Atheism Conquered

The Church regarded it as fomenting Pelagianism, a heresy in which the virtues of humanity are overemphasized at the expense of God's grace.

In 1631, after great difficulty and censorship of the text more than once, Campanella managed to publish it in Rome, but the edition was almost immediately impounded.

It was finally published in Paris in early 1636 in a collection of Campanella's writings dedicated to King Louis XIII.

[1] In the introductory chapter, Campanella juxtaposes politicians, whose viewpoint, based on self-love, maintains that all religion is political in origin and that there is no truth beyond that, and philosophers, who believe in universal truth and, seeking to benefit mankind but skeptical about supernatural dogma, live according to natural virtue.

In the second chapter, he presents arguments against religion, specifically Christianity, which he then rebuts in the remainder of the work from the perspective of the world being imbued with and an expression of the divine nature and of the unique nature of humanity in being able to achieve transcendent knowledge and religious insight.