Montaigne's Gods

According to Montaigne, ‘we cannot condignly conceive’ the nature and actions of God ‘if we are able to conceive them at all. To imagine them condignly, we must imagine them unimaginable, unutterable, incomprehensible’. These criticisms, directed at Raymond of Sebond, lead implicitly to the promotion of a radically negative theology. Yet, even if ‘human reason goes astray […] when she concerns herself with matters divine’, it is still possible to elaborate a discourse on God which speaks ‘condignly’ of His nature as beyond our power to comprehend. Moreover, it is in the literature of pagan antiquity that Montaigne finds the elements of this more ‘religious’ theology. This chapter examines Montaigne’s annotations on Lilio Gregorio Giraldi’s treatise, De deis gentium varia et multiplex historia (‘The Varied and Manifold History of the Pagan Gods’, 1548), as well as the comparison between Christian and pagan theology sketched out in the Essais.