Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man

The dialogue between a priest and a dying man is a short essay that Donatien Alphonse François de Sade in 1782, the late period of the Enlightenment, wrote in prison.

In this philosophical dialogue de Sade affirms his libertinism and his atheism by the figure of the dying man who refuses to repent. That is an atheist and contradicts the priest who wants to convince him that he had to admit the necessity of the existence of God. The dying man insists on the impossibility of proving the existence of God rationally.

The end of the dialog shows the rhetorical victory of dying over the clergyman, who dies in the arms of women.

The dying man thinks rational and materialistic. It contradicts the obscurantism and criticized the credibility of miracles and the accuracy and objectivity of the historical tradition of religious writings. However, unlike the later writings of de Sade, in which the libertine advocate unbridled selfishness, sadism and amorality, the dying advocates the Golden Rule as a principle of morality.

The work was first published in 1926 by Stendhal et Cie in France.

Director Luis Buñuel stated that a scene in Nazarín (1959 ), in which a priest is talking to a dying man, was inspired by de Sade's text and represented a tribute to him.