Quand, comment et pourquoi les législateurs sont-ils devenus des imposteurs ? Averroïsme et libertinisme « radical » dans le Theophrastus redivivus (1659)

Although the anonymous author of the celebrated Theophrastus redivivus does not mention the existence of a treatise on the three impostors, he clearly asserts the idea of a political origin of monotheistic religions, upon which he builds his own philosophical system. It consists of a radical atheism and the advent of a natural society free from laws and imposture, necessary for the very history of the universe. The author of Theophrastus thus appears as an exemplar of the “radical libertine”.