Charles François Dupuis

Charles François Dupuis (26 October 1742 – 29 September 1809) was a French savant, a professor (from 1766) of rhetoric at the , Paris, who studied for the law in his spare time and was received as avocat in 1770. He also ventured into the field of mathematics and served on the committee that developed the French Republican Calendar.

Along with Constantin François Chassebœuf de Volney (1757–1820) Dupuis was known for developing the Christ myth theory, which argued that Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a mythical character.

Dupuis was born in Trie-Château (in present-day Oise), the son of a schoolmaster.

His precocious talents were recognized by the duc de La Rochefoucauld who sent him to the College d'Harcourt. Dupuis made such rapid progress that, at the age of twenty-four, he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the college of Lisieux, where he had previously passed as a Licentiate of Theology. In his hours of leisure he studied law, and in 1770 he abandoned the clerical career and became an advocate. Two university discourses which he delivered in Latin were printed, and laid the foundation of his literary fame.

In 1778, he invented a telegraph with which he was able to correspond with his friend Fortin de Bagneux, and must be considered among the first inventors of the telegraph that was perfected by Claude Chappe. The Revolution made it necessary to destroy his machine in order to avoid suspicion.

Dupuis devoted himself to the study of astronomy (his tutor was Lalande) in connection with mythology, the result of which was his magnum opus: Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Réligion Universelle. It appeared in 1795 in quarto or octavo format, profusely illustrated (in 12 volumes); an abridgement (1798) spread his system more widely among the reading public. In Origine he advocated the unity of the astronomical and religious myths of all nations, an aspect of the Enlightenment's confidence in the universality of human nature. In his Mémoire explicatif du Zodiaque, chronologique et mythologique (1806) he similarly maintains a common origin for the astronomical and religious opinions of the Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, Persians, and Arabians. His basis was what he saw as the perfect correspondence between the signs of the zodiac and their significations had existed in Upper Egypt at a period of between fifteen and sixteen thousand years before the present time, and that it had existed only there. Subsequently, this harmony had been disturbed by the effect of the precession of the equinoxes. He therefore ascribed the invention of the signs of the zodiac to the people who then inhabited Upper Egypt or Ethiopia. His theory as to the origin of mythology in Upper Egypt led to the expedition organized by Napoleon for the exploration of that country.

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