“How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us and our predecessors.”
“The power of Rome was directed mercilessly for centuries against everything that stood in its way. Under the notorious Torquemada (1481-98), in Spain alone eight thousand heretics were burned alive and ninety thousand punished with the confiscation of their goods and the most grievous ecclesiastical fines; in the Netherlands, under the rule of Charles V., at least fifty thousand men fell victims to the clerical bloodthirst. And while the heavens resounded with the cry of the martyrs, the wealth of half the world was pouring into Rome, to which the whole of Christianity paid tribute, and the self-styled representatives of god on earth and their accomplices (not infrequently atheists themselves) wallowed in pleasure and vice of every description. ‘And all these privileges,’ said the frivolous, syphilitic Pope Leo X, ‘have been secured to us by the fable of Jesus Christ.”— Ernst Haeckel (1899), The Riddle of the Universe [3]
“All ages can testify how profitable that fable of Christ has been to us and our company.”See also— Pope Leo X (1514), response to cardinal Bembus in response to gospel question [2]