Үш Діннің Қарсыласы: Миф және Тарих

Book denying all three Abrahamic religions

The Treatise of the Three Impostors (De Tribus Impostoribus) was a long rumored book denying all three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, with the "impostors" of the title being Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad. Hearsay concerning such a book surfaces by the 13th century and circulates through the 17th century. Authorship of the hoax book was variously ascribed to Jewish, Muslim, and Christian writers. Fabrications of the text eventually begin clandestine circulation, with a notable French underground edition Traité sur les trois imposteurs first appearing in 1719.

DateEvent10th centuryAbu Tahir al Jannabi uses a "three impostors" slogan for political ends.1239Pope Gregory IX in an encyclical ascribes a view of the Abrahamic religions as founded by "three impostors" to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. Through Pietro della Vigna, the excommunicated Emperor denies heresy, explicitly saying that the three impostors theory has not passed his lips. Later in the 13th centuryThomas de Cantimpré ascribes such views to Simon of Tournai (c. 1130–1201).14th centuryOpponents of Averroism accuse Averroes of originating the "three impostors" view. c. 1350The Decameron by Boccaccio alludes to the "three impostors" motif in terms of religious relativism.1643Thomas Browne ascribes authorship of such a work to Bernardino Ochino.1656Henry Oldenburg reports that at Oxford a politicised "three impostors" theory is current.1669John Evelyn publishes a work under a "three impostors" title, aimed at Sabbatai Zevi. The others named were Padre Ottomano, and Mahomed Bei, pseudonym of the adventurer Joannes Michael Cigala.1680As De tribus impostoribus magnis, Christian Kortholt the elder publishes an attack on Edward Herbert of Cherbury, Thomas Hobbes and Benedict Spinoza. 1680s?De religionum was an anonymous attack on Christianity that surfaced late in the 17th century. Internal evidence makes it unlikely that the work was completed before 1680. It became known at the auction in 1716 of the library of the Greifswald theologian Johann Friedrich Mayer. This work is attributed to the jurist Johannes Joachim Müller (1661–1733).1680sLikely initial composition of the Traité sur les trois imposteurs, in association with Spinozan publicists. See below for its adaptation and promotion from the Netherlands.1693Bernard de la Monnoye writes to Pierre Bayle, claiming that no "three impostors" tract exists.1709John Bagford in a letter comments on the deist John Toland's efforts to pass off Spaccio by Giordano Bruno as the Treatise of the Three Impostors; and says he knows of no such genuine Treatise.1712De la Monnoye's letter to Bayle is reprinted, as part of his edition Menagiana, an iana from the works of Gilles Ménage. After reprinting again, in Paris and Amsterdam, it met with an anonymous Réponse in 1716, that has been attributed to Rousset de Missy. With that, the events leading to the publication of a hoax "Treatise" had begun.

It has been suggested that the "three impostors" as trope can be seen as the negative form of the "ring parable", as used in Lessing's Nathan the Wise.