Ezekiel begins his book by speaking of a vision of cherubims, and of a

wheel within a wheel, which he says he saw by the river Chebar, in the

land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable to suppose that by the

cherubims he meant the temple at Jerusalem, where they had figures of

cherubims? and by a wheel within a wheel (which as a figure has always

been understood to signify political contrivance) the project or means

of recovering Jerusalem? In the latter part of his book he supposes

himself transported to Jerusalem, and into the temple; and he refers

back to the vision on the river Chebar, and says, (xliii- 3,) that this

last vision was like the vision on the river Chebar; which indicates

that those pretended dreams and visions had for their object the

recovery of Jerusalem, and nothing further.

As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild as the dreams

and visions they undertake to explain, which commentators and priests

have made of those books, that of converting them into things which

they call prophecies, and making them bend to times and circumstances

as far remote even as the present day, it shows the fraud or the

extreme folly to which credulity or priestcraft can go.

Scarcely anything can be more absurd than to suppose that men situated

as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country was over-run, and in the

possession of the enemy, all their friends and relations in captivity

abroad, or in slavery at home, or massacred, or in continual danger of

it; scarcely any thing, I say, can be more absurd than to suppose that

such men should find nothing to do but that of employing their time and

their thoughts about what was to happen to other nations a thousand or

two thousand years after they were dead; at the same time nothing more

natural than that they should meditate the recovery of Jerusalem, and

their own deliverance; and that this was the sole object of all the

obscure and apparently frantic writing contained in those books.

In this sense the mode of writing used in those two books being forced

by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is not irrational; but, if we

are to use the books as prophecies, they are false. In Ezekiel xxix.

11., speaking of Egypt, it is said, “No foot of man shall pass through

it, nor foot of beast pass through it; neither shall it be inhabited

for forty years.” This is what never came to pass, and consequently it

is false, as all the books I have already reviewed are.—I here close

this part of the subject.

In the former part of ‘The Age of Reason’ I have spoken of Jonah, and

of the story of him and the whale.—A fit story for ridicule, if it was

written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended to try what

credulity could swallow; for, if it could swallow Jonah and the whale

it could swallow anything.

But, as is already shown in the observations on the book of Job and of

Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in the Bible are

originally Hebrew, or only translations from the books of the Gentiles

into Hebrew; and, as the book of Jonah, so far from treating of the

affairs of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject, but treats

altogether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that it is a book of

the Gentiles than of the Jews, [I have read in an ancient Persian poem

(Saadi, I believe, but have mislaid the reference) this phrase: “And

now the whale swallowed Jonah: the sun set.”—Editor.] and that it has

been written as a fable to expose the nonsense, and satyrize the

vicious and malignant character, of a Bible-prophet, or a predicting

priest.

Jonah is represented, first as a disobedient prophet, running away from

his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of the Gentiles, bound

from Joppa to Tarshish; as if he ignorantly supposed, by such a paltry

contrivance, he could hide himself where God could not find him. The

vessel is overtaken by a storm at sea; and the mariners, all of whom

are Gentiles, believing it to be a judgement on account of some one on

board who had committed a crime, agreed to cast lots to discover the

offender; and the lot fell upon Jonah. But before this they had cast

all their wares and merchandise over-board to lighten the vessel, while

Jonah, like a stupid fellow, was fast asleep in the hold.

After the lot had designated Jonah to be the offender, they questioned

him to know who and what he was? and he told them he was an Hebrew; and

the story implies that he confessed himself to be guilty. But these

Gentiles, instead of sacrificing him at once without pity or mercy, as

a company of Bible-prophets or priests would have done by a Gentile in

the same case, and as it is related Samuel had done by Agag, and Moses

by the women and children, they endeavoured to save him, though at the

risk of their own lives: for the account says, “Nevertheless [that is,

though Jonah was a Jew and a foreigner, and the cause of all their

misfortunes, and the loss of their cargo] the men rowed hard to bring

the boat to land, but they could not, for the sea wrought and was

tempestuous against them.” Still however they were unwilling to put the

fate of the lot into execution; and they cried, says the account, unto

the Lord, saying, “We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this

man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood; for thou, O Lord, hast

done as it pleased thee.” Meaning thereby, that they did not presume to

judge Jonah guilty, since that he might be innocent; but that they

considered the lot that had fallen upon him as a decree of God, or as

it pleased God. The address of this prayer shows that the Gentiles

worshipped one Supreme Being, and that they were not idolaters as the

Jews represented them to be. But the storm still continuing, and the

danger encreasing, they put the fate of the lot into execution, and

cast Jonah in the sea; where, according to the story, a great fish

swallowed him up whole and alive!

We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from the storm in the

fish’s belly. Here we are told that he prayed; but the prayer is a

made-up prayer, taken from various parts of the Psalms, without

connection or consistency, and adapted to the distress, but not at all

to the condition that Jonah was in. It is such a prayer as a Gentile,

who might know something of the Psalms, could copy out for him. This

circumstance alone, were there no other, is sufficient to indicate that

the whole is a made-up story. The prayer, however, is supposed to have

answered the purpose, and the story goes on, (taking-off at the same

time the cant language of a Bible-prophet,) saying, “The Lord spake

unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land.”

Jonah then received a second mission to Nineveh, with which he sets

out; and we have now to consider him as a preacher. The distress he is

represented to have suffered, the remembrance of his own disobedience

as the cause of it, and the miraculous escape he is supposed to have

had, were sufficient, one would conceive, to have impressed him with

sympathy and benevolence in the execution of his mission; but, instead

of this, he enters the city with denunciation and malediction in his

mouth, crying, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

We have now to consider this supposed missionary in the last act of his

mission; and here it is that the malevolent spirit of a Bible-prophet,

or of a predicting priest, appears in all that blackness of character

that men ascribe to the being they call the devil.

Having published his predictions, he withdrew, says the story, to the

east side of the city.—But for what? not to contemplate in retirement

the mercy of his Creator to himself or to others, but to wait, with

malignant impatience, the destruction of Nineveh. It came to pass,

however, as the story relates, that the Ninevites reformed, and that

God, according to the Bible phrase, repented him of the evil he had

said he would do unto them, and did it not. This, saith the first verse

of the last chapter, displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very

angry. His obdurate heart would rather that all Nineveh should be

destroyed, and every soul, young and old, perish in its ruins, than

that his prediction should not be fulfilled. To expose the character of

a prophet still more, a gourd is made to grow up in the night, that

promises him an agreeable shelter from the heat of the sun, in the

place to which he is retired; and the next morning it dies.

Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he is ready to

destroy himself. “It is better, said he, for me to die than to live.”

This brings on a supposed expostulation between the Almighty and the

prophet; in which the former says, “Doest thou well to be angry for the

gourd? And Jonah said, I do well to be angry even unto death. Then said

the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not

laboured, neither madest it to grow, which came up in a night, and

perished in a night; and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city,

in which are more than threescore thousand persons, that cannot discern

between their right hand and their left?”

Here is both the winding up of the satire, and the moral of the fable.

As a satire, it strikes against the character of all the

Bible-prophets, and against all the indiscriminate judgements upon men,

women and children, with which this lying book, the bible, is crowded;

such as Noah’s flood, the destruction of the cities of Sodom and

Gomorrah, the extirpation of the Canaanites, even to suckling infants,

and women with child; because the same reflection ‘that there are more

than threescore thousand persons that cannot discern between their

right hand and their left,’ meaning young children, applies to all

their cases. It satirizes also the supposed partiality of the Creator

for one nation more than for another.

As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of prediction;

for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to wish it.

The pride of having his judgment right hardens his heart, till at last

he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, the

accomplishment or the failure of his predictions.—This book ends with

the same kind of strong and well-directed point against prophets,

prophecies and indiscriminate judgements, as the chapter that Benjamin

Franklin made for the Bible, about Abraham and the stranger, ends

against the intolerant spirit of religious persecutions—Thus much for

the book Jonah. [The story of Abraham and the Fire-worshipper, ascribed

to Franklin, is from Saadi. (See my “Sacred Anthology,” p. 61.) Paine

has often been called a “mere scoffer,” but he seems to have been among

the first to treat with dignity the book of Jonah, so especially liable

to the ridicule of superficial readers, and discern in it the highest

conception of Deity known to the Old Testament.—Editor.]

Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I have

spoken in the former part of ‘The Age of Reason,’ and already in this,

where I have said that the word for prophet is the Bible-word for Poet,

and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many of which have

become obscure by the lapse of time and the change of circumstances,

have been ridiculously erected into things called prophecies, and

applied to purposes the writers never thought of. When a priest quotes

any of those passages, he unriddles it agreeably to his own views, and

imposes that explanation upon his congregation as the meaning of the

writer. The whore of Babylon has been the common whore of all the

priests, and each has accused the other of keeping the strumpet; so

well do they agree in their explanations.

There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser

prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors,

it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let

them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be

forgotten together.

I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through a wood

with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie; and the

priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stick them

in the ground, but they will never make them grow.—I pass on to the

books of the New Testament.

CHAPTER II.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the

Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.

As it is nothing extraordinary that a woman should be with child before

she was married, and that the son she might bring forth should be

executed, even unjustly, I see no reason for not believing that such a

woman as Mary, and such a man as Joseph, and Jesus, existed; their mere

existence is a matter of indifference, about which there is no ground

either to believe or to disbelieve, and which comes under the common

head of, It may be so, and what then? The probability however is that

there were such persons, or at least such as resembled them in part of

the circumstances, because almost all romantic stories have been

suggested by some actual circumstance; as the adventures of Robinson

Crusoe, not a word of which is true, were suggested by the case of

Alexander Selkirk.

It is not then the existence or the non-existence, of the persons that

I trouble myself about; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the

New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon,

against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is

blasphemously obscene. It gives an account of a young woman engaged to

be married, and while under this engagement, she is, to speak plain

language, debauched by a ghost, under the impious pretence, (Luke i.

35,) that “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the

Highest shall overshadow thee.” Notwithstanding which, Joseph

afterwards marries her, cohabits with her as his wife, and in his turn

rivals the ghost. This is putting the story into intelligible language,

and when told in this manner, there is not a priest but must be ashamed

to own it. [Mary, the supposed virgin, mother of Jesus, had several

other children, sons and daughters. See Matt. xiii. 55, 56.—Author.]

Obscenity in matters of faith, however wrapped up, is always a token of

fable and imposture; for it is necessary to our serious belief in God,

that we do not connect it with stories that run, as this does, into

ludicrous interpretations. This story is, upon the face of it, the same

kind of story as that of Jupiter and Leda, or Jupiter and Europa, or

any of the amorous adventures of Jupiter; and shews, as is already

stated in the former part of ‘The Age of Reason,’ that the Christian

faith is built upon the heathen Mythology.

As the historical parts of the New Testament, so far as concerns Jesus

Christ, are confined to a very short space of time, less than two

years, and all within the same country, and nearly to the same spot,

the discordance of time, place, and circumstance, which detects the

fallacy of the books of the Old Testament, and proves them to be

impositions, cannot be expected to be found here in the same abundance.

The New Testament compared with the Old, is like a farce of one act, in

which there is not room for very numerous violations of the unities.

There are, however, some glaring contradictions, which, exclusive of

the fallacy of the pretended prophecies, are sufficient to show the

story of Jesus Christ to be false.

I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted, first, that

the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove that story to

be true, because the parts may agree, and the whole may be false;

secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a story proves the

whole cannot be true. The agreement does not prove truth, but the

disagreement proves falsehood positively.

The history of Jesus Christ is contained in the four books ascribed to

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.—The first chapter of Matthew begins with

giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ; and in the third chapter of Luke

there is also given a genealogy of Jesus Christ. Did these two agree,

it would not prove the genealogy to be true, because it might

nevertheless be a fabrication; but as they contradict each other in

every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. If Matthew speaks

truth, Luke speaks falsehood; and if Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks

falsehood: and as there is no authority for believing one more than the

other, there is no authority for believing either; and if they cannot

be believed even in the very first thing they say, and set out to

prove, they are not entitled to be believed in any thing they say

afterwards. Truth is an uniform thing; and as to inspiration and

revelation, were we to admit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be

contradictory. Either then the men called apostles were imposters, or

the books ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and

fathered upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament.

The book of Matthew gives (i. 6), a genealogy by name from David, up,

through Joseph, the husband of Mary, to Christ; and makes there to be

twent eight generations. The book of Luke gives also a genealogy by

name from Christ, through Joseph the husband of Mary, down to David,

and makes there to be forty-three generations; besides which, there is

only the two names of David and Joseph that are alike in the two

lists.—I here insert both genealogical lists, and for the sake of

perspicuity and comparison, have placed them both in the same

direction, that is, from Joseph down to David.

Genealogy, according to Genealogy, according to

Matthew. Luke.

Christ Christ

2 Joseph 2 Joseph

3 Jacob 3 Heli

4 Matthan 4 Matthat

5 Eleazer 5 Levi

6 Eliud 6 Melchl

7 Achim 7 Janna

8 Sadoc 8 Joseph

9 Azor 9 Mattathias

10 Eliakim 10 Amos

11 Abiud 11 Naum

12 Zorobabel 12 Esli

13 Salathiel 13 Nagge

14 Jechonias 14 Maath

15 Josias 15 Mattathias

16 Amon 16 Semei

17 Manasses 17 Joseph

18 Ezekias 18 Juda

19 Achaz 19 Joanna

20 Joatham 20 Rhesa

21 Ozias 21 Zorobabel

22 Joram 22 Salathiel

23 Josaphat 23 Neri

24 Asa 24 Melchi

25 Abia 25 Addi

26 Roboam 26 Cosam

27 Solomon 27 Elmodam

28 David * 28 Er

29 Jose

30 Eliezer

31 Jorim

32 Matthat

33 Levi

34 Simeon

35 Juda

36 Joseph

37 Jonan

38 Eliakim

39 Melea

40 Menan

41 Mattatha

42 Nathan

43 David

[NOTE: * From the birth of David to the birth of Christ is upwards of

1080 years; and as the life-time of Christ is not included, there are

but 27 full generations. To find therefore the average age of each

person mentioned in the list, at the time his first son was born, it is

only necessary to divide 1080 by 27, which gives 40 years for each

person. As the life-time of man was then but of the same extent it is

now, it is an absurdity to suppose, that 27 following generations

should all be old bachelors, before they married; and the more so, when

we are told that Solomon, the next in succession to David, had a house

full of wives and mistresses before he was twenty-one years of age. So

far from this genealogy being a solemn truth, it is not even a

reasonable lie. The list of Luke gives about twenty-six years for the

average age, and this is too much.—Author.]

Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood between

them (as these two accounts show they do) in the very commencement of

their history of Jesus Christ, and of who, and of what he was, what

authority (as I have before asked) is there left for believing the

strange things they tell us afterwards? If they cannot be believed in

their account of his natural genealogy, how are we to believe them when

they tell us he was the son of God, begotten by a ghost; and that an

angel announced this in secret to his mother? If they lied in one

genealogy, why are we to believe them in the other? If his natural

genealogy be manufactured, which it certainly is, why are we not to

suppose that his celestial genealogy is manufactured also, and that the

whole is fabulous? Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future

happiness upon the belief of a story naturally impossible, repugnant to

every idea of decency, and related by persons already detected of

falsehood? Is it not more safe that we stop ourselves at the plain,

pure, and unmixed belief of one God, which is deism, than that we

commit ourselves on an ocean of improbable, irrational, indecent, and

contradictory tales?

The first question, however, upon the books of the New Testament, as

upon those of the Old, is, Are they genuine? were they written by the

persons to whom they are ascribed? For it is upon this ground only that

the strange things related therein have been credited. Upon this point,

there is no direct proof for or against; and all that this state of a

case proves is doubtfulness; and doubtfulness is the opposite of

belief. The state, therefore, that the books are in, proves against

themselves as far as this kind of proof can go.

But, exclusive of this, the presumption is that the books called the

Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were not

written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and that they are

impositions. The disordered state of the history in these four books,

the silence of one book upon matters related in the other, and the

disagreement that is to be found among them, implies that they are the

productions of some unconnected individuals, many years after the

things they pretend to relate, each of whom made his own legend; and

not the writings of men living intimately together, as the men called

apostles are supposed to have done: in fine, that they have been

manufactured, as the books of the Old Testament have been, by other

persons than those whose names they bear.

The story of the angel announcing what the church calls the immaculate

conception, is not so much as mentioned in the books ascribed to Mark,

and John; and is differently related in Matthew and Luke. The former

says the angel, appeared to Joseph; the latter says, it was to Mary;

but either Joseph or Mary was the worst evidence that could have been

thought of; for it was others that should have testified for them, and

not they for themselves. Were any girl that is now with child to say,

and even to swear it, that she was gotten with child by a ghost, and

that an angel told her so, would she be believed? Certainly she would

not. Why then are we to believe the same thing of another girl whom we

never saw, told by nobody knows who, nor when, nor where? How strange

and inconsistent is it, that the same circumstance that would weaken

the belief even of a probable story, should be given as a motive for

believing this one, that has upon the face of it every token of

absolute impossibility and imposture.

The story of Herod destroying all the children under two years old,

belongs altogether to the book of Matthew; not one of the rest mentions

anything about it. Had such a circumstance been true, the universality

of it must have made it known to all the writers, and the thing would

have been too striking to have been omitted by any. This writer tell

us, that Jesus escaped this slaughter, because Joseph and Mary were

warned by an angel to flee with him into Egypt; but he forgot to make

provision for John [the Baptist], who was then under two years of age.

John, however, who staid behind, fared as well as Jesus, who fled; and

therefore the story circumstantially belies itself.

Not any two of these writers agree in reciting, exactly in the same

words, the written inscription, short as it is, which they tell us was

put over Christ when he was crucified; and besides this, Mark says, He

was crucified at the third hour, (nine in the morning;) and John says

it was the sixth hour, (twelve at noon.) [According to John, (xix. 14)

the sentence was not passed till about the sixth hour (noon,) and

consequently the execution could not be till the afternoon; but Mark

(xv. 25) Says expressly that he was crucified at the third hour, (nine

in the morning,)—Author.]

The inscription is thus stated in those books:

Matthew—This is Jesus the king of the Jews. Mark—The king of the Jews.

Luke—This is the king of the Jews. John—Jesus of Nazareth the king of

the Jews.

We may infer from these circumstances, trivial as they are, that those

writers, whoever they were, and in whatever time they lived, were not

present at the scene. The only one of the men called apostles who

appears to have been near to the spot was Peter, and when he was

accused of being one of Jesus’s followers, it is said, (Matthew xxvi.

74,) “Then Peter began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the

man:” yet we are now called to believe the same Peter, convicted, by

their own account, of perjury. For what reason, or on what authority,

should we do this?

The accounts that are given of the circumstances, that they tell us

attended the crucifixion, are differently related in those four books.

The book ascribed to Matthew says ‘there was darkness over all the land

from the sixth hour unto the ninth hour—that the veil of the temple was

rent in twain from the top to the bottom—that there was an

earthquake—that the rocks rent—that the graves opened, that the bodies

of many of the saints that slept arose and came out of their graves

after the resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto

many.’ Such is the account which this dashing writer of the book of

Matthew gives, but in which he is not supported by the writers of the

other books.

The writer of the book ascribed to Mark, in detailing the circumstances

of the crucifixion, makes no mention of any earthquake, nor of the

rocks rending, nor of the graves opening, nor of the dead men walking

out. The writer of the book of Luke is silent also upon the same

points. And as to the writer of the book of John, though he details all

the circumstances of the crucifixion down to the burial of Christ, he

says nothing about either the darkness—the veil of the temple—the

earthquake—the rocks—the graves—nor the dead men.

Now if it had been true that these things had happened, and if the

writers of these books had lived at the time they did happen, and had

been the persons they are said to be—namely, the four men called

apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,—it was not possible for them,

as true historians, even without the aid of inspiration, not to have

recorded them. The things, supposing them to have been facts, were of

too much notoriety not to have been known, and of too much importance

not to have been told. All these supposed apostles must have been

witnesses of the earthquake, if there had been any, for it was not

possible for them to have been absent from it: the opening of the

graves and resurrection of the dead men, and their walking about the

city, is of still greater importance than the earthquake. An earthquake

is always possible, and natural, and proves nothing; but this opening

of the graves is supernatural, and directly in point to their doctrine,

their cause, and their apostleship. Had it been true, it would have

filled up whole chapters of those books, and been the chosen theme and

general chorus of all the writers; but instead of this, little and

trivial things, and mere prattling conversation of ‘he said this and

she said that’ are often tediously detailed, while this most important

of all, had it been true, is passed off in a slovenly manner by a

single dash of the pen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as

hinted at by the rest.

It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the

lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have

told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the

city, and what became of them afterwards, and who it was that saw them;

for he is not hardy enough to say that he saw them himself;—whether

they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints,

or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses;

whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their

wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received;

whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions,

or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival interlopers; whether

they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of

preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their

graves alive, and buried themselves.

Strange indeed, that an army of saints should retum to life, and nobody

know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word

more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have any thing

to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly

prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say.

They could have told us everything, and we should have had posthumous

prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better

at least than we have now. Had it been Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua,

and Samuel, and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all

Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the times

then present, everybody would have known them, and they would have

out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But, instead of

this, these saints are made to pop up, like Jonah’s gourd in the night,

for no purpose at all but to wither in the morning.—Thus much for this

part of the story.

The tale of the resurrection follows that of the crucifixion; and in

this as well as in that, the writers, whoever they were, disagree so

much as to make it evident that none of them were there.

The book of Matthew states, that when Christ was put in the sepulchre

the Jews applied to Pilate for a watch or a guard to be placed over the

septilchre, to prevent the body being stolen by the disciples; and that

in consequence of this request the sepulchre was made sure, sealing the

stone that covered the mouth, and setting a watch. But the other books

say nothing about this application, nor about the sealing, nor the

guard, nor the watch; and according to their accounts, there were none.

Matthew, however, follows up this part of the story of the guard or the

watch with a second part, that I shall notice in the conclusion, as it

serves to detect the fallacy of those books.

The book of Matthew continues its account, and says, (xxviii. 1,) that

at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, towards the first day

of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, to see the

sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising, and John says it was dark. Luke

says it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James,

and other women, that came to the sepulchre; and John states that Mary

Magdalene came alone. So well do they agree about their first evidence!

They all, however, appear to have known most about Mary Magdalene; she

was a woman of large acquaintance, and it was not an ill conjecture

that she might be upon the stroll. [The Bishop of Llandaff, in his

famous “Apology,” censured Paine severely for this insinuation against

Mary Magdalene, but the censure really falls on our English version,

which, by a chapter-heading (Luke vii.), has unwarrantably identified

her as the sinful woman who anointed Jesus, and irrevocably branded

her.—Editor.]

The book of Matthew goes on to say (ver. 2): “And behold there was a

great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and

came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it” But the

other books say nothing about any earthquake, nor about the angel

rolling back the stone, and sitting upon it and, according to their

account, there was no angel sitting there. Mark says the angel [Mark

says “a young man,” and Luke “two men.”—Editor.] was within the

sepulchre, sitting on the right side. Luke says there were two, and

they were both standing up; and John says they were both sitting down,

one at the head and the other at the feet.

Matthew says, that the angel that was sitting upon the stone on the

outside of the sepulchre told the two Marys that Christ was risen, and

that the women went away quickly. Mark says, that the women, upon

seeing the stone rolled away, and wondering at it, went into the

sepulchre, and that it was the angel that was sitting within on the

right side, that told them so. Luke says, it was the two angels that

were Standing up; and John says, it was Jesus Christ himself that told

it to Mary Magdalene; and that she did not go into the sepulchre, but

only stooped down and looked in.

Now, if the writers of these four books had gone into a court of

justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is

here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by

supernatural means,) and had they given their evidence in the same

contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in

danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly

deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books, that

have been imposed upon the world as being given by divine inspiration,

and as the unchangeable word of God.

The writer of the book of Matthew, after giving this account, relates a

story that is not to be found in any of the other books, and which is

the same I have just before alluded to. “Now,” says he, [that is, after

the conversation the women had had with the angel sitting upon the

stone,] “behold some of the watch [meaning the watch that he had said

had been placed over the sepulchre] came into the city, and shewed unto

the chief priests all the things that were done; and when they were

assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money

unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, that his disciples came by night,

and stole him away while we slept; and if this come to the governor’s

ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and

did as they were taught; and this saying [that his disciples stole him

away] is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”

The expression, until this day, is an evidence that the book ascribed

to Matthew was not written by Matthew, and that it has been

manufactured long after the times and things of which it pretends to

treat; for the expression implies a great length of intervening time.

It would be inconsistent in us to speak in this manner of any thing

happening in our own time. To give, therefore, intelligible meaning to

the expression, we must suppose a lapse of some generations at least,

for this manner of speaking carries the mind back to ancient time.

The absurdity also of the story is worth noticing; for it shows the

writer of the book of Matthew to have been an exceeding weak and

foolish man. He tells a story that contradicts itself in point of

possibility; for though the guard, if there were any, might be made to

say that the body was taken away while they were asleep, and to give

that as a reason for their not having prevented it, that same sleep

must also have prevented their knowing how, and by whom, it was done;

and yet they are made to say that it was the disciples who did it. Were

a man to tender his evidence of something that he should say was done,

and of the manner of doing it, and of the person who did it, while he

was asleep, and could know nothing of the matter, such evidence could

not be received: it will do well enough for Testament evidence, but not

for any thing where truth is concerned.

I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, that respects

the pretended appearance of Christ after this pretended resurrection.

The writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the angel that was

sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, said to the two

Marys (xxviii. 7), “Behold Christ is gone before you into Galilee,

there ye shall see him; lo, I have told you.” And the same writer at

the next two verses (8, 9,) makes Christ himself to speak to the same

purpose to these women immediately after the angel had told it to them,

and that they ran quickly to tell it to the disciples; and it is said

(ver. 16), “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a

mountain where Jesus had appointed them; and, when they saw him, they

worshipped him.”

But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very different to

this; for he says (xx. 19) “Then the same day at evening, being the

first day of the week, [that is, the same day that Christ is said to

have risen,] when the doors were shut, where the disciples were

assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst of

them.”

According to Matthew the eleven were marching to Galilee, to meet Jesus

in a mountain, by his own appointment, at the very time when, according

to John, they were assembled in another place, and that not by

appointment, but in secret, for fear of the Jews.

The writer of the book of Luke xxiv. 13, 33-36, contradicts that of

Matthew more pointedly than John does; for he says expressly, that the

meeting was in Jerusalem the evening of the same day that he (Christ)

rose, and that the eleven were there.

Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed disciples the

right of wilful lying, that the writers of these books could be any of

the eleven persons called disciples; for if, according to Matthew, the

eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain by his own

appointment, on the same day that he is said to have risen, Luke and

John must have been two of that eleven; yet the writer of Luke says

expressly, and John implies as much, that the meeting was that same

day, in a house in Jerusalem; and, on the other hand, if, according to

Luke and John, the eleven were assembled in a house in Jerusalem,

Matthew must have been one of that eleven; yet Matthew says the meeting

was in a mountain in Galilee, and consequently the evidence given in

those books destroy each other.

The writer of the book of Mark says nothing about any meeting in

Galilee; but he says (xvi. 12) that Christ, after his resurrection,

appeared in another form to two of them, as they walked into the

country, and that these two told it to the residue, who would not

believe them. [This belongs to the late addition to Mark, which

originally ended with xvi. 8.—Editor.] Luke also tells a story, in

which he keeps Christ employed the whole of the day of this pretended

resurrection, until the evening, and which totally invalidates the

account of going to the mountain in Galilee. He says, that two of them,

without saying which two, went that same day to a village called

Emmaus, three score furlongs (seven miles and a half) from Jerusalem,

and that Christ in disguise went with them, and stayed with them unto

the evening, and supped with them, and then vanished out of their

sight, and reappeared that same evening, at the meeting of the eleven

in Jerusalem.

This is the contradictory manner in which the evidence of this

pretended reappearance of Christ is stated: the only point in which the

writers agree, is the skulking privacy of that reappearance; for

whether it was in the recess of a mountain in Galilee, or in a shut-up

house in Jerusalem, it was still skulking. To what cause then are we to

assign this skulking? On the one hand, it is directly repugnant to the

supposed or pretended end, that of convincing the world that Christ was

risen; and, on the other hand, to have asserted the publicity of it

would have exposed the writers of those books to public detection; and,

therefore, they have been under the necessity of making it a private

affair.

As to the account of Christ being seen by more than five hundred at

once, it is Paul only who says it, and not the five hundred who say it

for themselves. It is, therefore, the testimony of but one man, and

that too of a man, who did not, according to the same account, believe

a word of the matter himself at the time it is said to have happened.

His evidence, supposing him to have been the writer of Corinthians xv.,

where this account is given, is like that of a man who comes into a

court of justice to swear that what he had sworn before was false. A

man may often see reason, and he has too always the right of changing

his opinion; but this liberty does not extend to matters of fact.

I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into heaven.—Here

all fear of the Jews, and of every thing else, must necessarily have

been out of the question: it was that which, if true, was to seal the

whole; and upon which the reality of the future mission of the

disciples was to rest for proof. Words, whether declarations or

promises, that passed in private, either in the recess of a mountain in

Galilee, or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, even supposing them to

have been spoken, could not be evidence in public; it was therefore

necessary that this last scene should preclude the possibility of

denial and dispute; and that it should be, as I have stated in the

former part of ‘The Age of Reason,’ as public and as visible as the sun

at noon-day; at least it ought to have been as public as the

crucifixion is reported to have been.—But to come to the point.

In the first place, the writer of the book of Matthew does not say a

syllable about it; neither does the writer of the book of John. This

being the case, is it possible to suppose that those writers, who

affect to be even minute in other matters, would have been silent upon

this, had it been true? The writer of the book of Mark passes it off in

a careless, slovenly manner, with a single dash of the pen, as if he

was tired of romancing, or ashamed of the story. So also does the

writer of Luke. And even between these two, there is not an apparent

agreement, as to the place where this final parting is said to have

been. [The last nine verses of Mark being ungenuine, the story of the

ascension rests exclusively on the words in Luke xxiv. 51, “was carried

up into heaven,”—words omitted by several ancient authorities.—Editor.]

The book of Mark says that Christ appeared to the eleven as they sat at

meat, alluding to the meeting of the eleven at Jerusalem: he then

states the conversation that he says passed at that meeting; and

immediately after says (as a school-boy would finish a dull story,) “So

then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into

heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.” But the writer of Luke says,

that the ascension was from Bethany; that he (Christ) led them out as

far as Bethany, and was parted from them there, and was carried up into

heaven. So also was Mahomet: and, as to Moses, the apostle Jude says,

ver. 9. That ‘Michael and the devil disputed about his body.’ While we

believe such fables as these, or either of them, we believe unworthily

of the Almighty.

I have now gone through the examination of the four books ascribed to

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and when it is considered that the whole

space of time, from the crucifixion to what is called the ascension, is

but a few days, apparently not more than three or four, and that all

the circumstances are reported to have happened nearly about the same

spot, Jerusalem, it is, I believe, impossible to find in any story upon

record so many and such glaring absurdities, contradictions, and

falsehoods, as are in those books. They are more numerous and striking

than I had any expectation of finding, when I began this examination,

and far more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former part of

‘The Age of Reason.’ I had then neither Bible nor Testament to refer

to, nor could I procure any. My own situation, even as to existence,

was becoming every day more precarious; and as I was willing to leave

something behind me upon the subject, I was obliged to be quick and

concise. The quotations I then made were from memory only, but they are

correct; and the opinions I have advanced in that work are the effect

of the most clear and long-established conviction,—that the Bible and

the Testament are impositions upon the world;—that the fall of man, the

account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to

appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are

all fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom and power of the

Almighty;—that the only true religion is deism, by which I then meant

and now mean the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral

character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues;—and that

it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested

all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help me God.

But to retum to the subject.—Though it is impossible, at this distance

of time, to ascertain as a fact who were the writers of those four

books (and this alone is sufficient to hold them in doubt, and where we

doubt we do not believe) it is not difficult to ascertain negatively

that they were not written by the persons to whom they are ascribed.

The contradictions in those books demonstrate two things:

First, that the writers cannot have been eye-witnesses and

ear-witnesses of the matters they relate, or they would have related

them without those contradictions; and, consequently that the books

have not been written by the persons called apostles, who are supposed

to have been witnesses of this kind.

Secondly, that the writers, whoever they were, have not acted in

concerted imposition, but each writer separately and individually for

himself, and without the knowledge of the other.

The same evidence that applies to prove the one, applies equally to

prove both cases; that is, that the books were not written by the men

called apostles, and also that they are not a concerted imposition. As

to inspiration, it is altogether out of the question; we may as well

attempt to unite truth and falsehood, as inspiration and contradiction.

If four men are eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses to a scene, they will

without any concert between them, agree as to time and place, when and

where that scene happened. Their individual knowledge of the thing,

each one knowing it for himself, renders concert totally unnecessary;

the one will not say it was in a mountain in the country, and the other

at a house in town; the one will not say it was at sunrise, and the

other that it was dark. For in whatever place it was and whatever time

it was, they know it equally alike.

And on the other hand, if four men concert a story, they will make

their separate relations of that story agree and corroborate with each

other to support the whole. That concert supplies the want of fact in

the one case, as the knowledge of the fact supersedes, in the other

case, the necessity of a concert. The same contradictions, therefore,

that prove there has been no concert, prove also that the reporters had

no knowledge of the fact, (or rather of that which they relate as a

fact,) and detect also the falsehood of their reports. Those books,

therefore, have neither been written by the men called apostles, nor by

imposters in concert.—How then have they been written?

I am not one of those who are fond of believing there is much of that

which is called wilful lying, or lying originally, except in the case

of men setting up to be prophets, as in the Old Testament; for

prophesying is lying professionally. In almost all other cases it is

not difficult to discover the progress by which even simple

supposition, with the aid of credulity, will in time grow into a lie,

and at last be told as a fact; and whenever we can find a charitable

reason for a thing of this kind, we ought not to indulge a severe one.

The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of

an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision,

and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the

assassination of Julius Caesar not many years before, and they

generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in execution of

innocent persons. In cases of this kind, compassion lends its aid, and

benevolently stretches the story. It goes on a little and a little

farther, till it becomes a most certain truth. Once start a ghost, and

credulity fills up the history of its life, and assigns the cause of

its appearance; one tells it one way, another another way, till there

are as many stories about the ghost, and about the proprietor of the

ghost, as there are about Jesus Christ in these four books.

The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told with that strange

mixture of the natural and impossible, that distinguishes legendary

tale from fact. He is represented as suddenly coming in and going out

when the doors are shut, and of vanishing out of sight, and appearing

again, as one would conceive of an unsubstantial vision; then again he

is hungry, sits down to meat, and eats his supper. But as those who

tell stories of this kind never provide for all the cases, so it is

here: they have told us, that when he arose he left his grave-clothes

behind him; but they have forgotten to provide other clothes for him to

appear in afterwards, or to tell us what he did with them when he

ascended; whether he stripped all off, or went up clothes and all. In

the case of Elijah, they have been careful enough to make him throw

down his mantle; how it happened not to be burnt in the chariot of

fire, they also have not told us; but as imagination supplies all

deficiencies of this kind, we may suppose if we please that it was made

of salamander’s wool.

Those who are not much acquainted with ecclesiastical history, may

suppose that the book called the New Testament has existed ever since

the time of Jesus Christ, as they suppose that the books ascribed to

Moses have existed ever since the time of Moses. But the fact is

historically otherwise; there was no such book as the New Testament

till more than three hundred years after the time that Christ is said

to have lived.

At what time the books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, began

to appear, is altogether a matter of uncertainty. There is not the

least shadow of evidence of who the persons were that wrote them, nor

at what time they were written; and they might as well have been called

by the names of any of the other supposed apostles as by the names they

are now called. The originals are not in the possession of any

Christian Church existing, any more than the two tables of stone

written on, they pretend, by the finger of God, upon Mount Sinai, and

given to Moses, are in the possession of the Jews. And even if they

were, there is no possibility of proving the hand-writing in either

case. At the time those four books were written there was no printing,

and consequently there could be no publication otherwise than by

written copies, which any man might make or alter at pleasure, and call

them originals. Can we suppose it is consistent with the wisdom of the

Almighty to commit himself and his will to man upon such precarious

means as these; or that it is consistent we should pin our faith upon

such uncertainties? We cannot make nor alter, nor even imitate, so much

as one blade of grass that he has made, and yet we can make or alter

words of God as easily as words of man. [The former part of the ‘Age of

Reason’ has not been published two years, and there is already an

expression in it that is not mine. The expression is: The book of Luke

was carried by a majority of one voice only. It may be true, but it is

not I that have said it. Some person who might know of that

circumstance, has added it in a note at the bottom of the page of some

of the editions, printed either in England or in America; and the

printers, after that, have erected it into the body of the work, and

made me the author of it. If this has happened within such a short

space of time, notwithstanding the aid of printing, which prevents the

alteration of copies individually, what may not have happened in a much

greater length of time, when there was no printing, and when any man

who could write could make a written copy and call it an original by

Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?—Author.]

[The spurious addition to Paine’s work alluded to in his footnote drew

on him a severe criticism from Dr. Priestley (“Letters to a

Philosophical Unbeliever,” p. 75), yet it seems to have been Priestley

himself who, in his quotation, first incorporated into Paine’s text the

footnote added by the editor of the American edition (1794). The

American added: “Vide Moshiem’s (sic) Ecc. History,” which Priestley

omits. In a modern American edition I notice four verbal alterations

introduced into the above footnote.—Editor.]

About three hundred and fifty years after the time that Christ is said

to have lived, several writings of the kind I am speaking of were

scattered in the hands of divers individuals; and as the church had

begun to form itself into an hierarchy, or church government, with

temporal powers, it set itself about collecting them into a code, as we

now see them, called ‘The New Testament.’ They decided by vote, as I

have before said in the former part of the Age of Reason, which of

those writings, out of the collection they had made, should be the word

of God, and which should not. The Robbins of the Jews had decided, by

vote, upon the books of the Bible before.

As the object of the church, as is the case in all national

establishments of churches, was power and revenue, and terror the means

it used, it is consistent to suppose that the most miraculous and

wonderful of the writings they had collected stood the best chance of

being voted. And as to the authenticity of the books, the vote stands

in the place of it; for it can be traced no higher.

Disputes, however, ran high among the people then calling themselves

Christians, not only as to points of doctrine, but as to the

authenticity of the books. In the contest between the person called St.

Augustine, and Fauste, about the year 400, the latter says, “The books

called the Evangelists have been composed long after the times of the

apostles, by some obscure men, who, fearing that the world would not

give credit to their relation of matters of which they could not be

informed, have published them under the names of the apostles; and

which are so full of sottishness and discordant relations, that there

is neither agreement nor connection between them.”

And in another place, addressing himself to the advocates of those

books, as being the word of God, he says, “It is thus that your

predecessors have inserted in the scriptures of our Lord many things

which, though they carry his name, agree not with his doctrine.” This

is not surprising, since that we have often proved that these things

have not been written by himself, nor by his apostles, but that for the

greatest part they are founded upon tales, upon vague reports, and put

together by I know not what half-Jews, with but little agreement

between them; and which they have nevertheless published under the name

of the apostles of our Lord, and have thus attributed to them their own

errors and their lies. [I have taken these two extracts from

Boulanger’s Life of Paul, written in French; Boulanger has quoted them

from the writings of Augustine against Fauste, to which he

refers.—Author.]

This Bishop Faustus is usually styled “The Manichaeum,” Augustine

having entitled his book, Contra Frustum Manichaeum Libri xxxiii., in

which nearly the whole of Faustus’ very able work is quoted.—Editor.]

The reader will see by those extracts that the authenticity of the

books of the New Testament was denied, and the books treated as tales,

forgeries, and lies, at the time they were voted to be the word of God.

But the interest of the church, with the assistance of the faggot, bore

down the opposition, and at last suppressed all investigation. Miracles

followed upon miracles, if we will believe them, and men were taught to

say they believed whether they believed or not. But (by way of throwing

in a thought) the French Revolution has excommunicated the church from

the power of working miracles; she has not been able, with the

assistance of all her saints, to work one miracle since the revolution

began; and as she never stood in greater need than now, we may, without

the aid of divination, conclude that all her former miracles are tricks

and lies. [Boulanger in his life of Paul, has collected from the

ecclesiastical histories, and the writings of the fathers as they are

called, several matters which show the opinions that prevailed among

the different sects of Christians, at the time the Testament, as we now

see it, was voted to be the word of God. The following extracts are

from the second chapter of that work:

[The Marcionists (a Christian sect) asserted that the evangelists were

filled with falsities. The Manichaeans, who formed a very numerous sect

at the commencement of Christianity, rejected as false all the New

Testament, and showed other writings quite different that they gave for

authentic. The Corinthians, like the Marcionists, admitted not the Acts

of the Apostles. The Encratites and the Sevenians adopted neither the

Acts, nor the Epistles of Paul. Chrysostom, in a homily which he made

upon the Acts of the Apostles, says that in his time, about the year

400, many people knew nothing either of the author or of the book. St.

Irene, who lived before that time, reports that the Valentinians, like

several other sects of the Christians, accused the scriptures of being

filled with imperfections, errors, and contradictions. The Ebionites,

or Nazarenes, who were the first Christians, rejected all the Epistles

of Paul, and regarded him as an impostor. They report, among other

things, that he was originally a Pagan; that he came to Jerusalem,

where he lived some time; and that having a mind to marry the daughter

of the high priest, he had himself been circumcised; but that not being

able to obtain her, he quarrelled with the Jews and wrote against

circumcision, and against the observation of the Sabbath, and against

all the legal ordinances.—Author.] [Much abridged from the Exam. Crit.

de la Vie de St. Paul, by N.A. Boulanger, 1770.—Editor.]

When we consider the lapse of more than three hundred years intervening

between the time that Christ is said to have lived and the time the New

Testament was formed into a book, we must see, even without the

assistance of historical evidence, the exceeding uncertainty there is

of its authenticity. The authenticity of the book of Homer, so far as

regards the authorship, is much better established than that of the New

Testament, though Homer is a thousand years the most ancient. It was

only an exceeding good poet that could have written the book of Homer,

and, therefore, few men only could have attempted it; and a man capable

of doing it would not have thrown away his own fame by giving it to

another. In like manner, there were but few that could have composed

Euclid’s Elements, because none but an exceeding good geometrician

could have been the author of that work.

But with respect to the books of the New Testament, particularly such

parts as tell us of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, any

person who could tell a story of an apparition, or of a man’s walking,

could have made such books; for the story is most wretchedly told. The

chance, therefore, of forgery in the Testament is millions to one

greater than in the case of Homer or Euclid. Of the numerous priests or

parsons of the present day, bishops and all, every one of them can make

a sermon, or translate a scrap of Latin, especially if it has been

translated a thousand times before; but is there any amongst them that

can write poetry like Homer, or science like Euclid? The sum total of a

parson’s learning, with very few exceptions, is a, b, ab, and hic,

haec, hoc; and their knowledge of science is, three times one is three;

and this is more than sufficient to have enabled them, had they lived

at the time, to have written all the books of the New Testament.

As the opportunities of forgery were greater, so also was the

inducement. A man could gain no advantage by writing under the name of

Homer or Euclid; if he could write equal to them, it would be better

that he wrote under his own name; if inferior, he could not succeed.

Pride would prevent the former, and impossibility the latter. But with

respect to such books as compose the New Testament, all the inducements

were on the side of forgery. The best imagined history that could have

been made, at the distance of two or three hundred years after the

time, could not have passed for an original under the name of the real

writer; the only chance of success lay in forgery; for the church

wanted pretence for its new doctrine, and truth and talents were out of

the question.

But as it is not uncommon (as before observed) to relate stories of

persons walking after they are dead, and of ghosts and apparitions of

such as have fallen by some violent or extraordinary means; and as the

people of that day were in the habit of believing such things, and of

the appearance of angels, and also of devils, and of their getting into

people’s insides, and shaking them like a fit of an ague, and of their

being cast out again as if by an emetic—(Mary Magdalene, the book of

Mark tells us had brought up, or been brought to bed of seven devils;)

it was nothing extraordinary that some story of this kind should get

abroad of the person called Jesus Christ, and become afterwards the

foundation of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Each writer told a tale as he heard it, or thereabouts, and gave to his

book the name of the saint or the apostle whom tradition had given as

the eye-witness. It is only upon this ground that the contradictions in

those books can be accounted for; and if this be not the case, they are

downright impositions, lies, and forgeries, without even the apology of

credulity.

That they have been written by a sort of half Jews, as the foregoing

quotations mention, is discernible enough. The frequent references made

to that chief assassin and impostor Moses, and to the men called

prophets, establishes this point; and, on the other hand, the church

has complimented the fraud, by admitting the Bible and the Testament to

reply to each other. Between the Christian-Jew and the

Christian-Gentile, the thing called a prophecy, and the thing

prophesied of, the type and the thing typified, the sign and the thing

signified, have been industriously rummaged up, and fitted together

like old locks and pick-lock keys. The story foolishly enough told of

Eve and the serpent, and naturally enough as to the enmity between men

and serpents (for the serpent always bites about the heel, because it

cannot reach higher, and the man always knocks the serpent about the

head, as the most effectual way to prevent its biting;) [“It shall

bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Gen. iii.

15.—Author.] this foolish story, I say, has been made into a prophecy,

a type, and a promise to begin with; and the lying imposition of Isaiah

to Ahaz, ‘That a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,’ as a sign that

Ahaz should conquer, when the event was that he was defeated (as

already noticed in the observations on the book of Isaiah), has been

perverted, and made to serve as a winder up.

Jonah and the whale are also made into a sign and type. Jonah is Jesus,

and the whale is the grave; for it is said, (and they have made Christ

to say it of himself, Matt. xii. 40), “For as Jonah was three days and

three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three

days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” But it happens,

awkwardly enough, that Christ, according to their own account, was but

one day and two nights in the grave; about 36 hours instead of 72; that

is, the Friday night, the Saturday, and the Saturday night; for they

say he was up on the Sunday morning by sunrise, or before. But as this

fits quite as well as the bite and the kick in Genesis, or the virgin

and her son in Isaiah, it will pass in the lump of orthodox

things.—Thus much for the historical part of the Testament and its

evidences.

Epistles of Paul—The epistles ascribed to Paul, being fourteen in

number, almost fill up the remaining part of the Testament. Whether

those epistles were written by the person to whom they are ascribed is

a matter of no great importance, since that the writer, whoever he was,

attempts to prove his doctrine by argument. He does not pretend to have

been witness to any of the scenes told of the resurrection and the

ascension; and he declares that he had not believed them.

The story of his being struck to the ground as he was journeying to

Damascus, has nothing in it miraculous or extraordinary; he escaped

with life, and that is more than many others have done, who have been

struck with lightning; and that he should lose his sight for three

days, and be unable to eat or drink during that time, is nothing more

than is common in such conditions. His companions that were with him

appear not to have suffered in the same manner, for they were well

enough to lead him the remainder of the journey; neither did they

pretend to have seen any vision.

The character of the person called Paul, according to the accounts

given of him, has in it a great deal of violence and fanaticism; he had

persecuted with as much heat as he preached afterwards; the stroke he

had received had changed his thinking, without altering his

constitution; and either as a Jew or a Christian he was the same

zealot. Such men are never good moral evidences of any doctrine they

preach. They are always in extremes, as well of action as of belief.

The doctrine he sets out to prove by argument, is the resurrection of

the same body: and he advances this as an evidence of immortality. But

so much will men differ in their manner of thinking, and in the

conclusions they draw from the same premises, that this doctrine of the

resurrection of the same body, so far from being an evidence of

immortality, appears to me to be an evidence against it; for if I have

already died in this body, and am raised again in the same body in

which I have died, it is presumptive evidence that I shall die again.

That resurrection no more secures me against the repetition of dying,

than an ague-fit, when past, secures me against another. To believe

therefore in immortality, I must have a more elevated idea than is

contained in the gloomy doctrine of the resurrection.

Besides, as a matter of choice, as well as of hope, I had rather have a

better body and a more convenient form than the present. Every animal

in the creation excels us in something. The winged insects, without

mentioning doves or eagles, can pass over more space with greater ease

in a few minutes than man can in an hour. The glide of the smallest

fish, in proportion to its bulk, exceeds us in motion almost beyond

comparison, and without weariness. Even the sluggish snail can ascend

from the bottom of a dungeon, where man, by the want of that ability,

would perish; and a spider can launch itself from the top, as a playful

amusement. The personal powers of man are so limited, and his heavy

frame so little constructed to extensive enjoyment, that there is

nothing to induce us to wish the opinion of Paul to be true. It is too

little for the magnitude of the scene, too mean for the sublimity of

the subject.

But all other arguments apart, the consciousness of existence is the

only conceivable idea we can have of another life, and the continuance

of that consciousness is immortality. The consciousness of existence,

or the knowing that we exist, is not necessarily confined to the same

form, nor to the same matter, even in this life.

We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case the same

matter, that composed our bodies twenty or thirty years ago; and yet we

are conscious of being the same persons. Even legs and arms, which make

up almost half the human frame, are not necessary to the consciousness

of existence. These may be lost or taken away and the full

consciousness of existence remain; and were their place supplied by

wings, or other appendages, we cannot conceive that it could alter our

consciousness of existence. In short, we know not how much, or rather

how little, of our composition it is, and how exquisitely fine that

little is, that creates in us this consciousness of existence; and all

beyond that is like the pulp of a peach, distinct and separate from the

vegetative speck in the kernel.

Who can say by what exceeding fine action of fine matter it is that a

thought is produced in what we call the mind? and yet that thought when

produced, as I now produce the thought I am writing, is capable of

becoming immortal, and is the only production of man that has that

capacity.

Statues of brass and marble will perish; and statues made in imitation

of them are not the same statues, nor the same workmanship, any more

than the copy of a picture is the same picture. But print and reprint a

thought a thousand times over, and that with materials of any kind,

carve it in wood, or engrave it on stone, the thought is eternally and

identically the same thought in every case. It has a capacity of

unimpaired existence, unaffected by change of matter, and is

essentially distinct, and of a nature different from every thing else

that we know of, or can conceive. If then the thing produced has in

itself a capacity of being immortal, it is more than a token that the

power that produced it, which is the self-same thing as consciousness

of existence, can be immortal also; and that as independently of the

matter it was first connected with, as the thought is of the printing

or writing it first appeared in. The one idea is not more difficult to

believe than the other; and we can see that one is true.

That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the same form

or the same matter, is demonstrated to our senses in the works of the

creation, as far as our senses are capable of receiving that

demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches to

us, far better than Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their little

life resembles an earth and a heaven, a present and a future state; and

comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in miniature.

The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the winged

insects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that form and

that inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes. The slow and

creeping caterpillar worm of to day, passes in a few days to a torpid

figure, and a state resembling death; and in the next change comes

forth in all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly.

No resemblance of the former creature remains; every thing is changed;

all his powers are new, and life is to him another thing. We cannot

conceive that the consciousness of existence is not the same in this

state of the animal as before; why then must I believe that the

resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue to me the

consciousness of existence hereafter?

In the former part of ‘The Age of Reason.’ I have called the creation

the true and only real word of God; and this instance, or this text, in

the book of creation, not only shows to us that this thing may be so,

but that it is so; and that the belief of a future state is a rational

belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation: for it is not more

difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter in a better state

and form than at present, than that a worm should become a butterfly,

and quit the dunghill for the atmosphere, if we did not know it as a

fact.

As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul in 1 Corinthians xv., which

makes part of the burial service of some Christian sectaries, it is as

destitute of meaning as the tolling of a bell at the funeral; it

explains nothing to the understanding, it illustrates nothing to the

imagination, but leaves the reader to find any meaning if he can. “All

flesh,” says he, “is not the same flesh. There is one flesh of men,

another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.” And what

then? nothing. A cook could have said as much. “There are also,” says

he, “bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial; the glory of the

celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is the other.” And

what then? nothing. And what is the difference? nothing that he has

told. “There is,” says he, “one glory of the sun, and another glory of

the moon, and another glory of the stars.” And what then? nothing;

except that he says that one star differeth from another star in glory,

instead of distance; and he might as well have told us that the moon

did not shine so bright as the sun. All this is nothing better than the

jargon of a conjuror, who picks up phrases he does not understand to

confound the credulous people who come to have their fortune told.

Priests and conjurors are of the same trade.

Sometimes Paul affects to be a naturalist, and to prove his system of

resurrection from the principles of vegetation. “Thou fool” says he,

“that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” To which one

might reply in his own language, and say, Thou fool, Paul, that which

thou sowest is not quickened except it die not; for the grain that dies

in the ground never does, nor can vegetate. It is only the living

grains that produce the next crop. But the metaphor, in any point of

view, is no simile. It is succession, and [not] resurrection.

The progress of an animal from one state of being to another, as from a

worm to a butterfly, applies to the case; but this of a grain does not,

and shows Paul to have been what he says of others, a fool.

Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by him or

not, is a matter of indifference; they are either argumentative or

dogmatical; and as the argument is defective, and the dogmatical part

is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote them. And the same

may be said for the remaining parts of the Testament. It is not upon

the Epistles, but upon what is called the Gospel, contained in the four

books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and upon the pretended

prophecies, that the theory of the church, calling itself the Christian

Church, is founded. The Epistles are dependant upon those, and must

follow their fate; for if the story of Jesus Christ be fabulous, all

reasoning founded upon it, as a supposed truth, must fall with it.

We know from history, that one of the principal leaders of this church,

Athanasius, lived at the time the New Testament was formed; [Athanasius

died, according to the Church chronology, in the year 371—Author.] and

we know also, from the absurd jargon he has left us under the name of a

creed, the character of the men who formed the New Testament; and we

know also from the same history that the authenticity of the books of

which it is composed was denied at the time. It was upon the vote of

such as Athanasius that the Testament was decreed to be the word of

God; and nothing can present to us a more strange idea than that of

decreeing the word of God by vote. Those who rest their faith upon such

authority put man in the place of God, and have no true foundation for

future happiness. Credulity, however, is not a crime, but it becomes

criminal by resisting conviction. It is strangling in the womb of the

conscience the efforts it makes to ascertain truth. We should never

force belief upon ourselves in any thing.

I here close the subject on the Old Testament and the New. The evidence

I have produced to prove them forgeries, is extracted from the books

themselves, and acts, like a two-edge sword, either way. If the

evidence be denied, the authenticity of the Scriptures is denied with

it, for it is Scripture evidence: and if the evidence be admitted, the

authenticity of the books is disproved. The contradictory

impossibilities, contained in the Old Testament and the New, put them

in the case of a man who swears for and against. Either evidence

convicts him of perjury, and equally destroys reputation.

Should the Bible and the Testament hereafter fall, it is not that I

have done it. I have done no more than extracted the evidence from the

confused mass of matters with which it is mixed, and arranged that

evidence in a point of light to be clearly seen and easily

comprehended; and, having done this, I leave the reader to judge for

himself, as I have judged for myself.

CHAPTER III.

CONCLUSION

In the former part of ‘The Age of Reason’ I have spoken of the three

frauds, mystery, miracle, and Prophecy; and as I have seen nothing in

any of the answers to that work that in the least affects what I have

there said upon those subjects, I shall not encumber this Second Part

with additions that are not necessary.

I have spoken also in the same work upon what is celled revelation, and

have shown the absurd misapplication of that term to the books of the

Old Testament and the New; for certainly revelation is out of the

question in reciting any thing of which man has been the actor or the

witness. That which man has done or seen, needs no revelation to tell

him he has done it, or seen it—for he knows it already—nor to enable

him to tell it or to write it. It is ignorance, or imposition, to apply

the term revelation in such cases; yet the Bible and Testament are

classed under this fraudulent description of being all revelation.

Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man,

can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man;

but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is

necessarily admitted, because to that power all things are possible,

yet, the thing so revealed (if any thing ever was revealed, and which,

by the bye, it is impossible to prove) is revelation to the person only

to whom it is made. His account of it to another is not revelation; and

whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the

account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed

it; or he may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible

criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what he tells; for even the

morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases, the

proper answer should be, “When it is revealed to me, I will believe it

to be revelation; but it is not and cannot be incumbent upon me to

believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that I should

take the word of man as the word of God, and put man in the place of

God.” This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the

former part of The Age of Reason; and which, whilst it reverentially

admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the

Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man

upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation.

But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility of

revelation, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever did communicate

any thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any language, or by any

kind of vision, or appearance, or by any means which our senses are

capable of receiving, otherwise than by the universal display of

himself in the works of the creation, and by that repugnance we feel in

ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to good ones. [A fair

parallel of the then unknown aphorism of Kant: “Two things fill the

soul with wonder and reverence, increasing evermore as I meditate more

closely upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within

me.” (Kritik derpraktischen Vernunfe, 1788). Kant’s religious

utterances at the beginning of the French Revolution brought on him a

royal mandate of silence, because he had worked out from “the moral law

within” a principle of human equality precisely similar to that which

Paine had derived from his Quaker doctrine of the “inner light” of

every man. About the same time Paine’s writings were suppressed in

England. Paine did not understand German, but Kant, though always

independent in the formation of his opinions, was evidently well

acquainted with the literature of the Revolution, in America, England,

and France.—Editor.]

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the

greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their

origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has

been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the

divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness

of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is

better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand

devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils,

if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and

monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with

the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.

Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men,

women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody

persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since

that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but

from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous

belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the

cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament [of] the other.

Some Christians pretend that Christianity was not established by the

sword; but of what period of time do they speak? It was impossible that

twelve men could begin with the sword: they had not the power; but no

sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently powerful to

employ the sword than they did so, and the stake and faggot too; and

Mahomet could not do it sooner. By the same spirit that Peter cut off

the ear of the high priest’s servant (if the story be true) he would

cut off his head, and the head of his master, had he been able. Besides

this, Christianity grounds itself originally upon the [Hebrew] Bible,

and the Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the

worst use of it—not to terrify, but to extirpate. The Jews made no

converts: they butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the [New]

Testament, and both are called the word of God. The Christians read

both books; the ministers preach from both books; and this thing called

Christianity is made up of both. It is then false to say that

Christianity was not established by the sword.

The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers; and the only

reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists than

Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they call

the scriptures a dead letter. [This is an interesting and correct

testimony as to the beliefs of the earlier Quakers, one of whom was

Paine’s father.—Editor.] Had they called them by a worse name, they had

been nearer the truth.

It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the

Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial miseries,

and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, to

expel all ideas of a revealed religion as a dangerous heresy, and an

impious fraud. What is it that we have learned from this pretended

thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful to man, and

every thing that is dishonourable to his Maker. What is it the Bible

teaches us?—repine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament

teaches us?—to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a

woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is

called faith.

As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly

scattered in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing,

revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, and the

bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot

exist; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies.

The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, and where it

attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. The doctrine of not

retaliating injuries is much better expressed in Proverbs, which is a

collection as well from the Gentiles as the Jews, than it is in the

Testament. It is there said, (Xxv. 2 I) “If thine enemy be hungry, give

him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:”

[According to what is called Christ’s sermon on the mount, in the book

of Matthew, where, among some other [and] good things, a great deal of

this feigned morality is introduced, it is there expressly said, that

the doctrine of forbearance, or of not retaliating injuries, was not

any part of the doctrine of the Jews; but as this doctrine is found in

“Proverbs,” it must, according to that statement, have been copied from

the Gentiles, from whom Christ had learned it. Those men whom Jewish

and Christian idolators have abusively called heathen, had much better

and clearer ideas of justice and morality than are to be found in the

Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish, or in the New. The answer of

Solon on the question, “Which is the most perfect popular govemment,”

has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as containing a

maxim of political morality, “That,” says he, “where the least injury

done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole

constitution.” Solon lived about 500 years before Christ.—Author.] but

when it is said, as in the Testament, “If a man smite thee on the right

cheek, turn to him the other also,” it is assassinating the dignity of

forbearance, and sinking man into a spaniel.

Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has

besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does

not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense,

for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and

calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could

be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word

enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which

ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the

enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of

religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to

an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon

us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the

best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this

erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the other part; and

to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally

and physically impossible.

Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first

place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be

productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The

maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange

doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself for

his crime or for his enmity.

Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general

the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for

the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should

act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the

doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the

man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or

any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French

Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil. But it

is not incumbent on man to reward a bad action with a good one, or to

return good for evil; and wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act,

and not a duty. It is also absurd to suppose that such doctrine can

make any part of a revealed religion. We imitate the moral character of

the Creator by forbearing with each other, for he forbears with all;

but this doctrine would imply that he loved man, not in proportion as

he was good, but as he was bad.

If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see there is

no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is it we want

to know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach to us

the existence of an Almighty power, that governs and regulates the

whole? And is not the evidence that this creation holds out to our

senses infinitely stronger than any thing we can read in a book, that

any imposter might make and call the word of God? As for morality, the

knowledge of it exists in every man’s conscience.

Here we are. The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently

demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impossible we

should, the nature and manner of its existence. We cannot conceive how

we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a fact that we are here. We

must know also, that the power that called us into being, can if he

please, and when he pleases, call us to account for the manner in which

we have lived here; and therefore without seeking any other motive for

the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know

beforehand that he can. The probability or even possibility of the

thing is all that we ought to know; for if we knew it as a fact, we

should be the mere slaves of terror; our belief would have no merit,

and our best actions no virtue.

Deism then teaches us, without the possibility of being deceived, all

that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation is the Bible of

the deist. He there reads, in the hand-writing of the Creator himself,

the certainty of his existence, and the immutability of his power; and

all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. The probability

that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to reflecting minds,

have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or disbelief

that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the state we are in, and

which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool

only, and not the philosopher, nor even the prudent man, that will live

as if there were no God.

But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with the strange

fable of the Christian creed, and with the wild adventures related in

the Bible, and the obscurity and obscene nonsense of the Testament,

that the mind of man is bewildered as in a fog. Viewing all these

things in a confused mass, he confounds fact with fable; and as he

cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to reject all. But the

belief of a God is a belief distinct from all other things, and ought

not to be confounded with any. The notion of a Trinity of Gods has

enfeebled the belief of one God. A multiplication of beliefs acts as a

division of belief; and in proportion as anything is divided, it is

weakened.

Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form instead of fact; of

notion instead of principle: morality is banished to make room for an

imaginary thing called faith, and this faith has its origin in a

supposed debauchery; a man is preached instead of a God; an execution

is an object for gratitude; the preachers daub themselves with the

blood, like a troop of assassins, and pretend to admire the brilliancy

it gives them; they preach a humdrum sermon on the merits of the

execution; then praise Jesus Christ for being executed, and condemn the

Jews for doing it.

A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached together,

confounds the God of the Creation with the imagined God of the

Christians, and lives as if there were none.

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none

more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant

to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called

Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and

too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid, or produces

only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the

purpose of despotism; and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests;

but so far as respects the good of man in general, it leads to nothing

here or hereafter.

The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in it every

evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple deism. It must have

been the first and will probably be the last that man believes. But

pure and simple deism does not answer the purpose of despotic

governments. They cannot lay hold of religion as an engine but by

mixing it with human inventions, and making their own authority a part;

neither does it answer the avarice of priests, but by incorporating

themselves and their functions with it, and becoming, like the

government, a party in the system. It is this that forms the otherwise

mysterious connection of church and state; the church human, and the

state tyrannic.

Were a man impressed as fully and strongly as he ought to be with the

belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force of

belief; he would stand in awe of God, and of himself, and would not do

the thing that could not be concealed from either. To give this belief

the full opportunity of force, it is necessary that it acts alone. This

is deism.

But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one part of

God is represented by a dying man, and another part, called the Holy

Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can attach

itself to such wild conceits. [The book called the book of Matthew,

says, (iii. 16,) that the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove.

It might as well have said a goose; the creatures are equally harmless,

and the one is as much a nonsensical lie as the other. Acts, ii. 2, 3,

says, that it descended in a mighty rushing wind, in the shape of

cloven tongues: perhaps it was cloven feet. Such absurd stuff is fit

only for tales of witches and wizards.—Author.]

It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the other

invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator,

as it is of government to hold him in ignorance of his rights. The

systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are

calculated for mutual support. The study of theology as it stands in

Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing;

it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no

data; it can demonstrate nothing; and admits of no conclusion. Not any

thing can be studied as a science without our being in possession of

the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case

with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.

Instead then of studying theology, as is now done, out of the Bible and

Testament, the meanings of which books are always controverted, and the

authenticity of which is disproved, it is necessary that we refer to

the Bible of the creation. The principles we discover there are

eternal, and of divine origin: they are the foundation of all the

science that exists in the world, and must be the foundation of

theology.

We can know God only through his works. We cannot have a conception of

any one attribute, but by following some principle that leads to it. We

have only a confused idea of his power, if we have not the means of

comprehending something of its immensity. We can have no idea of his

wisdom, but by knowing the order and manner in which it acts. The

principles of science lead to this knowledge; for the Creator of man is

the Creator of science, and it is through that medium that man can see

God, as it were, face to face.

Could a man be placed in a situation, and endowed with power of vision

to behold at one view, and to contemplate deliberately, the structure

of the universe, to mark the movements of the several planets, the

cause of their varying appearances, the unerring order in which they

revolve, even to the remotest comet, their connection and dependence on

each other, and to know the system of laws established by the Creator,

that governs and regulates the whole; he would then conceive, far

beyond what any church theology can teach him, the power, the wisdom,

the vastness, the munificence of the Creator. He would then see that

all the knowledge man has of science, and that all the mechanical arts

by which he renders his situation comfortable here, are derived from

that source: his mind, exalted by the scene, and convinced by the fact,

would increase in gratitude as it increased in knowledge: his religion

or his worship would become united with his improvement as a man: any

employment he followed that had connection with the principles of the

creation,—as everything of agriculture, of science, and of the

mechanical arts, has,—would teach him more of God, and of the gratitude

he owes to him, than any theological Christian sermon he now hears.

Great objects inspire great thoughts; great munificence excites great

gratitude; but the grovelling tales and doctrines of the Bible and the

Testament are fit only to excite contempt.

Though man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the actual scene I

have described, he can demonstrate it, because he has knowledge of the

principles upon which the creation is constructed. We know that the

greatest works can be represented in model, and that the universe can

be represented by the same means. The same principles by which we

measure an inch or an acre of ground will measure to millions in

extent. A circle of an inch diameter has the same geometrical

properties as a circle that would circumscribe the universe. The same

properties of a triangle that will demonstrate upon paper the course of

a ship, will do it on the ocean; and, when applied to what are called

the heavenly bodies, will ascertain to a minute the time of an eclipse,

though those bodies are millions of miles distant from us. This

knowledge is of divine origin; and it is from the Bible of the creation

that man has learned it, and not from the stupid Bible of the church,

that teaches man nothing. [The Bible-makers have undertaken to give us,

in the first chapter of Genesis, an account of the creation; and in

doing this they have demonstrated nothing but their ignorance. They

make there to have been three days and three nights, evenings and

mornings, before there was any sun; when it is the presence or absence

of the sun that is the cause of day and night—and what is called his

rising and setting that of morning and evening. Besides, it is a

puerile and pitiful idea, to suppose the Almighty to say, “Let there be

light.” It is the imperative manner of speaking that a conjuror uses

when he says to his cups and balls, Presto, be gone—and most probably

has been taken from it, as Moses and his rod is a conjuror and his

wand. Longinus calls this expression the sublime; and by the same rule

the conjurer is sublime too; for the manner of speaking is expressively

and grammatically the same. When authors and critics talk of the

sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous. The

sublime of the critics, like some parts of Edmund Burke’s sublime and

beautiful, is like a windmill just visible in a fog, which imagination

might distort into a flying mountain, or an archangel, or a flock of

wild geese.—Author.]

All the knowledge man has of science and of machinery, by the aid of

which his existence is rendered comfortable upon earth, and without

which he would be scarcely distinguishable in appearance and condition

from a common animal, comes from the great machine and structure of the

universe. The constant and unwearied observations of our ancestors upon

the movements and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, in what are

supposed to have been the early ages of the world, have brought this

knowledge upon earth. It is not Moses and the prophets, nor Jesus

Christ, nor his apostles, that have done it. The Almighty is the great

mechanic of the creation, the first philosopher, and original teacher

of all science. Let us then learn to reverence our master, and not

forget the labours of our ancestors.

Had we, at this day, no knowledge of machinery, and were it possible

that man could have a view, as I have before described, of the

structure and machinery of the universe, he would soon conceive the

idea of constructing some at least of the mechanical works we now have;

and the idea so conceived would progressively advance in practice. Or

could a model of the universe, such as is called an orrery, be

presented before him and put in motion, his mind would arrive at the

same idea. Such an object and such a subject would, whilst it improved

him in knowledge useful to himself as a man and a member of society, as

well as entertaining, afford far better matter for impressing him with

a knowledge of, and a belief in the Creator, and of the reverence and

gratitude that man owes to him, than the stupid texts of the Bible and

the Testament, from which, be the talents of the preacher; what they

may, only stupid sermons can be preached. If man must preach, let him

preach something that is edifying, and from the texts that are known to

be true.

The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every part of

science, whether connected with the geometry of the universe, with the

systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the properties of

inanimate matter, is a text as well for devotion as for philosophy—for

gratitude, as for human improvement. It will perhaps be said, that if

such a revolution in the system of religion takes place, every preacher

ought to be a philosopher. Most certainly, and every house of devotion

a school of science.

It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of science, and the

light of reason, and setting up an invented thing called “revealed

religion,” that so many wild and blasphemous conceits have been formed

of the Almighty. The Jews have made him the assassin of the human

species, to make room for the religion of the Jews. The Christians have

made him the murderer of himself, and the founder of a new religion to

supersede and expel the Jewish religion. And to find pretence and

admission for these things, they must have supposed his power or his

wisdom imperfect, or his will changeable; and the changeableness of the

will is the imperfection of the judgement. The philosopher knows that

the laws of the Creator have never changed, with respect either to the

principles of science, or the properties of matter. Why then is it to

be supposed they have changed with respect to man?

I here close the subject. I have shown in all the foregoing parts of

this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions and forgeries;

and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it to be refuted,

if any one can do it; and I leave the ideas that are suggested in the

conclusion of the work to rest on the mind of the reader; certain as I

am that when opinions are free, either in matters of govemment or

religion, truth will finally and powerfully prevail.

END OF PART II