Prades

(Jean Martin de), French theologian b. Castel-Sarrasin, about 1720. Brought up for the church, he neverthele became intimate with Diderot and contributed the article Certitude to the Encyclopédie. On the 18th Nov. 1751 he presented to the Sorbonne a thesis for the doctorate, remarkable as the first open attack on Christianity by a French theologian. He maintained many propositions on the soul, the origin of society, the laws of Moses, miracles, etc., contrary to the dogmas of the Church, and compared the cures recorded in the Gospels to those attributed to Esculapius. The thesis made a great scandal. His opinions were condemned by Pope Benedict XIV., and he fled to Holland for safety. Recommended to Frederick the Great by d’Alembert he was received with favor at Berlin, and became reader to that monarch, who wrote a very anti-Christian preface to de Prades’ work on ecclesiastical history, published as Abrége de l’His to ire ecclesiast i que de Fleury , Berne (Berlin) 1766. He retired to a benefice at Glogau (Silesia), given him by Frederick, and died there in 1782.