A CONSIDERATION OF SOME SUPPOSED ADVANTAGES
ATTRIBUTED TO THE NEW, OVER THE OLD, TESTAMENT;
AND WHETHER THE DOCTRINE OF A RESURRECTION,
AND A LIFE TO COME, IS NOT TAUGHT IN THE OLD
TESTAMENT; IN CONTRADICTION TO THE ASSERTION,
THAT LIFE AND IMMORTALITY WERE BROUGHT TO
LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL.
From the preceding chapters, you may judge, reader, of the justice
and truth of the opinion, that the yoke of Christian morality is
easy, and its burthen light; and also of the veracity and fairness
of that constant assertion of divines, that Jesus came to remove
the heavy yoke of the Mosaic Law, and to substitute in its room
one of easier observance.--Whether this, their assertion, be not
rash, and ill founded, I will cheerfully leave to be decided by
any cool and thinking man, who knows human nature, and is
acquainted with the human heart. I say, I would cheerfully leave it
to such a man, whether the Mosaic Law, with all its numerous
rites, and ceremonial observances, nay, with all the (ridiculous)
traditions of the Elders, superadded, would not be much more
bearable to human nature, and much easier to be observed and
obeyed, than such precepts as these, Sell all thou hast, and give it
to the poor. If a man ask thy cloak, give him thy coat also.
Resist not the injurious person, but if a man smite thee on one
cheek, turn to him the other also. Extirpate and destroy all carnal
affection, and love nothing, but religion. Take no thought for
to-morrow;--I am confident that the decision would be given in
my favour; and have no doubt, that with thinking men, the contrary
opinion would be instantly rejected with the contempt it merits.
Whether the Mosaic Code be the best possible, or really divine, is
of no consequence in this inquiry, and is with me another question
from that of its inferiority to that of the New Testament. I do by no
means assert the former; but have no hesitation to give my opinion,
after a pretty thorough examination of the subject, that the
reflections of Paul, and those usually thrown out against the
Mosaic Code by Theologians, when comparing it with that of the
New Testament, in order to deprecate the former, appear to me
extremely partial and unjust; and so far from true, that I think, that
the ancient law has the advantage over the precepts of the New
Testament, in being, at least, practicable and consistent.*
Another unfounded reproach which Theologians, in order to
magnify the importance of the New Testament, cast upon the Old,
is this: They say, that the Old Testament represents God only as
the tutelary Deity of the Israelites, and as not so much concerned
for the rest of mankind. To show that this is a very mistaken
notion, and to manifest that the Eternal of the Old Testament is
represented therein, not as the God of the Jews only, but also of the
Gentiles, I refer to these words:--The Lord thy God is God of
gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible; who
regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the
judgment of the fatherless, and widow, and loveth the stranger, in
giving him food and raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger.
Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for ye know the
heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously
between a man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.
One law shall be to him that is home born, and to the stranger that
sojourneth among you. The stranger that dwelleth with you shall
be as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. I am
the Lord your God.
Indeed, so little truth is there in the notion, that the law and
religion of the Old Testament were established with the intention
of confining them to one people, exclusive of all others, that the
Old Testament certainly represents them in such manner, as
shows, that they were intended to be as unconfined as the
Christian, or Mahometan; its religion, in fact, admitted every one
who would receive it. And what is more, it can be proved that the
Old Testament dispensation claims, as appears from itself, to have
been given for the common advantage of all mankind. And it is
asserted in it, (whether truly or not, is not the question; it is
sufficient for my purpose, that it asserts it), that the religion
contained in it, will one day be the religion of all mankind. For it
declares that Jerusalem will be the centre of worship for all
nations, and the temple there, be the house of prayer for all
nations; that the Eternal will be the only God worshipped; and his
laws the only laws obeyed. It represents Abraham and his posterity
as merely the instruments of the Eternal to bring about these ends;
it is repeatedly declared therein, that the reason of Gods
dispensations towards them was, that all the earth might know that
the Eternal is God, and that there is no other but Him. According
to its history, when God threatened to destroy the Israelites for
their perverseness in the wilderness, and offers Moses, interceding
for them, to raise, up his seed to fulfil the purposes for which he
designed the posterity of Abraham; he tells Moses that his purpose
should not be frustrated through the perverseness of the chosen
instruments; but, (saith He), as surely as I live, all the earth shall
be filled with the glory of the Lord, Numbers xiv. 21. Many
passages of similar import are contained in the Psalms, and the
Prophets. In fact, there is no truth at all in the statement of the
Catechisms, that the Old Testament was merely preparatory, and
intended merely to prepare the way for a better covenant, as
Paul says; even for another religion, (the Christian) which was to
convert all nations; for, (if the Old Testament be suffered to tell its
own story,) we shall find, that it claims, and challenges the honour
of beginning, and completing, this magnificent design solely to
itself. I was going to overwhelm the patience of the reader with
quotations from it, to this purpose; but being willing to spare him
and myself, I will only produce one, which, as it is direct and
peremptory to this effect, is as good as a hundred, to demonstrate
that the Old Testament at least claims what I have said. Zech. viii.
20, Thus saith the Eternal of Hosts: It shall yet come to pass, that
there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the
inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying: Let us go
speedily to pray before the Eternal, and to seek the Eternal of
Hosts: I will go also. Yea, many people, and strong nations shall
come to seek the Eternal of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before
the Eternal. Thus saith the Eternal of Hosts: In those days it shall
come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all the languages
of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew,
saying, we will go with you.
Be it so, it may be said;--Still, it is to Christianity the world
owes the consoling doctrine of a life to come. Life and immortality
were brought to light by the Gospel, say the Christian divines; and
they assert, that the doctrine of a resurrection was not known to
Jew or Gentile, till they learned it from Jesus followers. The Old
Testament, (say they,) taught the Jews nothing of the glorious
truths concerning the resurrection of the body, and the life
everlasting, their beggarly elements confined their views to
temporal happiness, only. These assertions I shall prove from the
Old Testament itself, to be contrary to fact; for the Jews both knew,
and were taught by their Bibles to expect a resurrection, and
believed it as firmly as any Christian can, or ever did. For proof
hereof, I shall, in the first place, quote the 37th chapter of Ezekiel,
and which is as follows, The hand of the Lord was upon me, and
carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the
midst of the valley, which was full of bones. And caused me to
pass by them round about, and behold there were very many in the
open valley, and behold they were dry.--And he said unto me.
Son of man, can these bones live? and I answered, O Lord God,
thou knowest. Again he said unto me. Prophecy upon these bones,
and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold I will cause
breath to enter into you, and ye shall live, and I will lay sinews
upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you; and cover you with
skin, and put breath into you; and ye shall live, and know that I am
the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded, and, as I
prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking, and the bones
came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the
sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered
them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto
me. Prophecy son of man, and say unto the wind, thus saith the
Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath! and breathe upon
these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up
again upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
A plainer resurrection than this is, I think never was preached
either by Jesus or his followers. Again, Daniel the prophet says,
Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,
Daniel xii. 2. Now Ezekiel lived almost six hundred years before
Jesus, and Daniel was contemporary with the former; and is it not a
little surprising, that the Jews should learn, for the first time, the
doctrine of a resurrection of the followers of Jesus Christ, when
they knew of the resurrection almost six hundred years before he
was born? Isaiah also, (who lived before either Ezekiel or Daniel),
in the 26th chapter of his prophesies, (exciting the Jews to have
confidence in God, and not to despair on account of their captivity,
and the troubles and afflictions which they should suffer therein),
foretells to them that death would not deprive them of the reward
of their piety and virtue; for God would raise them from the dead,
and make them happy. Thy dead men shall live, my dead bodies#
(i. e., the bodies of Gods servants) they shall arise. Awake! and
sing! ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
The meaning of the last clause is--that, as the grass, which in
Oriental countries becomes brown and shrivelled by the heat of the
sun; from the effects of the dew it changes and springs up, as it
were, in a moment, green and fresh and beautiful; so, by the
instantaneous influence of the word of God, the dry and decayed
remains of mortality shall become blooming with immortal
freshness and beauty. See also Hosea xiii. 14. I might easily
multiply passages from the Old Testament, to prove that the
doctrine of a resurrection was familiar to the ancient Israelites, but
I suppose that what I have already produced, is sufficient. Those,
however, who wish to see the subject more thoroughly examined,
are referred to Greaves Lectures on the Pentateuch, a work
lately published in Europe, highly honourable to the author. See
also a Tract upon this subject, published by Dr. Priestley, in 1801.
I shall only add one observation more on this subject, viz., that it is
very singular that Christian divines should assert, that life and
immortality were first brought to light by the Gospel, when the
New Testament itself represents the resurrection of the dead as
being perfectly well known to the Jews, and describes Jesus
himself as proving it to the Sadducees out of the Old Testament!!!
CONCLUSION.
I have now finished my work, which I have written in order to
exculpate myself, and to do justice to others; and having
re-examined every link of the chain of my argument, I think it amply
strong to support the conclusions attached to it. Though there
might have been drawn from the Old and New Testaments, many
additional arguments corroborative of what has been said, yet, at
present, I shall add no more; as I think that what has been brought
forward has just claims to be considered by the impartial as quite
sufficient to prove these two points--that the New Testament can
neither subsist with the Old Testament, nor without it; and that the
New Testament system was built first upon a mistake, and
afterwards buttressed up with forged and apocryphal documents.
Let the candid now judge, whether the author, knowing these
things, or, at least persuaded of their truth, could have persisted in
affirming, (in a place where sincerity is expected), in the name of
the Almighty, that the claims of the New Testament were valid,
without being a hypocrite, and an impostor.
Let them also consider, whether, after being unable to obtain a
satisfactory refutation of the objections contained in this volume,
his resigning a profession whose duties obliged him to say what he
was convinced was false, was conduct to be reprehended. And
lastly, he appeals to the good sense of the public, for a decision,
whether, with such objections and difficulties weighing upon his
mind, as he has now exposed, his conduct in that respect can
reasonably be attributed to the unmanly influence of caprice and
fickle-ness, (as has been circulated by some who had an interest in
making it believed;) or to the just influence of motives deserving a
better name.
With regard to the unfortunate people whose arguments have been
brought forward in this volume, we have, reader, now gone over,
and distinctly felt, the whole ground of the controversy between
them and their persecutors, mentioned in the Preface. And as they
make use of the Old Testament as a foundation, admitted, and
necessarily admitted by Christians, to be of divine authority, and
are surrounded by the bulwarks they have raised out of the
demolished entrenchments of their adversaries, I do not see but
that their castles strength may laugh a siege to scorn. And after
reviewing, and revolving, over and over in my own mind the
arguments on both sides, I am obliged to believe, that the stoutest
Polemical Goliath who may venture to attack it, especially their
strong hold--their arguments about the Messiahship, will find to
his cost, that when his weak point is but known, the mightiest
Achilles must fall before the feeblest Paris, whose arrow is--aimed
at his heel.
The author hopes, and thinks he has a right to expect, that whoever
may attempt to answer his book, will do it fairly, like a man of
candour; without trying to evade the main question--that of the
Messiahship of Jesus. He fears, that he shall see an answer
precisely resembling the many others he has seen upon that
subject. Except two--those of Sukes, and Jeffries. (who
acknowledge that miracles have nothing to do with the question of
the Messiahship, which can be decided by the Old Testament only;)--
all that he has ever met with, evade this question, and slide
over to the ground of miracles. Such conduct in an answerer of this
book would be very unfair, and also very absurd. For the case is
precisely resembling the following--A father informs by letter his
son in a foreign country, that he is about to send him a Tutor,
whom he will know by the following marks; He is learned in the
mathematics, and the physical sciences; acquainted with the
learned languages, and an excellent physician; of a dark
complexion; six feet high, and with a voice loud, and
commanding. By and by, a man comes to the young man,
professing to be this tutor sent to him by his father. On examining
the man, and comparing him with the description in his fathers
letter, he finds him totally unlike the person he had been taught to
expect. Instead of being acquainted with the sciences, therein
mentioned, he knows nothing about them; instead of being six
feet high, of a dark complexion, and with a voice loud and
commanding, he is a diminutive creature of five feet, of a light
complexion, with a voice like a womans.
The young man, with his fathers letter in his hand, tells the
pretended tutor, that he certainly cannot be the person he has been
told to expect. The man persists, and appeals to certain wonderful
works he performs in order to convince the young man, that he is
acquainted with the sciences aforesaid, and that he is also six feet
high; of a dark complexion; and talks like an Emperor! The young
man replies. Friend, you are either an enthusiast, a mad man, or
something worse. As to your signs and wonders, I have been
warned in my fathers letter to pay no regard to any such things in
this case. Besides, you ought to be sensible, that your identity with
the person I am taught by my fathers letter to expect, can be only
determined by comparing you with the description of him given
therein. Whether your wonderful works are real miracles or not, I
neither know, nor care. At any rate, they cannot, in the nature of
things, be any thing to the purpose in; this case. For you to pretend,
that they prove what you offer them to prove, is quite absurd; you
might as well, and as reasonably, pretend, that they could prove
Aristotle to have been Alexander; or the Methodist George
Whitfield to be the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte!
To conclude, if any person should feel inclined to attempt to refute
this book, let him do it like a man; without evading the question, or
equivocating, or caviling about little things. Let him consider the
principal question, and the main arguments on which he perceives
that the author relies, and not pass over these silently, and hold up
a few petty mistakes and subsidiary arguments as specimens of the
whole book. Such a mode of defence would be very disengenuous,
and with a discerning reader, perfectly futile and insufficient. It
would be as if a man prostrate, and bleeding under a lion whose
teeth and claws were infixed in his throat, should tear a handful of
hairs out of the animals mane, and hold them up as proofs of
victory.
In fine, let him, before his undertaking, carefully consider these
pungent words of Bishop Beveridge, Opposite answers, and
downright arguments advantage a cause; but when a disputant
leaves many things untouched, as if they were too hot for his
fingers; and declines the weight of other things, and alters the true
state of the question: it is a shrewd sign, either that he has not
weighed things maturely, or else (which is more probable,) that he
maintains a desperate cause.
FINIS.
APPENDIX A.#
As reasons for this assertion, (that the account of the resurrection
given by the evangelists is no better, nay, worse, than conjecture,
as it is a mere forgery of the second century.--Vide page 86) take
the following facts, which are now ascertained, and can be
proved:--1. Several sects of Christians in the first century, in the
apostolic era, denied that Jesus was crucified, as the Basildeans,
&c. The author of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, I think, denied
it, and the author of the gospel of Thomas certainly did. 2. The
Jewish Christians, the disciples of the twelve apostles, never
received, but rejected every individual book of the present New
Testament. They held in especial abomination the writings of Paul,
whom they called an apostate; and there is extant, in
Cotelerius Patres Apostolici, a letter ascribed to Peter, written to
James at Jerusalem wherein he complains bitterly of Paul, styling
him a lawless man, and a crafty misrepresenter of him (Peter,)
and his doctrine, in that Paul represented, every where, Peter as
being secretly of the same opinions with himself; against this he
enters his protest, and declares that he reprobates the doctrine of
Paul. (See Appendix B.) 3. It is certain, that from the beginning,
the Christians were never agreed as to points of faith; and that the
apostles themselves, so far from being considered as inspired, and
infallible, were frequently contradicted, thwarted, and set at naught
by their own converts: and there were as many sects, heresies, and
quarrels, in the first century, as in the second or third. 4. Jesus and
his apostles were no sooner off the stage, than forgeries of all kinds
broke in with irresistible force: Gospels, Epistles, Acts,
Revelations without number, published in the names, and under the
feigned authority, of Jesus and his apostles, abounded in the
Christian church; and as some of these were as early in time as any
of the writings in the present canon of the New Testament, so they
were received promiscuously with them, and held in equal credit
and veneration, and read in the public assemblies as of equal
authority with those now received. 5. The very learned and pious
Dodwell, in his Dissertations on Iraeneus avows, that he cannot
find in ecclesiastical antiquities, (which he understood better than
any man of his age,) any evidence at all, that the four Gospels were
known or heard of, before the time of Trajan, and Adrian, i.e.
before the middle of the second century, i. e. nearly a hundred
years after the apostles were dead. (See Appendix C.) Long before
this time, we know that there were extant numbers of spurious
gospels, forged, and ascribed to the apostles; and we have not the
least evidence to be depended on, that those now received were not
also apocryphal. For they were written nobody certainly knows by
whom, or where, or when. They first appeared in an age of
credulity, when forgeries of this kind abounded and were received
with avidity by those whose opinions they favoured, while they
were rejected as spurious by many sects of Christians, who
asserted that they were possessed of the genuine apostles, which,
however, those who received the four, denied. 6. All the
different sects of Christians, without a known exception, altered,
interpolated, and without scruple garbled, their different copies of
their various and discordant gospels, in order to adapt them to their
jarring and whimsical philosophical notions, Celsus accuses them
of this, and they accuse each other. And that they were continually
tampering with their copies of the books of the New Testament, is
evident from the immense number of various readings, and from
some whole phrases, and even verses, which for knavish purposes
were foisted into the text, but have been detected, and exposed by
Griesbach, and others. They also forged certain rhapsodies under
the name of Sybbiline Oracles, and then adduce them as
prophetic proofs of the truth of their religion. They also
interpolated certain clumsy forgeries as prophecies of Jesus into
their copies of their Greek version of the Old Testament. 7. The
present canon of the New Testament has never been sanctioned by
the general consent of Christians. The Syrian church rejects some
of its books;--some of its books were not admitted until after long
opposition, and not until several hundred years after Jesus. The
lists of what were considered as canonical books, differ in different
ages, and some books now acknowledged by all Christians to be
forgeries, were in the second and third centuries considered as
equally apostolic as those now received, and as such, were publicly
read in the churches. 8. The reason why we have not now extant
gospels, different and contradictory to those now received, is,
because that the sect or party which finally got the better of its
adversaries, and styled itself Catholic, or orthodox, took care to
burn and destroy the heretics, and their gospels with them. They
likewise took care to hunt up and burn the books of the pagan
adversaries of Christianity, because they were shockingly
offensive to pious ears. 9. Semler considered the New Testament
as a collection of pious frauds, written for pious purposes, in the
latter part of the second century, (the very time assigned for their
first appearance by Dodwell.) Evanson adopts, and gives good
reasons for a similar opinion with regard to most of the books
which go to compose it. Lastly. The reason why the New
Testament canon has been so long respected, seems to have been
purely owing to the credulity of the ignorant, and the laziness,
indifference, or fears of the learned.
Douglas, in his famous Criterion, gives us, as infallible tests, by
which we may distinguish when written accounts of miracles are
fabulous, the following marks:--
1. We have reason to suspect (he says) the accounts to be false,
when they are not published to the world till after the time when
they are said to have been performed.
2. We have reason to suspect them to be false, when they are not
published in the place where it is pretended the facts were
wrought, but are propagated only at a great distance from the
supposed scene of action.
3. Supposing the accounts to have the two fore-mentioned
qualifications, we still have reason to suspect them to be false, if in
the time when, and at the place where, they took their rise, they
might be suffered to pass without examination.
These are the marks he gives us as infallible tests by which we
may distinguish the accounts of miracles in the New Testament to
be true; and accounts of miracles in other books (though supported
by more testimony than the former,) to be false; with how much
justice, may be evident from the following observations:--
1. If we have reason to suspect the accounts to be false, when
they are not published to the world till long after the time when
they are said to have been performed, then we have reasons to
suspect the accounts given in the four gospels; for we have no
proof in the world, that any of them were written till nearly one
hundred years after the supposed writers of them were all dead.
2. If we have reason to suspect them to be false, when they are
not published in the place where it is pretended the facts were
wrought, but are propagated only at a great distance from the
supposed scene of action, then it is still further evident that the
accounts in question are not true. For they were apparently none of
them published in Judea, the scene of the events recorded in them.
But it is pretty clear that they were written in countries at a
distance from Palestine. And the facts recorded in them were-no
where so little believed as in Judea, among the people in whose
sight they are said to have been wrought, where they ought, if true,
to have met with most credit. It is, however, evident from the
histories themselves, that these stories were laughed at, by the
learned and intelligent of the Jewish nation, and disbelieved by the
great body of the people. In truth the first Christians were merely
one hundred and twenty Galilaeans, who asserted to their
co-religionists, that Jesus of Nazareth was the ejected Messiah. It
was a mere national quarrel between the great body of the Jews, and a
few schismatics. This is evident from the Acts, where we find that
for several years they confined their preaching to Jews only. Till
the conversion of Cornelius, they do not appear to have thought the
Gentiles any way interested in their dispute with their countrymen.
So that it is not improbable, (as the Jewish Christians dwindled
very rapidly,) that had it not been for the Gentile proselytes to
Judaism, Christianity would have perished in its cradle. These
people were very numerous, and formed the connecting link
between the Jews and the Gentiles. And it was through the medium
of these people, that Christianity became known to the heathens.
For we find that after the apostles could make nothing of the
stubborn Jews they shook their garments, and told them that from
henceforth we go to the Gentiles.--Accordingly, when the
apostles preached in the synagogues, and the Jews contradicted,
and blasphemed, and made fun of their mode of proving from the
prophets, that Jesus was the Christ; yet the proselytes and devout
women listened, and believed.
3. If supposing the accounts to have the two foregoing
qualifications, we still may suspect them to be false; if, in the time
when, and in the place where, they took their rise, they might be
suffered to pass without examination, we have still less reason to
believe the gospels. For one reason why they might be suffered to
pass without examination is, where the miracles proposed
coincided with the notions and superstitious prejudices of those
whom they were reported, and who, on that account, might be
prone to receive them unexamined. Now, we have documents in
plenty, which abundantly prove, along with the virtues, the
extreme credulity and simplicity of the Primitive Christians, whose
maxim was, believe, but do not examine, and thy faith shall save
thee. Another very good reason why they might be suffered to
pass without, examination is, that the miracles of the gospels were
entirely unknown to, or at least acknowledged by, any heathen or
Jew of the age in which they are recorded to have happened.
Nobody seems to have known a syllable about them but the
apostles and their converts. Even the books of the New Testament
were not generally known to the heathens until some hundred years
after the birth of Jesus; and it seems from the few fragments of
their works come down to us, that the only notice they did take of
them, was to accuse them of telling lies and old wives fables. And
as for the Jews, the origin and early propagation of Christianity
was so very obscure, that those who lived nearest the times of the
apostles, do not seem to have known any thing about them, or their
doctrines.
Though a little out of place, yet I will here adduce a fact which
illustrates and exemplifies the power of enthusiasm, to make
people believe they saw what they did not see. Lucian gives an
account of one Peregrinus, a philosophist very famous in his time,
who had a great number of disciples. He ended his life by throwing
himself, in the presence of assembled thousands, into a burning
pile. Yet such was the enthusiastic veneration of his followers,
that some of his disciples did solemnly aver, that they had seen
him after his death, clothed in white, and crowned; and they were
believed, insomuch that altars and statues were erected to
Peregrinus as to a demi-god. See Lucians account.
APPENDIX B.
See Cotelerius Patres Apostolic, Tom. 1, p. 602.
Extract of a letter from Peter to James, prefixed to the
Clementines.
For, if this be not done, (says Peter, after entreating James not to
communicate his preachings to any Gentile without previous
examination,) our speech of truth will be divided into many
opinions, nor do I know this thing as being a prophet, but as seeing
even now the beginning of this evil. For some from among the
Gentiles have rejected my legal preaching, embracing the trifling,
and lawless doctrine of a man who is an enemy; and these
things, some have endeavoured to do now in my own lifetime,
transforming my words by various interpretations, to the
destruction of the Laws: as if I had been of the same mind, but
dared not openly profess it, (see Galatians ii. 11, 12, &c.,) which
be far from me! For this were to act against the law of God, spoken
by Moses, and which has the testimony of our Lord for its
perpetual duration; since he thus has said, Heaven and earth shall
pass away, yet one jot, or one tittle, shall not pass from the law.
But these, I know not how, promising to deliver my opinion, (see
Galatians as above) take upon them to explain the words they
heard from me, better than I that spoke them; telling their disciples,
my sense was that of which I had not so much as thought. Now, if
in my own life time, they dare feign such things, how much more
will those that come after, do the same.
APPENDIX C.
Extract from Dodwells Dissertations on Irenaeus, Diss. 1, p.p. 38,
39.
The Canonical writings (i. e. of the New Testament), lay
concealed in the coffers of private churches, or persons, till the
latter times of Trajan, or rather perhaps of Adrian; so that they
could not come to the knowledge of the church. For if they had
been published, they would have been overwhelmed under such a
multitude as were then of apocryphal and suppositious books, that
a new examination and a new testimony would be necessary to
distinguish them from these false ones. And it is from this new
testimony (whereby the genuine writings of the apostles were
distinguished from the spurious pieces which went under their
names,) that depends all the authority which the truly apostolic
writings have formerly obtained, or which they have at present in
the Catholic Church. But this fresh attestation of the canon is
subject to the same inconveniences with those traditions of the
ancient persons that I defend, and whom Irenaeus both heard and
saw; for it is equally distant from the original, and could not be
made except by such only as had reached those remote times. But
it is very certain that before the period I mentioned of Trajans
time, the canon of the sacred books, was not yet fixed, nor any
certain number of books received in the Catholic Church, whose
authority must ever after serve to determine matters of faith;
neither were the spurious pieces of heretics yet rejected, nor were
the faithful admonished to beware of them for the future. Likewise,
the true writings of the apostles used to be so bound up in one
volume with the apocryphal, that it was not manifest by any mark
of public censure which of them should be preferred to the other.
We have at this day, certain authentic writings of ecclesiastical
authors of those times, as Clemens Romanus, Barnabas, Hermas,
Ignatius, and Polycarp, who wrote in the same order wherein I
have named them, and after all the other writers of the New
Testament, except Jude, and the two Johns. But in Hermas you
shall not meet with one passage, or any mention of the New
Testament; nor in all the rest is any one of the evangelists called by
his own name. And if sometimes they cite any passages like those
we read in our gospels; yet, you will find them so much changed,
and for the most part so interpolated, that it cannot be known,
whether they produced them out of ours, or some apocryphal
gospels; nay, they sometimes cite passages which it is most certain
are not in the present gospels. From hence, therefore, it is evident
that no difference was yet put between the apocryphal and
canonical books of the New Testament, especially if it be
considered, that they pass no censure on the apocryphal, nor leave
any mark whereby the reader might discern whether they attributed
less authority to the spurious than to the genuine gospels; from
whence it may reasonably be suspected, that if they cite sometimes
any passages conformable to ours, it was not done through any
certain design, as if dubious things were to be confirmed only by
the canonical books, so as it is very possible that both those and the
like passages may have been borrowed from other gospels besides
these we now have. But what need I mention books that are not
canonical, when indeed it does not appear from those of our
canonical books which were last written, that the church knew any
thing of the gospels, or that the clergy made a common use of
them. The writers of these times do not chequer their works with
texts of the New Testament, which yet is the custom of the
moderns, and was also theirs in such books as they acknowledge
for scripture; for they most frequently cite the books of the Old
Testament, and would, doubtless, have done so by those of the
New, if they had then been received as canonical.
So far Mr. Dodwell, and (excepting the genuineness of the writings
of Barnabas and the rest, for they are incontestably ancient,) it is
certain that the matters of fact with regard to the New Testament
are all true. Whoever has an inclination to write on this subject, is
furnished from this passage with a great many curious disquisitions
wherein to show his penetration and his judgment, as--how the
immediate successors and disciples of the apostles could so grossly
confound the genuine writings of their masters with such as were
falsely attributed to them; or since they were in the dark about
these matters so early, how come such as followed them, by a
better light; why all those books which are cited by the earliest
fathers with the same respect as those now received, should not be
accounted equally authentic by them; and what stress should be
laid on the testimony of those fathers, who not only contradict one
another, but are often inconsistent with themselves, in relating the
very same facts; with a great many other difficulties, which
deserve a clear solution from any capable person.
I have said the ancient heretics asserted that the present gospels
were forgeries. As an example of this, take the following, from the
works of Faustus, quoted by Augustine, contra Faustum Lib. 32, c.
2. You think, (says Faustus to his adversaries,) that of all the
books in the world the Testament of the Son only, could not be
corrupted; that it alone contains nothing which ought to be
disallowed; especially when it appears, that it was not written by
the apostles, but a long time after them, by certain obscure persons,
who, lest no credit should be given to the stories they told of what
they could not know, did prefix, to their writings, the names of the
apostles, and partly of those who succeeded the apostles, affirming,
that what they wrote themselves, was written by these. Wherein
they seem to me to have been the more heinously injurious to the
disciples of Christ, by attributing to them what they wrote
themselves so dissonant and repugnant; and that they pretended to
write those gospels under their names, which are so full of
mistakes, of contradictory relations and opinions, that they are
neither coherent with themselves, nor consistent with one another.
What is this, therefore, but to throw a calumny on good men, and
to fix the accusation of discord on the unanimous society of
Christs disciples.
ADDENDA.
There is, in the Gospel ascribed to John, a passage, quoted as a
prophecy, which, as it has been looked on as a proof text, ought to have
been mentioned in the 7th chapter. It is this. The evangelist (John xix.
23) says, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his
garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his
coat--now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They
said, therefore, among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots
for it; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They
parted my raiment among them and for my vesture they did cast lots.
Now, however plausible this prophesy may appear, it is one of the most
impudent applications of passages from the Old Testament that occurs in
the New. It is taken from the 18th verse of the 22d Psalm, which Psalm
was probably made by David, in reference to his humiliating and wretched
expulsion from Jerusalem by his son Absalom, and what was done in
consequence, viz., that he was hunted by ferocious enemies, whom he
compares to furious bulls, and roaring lions, gaping upon him to devour
him; that his palace was plundered, and that they divided his treasured
garments, (in the East, where the fashions never change, every great man
has constantly presses full of hundreds and thousands of garments, many
of them very costly: they are considered as a valuable part of his
riches), and cast lots for his robes. This is the real meaning of this
passage quoted as a prophecy. In the same Psalm, there is another verse,
which has been from time immemorial quoted as a prophecy of the
crucifixion, (v. 16,) They pierced my hands and my feet. In the
original, there seems to have been a word dropped importing they
tear, or something like it, for it is literally, Like a lion--my hands
and my feet, and there is there no word answering to pierced. The
meaning, however, of the verse is not difficult to be discerned, dogs
have compassed me; the assembly of wicked men have enclosed me; like a
lion--(they tear) my hands and my feet. The meaning may be discovered
from the context, where David represents himself as in the utmost
distress, helpless, and abandoned amidst his enemies, raging like wild
beasts around him; then, by a strong, but striking Oriental figure, he
represents himself like a carcass surrounded by dogs, who are busied in
tearing the flesh from his bones; their teeth fixed in his hands and
feet, and pulling him asunder. This is the import of the place, and this
interpretation is at last adopted, for the first time, I believe, by
Christians, in the new version of the Psalms used by the Unitarian
Church in London.
There is not a more palpable instance of the facility with which good
natured and voracious piety is made to swallow the most flimsy
arguments, if only agreeable to its wishes and wants, than the case
under consideration. This Psalm, containing these passages, they
parted my raiment among them; and they pierced my hands and my feet,
is read, and for ages has been read, in the name of God, to the good
people of the Church of England, on every Good Friday, as undoubtedly a
prophesy of the Crucifixion; when yet the learned divines of the Church
of England (and of these it can boast a noble Catalogue indeed)
certainly know, and are conscious that the Psalm, which contains these
passages, has no more relation to Jesus, than it has to Nebuchadnezzar.
A reference ought to have been subjoined at the end of the 10th chapter
to the dialogue, called Philopatris in Lucians Works, for an account
of the customs, habits, and personal appearance of the early Christians,
corroborative of what is said in the 17th and 18th chapters of this
work. Lest, however, Lucians testimony in this matter should be
objected to, because he was a satirist, and, of course, may have been
guilty of giving an overcharged picture of the subjects of his ridicule,
I request the reader to peruse, if he can obtain it, Lamis Account of
the domestic habits and personal appearance and practices of the
primitive Christians. Lami was a very learned and sincere Christian,
and of course his testimony cannot be objected to, and the reader will
find, on a perusal of his work, that what I have asserted in the 17th
and 18th chapters is altogether true, and not the whole truth neither.
Indeed, that the statements in those chapters, as to the effects of the
peculiar maxims of the New Testament upon the heart and understanding,
are substantially correct, will, I believe, be discovered by asking any
honest individual among the Methodists, who is an enthusiast, i. e
sincere, and thorough-going in his religion. I have no doubt that he or
she will avow, without hesitation, to the enquirer, and glory in it,
that chastity is more honourable than marriage; that faith is every
thing; that doubt is damnable, and a proof of an unregenerated mind;
that all the goods and pleasures of this world are trash; that human
institutions are mere carnal ordinances; and that human science and
learning is a snare to faith and an abomination to a true disciple of
the cross.
Published 1785.
* In the present day, various-attempts, insidious and powerful, have
been made, even here, to coerce in matters of conscience, and to
overthrow those wise barriers to the destructive effects of sectarian
fanaticism and intolerance, which the great founders of the Republic, to
their everlasting glory, erected.--D.
* Do you know (says Rousseau) of many Christians who have taken the
pains to examine, with care, what the Jews have to say against them? If
some persons have seen any thing of the kind, it is in the books of
Christians, A fine way, truly, to get instructed in the arguments of
their adversaries! But what can they do? If any one should dare to
publish among us, books, in which be openly favours their opinions, we
punish the author, the editor, the bookseller. This policy is
convenient, and sure always to be in the right. There is a pleasure in
refuting people who dare not open their lips"--(Emilius.) In the same
work he says that he will never be convinced that the Jews have not
something strong to say, till they shall be permitted to speak for
themselves without fear, and without restraint." It was this hint of
Rousseau which first excited the author's curiosity with regard to the
subject of this book.--E.
* There are a great many persons who conceive that Christianity is
sufficiently proved to be true, if the miracles of Jesus are true, even
without any regard to the prophecies, so often appealed to by him. But
supposing the miracles to be true; yet no miracles can prove that which
is false in itself to be true. If therefore Jesus be not foretold as the
Messiah in the Old Testament, no miracles can prove Jesus to be the
Messiah foretold. Nay, it would be a stronger argument to prove Jesus to
be a false pretender, that he appealed to prophecies as relating to him,
when in fact they had no relation whatever to him; and by that means
imposed upon the ignorant people; than it would be that he came from
God, merely because he worked miracles; for False Christs and false
prophets may arise, and may show such great signs and wonders as to
deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Matt. xxiv. 24. Yet no
Christian would allow it to be argued from thence, that those false
Christs were true ones: nor would any one conclude; that a man came from
God, (notwithstanding any miracle he might do) if he appealed to
Scripture for that which is no where in it. In fine, if miracles would
prove the Messiahship of Jesus, so also they would prove the Messiahship
of the false Christs, and false prophets spoken of above. Nay more, they
would demonstrate the Divine mission of Antichrist himself; who,
according to the epistle to the Thessalonians, (2 Thes. ch. ii. 8, 9,10)
and the Revelations, ch. xiii. 13, 14, was to perform "great signs and
wonders," equal to any wrought by Jesus, for the same Greek words are
used to express the wonderful works or great signs and wonders of
Antichrist, which are elsewhere used to express the miracles, or great
signs and wonders of Jesus himself.
It is a striking circumstance, that the earliest apologists for
Christianity laid little stress upon the miracles of its founder.
Justin Martyr, in his Apology, is very shy of appealing to the miracles
of Jesus in confirmation of his pretentions; he lays no stress upon
them, but relies entirely upon the prophecies he quotes as in his favor.
Jerome, in his comment on the eighty-first Psalm, assures us, that the
performance of miracles was no extraordinary thing: and that it was no
more than what Appollonius, and Apulias, and innumerable impostors had
done before.
Lactantius saw so little force in the miracles of Christ, exclusive of
the prophecies, that he does not hesitate to affirm their utter
inability to support the Christian religion by themselves. [Lactan. Div.
Inst. L. v. c. 3.]
Celsus, observing upon the words of Jesus, that false prophets and
false Christs shall arise, and show grant signs and wonders," sneeringly
observes, "A fine thing truly! that miracles done by him should prove
him to be a God, and when done by others should demonstrate them to be
false prophets and impostors.
Tertullian, on the words of Jesus, here referred to by Celsus, says as
follows;
Christ, foretelling that many imposters should come and perform many
wonders, shews, that our faith cannot without great temerity be founded
on miracles, since they were so early wrought, by false Christians
themselves. [Tertul. in Marc. L. ii. c. 3.]
Indeed, miracles in the two first centuries were allowed very little
weight in proving doctrines. Since the Christians did not deny, that the
heathens performed miracles in behalf of their gods, and that the
heretics performed them as will as the orthodox. This accounts for the
perfect indifference of the heathens to the miracles said to have been
performed by the founders of Christianity. Hierocles speaks with great
contempt of what he calls "the little tricks of Jesus," And Origen, in
his reply to Celsus, waves the consideration of the Christian miracles:
for (says he) the very mention of these things sets you heathens upon
the. broad grin. Indeed, that they laughed very heartily at what in
the eighteenth century is read with a grave face, is evident from the
few fragments of their works written against Christianity which has
escaped the burning zeal of the fathers, and the Christian emperors; who
piously sought for, and burned up, these mischievous volumes to prevent
their doing mischief to posterity. This conduct of theirs is very
suspicious. Why burn writing they could so triumphantly refute, if they
were refutable? They should have remembered the just reflection of
Arnobius, their own apologist, against the heathens, who were for
abolishing at once such writings as promoted Christianity.--"Intercipere
scripta et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos
defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere."[Arnob. contra
Gentes. Liber ni.]--E.
* Before going into the consideration of the following prophecies, the
author would warn the reader to bear in mind, that whether these
prophecies ever will be fulfilled, is a question of no import in the
world to the question under consideration, which is--whether they have
been fulfilled eighteen hundred years ago, in the person of Jesus
Christ, who is asserted by Christians to be the person foretold in these
prophecies, and to have fulfilled their predictions. This question can
be easily decided, and only, we think, by appealing to past history, and
to the scenes passing around us, and comparing them with these
predictions.--E.
* The word in the original being Vayikra, in the Kal or Active form of
the verb, and not Vayikare the Niphal or Passive form.--D.
# reprove or argue.--D.
* Or, in righteousness.--D.
# Mr. English very properly takes notice of the disjunctive accent
(Pasek) occurring here in the text.--D.
# For a more correct enumeration of the thirteen cabalistic rules of
exposition, the English reader is referred to vol. 1, page 209, of the
Conciliator of B. Menasseh ben Israel, translated by E, H. Lindo,
Esqr.--D.
# Mr. E. was, doubtless, aware that this is an exposition given by
Jewish Commentators.--D.
# There exists an English translation of this work by Abraham de Sola.
--D.
* The person here spoken of by Isaiah is said to make his grave with the
wicked, and be with the rich in his death. Whereas Jesus did exactly the
contrary. He was with the wicked (i. e., the two thieves) in his death,
and with the rich (i.e., Joseph of Arimathea) in his grave, or tomb. In
the original, the words may be translated that he shall avenge, or
recompence upon the wicked his grave, and his death upon the rich. Thus
does the Targum and the Arabic version interpret the place, and Ezekiel
ix. 10, uses the verb in the verse in Isaiah under consideration
translated (in The English version)--He made, &c--in the same sense,
given to this place in Isaiah, by the Targum, and the Arabic, as said
above. See the place in Ezekiel, where it is translated--I will
recompence their way upon their head. See also Deut. xxi. 8, in the
original. The Syriac has it--The wicked contributed to his burial, and
the rich to his death. The Arabic--I will punish the wicked for his
burial, and the rich for his death. The Targum--He shall send the
wicked into hell, and the rich who put him to a cruel death.--E.
# Or, shall destroy.--D.
* The remainder of this chapter is taken from Levi and Wagenseil.--E.
* The reader is requested to consider the reasoning in the last
paragraph. The prophecy in the second chapter of Daniel, is commonly
supposed to relate to the four Great Empires, the Babylonian, Persian,
Grecian and Roman. This last, it is (according to this interpretation,)
foretold, should be divided into many kingdoms, and that in the latter
days of these kingdoms, (which are now subsisting) God would set up a
kingdom which would never be destroyed,--that of the Messiah. Of course,
according to this interpretation, the kingdom of the Messiah was not to
be not only sustain after the destruction of the Roman Empire, but not
till the latter days of the kingdoms which grew up out of its ruins;
whereas, Jesus was born in the time of Augustus, i. e., precisely when
the Roman Empire itself was in the highest of its splendour and vigour.
This is a remarkable, and very striking, repugnance, to the claims of
the New Testament, and, if substantiated, must overset them entirely.--E.
* The sum of our argument may be expressed thus. God is represented in
the prophecies of the Old Testament as designing to send into the world
an eminent deliverer, descended from David, the peace and prosperity of
whose reign should far exceed all that went before him, in whom all the
glorious things foretold by the prophets should receive their entire
completion; and who should be distinguished by the character of the
Messiah or Christ. This is an article of faith common to Christians and
Jews. But that Jesus of Nazareth should be esteemed this Messiah, and
that Christians can support that opinion, by alledging the prophecies of
the Hebrew scriptures as belonging to, and fulfilled in, him, is what we
can by no means allow, and that especially on account of these
inconsistencies.
1. Because, these prophecies, acknowledged on both sides to point out
the Messiah, could not otherwise answer the end of inspiring them than
by an accomplishment so plain and sensible as might sufficiently
distinguish the person meant by them to be that Messiah. But no such
accomplishment, we contend, can possibly be discerned in Jesus, and,
consequently, he cannot be the person meant by them.
2. Because, several predictions which Christians apply to Jesus, are
wrested to a meaning which quite destroys the historical sense of
scripture, and breaks the connexion of the passages from whence they are
taken. Thus many shreds and loose sentences are culled out for this
purpose, which do not appear to have any relation to Jesus, or to the
Messiah either; but to have received their proper and intended
completion in some other person, whom the prophet, as is manifest, had
then only in view.
3. Because, in their forced applications of the prophecies, Christians,
finding themselves hard pressed by the simple and natural construction,
forsake the literal, and take shelter in spiritual and mystical senses;
fly to hyperboles and strained metaphors, and thus expound the true
meaning and importance of the prophecies quite away; the intent whereof
being to instruct men in so necessary a point of faith as that relating
to the Messiah, it is reasonable to think they would be delivered in the
most perspicuous and intelligible terms. Since ambiguous expressions
(capable of such strange meanings as they pretend,) would be too
slippery a foundation to build such a point of faith upon; would be of
no use, or worse than none; would be unable to teach the clear truth,
and apt to ensnare men into dangerous errors, by leaving too great a
latitude for fanciful interpretations, and introducing darkness and
confusion, and contradiction inexplicable.
4. Because, admitting (as indeed it never was, or can be denied) that
many passages of scripture, and of prophetical scripture especially,
must be figuratively taken; yet, we must always put a wide difference
between a sense not just as the words in their first signification
import, and a sense directly the contrary of what they import. And yet
we complain that this latter is the sense which Christians labour to
obtrude upon the gainsayers. We say, that a kingdom of this world, and
not of this world; contempt and adoration; poverty and magnificence;
persecution and peace; sufferings and triumph; a cross and a throne;
the scandalous death of a private man upon a gibbet, and the everlasting
dominion of a universal monarch, must be reconciled, and mean the self
same thing, before the prophecies appealed to, can do their cause any
service. Granting, then, the goodness of God (according to them,) to
have been better than his word, by giving spiritual blessings, instead
of temporal; yet, what will become of the truth of God, if He act
contrary to his word, even when it would be for our advantage, if He
misleads people by expressions, which, if they mean any thing at all,
must mean what the Jews understand by them?
In short, it seems to me, that if Providence has, in truth, any concern
with the predictions of the Old Testament, it could not have taken more
effectual care to justify the unbelief and obstinacy of the Jews, than
by ordering matters so, that the life and death of Jesus should be so
exactly, and so entirely, the very reverse of all those ideas under
which their prophets had constantly described, and the Hebrew nation as
constantly expected of their Messiah, and his coming; and to suppose
that the Supreme Being meant to describe and point out such a person as
Jesus by such descriptions of the Messiah as are contained in the Old
Testament, is certainly substantially to accuse him of the moat
unjustifiable prevarication, and mockery of his creatures.
In order that the subject we are examining, and the arguments we make
use of, may be clearly understood by the reader, he is requested to bear
in mind, that the author reasons all along upon the supposed Divine
authority of the Old Testament; which is admitted by both Jews and
Christians. Whether the supernatural claims of the Old Testament be
just, or not, is of no consequence in the world to the controversy we
are considering. For the dispute of the Jew with the Christian is one
thing, and his dispute with the sceptic is another, totally different.
For whether such a personage as the Messiah is described to be, has
appeared eighteen hundred years ago, is quite a different thing from the
question, whether such a personage will appear at all. The Christian
says, that he has appeared in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This the
Jew denies, but looks forward to the future fulfilment of the promises
of his Bible, while the Sceptic denies that the Messiah has come, or
ever will.
But the subject at present under consideration is the dispute of the Jew
with the Christian, who acknowledges the Old Testament to be a
Revelation, upon which a new Revelation, that of the New Testament, is
founded and erected. To him the Jew argues, that if the Old Testament be
a Divine Revelation, then the New Testament cannot be a Revelation,
because it contradicts, and is repugnant to, the Old Testament, the more
ancient, and acknowledged Revelation. Now God cannot be the author of
two Revelations, one of which is repugnant to the other. One of them is
certainly false. And if the Christian, conscious of the difficulty of
reconciling the New, with the Old, Testament, attempts to support the
New, at the expense of the Old, Testament, upon which the former is, and
was, built by the founders of Christianity; then the Jew would tell
him, that he acts as absurdly as would the man who should expect to make
his house the firmer, by undermining, and weakening its foundation.
So that whether the Christian affirms, or denies, he is ruined either
way. For he is reduced to this fatal dilemma. If the Old Testament
contains a Revelation from God, then the New Testament is not from God,
for God cannot contradict himself: and it can be proved abundantly, that
the New Testament is contradictory, and repugnant to the Old and to
itself too. If, on the other hand, the Old Testament contains no
Revelation from God, then the New Testament must go down at any rate
because it asserts that the Old Testament does contain a Revelation from
God, and builds upon it, as a foundation.--E.
* There was nothing which gave the author, in writing this Book, so much
uneasiness, at the apprehension of being supposed to entertain
disrespectful sentiments of the Founder of the Christian Religion. I
would most earnestly entreat the reader to believe my solemn assurances,
that by nothing that I have said, or shall be under the necessity of
saying, do I think, or mean to intimate the slightest disparagement to
the moral character of one, whose purity of morals, and good intentions,
deserve any thing else but reproach. That he was an enthusiast, I do not
doubt, that he was a wilful impostor I never will believe. And I protest
before God, that from the apprehensions above-mentioned alone, I would
have confined the contents of this volume to myself, did I not feel
compelled to justify myself for having quitted a profession: and did I
not, above all, think it my duty, to make a well meant attempt, which I
hope will be seconded, to vindicate the unbelief of an unfortunate
nation, who, on that account, have for almost eighteen hundred years,
been made the victim of rancorous prejudice, the most infernal
cruelties, and the most atrocious wickedness. If the Christian religion
be, in truth, not well founded, surely it is the duty of every honest
and every humane, man, to endeavour to dispel an illusion, which
certainly has been, notwithstanding any thing that can be said to the
contrary, the bona fide, and real cause of unspeakable misery, and of
repeated, and remorseless plunderings, and massacres, to an unhappy
people; the journal of whose sufferings, on account of it, forms the
blackest page in the history of the human race, and the most detestable
one in the history of human superstition.--E.
* Jerome, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, says, that
The Church of Christ was not gathered from the Academy, or the Lyceum,
but from the lowest of the people. [Vili Plebecula.] And Coecilius, in
Minutius Felix, says, that the Christian assemblies were made up de
ultima faece collectis, imperitioribus, et mulieribus credulis sexus
suae facilitate labentibus, i. e. that they consisted of the lowest
of the mob, simple and unlearned, men, and credulous women.
The president of a province is introduced, by Prudentius as thus
addressing a martyr:--Tu qui Doctor, ait, seris novellum Commenti
genus, ut Leves Puellae, Lucos destituunt, Jovem relinquant; Damnes, si
sapias, ANILE DOGMA.
The Christian Fathers confess, and glory in it, that the greater part of
their congregations consisted of women and children, slaves, beggars,
and vagabonds.
The Jewish Christians were, as appears evidently from the New Testament,
exceedingly poor, and therefore there is frequent mention made of
contributions for the poor Saints at Jerusalem. From thence it was
that the Jewish Christians got the name of Ebionites, i. e. Poor. The
Jewish Christian Church consisted of the dregs of the Jewish people,
simple and ignorant men, Samaritans, &c. No person in Judea of eminence,
or learning, appears to have joined the sect of the Nazarenes, except
Paul; after the destruction of Jerusalem they gradually dwindled in
number, and became extinct.--E.
* I will here lay before the reader the arguments advanced by the
Mahometans in behalf of the miracles of their prophet, extracted from
the learned Relands account of Mehometanism. They say that--the
miracles of Mahomet and his followers have been recorded in innumerable
volumes of the most famous, learned, pious, and subtle Doctors of the
Mahometan Faith, who let nothing pass without the strictest and severest
examination, and whose tradition, therefore, is unexceptionable among
them; that they were known throughout all the regions of Arabia, and
transmitted by common and universal tradition from father to son, from
generation to generation. That the books of Interpreters and
Commentators on the Koran, the books of Historians, especially such as
give an account of Mahomets life and actions, the books of annalists
and lawyers, the books of mathematicians and philosophers, and, last of
all, the books of both Jews and Christians concerning Mahomet, are full
of his miracles. That if the authority of so many great and wise doctors
be denied, then, for their part, they cannot see but that a universal
scepticism as to all other accounts of miracles must obtain among people
of all persuasions. For authority being the only proof of facts done out
of our time, or out of our sight, if that be denied, there is no way to
come to the certainty of any such, without immediate inspiration; and
all accounts of matters recorded in history, must be doubtful and
precarious.
And these witnesses would not have dared to assert these miracles
unless they were true; for such as forged any miracles for his, which he
really did not, lay under a hearty curse from the prophet. For it was a
received tradition among the faithful, that Mahomet denounced hell and
damnation to all those who should tell any lies of him. So that none who
believed in Mahomet, durst attribute miracles to him which he was not
concerned in; and those who believed not in him, would certainly never
have given him the honour of working any, unless he had done so.
Christian reader, thou seest how much can be said, and how many
respectable witnesses and authorities can be adduced to prove that
Mahomet wrought miracles. Canst thou adduce more, or better, authorities
in behalf of the miracles of the New Testament? Art thou not rather
satisfied how fallacious the evidence of testimony is in all such cases?
This is not all that the Mahometan might urge in behalf of his prophet,
for he might tell the Christian, boasting that Jesus and his Apostles
converted the Roman world from idolatry, that they overthrew one system
of idolatry, only to build up another, since the worship of Jesus, the
Virgin Mary, and the Saints, and their images was established in a few
hundred years after Jesus, and continues to this day; an idolatry as
rank, and much more inexcusable than the worship of the ancient Greeks
and Romans. Whereas, Mahomet cut up root and branch, both Christian and
Pagan idolatry, and proclaimed one only God as the object of adoration;
and if the Christian should urge the rapid propagation of Christianity,
the Mahometan might reply, that Mahomet was a poor camel-driver, but
that Islamism made more progress in one hundred years, than Christianity
did in a thousand; that it was embraced by the noble, the great, the
wise, and the learned, almost as soon as it appeared; whereas,
Christianity was skulking and creeping among the mob of the Roman Empire
for some hundred years before it dared to raise its head in public view.
If the Christian should reply to this, by ascribing the success of
Mahometanism to the sword, the Mahometan might reply, with truth, that
it was a vulgar error; for that vastly more nations embraced Islamism
voluntarily, than there were who freely received Christianity; and he
might remind him, how much Christianity owed to the accession of
Constantine; to Charlemagne; and the Teutonic Knights; and bid him
recollect that the monks were assisted by soldiers to convert to
Christianity almost every nation in Modern Europe.--E.
# Compare the above with Maimonides, Hilchot Yessode Hattorah, from
chapter 7.--D.
* The reader is requested by the author to understand, and bear in mind,
that it is not at all intended by any of the observations contained in
this chapter on the histories of the four evangelists, to reflect upon,
or to disparage, the characters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, under
whose names they go; because he believes, and thinks it is proved in
this chapter, that the real authors of these histories were very
different persons from the Apostles of Jesus; and that, in fact, the
accounts were not written till the middle of the second century, about a
hundred years after the supposed authors of them were dead. Of course,
none of the observations contained in the chapter relative to these
histories, ware considered, or intended, to apply to any of the twelve
apostles, who were not men who could make such mistakes as will be
pointed out. These mistakes belong entirely to the authors who have
assumed their names.--E.
* That the pretended Gospel of Matthew was not written by Matthew, or by
an, inhabitant of Palestine, may also be inferred, I think, from the
blundering attempts of the author of it to give the meaning of some
expressions uttered by Jesus, and used by the Jews, in the language of
the country, which was the Syro Chaldaic; and which the real Matthew
could hardly be ignorant of. For instance, he says that Golgotha
signifies--the place of a skull. Matthew xxvii. 33. Now, this is not
true, for Golgotha, or as it should have been written, Golgoltha, does
not signify the place of a skull, but simply a skull. The Gospels
according to Mark, and John, are guilty of the same mistake, and thus
betray the same marks of Gentilism. Again, the pretended Matthew says,
that Jesus cried on the cross, Eli Eli lama, sabackthani, which he
says meant, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew
xxvii. 46.) If the reader will look at what Michaelis, in his
introduction to the New Testament, says upon this subject, he will find
the real Syro Chaldaic expression which must have been used by Jesus, to
be so different from the one given by the supposed Matthew, that he
will, (and the observation is not meant as a disparagement to the real
Matthew, who certainly had no hand in the imposition of the Gospel
covered with his name) I suspect be inclined to believe, that this
pretended Matthews knowledge of the vulgar language of the Jews, used
in Christs time, must have been about upon a par with the honest
sailors knowledge of French; who assured his countrymen, on his return
home, that the French called a horse a shovel and a hat a chopper!--E.
* See Addenda, No. 2.
* The author had prepared, in order to subjoin in this place, an
examination of the Mosaic Code, and a development of its principles,
which he thinks would have satisfied the reader of the truth of what he
has said in the last paragraph. But as it would have too much increased
the bulk of the volume, it has been omitted. It is an institution
however curious enough to be the subject of an interesting discussion,
which he should be happy to see from the hands of one able to do it
justice.--E.
# Mr. English, it will be perceived, differs in his translation of the
Hebrew word nebelati, which is, certainly, in the singular number, and
not plural. The correct rendering is, doubtless, with my dead body
they, &c.; but this weakens not at all his argument, which is
essentially a Jewish one. See the Commentators, Chizoook Emunah, &c.
&c.--D.
# This was, originally, a note; but, in order not to divert too much the
readers attention, it has been thought advisable to insert it here.--D.