"Lest you start at these bold truths, and fly
These lines, as maxims of impiety,
Consider that Religion did, and will
CONTRIVE, PROMOTE, and ACT the greatest ill."
Lucretius.
IN the foregoing Lecture, it has been shown that the Jewish deity of
Moses, on his being adopted and continued in power by the early sect of
Christians, who were themselves Jews, was induced by his new hierarchy,
as soon as they were established, to make a new _Will_ (the old Jewish
one not being altogether sufficient for their ends), into which they
gradually, as occasion required, foisted different codicils, by which
they multiplied the objects of worship, by introducing into partnership
with him two colleagues, who, being each no other than himself, the
three, quite arithmetically, made but "one God." But by this cunning
and masterly manoeuvre, he soon found himself fairly outwitted by his
priests, who were the sole gainers by this poly-theistical stratagem;
whilst the supremacy which he held in the time of Moses dwindled into
division, and he was obliged to share with the other two, and even with
the mother* of one of them, the worship of his new votaries. Even the
gods themselves, when Juno, the sister and wife of Jupiter, had divine
honors paid to her; why then refuse the same to the mother of one of the
"Christian Gods?"
* When the people of Ephesus were informed that the Fathers
of the Council had declared they might call the Virgin Mary
"_The Mother of God_" they were transported with joy; they
kissed the hands of the bishops--they embraced their knees,
and the whole city resounded with acclamations! St. Cyrils
Letter.
When they get entangled in the meshes of priestcraft, are seldom able
to burst the trammels; and so it has happened in the case before us. The
"New Will" was a most ingenious invention on the part of the Fathers
of Christianism, as it afforded them an opportunity not only of
re-modelling their deity, in person and family, but of abrogating or
amending all such of his old laws as no longer suited the times or their
views; and of making every change that was necessary to establish the
new hierarchy in riches and power. The tithe of industry and settled
money revenues must now be substituted for the bloody altars, and
delectable viands of Jehovah's former priests; and as he was precisely a
personification of the interests of these, so has he continued to be of
those of their successors, who, having that object alone in view, have
been but little solicitous about rendering him either more consistent or
amiable; but on the contrary, they have sublimated his cruelty, by the
invention of eternal fire torments, an idea so enormously absurd and
wicked, that it never entered his head while he was merely Theocrat of
the Jews.
Matters being thus settled by the rejection of the numerous theogony of
which Jupiter was the head, and the adoption of unity in the godhead,
under the Jehovah of the Jews, it was still considered necessary,
in order to reconcile the polytheists, to preserve some vestiges of
polytheism; and these were readily suggested by the waking dreams and
spiritual speculations of Plato, whose "three _hypostases_" seemed
wonderfully well adapted to form the basis of our triune mythology.
Hence the _divinity_ of Plato.
As the third part of that godhead which is now worshipped in modern
Europe, was, as well as the other parts, borrowed from the heathen
trinity, and forms an important dogma in our superstition, a sketch of
its history may not be unnecessary. Like the metaphysical invention
of the soul's immortality, it is altogether unacknowledged in the Old
Testament, as a personified deity; for the "spirit of the Lord," if
rightly translated, merely signifies _wind of the gods_, or wind that
has a genial and salutary influence, as that of summer. This addition
made to the Christian mythology by the Platonist writers of the New
Testament, was eagerly embraced and improved upon by the Fathers, as the
grand source, or fountain head, from whence they could continually draw
their infallible inspirations. In accordance with its occult sense in
the mysteries of the Gentile trinity, they very properly made their holy
ghost "proceed from" the other two "persons," though he more immediately
emanates from the "son" (i. e. the sun), and, by the apotheosis, they
armed him with authority; but as a regularly constituted and personified
god, he did not come fairly into play until the beginning of the fifth
century, when he came in for his third share of godhead thus:--From
council to council, new creeds and dogmas were hatched; and in that of
Chalcedon, in 401, _the first New Testament_ was set in the midst of
the assembly, as the great appeal. The ecclesiastics who composed this
council, found considerable difficulty in adding this third apotheosis
to complete their trinity, until a priest, more cunning and more
deceitful than the others, suggested an expedient, which was nothing
less than to add to the beginning of St. John's Gospel that passage from
Plato which now forms its first verse.
In the occult sense in which this windy metaphor is used in the New
Testament, it is allegorical of the first winds of summer, "proceeding
from" the increased power of the sun, which have a vivifying and
salutary influence upon all animal and, vegetable life. The writer of
the Gospel attributed to St. John astro-nomises, perhaps, a little too
openly in chap. 7, v. 39, by declaring: "For as yet there was no Holy
Ghost, because Jesus was not yet glorified."*
* This is the true translation from the Greek.
Here is a plain and unequivocal admission that even the very existence
of the Holy Ghost depended on the glorification of Christ, the solution
of which enigma is, that _May_ was not then come, for it was not until
about the middle of that month that the Hely, or Holy wind of _Helios_,
that is, God the Sun, was said to commence; and this constituted, _and
is the only Holy Ghost_. But before that period, as the sun is
not sufficiently elevated and clear, or in other words, clarified
(glorified) from the denser clouds and contagious vapors of early
spring, his personification, Christ, could not be said to be glorified.*
Hence the Holy Ghost is an annual visitor, and with his benign
influence, comes with the festival of Whitsuntide or Pentecost; but
not till that is "fully come."** It was then that, symbolised in the
blessed, holy, sun-heated wind, he was said to descend on the apostles,
giving them "the gift of tongues," which gifts seem to have been quite
in character, and fleeting as the _wind_, for they soon evaporated,
leaving the possessors "unlearned and ignorant men."
That which is called the "sin against the Holy Ghost," or sinning
against the _clearest light_, cannot be rationally interpreted as
meaning anything else than the denial of, or refusal duly to appreciate,
the sun's almighty power upon this globe--the one glorious fountain
"on High," out of which springs the renovated creation, and the annual
salvation of man.
It was at the famous festival of Whitsuntide also, after the sun entered
the sign Gemini, or the Twin Children, that the personified sun, Christ,
is very significantly made to say, "suffer little children to come unto
me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven"--that is, such is my present
"house" in the zodiac.
With respect to the second deity in the Christian plan of polytheism,***
it may be justly asserted, that amongst the numerous _revealed_
religions that have from time to time plagued and enslaved the world,
no set of theological dogmas, in any known age or country, has ever
produced a tenth part of the contention, devastation and bloodshed that
have arisen from those concerning Jesus Christ; and although Christendom
has been the scene of the fiercest wars for more than fourteen
centuries, for the absurd purpose of ascertaining his pedigree, rank and
attributes, these preternatural problems are not only as far from being
settled as ever, but strong doubts remain whether the person in question
did ever exist in reality; many of the learned being of opinion that his
positive existence rests on as visionary grounds as that of his Platonic
colleague.
* Wherever the phrase, "The Glory of the Lord" is used
throughout the Bible, it signifies nothing else than the
brightness of the sun.
** Acts ii, 1, and iv. 18.
*** Jesus became God thus:--In the year 325, Constantine
having declared himself protector of the Church, convoked
the grand oecumenic council of Nice; and of all the Fathers
who composed that council, three hundred were of a contrary
opinion to that of Arius; _and these it was who determined
to acknowledge the_ "Divinity of Jesus." They added to the
tenets and symbols the words _consubstantial with the
Father_; and concluded by anathematising the Arians.
Christ, or Christos, is not a proper name, but like the word paraclete,
is an epithet, and signifies a principle or quality that is good and
useful to man, and has been applied to the sun, as savior, and to
human reason.* This nearly agrees with the hypothesis of the famous
Dr. Strauss--that "the history of Christ, as related in the Gospels,
is mythic--a kind of imaginative amplification of certain _vague and
slender traditions_, formed with the design of developing an ideal
character of Jesus, and to harmonise with the Jewish notions of a
Messiah." That some obscure person of the name of Jesus may have
lived, and been put to death by the Jewish mob for ridiculing their
superstition is very probable; but that the hero of the New Testament
was born, and lived, and died under all the circumstances, and attended
by such violations of Nature's laws as are represented in that book,
without the emphatic record of any historian, either Greek, Jewish, or
Roman, seems quite impossible.
* Christ, the anointed, is physically significative of the
Sun, as being the sole source of all that man can rationally
call good; and in the moral sense it is expressive of reason
and knowledge. The etymology of the names of the ruling gods
in different ages and countries, such as Brahma, Osiris,
Chrishna, Budha, Foe, Oromazedes, Jupiter, Bacchus, Jehovah
and Jesus Christ, etc., will show that they were merely
allegorical personifications of the Sun. Dr. Lamb, of
Cambridge, has found the etymon even of the word sabbath to
signify "Daughter of the Sun"
Our O, as used in admiration, was symbolical of the
orbicular figure of the Sun, as in the exclamation, "O Dens
Sol invicte Mithra!" Celsus declares that such Mithriacs
were the first Christians.
Mattathias, the father of Josephus, must have been a witness to the
miracles which are said to have been performed by Jesus, and Josephus
was born within two years after the crucifixion, yet in all his works
he says nothing whatever about the life or death of Jesus Christ; as
for the interpolated passage it is now universally acknowledged to be a
forgery. The arguments of the "Christian Ajax,"* even Lardner himself,
against it are these:--"It was never quoted by any of our Christian
ancestors _before Eusebius_. It disturbs the narrative. The language is
quite Christian. It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers
to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it _had it been then
in the text_. It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles
concerning Josephus; and this: author expressly states that this
historian has not taken the least notice of Christ.** Neither Justin
Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew; nor Clemens Alexandrinus,
who made so many extracts from ancient authors; nor Origen against
Celsus, have ever mentioned this testimony. But, on the contrary, in
chap. 35th of the first book of that work, Origen openly affirms that
Josephus, who had mentioned John the Baptist, _did not acknowledge
Christ_. That this passage is a false fabrication, is admitted also by
Ittigius, Blondel, Le Clerc, Vandale, Bishop Warburton, and Tanaquil
Faber."*** Josephus was not friendly towards Herod, but rather at enmity
with him; he conceals none of his faults or cruelties, which makes it
appear surpassing strange that he should silently pass over that most
horrible of all butcheries ever perpetrated by-man--the general massacre
of the infants, to the amount, it has been said, of fourteen thousand.
* See Taylor's "Diegesis."
** How could Photius, in the 9th century, find that in
Josephus which Origen, in the 3rd century, had declared was
not in him?
*** Is it probable, is it even possible that Josephus, a Jew
extremely zealous and obstinate in his own religion, would
confess that to be true which every Jew most positively and
religiously denies; that is, acknowledge that Jesus was the
Christ? This is making Josephus talk like a Christian in
four or five lines only.
How is it that this event, so unparalleled that history cannot show
its-equal in atrocity, should not only be unknown to three-of the
evangelists, Mark, Luke, and John, but entirely escape the notice of the
minute and circumstantial, historian of the Jews? Josephus is equally
silent respecting the miraculous darkness, the new star which appeared
in the east, and the graves that opened of themselves to eject the dead,
who, being undisposed of afterwards, may still be walking the streets
of Jerusalem.. The younger Seneca, a voluminous writer, was then about
thirty-nine years of age, and must have been at Rome at the time; yet
he says nothing whatever of those shocking cruelties and violations of
Nature's laws. The elder* and the younger Pliny came into the highest
repute not many years afterwards, one of whom was a most valuable
historian, and could not possibly have omitted to mention such
extraordinary doings and prodigies if they had taken place in any part
of the empire.
If anything could be more unaccountable than the silence of the above
historians, it would be that of Philo-Judaeus, who was contemporary with
Caligula? "and in the folio edition of his works of 1552, he speaks of
the state of the Jews, and their afflictions under Augustus, Tiberius,
and Caligula, the very period embracing the whole extent of Christ's
life; but he says not a word of Christ, Christians, or Christianity."
This silence of Philo, a man highly esteemed for his learning and
veracity, a cotemporary historian, and a public functionary, being agent
for the Jews at the time, is so inexplicable, that interested priests
alone can explain it away.
* The elder Pliny, about the year seventy-five, wrote the
"History of His Own Time," in thirty-one books, and was the
most celebrated historian of that time, yet we find him as
ignorant as Josephus, or any of the other writers mentioned,
of the thing called Christianity, or sect of Christians;
though, as an historian, he was so minute and circumstantial
as to suffer nothing of importance to escape him. Why did
the Christians, in after times destroy the work above-
mentioned, and leave his "Natural History?" Because he did
not perform an impossibility; that is, he neither did nor
could take notice of their sect, which had no known
existence in his time.
A question naturally presents itself--did the populace of Jerusalem and
villages adjacent, who were spectators and witnesses when the miracles
in question were wrought, believe in them? No, they did not; to them
the operator, whoever he was, must have appeared an impostor, as
fully appears by the catastrophe. That such extraordinary events and
performances should make no impression upon those who were witnesses to
them, is contrary to the natural feelings of mankind, particularly as
regards the populace, for in all such cases where the bulk of the people
believe in the truth of reputed miracles, they are more actuated by
sentiments of reverential awe towards the performer, than a desire to
put him to death.
After a lapse of nearly two thousand years since the epoch of these
miraculous events, it must ever remain impossible to ascertain whether
the second person of this triune godhead had _bona fide_ an incarnate
existence; or was merely a metaphorical personification of some
principle, as the epithet _Christ_ implies;* but it is certain that this
appellative was assumed by a sect of superstitionists known in Egypt,
from time immemorial, under the name of therapeutae, or monks, whose
tenets the Judaizing Christians adopted; and from whose writings they
made selections in the compilation of their New Testament, as is proved
by the testimony of Eusebius himself, who says in his history, book 2nd:
"Those ancient therapeutae were Christians, AND THEIR ANCIENT WRITINGS
WERE OUR GOSPELS."
* "Christos being strictly a Greek epithet, would the Jewish
populace give a Greek name to a Jew by birth?"
Thus it is proved by the most zealous of all the Christian fathers,
that these gospels, though not brought upon the stage until nearly two
centuries after the reputed death of Jesus, existed among the Egyptian
monks long before the pretended origin of Christianity. As to the four
which have been selected and fitted up by the Church to make part of
"the word of God," no man has ever been able to tell by whom, when, or
where they were written; nor are they acknowledged by any person but
as the learned Christian bishop, Faustus, declared the forgers of them
affirmed, "that what was written by themselves, was written 'according'
to those persons to whom they ascribed them." It appears that these
adopted gospels were first mentioned by Irenaeus, about the latter end
of the second century; but as the writings of that saint must have come
through the manufacturing hands of Eusebius, that early notice of them
is rendered extremely suspicious; however, they were first known only as
forming part of fifty-four gospels, all equally well authenticated; and
some writers have asserted that it was this Irenaeus who first selected
them out of the above spurious mass, and by his own fiat alone made them
canonical. Was it out of respect for the high authority of this saint
that the Holy Ghost confirmed his selection, at the Council of Nice,
about 175 years afterwards? It has been allowed, even by the most
learned Christian divines (as will be shown in a subsequent lecture)
that fraud, religious lying and forgery, were then the common practice
in promoting the cause of public deception; and, therefore, we have no
difficulty in believing that Irenaeus had his full share in the fraudful
traffic.
If the word of a saint is good for anything, we might quote that of
Irenaeus in corroboration of what we have elsewhere said respecting the
books of the Old Testament; for does he not tell us that "_they were
fabricated' seventy years after the Babylonish captivity by Esdras_"?
These are _revelations_ which Christians are extremely unwilling to
meet, but they are much better authenticated than any of the artificial
ones that claim a supernatural derivation.
Besides the writings of the Egyptian Essenes or monks, it is known that
Alexandria abounded with every sort of sectarian rubbish, in the various
forms of acts, gospels, epistles, &c.; so that the compilers of the New
Testament had an ample supply of matter, out of which to choose what
should be the new will of Jehovah. Such pieces as had been written by
monks, and by their plastic spirituality, could easily be moulded so as
to represent the interests of the priests, and increase their power and
importance, very naturally slid in to form part of "God's last Will;"
while those which exposed the tricks and knavery of priests, like the
story of Bel and the Dragon, in the Old Testament, were rejected as
apocryphal.* But as the chosen books were written by unknown or obscure
persons of no notoriety, their names were erased, and those of reputed
apostles substituted, in order to confer respectability. And whenever
it was found that this "New Testament" did not at all points suit the
interests of its priesthood, or the views of political rulers in league
with them, the necessary alterations were made, and all sorts of pious
frauds and forgeries were not only common, but justified by many of the
fathers. This was a charge constantly brought against those trimmers by
their opponents, whose writings they destroyed to the utmost of their
power; but it is proved by a record in the Cronicon of Muis, an African
bishop, and the same is also mentioned by Scaliger, that a general
alteration of the four gospels took place in the sixth century, by order
of the Emperor Anastasius, who decreed:--"That the holy gospels, as
written, Idiotis Evangelistis, _are to be corrected and amended_."**
* It may be said that the Christian compilers would be
willing to expose the tricks of the Pagan priests; but the
esprit du corps is sacred. Priests will not betray that
fundamental deceitfulness that is common to the whole
profession, and inseparable from all supernatural
pretensions.
** Dr. Mill also vouches for the truth of this record, and
says that Messala was consul at the time.
The great father, Origen, in his commentary on Matthew's
gospel, speaking of the phrase, "thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself," which some thought to be spurious, he
says: "If, indeed, there was no disagreement in other
copies, it would be irreligious to suspect that expression
was interpolated and not pronounced by our Savior. But now,
alas! what with the blunders of transcribers--what with the
impious temerity of correcting the text--what with the
licentiousness of others, who interpolate or expunge just
what they please, it is plain the copies do strangely
disagree."
In forming the New Testament, selections were made at different
councils; but from all we have been able to learn, it was principally at
that of Nice that the compilation was put into form, after it had been
decided upon _by vote_, what should be, and what should not be, the word
of God! In order to get rid of the unpleasant truth, that this decision
was made by a majority of votes, it has been pretended that the
selection was made under supernatural agency, thus:--the whole
collection of story, anecdote and fable, was placed upon a great table,
and a prayer was addressed to the Holy Ghost, that he would be pleased
to cause the apocryphal books to jump under the table, and they did so
with prompt obedience, whilst the genuine canonicals proudly kept their
stations above. This mode of trial was fair enough, as the Holy Ghost
would surely know his own writings. This ridiculous story is recorded in
the appendix to the proceedings of the Council of Nice.
A philosopher of the present day has compared the Christian Testament
to Lord Chancellor Eldon's silk stocking, that was darned all over with
worsted until there was no silk remaining; so, in like manner, it is now
impossible to say with certainty what this book was originally, or by
whom, where, or when, its component parts were written; and equally
futile would it be to attempt to ascertain the number of alterations,
additions, varying translations,* and forged interpolations which from
time to time it has undergone. Capellus informs us that he was engaged
for thirty-six years in writing the book in which he detects the
numerous errors and frauds of the Protestant Bible; and even the
venerable Calmet, that profound Bible critic, declares that the 7th and
8th verses of the 5th chapter of John's 1st Epistle, "_are not in any
ancient Bible_." This interpolation was a bold stroke to strengthen the
Trinity. Thirty years' researches upon the New Testament alone, enabled
that most learned English divine, Dr. John Mill, to detect the enormous
number of 80,000 different readings of that book, after a laborious
examination of all the manuscripts, translations, and the many languages
in which it is to be found. Can anything match the stupidity and
monstrous credulity of calling such a book the word of God?
* A ludicrous instance of false translation appears in Mark
x., 25, where, according to the learned, the word in the
original means a cable-rope, not a camel. In the notion of a
cable going through the eye of a needle, an association of
ideas is preserved, but the other meaning is forced and
ridiculous.
It has been remarked that, besides the evident dissonance and glaring
inconsistencies of these books, they contain numerous proofs that they
could not have been written at the time alleged, or by the persons whose
names are affixed to them; for instance, if Paul was an apostle, or
lived in or near the same age with Jesus, how could he speak as he does
in the epistle to the Colossians, about the Church of Laodicea, which
was not founded until the middle of the second century? Again, in
the book called Revelations, ascribed to John the evangelist, who was
contemporary with Jesus,* the writer not only speaks of this church of
Laodicea, but mentions its sloth and great corruptions, arising from the
possession of riches and power. Now, though of all human institutions
whatsoever, a church** has the most uniform and natural tendency to grow
corrupt and profligate, from the acquirement of riches and power, yet we
may allow one hundred years to have elapsed after the foundation of the
one in question, before it arrived at the shameless condition described
in these revelations; and, therefore, it is no unfair inference to
conclude that these allegorical rhapsodies were not written before the
middle of the third century. Tertullion says it was Saturninus, and Luke
says it was Cyrenius who was governor of Syria, when a certain event
happened,*** and Augustus issued his decree taxing "_all the world_" but
Roman history seems to deny both accounts, by not acknowledging any
such decree of Augustus, even over the Roman empire. Numerous other
discrepancies and contradictions might be adduced, which all the forcing
and twisting of church chronologists have not been able to reconcile.
* Yet in Matthew xi., 12, Jesus is made to say, "And from
the days of John the Baptist, _until now_," etc. Again,
xviii., 17, Jesus speaks of "the church" though there was
no such thing in existence in the alleged time of his life.
** Church--the shrine of credulity, where reason is weekly
sacrificed--a patent for hypocrisy--the refuge of fraud,
sloth, ignorance and superstition--the corner stone of
tyranny.
*** The birth of Jesus.
They tell us that Matthew wrote his gospel about the year thirty-five,
and in that gospel the writer, whoever he was, makes Jesus tell the
Scribes and Pharisees that "all the innocent blood that has been shed on
earth, from that of Abel down to that of Zaccharias, son of Baruch, whom
they slew between the temple and the altar, shall be upon their heads."
Here let it be remarked that, according to Josephus, book 4th (and the
fact is nowhere else to be found) this event _did not take place_ until
the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. This affords proof positive that
the first of our gospels could not have been written before the year
seventy, but that is no proof why it might not have been written after
the middle of the second century.
Recurring to the miraculous parts of these books, we think it proper to
observe that the natural good sense of Mahomet prevented his making
any pretensions to the power of working miracles; for those laid to his
charge by Christian opponents, were the inventions of his more ignorant
and less judicious successors. It was no doubt in ridicule of the
New Testament fables about removing mountains by faith, and such like
nonsense, that he told his disciples one day: "To-morrow I will call
yonder mountain to come to me." The morrow came, his hearers assembled
to see the miracle. He called the mountain to come to him, but it
sullenly kept its place. "Well," says he, "since the mountain will not
come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go the mountain." If he gave out that he
received his Koran by piecemeal from heaven, his pretensions went no
farther than to be considered the humble agent of a higher power; and
such it appears was the case with his brother prophet Jesus, who wrote
nothing himself, but his followers, on rather the sect which assumed his
name, bent upon the establishment of their new superstition on the
ruins of the old, had recourse to a series of falsehoods and deceptions
unexampled in all the other pages of history. They ascribed to their
reputed founder a train of miracles and unsightly prodigies, so
disgusting to reason and common sense, as to be sufficient of themselves
to condemn any book at a single glance; and which could only be
palmed upon extreme ignorance and credulity; while the inventors and
propagators of these fictions agreed with each other in nothing but in
the common duty of religious lying, forging and fabricating to serve the
interests of the priesthood. The younger Scaliger expressly declares of
these falsifying compilers, that "they put into their Gospels whatever
they thought would serve their purpose." Faustus says: "We have
_frequently proved_ that these things were neither written by himself
(Jesus) nor by his apostles; and that they were fabricated long
after their decease, from vague stories and flying reports." As these
miraculous fables are beneath criticism, the particular notice of one
or two of them will suffice as a sample of the rest. It appears that the
devils possessing the two demoniacs who lived among the tombs, could not
be dislodged without terms of capitulation; one article of which bore,
that they should be allowed to go into the swine. The treaty being
concluded with the spokesman of these devils, who had announced that
he was legion, or called legion (probably from being the chief of a
detachment consisting of that number) the devils took possession of
their new subjects accordingly; but they, finding a devilish commotion
within them, committed suicide immediately. This "_rash act_" was not
surprising when we consider that there were "about two thousand swine;"
so that three devils would be crammed into each pig, reckoning a legion
of devils to consist of the same number as a Roman legion. As nothing
would operate so much against the interests of theology as any
diminution of the number of devils, we may presume that the swine only
were drowned. Mark and Luke say that _one person_ possessed all these
devils; he must have been a man of great capacity to contain that which
drove two thousand swine mad. So numerous a herd of these animals in a
country where swine and swine's flesh were held in abhorrence, is
quite sufficient to stamp the tale as a fiction; but taking all the
circumstances into consideration, it is perhaps the most ridiculous
romance that ever was invented. If this exploit had been laid to the
charge of Mahomet, would he not have been branded by all Christians as
a most wicked and abominable wizard, independently of the robbery
committed on the owners of the swine, in causing this wholesale and
ruinous _Hoggicide?_
It is unfortunate for the foregoing miracle, that its allegorical
bearings are not so apparent as to save it from being branded as a wild
and vulgar romance, rather than an instructive parable. Such, however,
is not the case in the fable about the resurrection of Lazarus, which is
evidently a dramatic allegory of the demise of the old, and birth of the
new year; the former of which is personated in Lazarus, whilst Christ
is, as usual, the personification of the Sun. This unsightly miracle, as
taken literally, is narrated by John only; a circumstance so suspicious
that it alone ought to shake the credulity of even the swallowers of
prodigy. Our false and deceitful translation of this drama, foists in;
"Now a certain _man_ was sick, named Lazarus;" but there is no _man_
named in the original, which merely says--"Now Lazarus was sick;" that
is, figuratively, the year was spent or expiring, as in December, which
month is personated by Martha, as January is by Mary. These two sister
months send to Christ (the Sun) to inform him of the dying state of
their brother (the old year). Now mark the equivocating answers he gives
them regarding the real condition of their brother; that his "sickness
is not unto death;" that he was dead in reality, and he was glad of it;
that he only slept, _and would revive or "rise again_" These enigmatical
or equivocal answers, and the four days which Lazarus is said to have
been dead in the sepulchre, have most pointed allusion to the four days
between the twenty-first and twenty-fifth of December, during which time
the Sun seems to hang, as it were, in the solstitial balance; but at
the latter period he gains his first degree of altitude, and is said to
"rise from the dead," or to have been born again, that is he begins to
_rise from the dead of winter._
For very good reasons, the drama being finished, we are not told what
became of Lazarus. What was his fate afterwards? He continued to gain
strength till the summer solstice; but as he again became the _old
year_, he died the following December, in the same manner.
Thus the Sun, as personified in Christ, says Rev., i., 18, "I am he that
liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen."
Again, "I am the resurrection and the life; _the day star on high, that
redeemeth his people_; I come a light into the world." This word _Amen_
is nothing else than the disguise in which the translators have thought
it proper to put _Ammon*_. The Sun, in the sign Aries, was personified
in Jupiter Ammon, as well as in Christ. Ammon signifies the secret
or concealed one, and _sacred_ had originally no other meaning than
_secret_. In Isaiah lxv., 16, is not the "God Ammon" mentioned in the
original, and suppressed by the English translators?
The astro-drama of the Redeemer in the book of Job** is another sublime
allegory of the sun and circle of the seasons.
* The difference between the words Aman, Amen, and Ammon,
says Sir William Drummond, "is nothing."
** For fuller explanation of the dramas of Job and Lasarus,
see the works of the Rev. Mr. Taylor.
Job, who here personates the declining year in its last ungenial and
evil months, is of course dejected, sick, and grievously afflicted; his
wife (whom we may presume to be Anna, from Annus, the circle of' the
year) bids him curse God and die, that is, to cease putting his trust in
the sun, who had metaphorically forsaken him for the present. But Job,
though nearly worn out, as the year is in December, has still hopes of
his _revival_, and exclaims, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and at
the last day (the 21st December) "_I shall rise up_", etc. Yet in his
exhausted state, and sore afflictions, he is so nigh to despair that
his God, the sun, reproaches him for his impatience under the immutable
necessities of faith, and seems to say in way of admonition, "I cannot
be with you always; nor is it reasonable in you to expect the enjoyment
of perpetual summer," and in illustration thereof, he most beautifully
instances the summer constellations, and asks, "Canst thou bind the
sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst
thou bring forth the twelve signs in the season?" that is, canst thou
have summer throughout the twelve months. "Canst thou guide Arcturus
with his sons?" The seven summer months, from March to September
inclusive, are personated in the seven sons of Job, who are killed by a
"great wind from the wilderness," (winter) that is, they are killed by
the five winter months commencing in October,* but as this is only an
allegorical death, the drama represents them as being all alive again
in the succeeding summer; and Job, the year, is fully restored to health
and happiness.
With regard to the whole of that miscellaneous and discordant mass of
anecdote, narrative, prophecy, allegory, gospel, epistle, revelation,
etc., which compose what is called the Bible (to say nothing at present
of its immoral tendency), we cannot make anything rational out of the
greater portion, unless we seek the true meaning under type or
allegory; but when we turn aside that veil, the nonsense of the exoteric
disappears, and we perceive that the allusions are exclusively made to
physical or moral principles, under typical personifications.** This is
particularly the case in all those books or fragments of books which are
known not to be Jewish (the book of Job, for instance), but picked up
by that people among the Chaldeans and Persians, who concealed from the
vulgar all the higher branches of science under the veil of allegory;
and when Levi's ignorant but privileged sons adopted these books, in
making their compilation, they contented themselves with the literal,
knowing nothing of the occult sense.
* These five winter months, beginning in October, when the
Sun is in the sign Scorpio, are metaphorically alluded to as
Scorpions, by St. John in Revelations ix., where it is said
they shall have power "to hurt men for five months." The
stings in their tails were figurative of the sharpness of
the four months that succeed October, which, though they
"should not kill," are nevertheless so stingingly cold as to
"hurt men."--See Revelations.
** Those parts of this collection in which we perceive that
the astronomical Chronology is veiled in the allegorical
picture, under the appearance of history, may be called _the
word of science_. Most of the psalms are evidently hymns to
the Sun, as they apply to nothing else.
***In dedicating one of their tribes for the priesthood
alone, the Jews imitated the oriental nations: their tribe
of Levi played the same part amongst them, that the
Chaldeans played amongst the Assyrians and Babylonians; the
Magi amongst the Modes and Persians; the Druids amongst the
Celtae; the Brahmins amongst the Indians; the Lamas amongst
the Thibetians; and the Christian priesthoods now in Europe;
in all it has been the game of deception.
Even the trinity in unity, as we have already observed, was one of
the secrets revealed to the initiated in the Pagan polytheism; and was
taught in the mysteries long before the sect Christians adopted
the ascetic habits of the Essenes and Egyptian Therapeutae. In these
mysteries this trinity had a twofold allusion--under one meaning it was
a personification of physical, and under the other of moral, principles;
in the physical sense, those natural principles were personified, which,
by their inherent properties, viz., motion, attraction, repulsion, etc.,
produce these changes which we perceive in matter. But of all these
principles, the _Sun_ was looked up to as the grand omnipotent nucleus,
whose all-vivifying power is the vital and sole source of animative and
vegetative existence upon this globe--the glorious fountain out of which
springs all that man ever has, or ever can call good, and as such, the
only proper object of the homage and adoration of mankind. Hence the
Sun, as we are informed by Pausanius, was worshipped at Eleusis under
the name of "The Savior." If it is urged that the Sun cannot properly be
regarded as a principle in Nature, the objection is good with respect
to the universal systems which "_circle other Suns_;" but of our Solar
system, he is _the_ principal.
Of the thousand Pagan personifications of the Sun, which appear absurd
and ridiculous when taken in the literal sense, but which are rational
and highly scientific when the veil of allegory is withdrawn, one of
the most beautiful is that of the solar Deity under the name of Adonai,*
Tammuz, or the Adonis of the Syrians. This allegory represents him,
after being glorified as "The most High God," in his _exalted_ reign of
summer, as resigning his place in the heavens to the zodiacal animals
of the winter signs; and is figured as being slain or mutilated by them,
more especially by the wild boar, under whose malefic ascendancy the sun
seems annually to expire.
* Adonai is synonymous with Jahouh, or Jehovah. Throughout
the Psalms, the _Sun_ is "the Lord God," and Zion means the
zodiac.
And, as personated in the beautiful Adonis, he is fabled as being
mutilated in his genital parts by the boar; that is, by similitude, he
is deprived of his genial or generative power over Nature during the
winter. But when the annual rains of summer had swelled the river Adonis
(so called from the god), its waters became tinged red by some mineral,
and were fabled to be the blood of the beauteous Adonis, annually
mutilated as aforesaid:--
"While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea,--supposed with blood
Of Tammuz, yearly wounded."
In lamentation over this most shocking outrage against genial
Nature,--or rather to celebrate the yearly victory over it, the Sidonian
damsels, _not wholly without significance_, assembled to hail the
renovation of the prolific powers of Tammuz, or Adonis, as manifested in
their God of summer.
That the Old Testament, as well as the New, is almost wholly allegorical
of the sun, the year, and the seasons, is further proved in that
apparently heart-felt complaint of St. Paul, 2 Corinthians iii., 15,
"But even until this day, _when Moses is read, the veil is upon their
heart_."
The moral principles allegorised in the Christian trinity, under the
names of Father, the Word, and the Spirit, were metaphorical of human
_knowledge, reason_ and the _spirit of truth_. Similar to these are
the interpretations lately given of the moral principles of the ancient
trinity, by a philosopher of deep research;* and as they make out a
reasonable meaning for the Christian trinity, which is otherwise a
jumble of irrational mummeries, they are so far satisfactory. The
ancient trinity of physical principles, of which the Sun was second
to, and the most eximious representative of, the great All-in-All, was
probably of Indian origin: and found its way west into Persia, Chaldea
and Greece, where it was remodelled and spiritualised by Plato; but on
its being pressed into the service of the Christian fathers, the sublime
knowledge which it conveyed under emblems or symbols, was soon lost
in ignorance, or abused and set aside by priestcraft; for even the
apostolic fathers seemed to have had little or no knowledge of it, with
the exception perhaps of St. Hermas, who most likely alluded to the
share he had in falsifying those allegories (by adopting the literal in
place of the occult meaning), when he declares that he "never spoke a
true word in his life, but always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed
a lie for truth to all men; and no man contradicted him, but all gave
credit to his words" ("Pastor," Book iii., mandat. 3rd). The Pagan
priesthood were too wise to apply the word _revelation_ to anything else
than the development of the secret meaning of the mysteries, which they
made to the initiated; but that only true revelation has been entirely
lost to all the successors of St. Hermas in the church called Christian
for the last seventeen centuries.
* The modern Diagoras, who has done more towards
establishing; free discussion than any other man that ever
lived.
One word more respecting this ancient trinity, the gross and ludicrous
perversion of which now forms so prominent a dogma in our superstition.*
Those fathers who adopted and interwove it into the Christian system,
did either ignorantly or wilfully distort the sense of the allegory
(whether astronomical or moral) by turning it into three distinct
personages, with human qualities, parts, and passions; but having gone
thus far, they found themselves in a dilemma; inasmuch that, though
their new polytheism was in a great measure intended as a salvo to
reconcile the Pagans, yet it was inconsistent with the Mosaic unity of
God, which they were desirous of preserving also; so they bundled up
their three distinct personages into one identical person.
* Though the Christian scheme of fitting up a triune Deity
is in defiance of arithmetical demonstration, yet it is so
far an exemplification of all the Pagan mythologies--each of
them had a triad of principal gods; the Hindus had their
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; the Egyptians, their Osiris,
Horus, and Isis; the Persians, their Oromazdes, Mithras, and
Ahrimanes; the Syrians, their Monimus, Aziz, and Ares; the
Canaanites, their self-triplicated Baal; and the Peruvians
had their Father Sun, Brother Sun, and Son Sun. The Hindu
trinity were personifications of three principles, viz., the
Producer, the Preserver, and the Destroyer.
Being now knee-deep, and knowing well that the credulity of ignorant
man is equal to the most monstrous deceptions, those fabricators thought
they might as well plunge over head and ears into absurdity, by settling
the pedigree and relationship between these _triune_ parties; and this
they did by mingling together a chaos of downright nonsense. Here is
a child born, said to be begotten by two supernatural fathers--these
fathers are _two_ infinite beings, equal and co-existent from all
eternity; and yet this son, begotten by them upon a woman, is as old
as either of them! And although thus produced, and to all appearance a
child of humanity, he instantly becomes the _eternal_ son of the father,
making the _third infinite_! Such stuff has turned the church called
Christian into a domicilium insanorum.
If we may believe our senses, there is indeed a trinity in unity that
proves its own existence--is eternal, and comprehends within itself
everything which the human intellect can possibly conceive--that is,
_Time, Matter, and Motion_.*
* Motion is the measure of Time: it is essential to, the
executive of, and may be said to be identical with, Matter.
In regard to the true history of our church during the three first
centuries, we know nothing whatever, except that which comes through the
most polluted channels; for the traditions and fabulous writings of the
fathers who lived in those periods, are not deserving of the slightest
credit; these men being notorious for nothing but pious frauds and
forgeries; yet even in these professional arts they were far excelled
in the following century, by the famous Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who
had no equal in fitting up and trimming off a "word of God," to suit
the general interests of the church. He says of himself "I have related
whatever might redound to the glory, and I have _suppressed _all that
could tend to the disgrace of our religion." Baronius, who was a sincere
advocate of the Christian faith, branded him as "the great falsifier
of ecclesiastical history--a wily sycophant--a consummate hypocrite*--a
time-serving persecutor, who had nothing in his known life or writings,
to support the belief _that he himself believed in the Christian
religion_." So much for the character of this main pillar of the church.
Another father of the fourth century, St. Gregory Nazianzen, was of
opinion that "_words are sufficient to deceive the vulgar, who admire
the more, the less they understand._" Again, he says, "Our fathers
and teachers have often said, _not what they thought_, but what
circumstances required." To show that the saints of the fourth century
had not only improved upon their predecessors in the arts of deception,
but had grown bold enough in some instances to avow them, we quote
St. Chrysostom, who declares that "miracles are proper only to excite
sluggish and vulgar minds; that men of sense have no occasion for them;
and that they frequently carry _some untoward suspicion with them_"
Mosheim, than whom a higher authority cannot be quoted, speaking of
those times and of such men, says: "The simplicity and ignorance of the
generality in those times, furnished the most favorable occasion for the
exercise of fraud; and the impudence of impostors in contriving false
miracles, was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar:
whilst the sagacity of the wise, who perceived these cheats, were
overawed into silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and
fortunes, if they should expose the artifice. Thus does it generally
happen in human life, that, when danger attends the discovery of truth,
and the profession thereof, the prudent are _silent_--the multitude
_believe_, and impostors _triumph_"--(Eccles. Hist.)
* In the title of the 81st chapter of the 12th book of his
Evangelical Preparation, Eusebius tells "how it may be
lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, for the
benefit of those who want to be deceived." In this chapter,
says Gibbon, he adduces a passage of Plato, which approves
the occasional practice of pious and salutary frauds; and he
justifies this sentiment of Plato, by the example of the
sacred writers of the Old Testament. So much for the
theological pharmacopaeia of Eusebius.
In the fifth century, the church being backed by the strong arm of
imperial power, the hierarchy converted their successful institution
into a channel overflowing with riches; whilst their doctrines and
dogmas, continually changing, got rid of any vestiges of reason and
common sense which they had originally had amongst the Therapeutae and
Essenes. The ignorance of the laity was a secure protection for the
clergy in all their tyrannical usurpations, and they in their turn
became fierce persecutors.* Nature and her laws were overlooked as
objects of no consideration, or rather, proscribed as the deadly
enemies, of the theologian, and poor credulous man sunk into slavery and
misery. In the following centuries, the infatuated belief in miracles
of all sorts and sizes became the order of the day, and the heads of the
church, no doubt, founded their regularly organised system of deception
upon the authority of St. Paul, who, in his second letter to the
Thessalonians, fairly avows that, "for this cause God shall send them
strong delusion,** that they should believe a lie, _that they all might
be damned who believe not the truth_"
* Not at all scrupulous about appropriating to themselves
the property of others, they have been accused of expelling
the Druids or Culdees, from their temples and monasteries,
and substituting their own orders; and this they called
founding monasteries. This was the fox taking possession of
the hole that had been dug by the badger.
** In this epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul seemed to have
attained the acme of falsehood and delusion. He assures his
dupes that the resurrection of the dead, and the ascension
of the living, will take place in his and their days. "Then
we (says he, chap iv., 17), which are alive and remain,
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet
the Lord in the air," etc. Paul vouches for this being "the
word of the Lord." "The whole passage is in the first person
and present tense." By way of clinching this most notorious
falsehood, it is elsewhere affirmed that "this generation
shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished."
Priests, have these things taken place?
From this high authority, and from that of the Jew books, proceeded
those lying miracles and stupendous prodigies which excited the idiot
wonderment of mankind; hence the forged letters of Christ to Abgarus,
king of Edessa, and the Apostle Peter; hence the letters of the Virgin
Mary to St. Ignatius and the Sicilians, all dated in heaven; hence the
11,000 virgin martyrs of Cologne; hence wood enough of the _true cross_
to build a first-rate man-of-war; hence the two or three heads of St.
Ursula; hence the girdle of the Virgin Mary shown in eleven places at
the same time; hence the remains of the ass, or asses, which carried
Jesus to Jerusalem; hence the head of the Volto Santo, miraculously sent
from heaven, and carried in a ship from Joppa to Lucca, without the aid
of any human being on board; hence the annually liquefied blood of St.
Januarus, imitated from the annual wound of the god Adonis,* in mount
Libanus; and hence the flight of the Virgin Mary's cottage, which winged
its way from Nazareth to Dalmatia, and thence to Loretto, where it still
forms the headquarters of her ladyship.
* The Tammuz of Ezekiel:--
"Whose annual wound in Libanus allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In am'ous ditties all a summer's day."
--Milton.
You object to the above legends on account of their being the invention
of the scarlet prostitute, as you call the Church of Rome, observing
that the reformed church has given up all such fooleries. Be not
deceived, the priesthoods of all religions are essentially and
_necessarily_ the same, inasmuch as fraud and delusion, skilfully played
off upon ignorance, form the apparatus of all; and were it not that
science is now beginning everywhere to grapple with the demon of
artificial theology, miracles would be as abundant as ever amongst both
Catholics and protestants. The increasing knowledge of the laity curbs
and puts to shame all such pretentions in the present day; but do we not
see how strenuously all the priests of Christendom uphold the prodigies
which they say were performed nearly two thousand years ago? They do
this, because, without the delusion of supernatural agency, immediate or
remote, their trade could not stand.
Any attempt to rouse the ignorant, uncultivated mind to free inquiry, is
almost a hopeless task, and it is altogether so when besotted religious
prejudice stands in the way; but we ask the man who has got a vestige of
mind he can call his own, whether his evidence is as satisfactory that
Nature has been put out of her course by the working of miracles, as
it is, on the contrary, that such violations of her laws have never in
truth taken place! Has any such thing happened in his own, his father's,
his grandfather's, or his great grandfather's time? He must answer in
the negative, and thus far he has evidence from experience, we shall
say, for 150 years, giving a succession of proof, which rests on the
immutable order of things; and will he abandon that invariable director
for the worthless and self-convicted testimony of a few strolling
vagabonds, known only as the lawless disturbers of the peace in the
countries where they were vagrants, and who lived nearly two thousand
years ago? When legends and traditions are found inconsistent with
nature, common sense, and experience, does their antiquity alone prove
their truth against all these guides? On the contrary, antiquity can
never be divested of the mantle of fable. We know that besides the marks
of falsehood which the stories alluded to bore at the time of their
fabrication, the true characters of the propagators were so well known
to men of sense and education among the Pagans, that their impostures
were utterly despised; and as the Jew books called the "Testaments,"
abundantly show that they were compiled throughout by men of similar
character, to credit them is to give up all confidence in our senses,
and to give the lie to natural light and reason.
Whence comes the anomaly that it is in supenaturals alone we find man
departing totally from the common rules of evidence, and the respect
which he owes to himself? In this case, denying as he does the authority
of his own senses, and the reason which arises from them, he has
rendered himself inferior to all other animals, and this is evidently
owing to his not being allowed the exercise of his intellectual powers,
priestcraft having decoyed him into the regions of non-reality and
delusion, where everything congenial to his nature, where all entities,
or things comprehensible, can have no admittance: there theological
deception holds her dominion under the dark mask of mystery;* and out of
the fears of ignorance forges mental chains for the human race, as they
come into existence, the child succeeding to the woful inheritance of
the father.
Men, says a modern philosopher, blindly follow the paths their fathers
trode; they believe, because in infancy they were told they _must_
believe; they hope, because their progenitors hoped; and they tremble,
because they trembled. If by chance a young man examines his religion,
he does it with partiality, or without perseverance; he is often
disgusted with a single glance of the eye, on contemplating an object
so revolting. In old age, the faculties are blunted; habits become
incorporated with the machine, the senses are debilitated by time and
infirmity, and we are no longer able to penetrate back to the source of
our opinions; besides, the fear of death then renders an examination,
over which terror commonly presides, very liable to suspicion. Civil
authority also flies to the support of the prejudices of mankind;
compels them to ignorance by forbidding inquiry; and holds itself in
continual readiness to punish all who attempt to undeceive them.**
* Originally, the word mystery signified the veil (mistos)
which covered knowledge: but amongst Christian priests, it
has been made the veil by which the most wicked deceptions
are covered.
** For, blind and superstitious man is bred,
"And custom is his nurse!
Woe then to them
Who lay irreverent hands upon his old
House furniture, the dear inheritance
From his forefathers!
For time consecrates;
And what is grey with age becomes religion."
The morality which is derived from the religion of nature, and the
social intercourse of man, is everywhere the same, and unchangeable;
whereas that which is built upon priest-created theology is variable,
impure, and always pernicious, inasmuch as it is made to square with the
interests and power of the sacerdotal orders. This theology, from its
being linked with political governments, has been enabled to insinuate
its usurpations into every institution of society, where it has been
the fruitful source of endless contention and sorrow. The innocent
and necessary liberties of mankind are, by conventional laws of its
procuring, converted into crimes; the freedom of the moral energies is
crushed, and almost every pursuit that is conducive to, or connected
with human happiness, is discouraged and blasted, through the influence
and intrigues of this cunping and demoralising pest*--_the natural enemy
of everything that is natural_.
* We know no other correct way to judge of any system, than
to look at the practical effects it has produced in the
world since it was promulgated. What then does the record of
the past discover to have been the effects of Christianity
upon men and nations? What has it done for the enlightenment
and progress of the mind--for man's elevation, improvement,
and happiness--his proper rank and station as a moral,
intellectual, rational being? Let those who have impartially
considered this melancholy subject, answer this question: do
we not know what it has done for the suppression, or rather
annihilation, of them all?
Are we told that the fires of the inquisition, with all its accompanying
abominations, have been swept away by the reformation; and that the
spirit of our religion is changed from that of the raging wolf, to the
mildness of the lamb? We positively deny that its _spirit_ is either
changed or capable of change: the light of science, and a partial
exercise of reason is at present keeping it in check; but it anxiously
awaits and looks forward to the return of that congenial element--the
intellectual darkness and ignorance which prevailed in the eleventh
century. This blessed consummation would effectually restore its power;
and thus armed, the demon would quickly show, in the strongest sect,
whether Catholic or Protestant, its immutable spirit of tyranny and
persecution,--the human mind would again be prostrated, and all the
horrors of those times would again cover the face of Christendom.
We shall conclude this lecture by asking a few questions.
What is it that has, for the last fifteen centuries, obscured the light
of Nature, put human reason out of her chair, and, as much as possible,
prevented the development of all scientific truths?
What was it that first occasioned the shedding of human blood, on
account of supernatural speculations, and imaginary existence?
What was it that spread war, devastation, and bloodshed over Europe,
(agreeably to the New Testament denunciation,)* for more than thirteen
hundred years?
What is it that still divides Europe into opposing sects; and keeps
alive those deadly animosities about chimeras, for which men formerly
cut each other's throats?
What is it that most generally sets the father's heart against the son,
and makes the son abhor the presence of his father?
What is the thing which, cherished by ignorance, and sheltered by
tyranny, has usurped one-tenth of the proceeds of man's industry; and in
wringing this from starving poverty, is supported by cannon, bayonets,
and sabres?
What is it that has, to serve its own ends, and wholly unsupported
by New Testament authority, appropriated to itself one-seventh of the
laboring man's time; compelling him to spend that time, either in houses
of idolatry, or in idleness and vice at the ale-house, to the utter ruin
of his family?
What is it that has poisoned love amongst the human species, and
rendered the simple union of the sexes an unnatural bond of tyranny
and slavery,** which, in nine cases in every ten, entails life-lasting
misery upon the victims of the indissoluble marriages of Christian
superstition!
* Vide Matt x., 84.
** In the headlong inexperience of youth, the sexes, under
an innocent impulse of Nature, enter into the perpetual
snare of marriage, with tempers and dispositions as
different as are their sexes; and in a state of penury
scarcely able to subsist themselves, they engage to give
subsistence to a numerous family. Here is the beginning of
that unhappy state of matrimonial life which exhibits the
darkest portraiture of human existence--a procreative nest
of nuptial misery. But as that abject condition of toilworn
bondage mainly entails and fosters ignorance, by allowing
the laborer no leisure for the cultivation of his mind, it
has ever been cherished as the safeguard of "Church and
State" despotism.
All these questions are answered in five words:--_the artificial
religion of priestcraft_.