deep comprehension of the language and the
alphabet of the Hebrews. But let us not lose sight of our principal
subject. Be informed from the outset, my son, that the sense of the
Bible is figurative, and that the capital error of the theologians
was to take it literally, whereas it is to be understood as
symbolical. Follow this truth in the whole course of my discourse.

"When Demiurge, who is commonly called Jehovah, and by many more
names, as all terms expressing quality or quantity are generally
applied to him, had, I do not want to say 'created' the world--for
such would be an absurdity--but had laid out a small corner of the
universe, as a dwelling place for Adam and Eve, there were some
subtle creatures in space, which Jehovah had not formed, was not
capable of forming. They were the work of several other demiurges,
older and more skillful. His craft was not beyond that of a very