This entry comes from d’Holbach’s Théologie portative, the mock pocket dictionary that he published towards the end of 1767 with the tongue-in-cheek intention of making theology more accessible to the average reader. His contention that the Church considered only three books tolerable was not to be taken literally, no more so than his claims that the faithful would be better off born without eyes (to save effort tearing in them out to avoid the latest clerical scandal) or that werewolves are useful to Christians in their quest to scare the population. None the less, his message could hardly have been clearer – religious publishing was stuck in the Middle Ages and books were the prerogative of more progressive voices. The argument was a philosophe favourite, one that has been subjected to little scrutiny in the various modern secular readings of both the public sphere and the Enlightenment. Books were, and remain, the principal symbol of the Enlightenment. It is therefore curious that, in the two decades that followed d’Holbach’s remarks, more than 120 books were published which responded to his works, the vast majority of them from a Christian perspective.

Amongst these works were a series of major theological and philosophical refutations including the abbé Bergier’s Apologie de la religion chrétienne and Examen du matérialisme, as well as von Holland’s Réflexions philosophiques sur le ‘Système de la nature’. These titles are known to d’Holbach scholars, if little discussed, and can be found in the bibliographies of Wickwar, Naville, Vercruysse and Sandrier. The responses to the Système de la nature published by Voltaire, Frederick ii, the Assembly of the Clergy and Séguier of the parlement of Paris have also been examined elsewhere.