Freud was known for destroying the manuscripts of all his published books. For unindentified reasons, he preserved L’Homme Moïse, a novel retracing the birth of judaism, which is the first version of his testamentary work, written in 1934 and published in 1939, under the title Moïse et le monothéisme. In October 1934, in a letter addressed to Max Eitingon, he wrote: “Part of this text inflicts serious offenses on Jewish sentiment, another on Christian sentiment, two things which are better to avoid in our time.” He confided later on to Lou Andreas-Salome, on the same topic : “This problem has haunted me all my life. » By preserving this manuscript, which has never been published, Freud had probably in mind to leave traces of the complex construction of this text, of which he was so fond of and which he published at a time when Nazism was spreading throughout Europe.
Thomas Gindele and Michel Fagard, teachers of German at Henri IV High School, found this manuscript at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., transcribed and translated it. Their translation is followed by a commentary by Thomas Gindele on the development of the work.