"Tis only thou,
Accursed superstition, cans't accord
Thy aids to tyranny, for which alone
She guards thee with the penalty of "Laws".
Endows thee, pampers thee ; and seems to bend
(Mocking herself) in reverence to thy nod.
For this imperial rapine shares with thee
Her gaudy spoil."
In a former lecture, when speaking of the compilation of the New
Testament, we promised to show that the first idea of forming that book
was drawn from a Pagan prototype; and therefore we resume the subject,
in order also to adduce farther proof that the very vitals of our
religion originated in heathen polytheism.
Here, it is of the highest importance to draw particular attention to
the sacred and mysterious testament of the Athenians, on which they
believed the salvation not only of their city, but of all Greece
depended. There is now so little said about this famous testament, that
it has nearly passed into oblivion; but this is easily accounted for, as
the fabricators of the Christian New Testament would, as usual in such
cases, do all in their power to suppress the remembrance of a volume
which suggested the scheme of their own book of mysteries, in the
formation of which St. Paul was not only the principal contributor,
but, in point of fact, the real founder of our religion.* We ought not,
therefore, to pass without distinct notice, the remarkable deference
and respect which he pretended to have for this book of imposture, when
wishing to recommend himself to any Grecian state.
* The famous Longinus mentions Paul of Tarsus, whom "he
considered to be the first setter-forth of an unproved
doctrine."
This Testament had a profound influence over those states, which,
as well as the Athenians, were kept in reverential awe by its divine
authority; and Paul having acquired a knowledge of this in his
vagrancies,* shows his dexterity by availing himself of it in his 2nd
Epistle to the Corinthians iii., 6, wherein he says, "God hath made us
able ministers of the (New) Testament, not of the letter, but of the
spirit" Now, we defy all our divines and commentators put together,
to show that the present New Testament of the Christians was _then_ in
existence, that is to say, before the end of the first century, and it
is on all hands agreed by church chronologists, that Paul wrote before
that period; and, therefore, in writing the above epistle, it was not
possible that he could be speaking in reference to any other book than
that which the Greeks called "_the unspeakably holy Testament_." How
was it possible for him to speak of a book which we can prove was not
compiled into its present form until centuries had elapsed after his
time--viz., until the councils of Nice and Laodicea? That this book
existed not in all the first century we have the authority of the most
learned and orthodox God-well,** who, in his dissertation upon Irenaeus,
confesses as follows:--"We have at this day certain most authentic
ecclesiastical writers of the times, as Clemens, Romanus, Barnabas,
Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, who wrote in the same order in which I
have named them, and after all the writers of the New Testament. But
in Hermas you will not find one passage, or any mention of the New
Testament, nor in all the rest is any one of the evangelists named."
What! our four evangelists entirely unknown to all the five apostolic
fathers! Could this have been possible if these gospels had been written
when these "authentic" writers lived?
* When Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, burnt the New Testament,
declaring it to be doctrinam peregrinam, he probably meant
that it was-only the doctrine of Paul the rambler.--Vide
Tyndale.
** Dodwell says that it "was not until the reign of Trajan
or Adrian that a collection of the books of the New
Testament was publicly made, the priests having previous to
that time concealed them in the archives, of their
churches." It was then that they made anything that suited
them the "word of God."
Having shown the absurdity of supposing that Paul could speak of a
Testament that did not exist in his time, we repeat, that from his
vagrant habits he had, in all probability, come to the knowledge that
the sacred Testament of the Athenians was, like all priestly writings
of the East, figurative, mystical, and would bear either the literal or
metaphorical meaning, according to the views of those who used it for
the purpose of deception; so he tells the Corinthians of his being aware
that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." He knew also
that this book of superlative authority was carefully concealed from
the vulgar eye; and, therefore, he has not the presumption to say he had
seen it, as that would have given offence; but merely professes to be an
humble minister of its spirit, of which he might have learned something,
as aforesaid; and forming his texts on the common rumor respecting it,
he comments upon them in such a manner as to please his followers
in those states, professing a profound awe and reverence towards the
spotless sanctity of the original.
Christian bigots! We well know the angry, fiery glance with which you
receive truths shocking to your prejudices; but it is time you should be
told in plain terms, that this divine Testament upon which Paul comments
with so much respect and veneration, and of the spirit whereof he
declares himself an able minister, was no other than the FAMOUS ATHENIAN
TESTAMENT, the archetype of the sibyline books of the Romans, and which
was older than the time of Solon. After the abolition of the Athenian
superstition, this testament was found to be a legitimate child of
theology, being filled with the grossest impostures. Paul tells us
that he had the happy knack of being "all things to all men;" but
his pretended veneration for this sacred volume of the Greeks, was a
masterly stroke of policy, and extremely well calculated to secure
his good reception amongst them. The word new, as we find it in the
conundrums of Paul, and prefixed to the modern Testament, is easily
accounted for by any person who is at all acquainted with the shameless
falsifications and interpolations of those who fabricated our religion.
Thus did the famous Athenian Testament become not only the prototype of
the sibyline* books, but that of the new will of the Jewish deity also;
whereof the writings attributed to this Paul formed a large portion, at
that subsequent period when the approved collection was _voted to be the
"Word of God_."
* The sibyline verses of the Romans are known to have
existed as far back as the time of Tarquinius Priscus, 717
years b.c.; they are quoted by the fathers from Tertullian,
in the second, to the Christian writer, Lactantius, in the
fourth century. They relate the whole story of Christ's
incarnation, miracles, death, and resurrection, in almost
the same words as the gospels.
In regard to this miscellany, the Manicheans say that it was formed from
scraps of legends and traditions which the itinerant fathers happened
to pick up in their journeyings in the eastern countries, in search of
"gospel truth." "Thus some parts would be, as we find them, Indian, some
Persian, some Egyptian, etc., etc., all jumbled together, and forming,
after undergoing the required fittings and alterations, the mass which
we now possess. Thus from India came the murder of the Innocents; from
all quarters of the heathen world came the Trinity, the crucifixion
of Christ, the Lord Sol, and Iao, born at the winter solstice, and
triumphing over the powers of hell, or cold and darkness, and rising
into light or glory, as the Regenerator and Savior, at the vernal
equinox: from the Egyptian--perhaps the Eleusinian mysteries, came the
worship of the virgin and child; and from all the countries of the east,
the miraculous conception."
On a careful examination of the quirks and quibbles of St. Paul, it
plainly appears that he had some smattering of the Pagan mysteries;
and just as it suited his interest for the time being, or the degree of
knowledge in his auditors, he used the exoteric or esoteric doctrines;
the former was adapted for street-preaching, and bamboozling the
long-eared multitude; and the latter was used only when he was
addressing the initiated few, some of whom were, in all probability,
playing the same game as himself.* He designates these mysteries as
being "_shadows of heavenly things_;" and "_patterns of things in the
heavens_" (Hebrews viii., 5, and ix., 23), meaning, unquestionably,
astronomical truths concealed from the million, under the veil of
allegory; for that word is used by him, and he frequently makes use of
the term veil. St. Barnabas, in his Gospel, denies the truth of Paul's
exoteric doctrine, declaring that no person called Christ did actually
and _bona fide_ die upon the cross: hence the quarrel between the two;
and from this cause was Barnabas' Gospel rejected. In further proof that
there were two doctrines in use, the ostensible and the hidden, Jesus
is made to say, Matthew xiii., 11, "To you it is given to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." This compliment could be addressed
to none but such as were initiated in the symbolical worship of the sun,
and other celestial bodies; whilst to the rabble multitude the secret
was concealed under metaphor or parable, in order that, "hearing ye
shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing, ye shall see and not
perceive." (Acts xxviii., 26.) Paul, in his epistle to the Ephesians
(iii., 4), boasts of a knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which he says
in the 5th verse, "was not in other ages made known to the sons of men."
Now, this could not possibly allude to Jesus of the New Testament, with
whom, as some of the fathers have assumed, Paul was contemporary; and
therefore, in speaking of "other ages" it inevitably follows that he was
alluding to a Gentile divinity, a Christ ** whose name had belonged
to the heathen mysteries, in "ages" long prior to the reputed time of
Jesus. In the 16th chapter of the Romans, Paul again lets out the secret
in the 25th and 26th verses, where he speaks of "his gospel," and the
preaching of Jesus Christ, "according to the revelation of the mystery,
which was kept secret since the world began." What mystery of Christ can
he mean, that was thus _kept secret since the world began?_ He assuredly
alludes to the esoteric doctrines of the Egyptian priests of Osiris;
the Eleusinian mysteries; the Bacchanal orgies; and to all the ancient
mythoses in which the sun, under many different names, was the secret
object of adoration in all the countries of the east, as the glorious
_savior_ who annually _redeems_ the world from the reign of cold
and darkness; and of whose mysterious worship Paul had gained some
knowledge.
* He makes a plain confession of having two gospels, in his
Epistle to the Galatians, ii., 2. The "cloven tongues" so
much spoken of, designated those who were capable of holding
forth the exoteric, or esotoric doctrine, as occasion might
require. Paul's tongue appears to have been cloven into more
than two parts.
** Did not Cicero, when he travelled in Greece, find
inscriptions on monuments to many Christs?
In the reign of Adrian, the Egyptian priests of the idol Priapus, were
called the bishops of Christ. Priapus was a symbol of the generative
power of the sun. Socrates and Sozomen say, that when the temple of
this god was destroyed, the monogram of Christ was found beneath the
foundation.
"We speak wisdom," says he, "to them that are perfect, yet not the
wisdom of this world." Certainly not; for his secret doctrine was the
celestial theosophy, or astronomy in disguise; but as these mysteries
were known only to the initiated few, they were wisdom to them alone.
But when these truth-conveying allegories were spoken to the uninitiated
rabble, they were received in the exoteric, or literal sense, which Paul
elsewhere calls "foolishness;" yet nothing is so common in the present
day as that same foolishness. None but minds who not only choose, but
are determined to be deceived, can resist the obvious meaning conveyed
in his Epistle to the Philippians, iii., 20. "For our conversation is
in heaven, from whence also we look for the _Savior_, the Lord Jesus
Christ." That is, the return of the Lord the Sun to the zodiacal signs
of spring and summer, when he alone is truly the savior.* That even the
fable of the flood is an astronomical allegory, is proven in 1st Peter
iii., where the writer, speaking of the ark, wherein the "eight souls
were saved by water," concludes the parables thus,--"_the like FIGURE
hereunto even baptism doth now save us_."
* As the sun is the only true physical savior of everything
that has life upon this globe, so is a free printing press
the true moral and intellectual savior of the human race.
Thus it is an astronomical key that lays open the secret arcanum of all
that Paul, or any other of the New Testament writers say about "Christ
and heavenly things;" for these, when the veil of allegory is withdrawn,
stand confessed in the Sun,* (the Mithras, or Mediator) moon, stars,
the elements and seasons, the deification of which formed the occult
astro-theology which was the basis of all the religions of the east; and
from which Christianism is only a distorted emanation.
* Neither Origen nor Tertullian attempts to prove the
existence of Jesus Christ on historical documents, and to
establish his birth and death on unquestionable authority.
From the works of Plutarch, which are now lost, Eusebius quoted a
fragment in which that wise Grecian says: "It clearly results from the
verses of Orpheus, and the sacred books of the Egyptians and Phrygians,
that the ancient theology, not only of the Greeks, but of all nations,
was nothing more than a system of physics--a picture of the operations
of Nature, wrapped up in mysteries, allegories, enigmatical symbols, in
a manner that the ignorant multitude attended rather to their apparent
than to their hidden meaning: and even what they understood of the
latter, led them to suppose there was still something more than they
perceived." When the lost works of Plutarch contained such disclosures,
their destruction by Christian priests is anything but wonderful.
When all these circumstances are duly weighed in the mind that dares to
look truth in the face, the conviction flashes upon it instantly, that
all our gospels, and everything else that is said about Jesus Christ in
the New Testament, has no reference whatever to any event that ever did
in reality take place upon this globe; or to any personages that ever
in truth existed: and that the whole is an astronomical allegory, or
parable, having invariably a primary and sacred allusion to the sun, and
his passage through the signs of the zodiac: or a verbal representation
of the phaenomena of the solar year and seasons. A belief in the literal
or ostensible meaning of these parables, shows the sottish credulity
into which man sinks after his reason has been mortgaged in youth to
the priest, who keeps him in the ignorance that is suitable for mental
slavery.
This view of these matters unveils and draws forth good sense and
science out of both Testaments; and all our wonder at once ceases
in regard to the total absence of even the slightest corroborating
historical trace of the miraculous narratives of these books. This
revelation of these enigmas also reconciles with truth that apparently
false prediction of Jesus, wherein, he tells his auditors that some of
them would live to see the coming of the Christ he alluded to; and to
do this it was only requisite that they should live until the following
year, when the true Christ, the sun would again be "triumphant in the
clouds," as he approached the summer solstice. Moreover, we may here
notice another similar New Testament prediction, which from the stubborn
preciseness of the terms in which it is expressed, can neither be
twisted by the priest nor rationally solved without the allegorical
interpretation;--it declares--"Ye shall not taste of death" till all
these things are accomplished. If Christian priests are not willing that
Paul should pass for a notorious cheat and impostor, let them explicate,
in any other way than the above, his "_Heavenly_" enigmas and literally
false predictions:--we challenge them to this; and if they cannot or
will not do it satisfactorily, to whom will the epithets of cheats and
impostors properly belong? The above solution of these astro-allegories
forces so irresistible a conviction upon the ingenuous and unprejudiced
mind as leaves no room to suppose a possibility of its being
otherwise:--it is the physical truths of nature and scientific
demonstration, against that which is false in physics, false in analogy,
and, consequently, contrary to all experience and reason.
The Jewish sects of Essenes and Therapeutae,* out of which the Galileans
and Christians more immediately sprang, had thus their superstition
composed of a mixture of the Egyptian and Persian mysteries,
consequently sun worship was common to many of the subsequent branches
of Christianity, such as the Mani-chees and others. Tertullian, in the
apologetics, makes a broad confession of this, as follows:--"Many think,
with more probability, _that our god is the Sun_;** and they trace our
religion to that of the Persians." If this is not an admission, it is
the next thing to it, that about the beginning of the third century, the
secret object of Christian worship _was the Sun_; and it would have
been well if they had continued in that rational adoration, instead of
adopting those midnight rites which were held in horror and detestation
by their Gentile neighbors, as being cruel, wicked, and blasphemous;***
and which caused the votaries of the new religion to be branded as
atheists. Arnobius who turned Christian, (most probably in view of a
bishopric), complains of the Gentiles thus:--"We (the Christians) are
called by you ill-omened men, and atheists; you call us impious and
irreligious atheists. You are in the habit of exciting the hatred of the
mob against us, by calling us atheists."****
* We are told by Philo, that these pious enthusiasts
abandoned father, mother, wife, children, and property, and
devoted themselves to a contemplative life; which are
exactly the injunctions attributed to Christ.
** In another treatise Tertullian alludes to the strong
similarity between the religion of Christ, and that of
Mithra, or the Sun. "The priests of the Persian god had
sacraments. Their baptism procured the remission of sins to
the believers and the faithful."
"Saint Justin also alludes to the mystical consecrations of
these two religions; and to the similarity of the birth of
Christ, and his Persian rival, the Sun."
*** The Agapae, or love feasts of the early Christians, were
close imitations of the bacchanal orgies; at the latter, it
was a vital principle, that no action whatsoever constituted
a crime, if committed by any of the initiated during their
meetings. It appears that the spirit of this horrible
license was fully entered into by the Christians.--Vide
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. ii, p. 894.
**** Adv. Gentes.
Some of the learned, however, have been of opinion that the present
version of Christianism is more immediately founded on the writings of
Philo Judaeus, who speaks much of the "Logos," which in Greek signifies
the principle of reason; having the same figurative moral sense as the
epithet Christos. The epistle to the Hebrews, and St. John's Gospel, are
adduced as complete imitations of Philo's manner and style. The epithet
"_Logos_" is often used by him, but in John's Gospel it is falsely
translated, being rendered "the word."* Philo also speaks at large of
the Therapeutae and Essenes, from whom the Christians borrowed so freely
in making their collection; and though in his time they existed not as
a sect, they might be mainly indebted to his writings for the groundwork
of their fabric. This opinion is greatly strengthened, inasmuch as the
heads of our church have always kept Philo, as much as possible, in
the back ground. He was a much more learned man than Josephus--a better
writer; and had arrived at the years of maturity before the period
assigned for the birth of Christ.
* The first verse in John's Gospel is literally copied from
Plato. As a play upon words, it is almost worthy of St.
Paul.
The restless and prying zeal of Paul having gained him this knowledge in
the Pagan mysteries, which he boasts of, he perceived that the spirit of
the mythos in all the polytheisms of the east was essentially the
same, that is, the emblematical personification of physical and moral
principles; and that the removal of this veil of allegory developed
all the mysteries, and was indeed the only rational meaning of the word
revelation. He knew, like the Pagan priests, that in order to deceive
the multitude, and make their industry maintain idleness and imposture,
miracle and mystery were indispensable; and while he dealt largely in
the latter article, he showed a peculiar aptitude for rendering
mystery doubly mysterious, whereby he became the grand exemplar of all
theological quacks, and founder of that school of quibble which has
been so eminently useful to his successors in the Christian church: for
whenever they cannot escape from contradictions and absurdities of their
own raising, they transfer the solving of their enigmas to the regions
of Paul's "third heaven," where all are lost in his mysteries and awful
"unspeakables;" fooleries which will always captivate the wonder-struck
million; while common sense, with persecution before his eyes, dares to
venture only a shrug of the shoulders.
Let us now attend to the moral and political effects produced by this
new version of the old mythology, to which, with regard to its absurd
and unnatural dogmas, St Paul is the principal contributor. After it had
grown strong under the protection of the cruel, kin-killing Constantine,
and his parasite Eusebius, it soon turned persecutor in its turn, and
began to engender legions of other moral and physical evils, which
gradually overwhelmed the Roman empire, in proportion as the human mind
became debased and emasculated by abject slavery, under an intolerant
superstition--the gorgeous demon of Catholic despotism, erected on
the ruins of the less degrading and less expensive Paganism.* Each
succeeding year and age was marked by the onward degeneracy and baseness
of the Roman spirit. The new modelled mystery of a triune godhead,
with its accompanying train of chimeras,** sunk all classes into mental
imbecility, and such was the infatuation that nothing but the grossest
supernatural follies excited their attention; and as these were made
up of insignificant mummeries--theological cant and jargon altogether
unintelligible, they caused the bitterest disputes and animosities in
both the empires; and glorious high-minded Pagan Italy became the land
of pious frauds, clerical knavery, and lies,*** in which absurdities the
effeminate and contemptible emperors joined, with their trains of monks
and eunuchs.
* In the mythology of the Pagans, their Theogony consisted
of full thirty thousand bearded and unbearded divinities. We
have reduced that establishment to three only; yet
nevertheless, (unaccountable as it may appear) it has been
so contrived by our modern hierophants, that the service of
this triune deity, with their hosts of privileged deputies,
holy days, etc., and taxing the people in one-seventh of
their time, and one-tenth of their substance, has entailed
on human industry, a tax of one hundred times the amount of
that which was contributed to regale the nasal senses of the
whole celestial army of antiquity!
** In imitation of the Pagans, the crafty Christian priests
soon perceived the advantages of polytheism, and that it
would tend greatly to their interest to associate some other
subaltern gods along with the deity of Moses; for, by thus
introducing a plurality of gods, they would not only more
effectually embarrass and perplex the minds of the credulous
people; but by multiplying the objects of worship, and
constituting themselves the acting attornies for these
deities, they would increase their stipends and other
exactions, in proportion to the various rites and ceremonies
they invented for each.
*** Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,
A cowled and hypocritical monk
Prays, curses, and deceives.--Shelley.
Where then, O Rome, were your Brutus', your Cincinnatus', your Catos,
your Marcus Aurelius', your Julians? The fact was, so far from being
able to produce such examples of heroic virtue, your sons had nearly
ceased to deserve the name of men; and as Machiavel truly observes,
the doctrines of your new religion, teaching only passive courage and
suffering, had subdued the Roman spirit, and fitted you for subjection
and slavery. All manly dignity, all strength of mind, and all the
virtues had forsaken your sons, and you had become the nucleus of
theological absurdity--of all that is worthless, vicious, and unnatural.
Your handling of arms to prevent barbarian invasion had ceased, and
they were used alone to cut each others throats about the supernatural
phantoms of your fraudful priests; witness your Emperor Honorius, who
was most holily employed at Ravenna "in punishing Manicheans, Donatists,
Priscillianists, and heretics of every denomination, _whilst the Goths
marched without opposition to Rome_." Again, when the Heruli, the Goths,
the Vandals, and the Huns, invaded the empire, what steps were taken by
the two emperors to withstand their attack, and resist the torrent of
invasion? None at all; these superstitious fools in purple, aided by
their priests and monks, were settling the difference between _Omoosis_
and _Omousis_; and, probably, the different degrees of efficacy in
concomitant, versatile, and sufficient grace. With these heavenly
matters upon their hands, how could these holy men find time to resist
the invasion of their country? Suppose for a moment, that by one of the
Christian miracles, the great Caius Julius had started up amongst these
degenerate reptiles, and witnessed their ridiculous fooleries, would he
have believed that he was among Romans? What would he have said of Saint
Anthony's preaching to the fishes with such "spiritual efficacy," that
a huge cod looks at the preacher with a face of sanctified beatitude;
whilst a beautiful salmon turns up his eyes to heaven, imploring divine
light and grace?
When such shameful and degrading absurdities had thus sunk the Romans,
and the contagion of the new superstition had so thoroughly and
incurably vitiated the minds of all ranks, that all firmness and
nobility of character were extinct amongst them; and the change was
rapidly leading to the downfall of that vast empire,--dastards and
mental recreants in nature, they were marked by the northern nations
as an easy prey to the first invader. Little or no symptom of such a
decline had appeared until after the gods of the Christians had gained
the countenance of the Emperor Constantine, who did not destroy, but
made a change in the worship of the Gentile gods, under whom, it was
supposed, the empire had attained the highest pitch of glory and power.
Yet even this Constantine, so far as regarded himself, was ever as ready
to pay his respect to Jupiter, Apollo, and Venus, as to Jehovah, Christ,
and the Virgin Mary,* having wit enough to perceive that the latter were
mere copies of the former.
* He died more a Pagan than a Christian; and all the change
that he in reality effected was to amalgamate, or unite the
two superstitions. This is proved in the fact that, under a
change of names and forms, nearly the whole of the heathen
mythos was adopted and continued.
In order to conceal as much as possible the fact, that the adoption of
the Christian superstition was the principal cause of the downfall of
Roman greatness, it has been assumed by church historians and others,
that a very considerable decline had visibly taken place during the
hundred and seventy years that elapsed between the reign of Adrian and
that of Constantine; but this assumption appears to be fallacious. It
is true that the integrity of the empire was sometimes endangered during
that period, from the despotism falling into unworthy and profligate
hands; but at the time when Constantine possessed himself of it, the
extent of territory seems to have been undiminished at any point; for it
still included the provinces east of the Euphrates (lost by the sons of
this emperor), and towards the west, northern Africa, Gaul, Spain,
and Britain; so that the real "decline and fall," commenced with the
adoption of Christianity.* If the subversion of this immense empire
had been the only political effect of this freshly compounded system
of theology, the cause of humanity might not have suffered; but it is
a most lamentable truth that all the ancient learning of the east was
involved in that destruction; for we know from historic facts which are
indisputable, that the priests, and tyrants acting in league with them,
took special care, as far as it lay in their power, to destroy every
root and branch of natural science; but more particularly the writings
of those philosophers who exposed the immoral and wicked rites and
secrets of the new sect, and its origin amongst the lowest and vilest
of the populace.** As one proof amongst a hundred of the persecution of
such learned Gentiles as exposed the profligacy of the first Christians,
we quote part of the decree of the Emperor Theodosius, as follows:--"We
decree that all writings whatever, which Porphyry, or anyone else, hath
written against the Christian religion, in the possession of whomsoever
they may be found, _shall be committed to the fire_." (See the original
Latin, quoted by Lardner.) Thus the Emperors soon found that, with the
connivance and subserviency of the priests, the new superstition was
much better calculated than the old for the purposes of tyranny; and
that the one thing needful was to suppress all Pagan learning--to foster
and diffuse the gloom of ignorance, as the only element in which their
nefarious schemes for the subjugation of the human mind could prosper.
* The tide of prosperity and greatness followed the Romans,
so long as they were reared under the moral and heroic
virtues of the old religion, until the new superstition
arose like a blighting meteor, shedding its baleful
influence over the empire; and by its pernicious dogmas and
emasculating tendency, gradually reduced the most warlike
nation in the world to contempt and vassalage.
** The Emperor Julian, in a discourse to the Christians,
told them that "It was enough for you at first to seduce a
few servants--a few beggars, such as Cornelius and Sergius.
But let me be regarded as the most impudent of impostors, if
among those who embraced your feet under Tiberius and
Claudius, there was a single man of birth or merit." Julian
here alludes to the Jewish sect of Galileans, who had not
assumed the name of Christians under Tiberius and Claudius.
In latter times history vouches for the horrible persecutions and bloody
wars, which this fresh version of Christianity occasioned throughout
Europe and part of Asia, for more than thirteen hundred years, viz.,
from the reign of Constantine till towards the latter end of the
sixteenth century, when some glimmerings of science began to dispel
the gloom of ignorance, and to weaken that priestly and aristocratic
despotism, which even to this day has not been entirely shaken off by
any European nation.
A celebrated philosopher,* when speaking of the above period, makes the
following observations:--If, says he, God deigned to make himself a man,
and a Jew, and to die in Palestine by an infamous punishment, to expiate
the crimes of mankind, and to banish sin from the earth, there ought
to have been no longer any sin or crime amongst men, whereas religious
crimes seem only to have commenced since the time when that event is
said to have happened: and the Christians, by their holy massacres and
burnings, have shown themselves more abominable monsters than all the
sectaries of the other religions put together.**
* Freret.
** The Jews may be regarded as an exception; for their
history displays the most memorable examples of the evils
arising from superstition and fanaticism; from these arose
the numerous revolutions, the horrid and bloody wars; and at
last their total destruction as a petty dependent nation,
owing to their submission to priests, and their unbounded
credulity. From the roguish deceptions of their tribe of
priests alone, they became, beyond all contradiction, the
most despicable people that ever existed. Their barbarous
ignorance was easily played upon by Levitical commissions
from heaven.
In proof of this, witness the gibbets, the wheels, the massacres, and
the horrible burnings at the stake of nearly a hundred thousand human
beings in a single province--the massacres and devastations of nine
mad crusades of Christians against unoffending Turks, during nearly
two hundred years; in which many millions of human beings perished--the
massacres of the Anabaptists--the massacres of the Lutherans and
Papists, from the Rhine to the extremities of the north--the massacres,
in Ireland, England, and Scotland, in the time of Charles I., who was
himself massacred--the massacres ordered by Henry VIII. and his daughter
Mary--the massacres of St. Bartholomew in France; and forty years more
of other massacres between the time of Francis I. and the entry of
Henry IV. into Paris;--the massacres of the inquisition, which are more
execrable still, as being judicially committed;--to say nothing of the
innumerable schisms and twenty wars of popes against popes--bishops
against bishops--the poisonings, assassinations--the cruel rapines of
more than a dozen of popes, who far exceeded a Nero or a Caligula in
every species of crime and wickedness;--the massacre of twelve millions
of the inhabitants of the new world, executed CRUCIFIX IN HAND and
all for the honor and glory of the Jewish deity and his son!! This
is without reckoning all the massacres committed in the same names,
precedently to any of the above. Finding no end to this dismal catalogue
of theological enormities, this philosopher shortly observes, that such
a hideous and almost uninterrupted chain of religious wars, for fourteen
centuries, never subsisted but among Christians; and that none of all
the numerous nations called heathen ever spilt a drop of human blood on
the score of theological arguments.
* Under the banners and sanction of the exterminating god of
Moses and of Joshua, "the Spaniards did not treat the
inhabitants of the New World as human beings, because they
were not Christians. All sense of remorse was stifled; and
those unfeeling men, whom Europe had disgorged from her
bosom, were abandoned without control to their insatiable
thirst for gold and for blood."
We are obliged to grant that all this is true; and to this may be
added, that in these shocking devastations, the blind ferocity of the
Christians was everywhere written in blood, whereas the behavior of
their opponents was frequently marked by clemency. As an instance let us
compare the conduct of Saladin with that of Godfrey of Bouillon, and
his followers, though shame and detestation would draw a veil over the
contrast: when the latter took Jerusalem, an indiscriminate butchery
took place; neither age nor sex was spared; and _after the surrender_,
the streets streamed with the blood of at least seven thousand
victims. When Saladin retook the place, no lives were taken _after
the surrender_; and he showed the greatest kindness to the Christian
captives; _giving those who were poor their liberty without ransom_. The
massacres of Antioch and Thessalonica, by the Emperor Theodosius, may
be regarded as other instances of sectarian ferocity, partaking, as they
certainly did, of religious animosity. Did the Emperor Julian punish
these Antiochians in any way whatever, when they heaped upon him every
kind of abuse and indignity?*
* Did he not also spare the ten or more Christian soldiers
of his own army, who were proved to have conspired against
his life?
Descending from the great and general calamities which the Christian
superstition has entailed upon nations, let us notice a very few of its
malignant persecutions of individuals whose only crimes were superior
genius, learning, and science; and this persecution has ever been marked
by a deadly rancor, which plainly shows that the study and knowledge of
Nature is incompatible with, and a decided enemy to, this theological
fabrication. Before the time of Copernicus, and the famous Galileo,
Christians were taught by their priests, that the sun revolved round the
earth; that the latter was flat like a table, (it is quite clear that
the Bible-makers knew no better) and one-third longer than it was
broad, hence our terms of latitude and longitude. Copernicus showed the
absurdity of these notions, and taught that the sun is the centre of his
own, or the solar, system, in which this globe of ours is comparatively
but a mole-hill. But knowing of the hosts of priests who were ready to
pounce upon him if he discovered these truths openly, he declined to
publish his works till near the time of his death, and he lived just
long enough to receive a corrected copy of them.
Galileo, at the distance of more than a hundred years after the former,
offended the church by defending the system of Copernicus, but still
more in proving that the earth had a double motion, in revolving on its
own centre in twenty-four hours, and also in its orbit round the sun;
the former being the cause of day and night, and the latter measuring
the solar year. The discovery, or rather the revival, of these and many
other grand and sublime truths, drew down upon the head of this great
man the implacable vengeance of an interested priesthood; and he was
condemned by a wicked conclave, which calls itself holy, for daring to
know and to propagate truths that are now known to every schoolboy. All
that could be done for him by the wise and learned of the age was merely
to save him from being burnt by the priests. He was confined for life,
and died a prisoner of the Inquisition. As the sentence against him
is hardly credible in the present day, we cite the following part of
it:--"To assert that the earth is not immoveable in the centre of the
world, is an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, heretical in
religion, and contrary to the testimony of Scripture." As an instance of
the malicious and inexorable nature of priestcraft, we note the curious
fact, that Galileo's sentence was, in spite of the clearest light,
_renewed at Rome in 1819!_
Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzberg, was condemned by the church
for maintaining that the figure of the earth is spherical; and,
consequently, the existence of antipodes.
The learned Stephen Dolet was burnt by the Inquisition for exposing
priestcraft, and asserting the unity of God.
Julius Vanini was burnt by the clergy for saying that "God is both the
beginning and the end, without being in need of either--in no one place,
yet present everywhere; his power is his will." For these tenets did the
theologians burn the innocent Vanini.
The blameless life and manners of William Tyndale could not save him
from the stake and fagot; his great learning enabled him to expose the
frauds of the priests, and the false translations of their Scriptures:
so he fell their victim, through the aid and authority of his tyrannical
and blood-thirsty king.
The great Descartes died in a foreign land from church persecution.
That persecution is necessarily ingrained in priests of every
denomination, and that they will have recourse to it whenever they have
the power, we have a memorable instance in the much vaunted reformer,
John Calvin, who, when armed with authority by the magistrates of
Geneva, wrote to the high Chamberlain of the King of Navarre, (of date
the 30th Sept., 1561) as follows:--"Honor, glory, and riches, shall be
the reward of your pains; but, above all, do not fail to rid the country
of those zealous scoundrels who stir up the people to revolt against
_us_. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated
Michael Servetus, the Spaniard." Now the fact is well known, that
when Calvin found himself unable to cope in argument with this learned
Spaniard, he took the true orthodox way of getting a riddance, by
roasting him alive at a slow fire, _inhumanly made on purpose, of green
wood._
The intrepid Bruno resolutely suffered at the stake for condemning that
baleful source of distraction to the human race--the spirituality of
priests.
In latter times matters are not much mended. A considerable portion
of the 19th century has now elapsed, and has been deemed a period of
science; yet free discussion, and the exercise of reason on all subjects
have made but small progress; and it is melancholy to reflect that plain
truth is still at the bottom of her well, where she is stifled by the
demon of supernatural theology and its political colleagues, from whence
she has been suffered to emit only partial glimmerings of light; whilst,
from base interest, she is shunned or unacknowledged by those very
men of science by whom alone she can be rescued from this detestable
thraldom of the mind. By corrupt judges and packed juries she is
jealously excluded from courts of pretended justice, lest she should
expose, in her odious colors, the reigning hag of superstition, with her
Bibyline books of mystery and fraud; hence the fines, the robberies, and
the incarcerations of a great number of the most virtuous, enlightened,
and most talented advocates of free discussion and mental liberty, for
the last thirty years. Thus has the peace of countries been incessantly
disturbed and outraged, for nearly two thousand years, by this strange
fabrication of artificial theology; thus has it been perpetually in
exercise as an instrument in the persecution of great and good men,
and raised up the most inextinguishable flames of hatred, wars,
and devastations amongst nations. Such will ever be its effects,
particularly where it is iniquitously upheld as a device to strangle
mental liberty, through the hopes and fears of ignorance; and as an
engine of state to sustain corrupt government.
On a retrospective view of this direful superstition, we cannot
ascertain from any certain authority at what time the Galileans took the
name of Christians, as there is not the slightest historical trace
of their using the latter term throughout the first century of their
assumed existence. There appears to have been no sect of that name in
Jerusalem when it was taken and destroyed by Titus in the year seventy,
and it was not until full thirty years afterwards that it was mentioned
by the younger Pliny (governor of Bithynia) in a letter to the Emperor
Trajan. This letter was written about the beginning of the second
century, and it shows that Pliny had heard nothing of Christians until
he went to that province, as he speaks of them as a novelty with which
he did not know how to deal, and represents them to the Emperor as a set
of vile and vicious fanatics. However, it appears that the animosities
and dissensions amongst the propagators of the new sect had produced
effects destructive of the peace and welfare of society, at a very early
period. Numerous party-gospels, and forged writings under the names of
apostles, were in circulation at the latter end of the second and third
centuries; all hostile to each other, and generating nothing but fraud
and contention. These writings being exclusively in the hands of the
leading impostors, they could alter them at pleasure, and make any
invention the "word of God." Our four adopted gospels are as spurious as
the others.*
* The earliest Christians, viz., the Ebionites, Nasarenes,
Corinthians, etc., denied that any of our four gospels were
genuine, except that of Matthew; but they excluded as
forgeries the two first chapters, containing the miraculous
conception and birth, declaring them to be spurious, and not
to be found in the genuine copies of Matthew. Both St.
Jerome and Epiphanius allow that this is true.
Nothing is more certain than that no man can rationally predict of the
future, otherwise than by deduction drawn from the past; and, therefore,
there is reason to believe that the writers of Matthew and Luke, who
most probably wrote after the middle of the second century, spoke by
inference drawn from their own experience, when they uttered that
plain, bold, and bloody declaration regarding the future fruits of
Christianity. "Suppose ye that I came to send peace on earth? I tell you
nay; _I came not to send peace, but a sword._ For I am come to set a man
at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother. And
a man's foes shall be those of his own household." This terrible
denunciation has proved true to a tittle. Where is there another of all
the New Testament predictions that has been so literally fulfilled? If
such effects began to show themselves while it was yet in its infancy,
and even crying out for tolerance amongst the Pagans, can we wonder that
in subsequent times, after gaining the patronage of tyranny, riches, and
power, it should engender a greater mass of human misery than was ever
caused by all the other systems of religious plagues put together.
The artificers of this scheme saw well that the power and influence of
the priest and despot, were ever in exact proportion to the debasement
of man; and, therefore, they laid their foundation in that hideous sink
of vice and depravity, the Jewish superstition; for there they found
the examples of a numerous and rapacious priesthood, the enforcement of
tithes, and a perfect specimen of the iniquitous league between civil
and theological tyranny; a combination which makes an easy conquest of
the human mind in a state of ignorance and renders it incapable of one
liberal, manly or independent sentiment. When man is thus shorn of his
native energy, and all virtuous dignity, by the surrender of his reason,
these confederate powers erect their common throne on the ruins of his
freedom, welfare and happiness. The ferocious character ascribed to
deity in the barbarous books of the Jews, was no stumbling-block against
their adoption, when contrasted with the mighty advantages to be derived
from the precedents already noticed, and which have so eminently served
the successors of the adopters in the way of trade. They were utterly
reckless that the writers of these books, in the delirium of blasphemy
(to use a cant word) have depicted the ruling power of the universe as
a contemptible and wicked personation, with the worst of human passions,
and as sanctioning or commanding the perpetration of the blackest crimes
that ever disgraced human nature. By quoting these bloody examples as
laudable and worthy of imitation, have not priests caused half the earth
to be ravaged, and debauched the minds of princes (who would otherwise
have been humane and virtuous) and made them devastators and infamous
persecutors?
Some philosophers have been of opinion that the history of past ages is
a true picture of what the fate of man ever must be; that he is destined
for ever to-be the slave of a succession of superstitions--to be the
tool and puppet of tyrants in the shape of priests and aristocratic
rulers. This is a melancholy representation, which implies inherent
viciousness in his nature; and that there will never be a want of
rogues to prey upon ignorance. In the coalition of the priest and the
law-giver, we invariably find the unchangeable enemy of the human race;
for, besides the mental slavery thereby maintained, anything like good
civil government is necessarily precluded, that being found impossible
while it is leagued with the pernicious inventions of supernaturalism.
Have the majority of mankind, who are thus victimised, no remedy against
this horrid order of things? * They are not entitled to any, while they
find it easier to be cheated than to think for themselves, a case which
will always be theirs until they become self-regenerated, by the removal
of ignorance; a reform that must be effected by themselves alone, since
it is evidently and energetically opposed by their oppressors.
Ignorance being the only element in which priestcraft can thrive, or its
concomitant, bad government be tolerated; so is it the primary source of
that degradation and baseness which rears up the mind-subduing altars,
of superstition, whose foster-mother it is; and without whose aid no
kind of secular despotism could have plunged man into the abject and
contemptible condition he is in at present throughout Europe.**
* "Small hopes have the nations!
While reason is brought
Every hour to be laid on credulity's shrine,
Till the truth-seeking spirit submission is taught,
And the dreams of a dotard seem doctrines divine!"
** When the humane and enlightened Cortes of Spain would
have abolished the Inquisition, the priests told the
populace that it would be an infringement of their
liberties; and the priests were bettered!' So true is the
Spanish proverb, that "Man is an ass that kicks those? who
take off his panniers."
We repeat, that a better order of things cannot result until man shall,
by education and a virtuous reform of his moral habits assert his own
dignity and thereby emancipate himself from being the devoted grovelling
victim of this theologico-aristocratic conspiracy, and the unjust laws
and institutions which ever must of necessity spring from it; whereby he
is at all points robbed of the enjoyment of his nature, and vegetates as
the regularly trained slave of the most abominable artifice.
A truly wise and equitable government, so far from coalescing with the
priesthood of any religion or superstition for mutual support against
the justice of equal rights, would not allow itself to know anything
whatever about theology and its train of distracting, misery-creating
delusions. It would leave these wholly to the incurable ignorant dupes
who _will_ maintain impostors in idleness, eschewing with contempt
all such nefarious alliance, and recognising alone the infinitely more
dignified principle and functions of civil policy, i.e., the protection
of person and property, the equality of rights, and the sacred freedom
which is every man's birthright. Where is such a government to be
found? To the shame of a degraded and abused world, such a government
is nowhere to be found but in the United States of America; for although
the populace there are exceedingly bigoted, and grievously preyed upon
by the locusts of superstition, still the supreme authority has, with a
wise jealousy, preserved itself uncontaminated by any connexion with,
or preference given to, anyone of the religious factions, while giving
equal protection to all. Nevertheless, every enlightened American will
remember, with the most lively gratitude, that but for the philosophic
caution and foresight of Thomas Jefferson, and two or three other
patriots, the probability is that the new and glorious state would
have closed with the foul embrace of some one of the contending sects
(glorious then no longer), as the most importunate efforts were made by
the sectarian, leaders to effect that object; though nearly all of them
had studiously and sneakingly stood aloof from the patriotic cause,
while the issue of that noble struggle was doubtful.
In the proud rank of national greatness which the United States have
so deservedly attained in the present day, and with the example of
priest-governed Europe continually before their eyes, nothing more than
the prudent vigilance of common patriotism is required in the supreme
councils, to guard against the co-partnership, or admission of anyone
of all the pernicious systems of churchcraft, to the slightest connexion
with the government. But in the unsettled infancy of the republic,
after the declaration of independence, when those insidious clerical
hypocrites, who had kept aloof, as aforesaid, ready to join whichever
party might be victorious, and, backed by ignorance and fanaticism,
beset the framers of the constitution with their spiritual claims and
conflicting pretensions--by incessant solicitations and intrigues, to
gain their execrable ends, it required the incorruptible virtues of a
Washington, a Jefferson, a Paine, a Franklin, and a Barlow, to prevent
their effecting a similar "adulterous connexion" with the state to that
which is now the bane and disgrace of the mother country.
Whenever the government of these great and powerful States shall become
so mentally imbecile as to favor, by an exclusive state establishment,
any form of superstition,* or system of religion pretending to
supernatural revelation, the fatal time of their division, weakness, and
final decline and fall, will follow at a very short distance.
* Let the priest be ever kept on the same footing as the
merchant--that is, maintained at the expense of the
consumer. He who has no priest, and consumes none of the
commodity he deals in, should not be compelled to pay any
part of his hire.