In 1783, in the midst of Joseph II’s progressive reforms of the Habsburg Empire, there appeared a short anti-Catholic pamphlet called Specimen Monachologiae Methodo Linnaeana. Published under the alias Joannes Physiophilus, the work is widely ascribed to Ignaz von Born (1742–1791), a prominent naturalist and a leading figure of Central-European enlightened thought. In this satirical attack on the Catholic Church, monks were dehumanised – depicted as the ‘missing link’ between humans and apes – and selected religious orders were described and classified according to the Linnaean system: all that in sup¬port of Joseph’s radical decision to dissolve hundreds of monasteries of predominantly mendicant and contemplative orders, which he considered of little public utility. This paper explores Born’s motivations, approach, and success in shaping the Linnaean system into an instrument of political ideology. Seeking inspiration in contemporary developments in natural history, particularly in the Linnaean programme which drew attention to the anatomical resemblance of humans to apes, Born masterfully turned a scientific debate into a tool of propaganda as to manipulate public opinion. Key to his success was the newly literate mass readership of the Enlightenment, which enabled scientific propaganda to attain new importance and become an essential part of modern socio‐political discourse. Curiously, although monkeys had appeared in satire long prior to Monachologia’s birth, systematic dehumanisation reflecting scientific debate and based on the proximity of apes to humans sensu Borniano was innovative at the time, and Monachologia can be thus regarded as a pioneer of this now established practice.