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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. IV
+by Thomas Paine
+(#4 in our series by Thomas Paine)
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+Title: The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. IV
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+Author: Thomas Paine
+
+Release Date: February, 2003  [Etext #3743]
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+[The actual date this file first posted = 8/14/01]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. IV
+by Thomas Paine
+******This file should be named twtp410.txt or twtp410.zip******
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+
+[Redactor's Note: The text is reproduced from The Writings of Thomas
+Paine Collected and Edited by Moncure Daniel Conway, Vol. IV
+1894 - 1896. In this version the notes are enclosed in square brackets.
+A Table of contents for this part has been added not found in the
+printed edition.]
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               THE WRITINGS
+
+                                    OF
+
+                               THOMAS PAINE
+
+                         COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
+
+                            MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY
+
+                                 VOLUME IV.
+
+
+
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                 The Age of Reason
+
+                  by Thomas Paine  (1796)
+
+
+                    Contents
+
+Editor's Introduction
+
+                   Part One
+Chapter I - The Author's Profession Of Faith
+Chapter II - Of Missions And Revelations
+Chapter III - Concerning The Character of Jesus Christ, And His History
+Chapter IV - Of The Bases Of Christianity
+Chapter V - Examination In Detail Of The Preceding Bases
+Chapter VI - Of The True Theology
+Chapter VII - Examination Of The Old Testament
+Chapter VIII - Of The New Testament
+Chapter IX - In What The True Revelation Consists
+Chapter X - Concerning God, And The Lights Cast On His Existence And
+            Attributes By The Bible
+Chapter XI - Of The Theology Of The Christians; And The True Theology
+Chapter XII - The Effects Of Christianism On Education; Proposed Reforms
+Chapter XIII - Comparison Of Christianism With The Religious Ideas
+               Inspired By Nature
+Chapter XIV - System Of The Universe
+Chapter XV - Advantages Of The Existence Of Many Worlds In Each Solar
+             System
+Chapter XVI - Applications Of The Preceding To The System Of The
+              Christians
+Chapter XVII - Of The Means Employed In All Time, And Almost
+               Universally, To Deceive The Peoples
+Recapitulation
+
+                        Part Two
+Preface
+Chapter I - The Old Testament
+Chapter II - The New Testament
+Chapter III - Conclusion
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
+WITH SOME RESULTS OF RECENT RESEARCHES.
+
+IN the opening year, 1793, when revolutionary France had beheaded its
+king, the wrath turned next upon the King of kings, by whose grace
+every tyrant claimed to reign. But eventualities had brought among
+them a great English and American heart -- Thomas Paine. He had
+pleaded for Louis Caper -- "Kill the king but spare the man." Now he
+pleaded, -- "Disbelieve in the King of kings, but do not confuse with
+that idol the Father of Mankind!"
+
+In Paine's Preface to the Second Part of "The Age of Reason" he
+describes himself as writing the First Part near the close of the
+year 1793. "I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state
+it has since appeared, before a guard came about three in the
+morning, with an order signed by the two Committees of Public Safety
+and Surety General, for putting me in arrestation." This was on the
+morning of December 28. But it is necessary to weigh the words just
+quoted -- "in the state it has since appeared." For on August 5,
+1794, Francois Lanthenas, in an appeal for Paine's liberation, wrote
+as follows: "I deliver to Merlin de Thionville a copy of the last
+work of T. Payne [The Age of Reason], formerly our colleague, and in
+custody since the decree excluding foreigners from the national
+representation. This book was written by the author in the beginning
+of the year '93 (old style). I undertook its translation before the
+revolution against priests, and it was published in French about the
+same time. Couthon, to whom I sent it, seemed offended with me for
+having translated this work."
+
+Under the frown of Couthon, one of the most atrocious colleagues of
+Robespierre, this early publication seems to have been so effectually
+suppressed that no copy bearing that date, 1793, can be found in
+France or elsewhere. In Paine's letter to Samuel Adams, printed in
+the present volume, he says that he had it translated into French, to
+stay the progress of atheism, and that he endangered his life "by
+opposing atheism." The time indicated by Lanthenas as that in which
+he submitted the work to Couthon would appear to be the latter part
+of March, 1793, the fury against the priesthood having reached its
+climax in the decrees against them of March 19 and 26. If the moral
+deformity of Couthon, even greater than that of his body, be
+remembered, and the readiness with which death was inflicted for the
+most theoretical opinion not approved by the "Mountain," it will
+appear probable that the offence given Couthon by Paine's book
+involved danger to him and his translator. On May 31, when the
+Girondins were accused, the name of Lanthenas was included, and he
+barely escaped; and on the same day Danton persuaded Paine not to
+appear in the Convention, as his life might be in danger. Whether
+this was because of the "Age of Reason," with its fling at the
+"Goddess Nature" or not, the statements of author and translator are
+harmonized by the fact that Paine prepared the manuscript, with
+considerable additions and changes, for publication in English, as he
+has stated in the Preface to Part II.
+
+A comparison of the French and English versions, sentence by
+sentence, proved to me that the translation sent by Lanthenas to
+Merlin de Thionville in 1794 is the same as that he sent to Couthon
+in 1793. This discovery was the means of recovering several
+interesting sentences of the original work. I have given as footnotes
+translations of such clauses and phrases of the French work as
+appeared to be important. Those familiar with the translations of
+Lanthenas need not be reminded that he was too much of a literalist
+to depart from the manuscript before him, and indeed he did not even
+venture to alter it in an instance (presently considered) where it
+was obviously needed. Nor would Lanthenas have omitted any of the
+paragraphs lacking in his translation. This original work was divided
+into seventeen chapters, and these I have restored, translating their
+headings into English. The "Age of Reason" is thus for the first time
+given to the world with nearly its original completeness.
+
+It should be remembered that Paine could not have read the proof of
+his "Age of Reason" (Part I.) which went through the press while he
+was in prison. To this must be ascribed the permanence of some
+sentences as abbreviated in the haste he has described. A notable
+instance is the dropping out of his estimate of Jesus the words
+rendered by Lanthenas "trop peu imite, trop oublie, trop meconnu."
+The addition of these words to Paine's tribute makes it the more
+notable that almost the only recognition of the human character and
+life of Jesus by any theological writer of that generation came from
+one long branded as an infidel.
+
+To the inability of the prisoner to give his work any revision must
+be attributed the preservation in it of the singular error already
+alluded to, as one that Lanthenas, but for his extreme fidelity,
+would have corrected. This is Paine's repeated mention of six
+planets, and enumeration of them, twelve years after the discovery of
+Uranus. Paine was a devoted student of astronomy, and it cannot for a
+moment be supposed that he had not participated in the universal
+welcome of Herschel's discovery. The omission of any allusion to it
+convinces me that the astronomical episode was printed from a
+manuscript written before 1781, when Uranus was discovered.
+Unfamiliar with French in 1793, Paine might not have discovered the
+erratum in Lanthenas' translation, and, having no time for copying,
+he would naturally use as much as possible of the same manuscript in
+preparing his work for English readers. But he had no opportunity of
+revision, and there remains an erratum which, if my conjecture be
+correct, casts a significant light on the paragraphs in which he
+alludes to the preparation of the work. He states that soon after his
+publication of "Common Sense" (1776), he "saw the exceeding
+probability that a revolution in the system of government would be
+followed by a revolution in the system of religion," and that "man
+would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one
+God and no more." He tells Samuel Adams that it had long been his
+intention to publish his thoughts upon religion, and he had made a
+similar remark to John Adams in 1776. Like the Quakers among whom he
+was reared Paine could then readily use the phrase "word of God" for
+anything in the Bible which approved itself to his "inner light," and
+as he had drawn from the first Book of Samuel a divine condemnation
+of monarchy, John Adams, a Unitarian, asked him if he believed in the
+inspiration of the Old Testament. Paine replied that he did not, and
+at a later period meant to publish his views on the subject. There is
+little doubt that he wrote from time to time on religious points,
+during the American war, without publishing his thoughts, just as he
+worked on the problem of steam navigation, in which he had invented a
+practicable method (ten years before John Fitch made his discovery)
+without publishing it. At any rate it appears to me certain that the
+part of "The Age of Reason" connected with Paine's favorite science,
+astronomy, was written before 1781, when Uranus was discovered.
+
+Paine's theism, however invested with biblical and Christian
+phraseology, was a birthright. It appears clear from several
+allusions in "The Age of Reason" to the Quakers that in his early
+life, or before the middle of the eighteenth century, the people so
+called were substantially Deists. An interesting confirmation of
+Paine's statements concerning them appears as I write in an account
+sent by Count Leo Tolstoi to the London 'Times' of the Russian sect
+called Dukhobortsy (The Times, October 23, 1895). This sect sprang up
+in the last century, and the narrative says:
+
+"The first seeds of the teaching called afterwards 'Dukhoborcheskaya'
+were sown by a foreigner, a Quaker, who came to Russia. The
+fundamental idea of his Quaker teaching was that in the soul of man
+dwells God himself, and that He himself guides man by His inner word.
+God lives in nature physically and in man's soul spiritually. To
+Christ, as to an historical personage, the Dukhobortsy do not ascribe
+great importance ... Christ was God's son, but only in the sense in
+which we call, ourselves 'sons of God.' The purpose of Christ's
+sufferings was no other than to show us an example of suffering for
+truth. The Quakers who, in 1818, visited the Dukhobortsy, could not
+agree with them upon these religious subjects; and when they heard
+from them their opinion about Jesus Christ (that he was a man),
+exclaimed 'Darkness!' From the Old and New Testaments,' they say, 'we
+take only what is useful,' mostly the moral teaching. ... The moral
+ideas of the Dukhobortsy are the following: -- All men are, by
+nature, equal; external distinctions, whatsoever they may be, are
+worth nothing. This idea of men's equality the Dukhoborts have
+directed further, against the State authority. ... Amongst themselves
+they hold subordination, and much more, a monarchical Government, to
+be contrary to their ideas."
+
+Here is an early Hicksite Quakerism
+carried to Russia long before the birth of Elias Hicks, who recovered
+it from Paine, to whom the American Quakers refused burial among
+them. Although Paine arraigned the union of Church and State, his
+ideal Republic was religious; it was based on a conception of
+equality based on the divine son-ship of every man. This faith
+underlay equally his burden against claims to divine partiality by a
+"Chosen People," a Priesthood, a Monarch "by the grace of God," or an
+Aristocracy. Paine's "Reason" is only an expansion of the Quaker's
+"inner light"; and the greater impression, as compared with previous
+republican and deistic writings made by his "Rights of Man" and "Age
+of Reason" (really volumes of one work), is partly explained by the
+apostolic fervor which made him a spiritual, successor of George Fox.
+
+Paine's mind was by no means skeptical, it was eminently instructive.
+That he should have waited until his fifty-seventh year before
+publishing his religious convictions was due to a desire to work out
+some positive and practicable system to take the place of that which
+he believed was crumbling. The English engineer Hall, who assisted
+Paine in making the model of his iron bridge, wrote to his friends in
+England, in 1786: "My employer has Common Sense enough to disbelieve
+most of the common systematic theories of Divinity, but does not seem
+to establish any for himself." But five years later Paine was able to
+lay the corner-stone of his temple: "With respect to religion itself,
+without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal
+family of mankind to the 'Divine object of all adoration, it is man
+bringing to his Maker the fruits of his heart; and though those
+fruits may differ from each other like the fruits of the earth, the
+grateful tribute of every one, is accepted." ("Rights of Man." See my
+edition of Paine's Writings, ii., p. 326.) Here we have a
+reappearance of George Fox confuting the doctor in America who
+"denied the light and Spirit of God to be in every one; and affirmed
+that it was not in the Indians. Whereupon I called an Indian to us,
+and asked him 'whether or not, when he lied, or did wrong to anyone,
+there was not something in him that reproved him for it?' He said,
+'There was such a thing in him that did so reprove him; and he was
+ashamed when he had done wrong, or spoken wrong.' So we shamed the
+doctor before the governor and the people." (Journal of George Fox,
+September 1672.)
+
+Paine, who coined the phrase "Religion of Humanity" (The Crisis, vii.,
+1778), did but logically defend it in "The Age of Reason," by denying
+a special revelation to any particular tribe, or divine authority in
+any particular creed of church; and the centenary of this much-abused
+publication has been celebrated by a great conservative champion of
+Church and State, Mr. Balfour, who, in his "Foundations of Belief,"
+affirms that "inspiration" cannot be denied to the great Oriental
+teachers, unless grapes may be gathered from thorns.
+
+The centenary of the complete publication of "The Age of Reason,"
+(October 25, 1795), was also celebrated at the Church Congress,
+Norwich, on October 10, 1895, when Professor Bonney, F.R.S., Canon of
+Manchester, read a paper in which he said: "I cannot deny that the
+increase of scientific knowledge has deprived parts of the earlier
+books of the Bible of the historical value which was generally
+attributed to them by our forefathers. The story of Creation in the
+Book of Genesis, unless we play fast and loose either with words or
+with science, cannot be brought into harmony with what we have learnt
+from geology. Its ethnological statements are imperfect, if not
+sometimes inaccurate. The stories of the Fall, of the Flood, and of
+the Tower of Babel, are incredible in their present form. Some
+historical element may underlie many of the traditions in the first
+eleven chapters in that book, but this we cannot hope to recover."
+Canon Bonney proceeded to say of the New Testament also, that "the
+Gospels are not so far as we know, strictly contemporaneous records,
+so we must admit the possibility of variations and even inaccuracies
+in details being introduced by oral tradition." The Canon thinks the
+interval too short for these importations to be serious, but that any
+question of this kind is left open proves the Age of Reason fully
+upon us. Reason alone can determine how many texts are as spurious as
+the three heavenly witnesses (i John v. 7), and like it "serious"
+enough to have cost good men their lives, and persecutors their
+charities. When men interpolate, it is because they believe their
+interpolation seriously needed. It will be seen by a note in Part II.
+of the work, that Paine calls attention to an interpolation
+introduced into the first American edition without indication of its
+being an editorial footnote. This footnote was: "The book of Luke was
+carried by a majority of one only. Vide Moshelm's Ecc. History." Dr.
+Priestley, then in America, answered Paine's work, and in quoting
+less than a page from the "Age of Reason" he made three alterations,
+-- one of which changed "church mythologists" into "Christian
+mythologists," -- and also raised the editorial footnote into the
+text, omitting the reference to Mosheim. Having done this, Priestley
+writes: "As to the gospel of Luke being carried by a majority of one
+only, it is a legend, if not of Mr. Paine's own invention, of no
+better authority whatever." And so on with further castigation of the
+author for what he never wrote, and which he himself (Priestley) was
+the unconscious means of introducing into the text within the year of
+Paine's publication.
+
+If this could be done, unintentionally by a conscientious and exact
+man, and one not unfriendly to Paine, if such a writer as Priestley
+could make four mistakes in citing half a page, it will appear not
+very wonderful when I state that in a modern popular edition of "The
+Age of Reason," including both parts, I have noted about five hundred
+deviations from the original. These were mainly the accumulated
+efforts of friendly editors to improve Paine's grammar or spelling;
+some were misprints, or developed out of such; and some resulted from
+the sale in London of a copy of Part Second surreptitiously made from
+the manuscript. These facts add significance to Paine's footnote
+(itself altered in some editions!), in which he says: "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."
+
+Nothing appears to me more striking, as an illustration of the
+far-reaching effects of traditional prejudice, than the errors into
+which some of our ablest contemporary scholars have fallen by reason
+of their not having studied Paine. Professor Huxley, for instance,
+speaking of the freethinkers of the eighteenth century, admires the
+acuteness, common sense, wit, and the broad humanity of the best of
+them, but says "there is rarely much to be said for their work as an
+example of the adequate treatment of a grave and difficult
+investigation," and that they shared with their adversaries "to the
+full the fatal weakness of a priori philosophizing." [NOTE: Science
+and Christian Tradition, p. 18 (Lon. ed., 1894).] Professor Huxley
+does not name Paine, evidently because he knows nothing about him.
+Yet Paine represents the turning-point of the historical freethinking
+movement; he renounced the 'a priori' method, refused to pronounce
+anything impossible outside pure mathematics, rested everything on
+evidence, and really founded the Huxleyan school. He plagiarized by
+anticipation many things from the rationalistic leaders of our time,
+from Strauss and Baur (being the first to expatiate on "Christian
+Mythology"), from Renan (being the first to attempt recovery of the
+human Jesus), and notably from Huxley, who has repeated Paine's
+arguments on the untrustworthiness of the biblical manuscripts and
+canon, on the inconsistencies of the narratives of Christ's
+resurrection, and various other points. None can be more loyal to the
+memory of Huxley than the present writer, and it is even because of
+my sense of his grand leadership that he is here mentioned as a
+typical instance of the extent to which the very elect of
+free-thought may be unconsciously victimized by the phantasm with
+which they are contending. He says that Butler overthrew freethinkers
+of the eighteenth century type, but Paine was of the nineteenth
+century type; and it was precisely because of his critical method
+that he excited more animosity than his deistical predecessors. He
+compelled the apologists to defend the biblical narratives in detail,
+and thus implicitly acknowledge the tribunal of reason and knowledge
+to which they were summoned. The ultimate answer by police was a
+confession of judgment. A hundred years ago England was suppressing
+Paine's works, and many an honest Englishman has gone to prison for
+printing and circulating his "Age of Reason." The same views are now
+freely expressed; they are heard in the seats of learning, and even
+in the Church Congress; but the suppression of Paine, begun by
+bigotry and ignorance, is continued in the long indifference of the
+representatives of our Age of Reason to their pioneer and founder. It
+is a grievous loss to them and to their cause. It is impossible to
+understand the religious history of England, and of America, without
+studying the phases of their evolution represented in the writings of
+Thomas Paine, in the controversies that grew out of them with such
+practical accompaniments as the foundation of the Theophilanthropist
+Church in Paris and New York, and of the great rationalist wing of
+Quakerism in America.
+
+Whatever may be the case with scholars in our time, those of Paine's
+time took the "Age of Reason" very seriously indeed. Beginning with
+the learned Dr. Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, a large number of
+learned men replied to Paine's work, and it became a signal for the
+commencement of those concessions, on the part of theology, which
+have continued to our time; and indeed the so-called "Broad Church"
+is to some extent an outcome of "The Age of Reason." It would too
+much enlarge this Introduction to cite here the replies made to Paine
+(thirty-six are catalogued in the British Museum), but it may be
+remarked that they were notably free, as a rule, from the
+personalities that raged in the pulpits. I must venture to quote one
+passage from his very learned antagonist, the Rev. Gilbert Wakefield,
+B.A., "late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge." Wakefield, who had
+resided in London during all the Paine panic, and was well acquainted
+with the slanders uttered against the author of "Rights of Man,"
+indirectly brands them in answering Paine's argument that the
+original and traditional unbelief of the Jews, among whom the alleged
+miracles were wrought, is an important evidence against them. The
+learned divine writes:
+
+"But the subject before us admits of further illustration from the
+example of Mr. Paine himself. In this country, where his opposition
+to the corruptions of government has raised him so many adversaries,
+and such a swarm of unprincipled hirelings have exerted themselves in
+blackening his character and in misrepresenting all the transactions
+and incidents of his life, will it not be a most difficult, nay an
+impossible task, for posterity, after a lapse of 1700 years, if such
+a wreck of modern literature as that of the ancient, should
+intervene, to identify the real circumstances, moral and civil, of
+the man? And will a true historian, such as the Evangelists, be
+credited at that future period against such a predominant
+incredulity, without large and mighty accessions of collateral
+attestation? And how transcendently extraordinary, I had almost said
+miraculous, will it be estimated by candid and reasonable minds, that
+a writer whose object was a melioration of condition to the common
+people, and their deliverance from oppression, poverty, wretchedness,
+to the numberless blessings of upright and equal government, should
+be reviled, persecuted, and burned in effigy, with every circumstance
+of insult and execration, by these very objects of his benevolent
+intentions, in every corner of the kingdom?" After the execution of
+Louis XVI., for whose life Paine pleaded so earnestly, -- while in
+England he was denounced as an accomplice in the deed, -- he devoted
+himself to the preparation of a Constitution, and also to gathering
+up his religious compositions and adding to them. This manuscript I
+suppose to have been prepared in what was variously known as White's
+Hotel or Philadelphia House, in Paris, No. 7 Passage des Petits
+Peres. This compilation of early and fresh manuscripts (if my theory
+be correct) was labelled, "The Age of Reason," and given for
+translation to Francois Lanthenas in March 1793. It is entered, in
+Qudrard (La France Literaire) under the year 1793, but with the title
+"L'Age de la Raison" instead of that which it bore in 1794, "Le
+Siecle de la Raison." The latter, printed "Au Burcau de l'imprimerie,
+rue du Theatre-Francais, No. 4," is said to be by "Thomas Paine,
+Citoyen et cultivateur de I'Amerique septentrionale, secretaire du
+Congres du departement des affaires etrangeres pendant la guerre
+d'Amerique, et auteur des ouvrages intitules: LA SENS COMMUN et LES
+DROITS DE L'HOMME."
+
+When the Revolution was advancing to increasing terrors, Paine,
+unwilling to participate in the decrees of a Convention whose sole
+legal function was to frame a Constitution, retired to an old mansion
+and garden in the Faubourg St. Denis, No. 63. Mr. J.G. Alger, whose
+researches in personal details connected with the Revolution are
+original and useful, recently showed me in the National Archives at
+Paris, some papers connected with the trial of Georgeit, Paine's
+landlord, by which it appears that the present No. 63 is not, as I
+had supposed, the house in which Paine resided. Mr. Alger accompanied
+me to the neighborhood, but we were not able to identify the house.
+The arrest of Georgeit is mentioned by Paine in his essay on
+"Forgetfulness" (Writings, iii., 319). When his trial came on one of
+the charges was that he had kept in his house "Paine and other
+Englishmen," -- Paine being then in prison, -- but he (Georgeit) was
+acquitted of the paltry accusations brought against him by his
+Section, the "Faubourg du Nord." This Section took in the whole east
+side of the Faubourg St. Denis, whereas the present No. 63 is on the
+west side. After Georgeit (or Georger) had been arrested, Paine was
+left alone in the large mansion (said by Rickman to have been once
+the hotel of Madame de Pompadour), and it would appear, by his
+account, that it was after the execution (October 31, 1793) Of his
+friends the Girondins, and political comrades, that he felt his end
+at hand, and set about his last literary bequest to the world, --
+"The Age of Reason," -- in the state in which it has since appeared,
+as he is careful to say. There was every probability, during the
+months in which he wrote (November and December 1793) that he would
+be executed. His religious testament was prepared with the blade of
+the guillotine suspended over him, -- a fact which did not deter
+pious mythologists from portraying his death-bed remorse for having
+written the book.
+
+In editing Part I. of "The Age of Reason," I follow closely the first
+edition, which was printed by Barrois in Paris from the manuscript,
+no doubt under the superintendence of Joel Barlow, to whom Paine, on
+his way to the Luxembourg, had confided it. Barlow was an American
+ex-clergyman, a speculator on whose career French archives cast an
+unfavorable light, and one cannot be certain that no liberties were
+taken with Paine's proofs.
+
+I may repeat here what I have stated in the outset of my editorial
+work on Paine that my rule is to correct obvious misprints, and also
+any punctuation which seems to render the sense less clear. And to
+that I will now add that in following Paine's quotations from the
+Bible I have adopted the Plan now generally used in place of his
+occasionally too extended writing out of book, chapter, and verse.
+
+Paine was imprisoned in the Luxembourg on December 28, 1793, and
+released on November 4, 1794. His liberation was secured by his old
+friend, James Monroe (afterwards President), who had succeeded his
+(Paine's) relentless enemy, Gouvemeur Morris, as American Minister in
+Paris. He was found by Monroe more dead than alive from
+semi-starvation, cold, and an abscess contracted in prison, and taken
+to the Minister's own residence. It was not supposed that he could
+survive, and he owed his life to the tender care of Mr. and Mrs.
+Monroe. It was while thus a prisoner in his room, with death still
+hovering over him, that Paine wrote Part Second of "The Age of
+Reason."
+
+The work was published in London by H.D. Symonds on October 25, 1795,
+and claimed to be "from the Author's manuscript." It is marked as
+"Entered at Stationers Hall," and prefaced by an apologetic note of
+"The Bookseller to the Public," whose commonplaces about avoiding
+both prejudice and partiality, and considering "both sides," need not
+be quoted. While his volume was going through the press in Paris,
+Paine heard of the publication in London, which drew from him the
+following hurried note to a London publisher, no doubt Daniel Isaacs
+Eaton:
+
+"SIR, -- I have seen advertised in the London papers the second
+Edition [part] of the Age of Reason, printed, the advertisement says,
+from the Author's Manuscript, and entered at Stationers Hall. I have
+never sent any manuscript to any person. It is therefore a forgery to
+say it is printed from the author's manuscript; and I suppose is done
+to give the Publisher a pretence of Copy Right, which he has no title
+to.
+
+"I send you a printed copy, which is the only one I have sent to
+London. I wish you to make a cheap edition of it. I know not by what
+means any copy has got over to London. If any person has made a
+manuscript copy I have no doubt but it is full of errors. I wish you
+would talk to Mr. ----- upon this subject as I wish to know by what
+means this trick has been played, and from whom the publisher has got
+possession of any copy.
+
+T. PAINE.
+"PARIS, December 4, 1795,"
+
+Eaton's cheap edition appeared January 1, 1796, with the above letter
+on the reverse of the title. The blank in the note was probably
+"Symonds" in the original, and possibly that publisher was imposed
+upon. Eaton, already in trouble for printing one of Paine's political
+pamphlets, fled to America, and an edition of the "Age of Reason" was
+issued under a new title; no publisher appears; it is said to be
+"printed for, and sold by all the Booksellers in Great Britain and
+Ireland." It is also said to be "By Thomas Paine, author of several
+remarkable performances." I have never found any copy of this
+anonymous edition except the one in my possession. It is evidently
+the edition which was suppressed by the prosecution of Williams for
+selling a copy of it.
+
+A comparison with Paine's revised edition reveals a good many
+clerical and verbal errors in Symonds, though few that affect the
+sense. The worst are in the preface, where, instead of "1793," the
+misleading date "1790" is given as the year at whose close Paine
+completed Part First, -- an error that spread far and wide and was
+fastened on by his calumnious American "biographer," Cheetham, to
+prove his inconsistency. The editors have been fairly demoralized by,
+and have altered in different ways, the following sentence of the
+preface in Symonds: "The intolerant spirit of religious persecution
+had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, styled
+Revolutionary, supplied the place of the Inquisition; and the
+Guillotine of the State outdid the Fire and Faggot of the Church."
+The rogue who copied this little knew the care with which Paine
+weighed words, and that he would never call persecution "religious,"
+nor connect the guillotine with the "State," nor concede that with
+all its horrors it had outdone the history of fire and faggot. What
+Paine wrote was: "The intolerant spirit of church persecution had
+transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, styled
+Revolutionary, supplied the place of an Inquisition and the
+Guillotine, of the Stake."
+
+An original letter of Paine, in the possession of Joseph Cowen,
+ex-M.P., which that gentleman permits me to bring to light, besides
+being one of general interest makes clear the circumstances of the
+original publication. Although the name of the correspondent does not
+appear on the letter, it was certainly written to Col. John Fellows
+of New York, who copyrighted Part I. of the "Age of Reason." He
+published the pamphlets of Joel Barlow, to whom Paine confided his
+manuscript on his way to prison. Fellows was afterwards Paine's
+intimate friend in New York, and it was chiefly due to him that some
+portions of the author's writings, left in manuscript to Madame
+Bonneville while she was a freethinker were rescued from her devout
+destructiveness after her return to Catholicism. The letter which Mr.
+Cowen sends me, is dated at Paris, January 20, 1797.
+
+"SIR, -- Your friend Mr. Caritat being on the point of his departure
+for America, I make it the opportunity of writing to you. I received
+two letters from you with some pamphlets a considerable time past, in
+which you inform me of your entering a copyright of the first part of
+the Age of Reason: when I return to America we will settle for that
+matter.
+
+"As Doctor Franklin has been my intimate friend for thirty years past
+you will naturally see the reason of my continuing the connection
+with his grandson. I printed here (Paris) about fifteen thousand of
+the second part of the Age of Reason, which I sent to Mr. F[ranklin]
+Bache. I gave him notice of it in September 1795 and the copy-right
+by my own direction was entered by him. The books did not arrive till
+April following, but he had advertised it long before.
+
+"I sent to him in August last a manuscript letter of about 70 pages,
+from me to Mr. Washington to be printed in a pamphlet. Mr. Barnes of
+Philadelphia carried the letter from me over to London to be
+forwarded to America. It went by the ship Hope, Cap: Harley, who
+since his return from America told me that he put it into the post
+office at New York for Bache. I have yet no certain account of its
+publication. I mention this that the letter may be enquired after, in
+case it has not been published or has not arrived to Mr. Bache.
+Barnes wrote to me, from London 29 August informing me that he was
+offered three hundred pounds sterling for the manuscript. The offer
+was refused because it was my intention it should not appear till it
+appeared in America, as that, and not England was the place for its
+operation.
+
+"You ask me by your letter to Mr. Caritat for a list of my several
+works, in order to publish a collection of them. This is an
+undertaking I have always reserved for myself. It not only belongs to
+me of right, but nobody but myself can do it; and as every author is
+accountable (at least in reputation) for his works, he only is the
+person to do it. If he neglects it in his life-time the case is
+altered. It is my intention to return to America in the course of the
+present year. I shall then [do] it by subscription, with historical
+notes. As this work will employ many persons in different parts of
+the Union, I will confer with you upon the subject, and such part of
+it as will suit you to undertake, will be at your choice. I have
+sustained so much loss, by disinterestedness and inattention to money
+matters, and by accidents, that I am obliged to look closer to my
+affairs than I have done. The printer (an Englishman) whom I employed
+here to print the second part of 'the Age of Reason' made a
+manuscript copy of the work while he was printing it, which he sent
+to London and sold. It was by this means that an edition of it came
+out in London.
+
+"We are waiting here for news from America of the state of the
+federal elections. You will have heard long before this reaches you
+that the French government has refused to receive Mr. Pinckney as
+minister. While Mr. Monroe was minister he had the opportunity of
+softening matters with this government, for he was in good credit
+with them tho' they were in high indignation at the infidelity of the
+Washington Administration. It is time that Mr. Washington retire, for
+he has played off so much prudent hypocrisy between France and
+England that neither government believes anything he says.
+
+"Your friend, etc.,
+"THOMAS PAINE."
+
+It would appear that Symonds' stolen edition must have got ahead of
+that sent by Paine to Franklin Bache, for some of its errors continue
+in all modern American editions to the present day, as well as in
+those of England. For in England it was only the shilling edition --
+that revised by Paine -- which was suppressed. Symonds, who
+ministered to the half-crown folk, and who was also publisher of
+replies to Paine, was left undisturbed about his pirated edition, and
+the new Society for the suppression of Vice and Immorality fastened
+on one Thomas Williams, who sold pious tracts but was also convicted
+(June 24, 1797) of having sold one copy of the "Age of Reason."
+Erskine, who had defended Paine at his trial for the "Rights of Man,"
+conducted the prosecution of Williams. He gained the victory from a
+packed jury, but was not much elated by it, especially after a
+certain adventure on his way to Lincoln's Inn. He felt his coat
+clutched and beheld at his feet a woman bathed in tears. She led him
+into the small book-shop of Thomas Williams, not yet called up for
+judgment, and there he beheld his victim stitching tracts in a
+wretched little room, where there were three children, two suffering
+with Smallpox. He saw that it would be ruin and even a sort of murder
+to take away to prison the husband, who was not a freethinker, and
+lamented his publication of the book, and a meeting of the Society
+which had retained him was summoned. There was a full meeting, the
+Bishop of London (Porteus) in the chair. Erskine reminded them that
+Williams was yet to be brought up for sentence, described the scene
+he had witnessed, and Williams' penitence, and, as the book was now
+suppressed, asked permission to move for a nominal sentence. Mercy,
+he urged, was a part of the Christianity they were defending. Not one
+of the Society took his side, -- not even "philanthropic" Wilberforce
+-- and Erskine threw up his brief. This action of Erskine led the
+Judge to give Williams only a year in prison instead of the three he
+said had been intended.
+
+While Williams was in prison the orthodox colporteurs were
+circulating Erskine's speech on Christianity, but also an anonymous
+sermon "On the Existence and Attributes of the Deity," all of which
+was from Paine's "Age of Reason," except a brief "Address to the
+Deity" appended. This picturesque anomaly was repeated in the
+circulation of Paine's "Discourse to the Theophilanthropists" (their
+and the author's names removed) under the title of "Atheism Refuted."
+Both of these pamphlets are now before me, and beside them a London
+tract of one page just sent for my spiritual benefit. This is headed
+"A Word of Caution." It begins by mentioning the "pernicious
+doctrines of Paine," the first being "that there is No GOD" (sic,)
+then proceeds to adduce evidences of divine existence taken from
+Paine's works. It should be added that this one dingy page is the
+only "survival" of the ancient Paine effigy in the tract form which I
+have been able to find in recent years, and to this no Society or
+Publisher's name is attached.
+
+The imprisonment of Williams was the beginning of a thirty years' war
+for religious liberty in England, in the course of which occurred
+many notable events, such as Eaton receiving homage in his pillory at
+Choring Cross, and the whole Carlile family imprisoned, -- its head
+imprisoned more than nine years for publishing the "Age of Reason."
+This last victory of persecution was suicidal. Gentlemen of wealth,
+not adherents of Paine, helped in setting Carlile up in business in
+Fleet Street, where free-thinking publications have since been sold
+without interruption. But though Liberty triumphed in one sense, the
+"Age of Reason." remained to some extent suppressed among those whose
+attention it especially merited. Its original prosecution by a
+Society for the Suppression of Vice (a device to, relieve the Crown)
+amounted to a libel upon a morally clean book, restricting its
+perusal in families; and the fact that the shilling book sold by and
+among humble people was alone prosecuted, diffused among the educated
+an equally false notion that the "Age of Reason" was vulgar and
+illiterate. The theologians, as we have seen, estimated more justly
+the ability of their antagonist, the collaborator of Franklin,
+Rittenhouse, and Clymer, on whom the University of Pennsylvania had
+conferred the degree of Master of Arts, -- but the gentry confused
+Paine with the class described by Burke as "the swinish multitude."
+Skepticism, or its free utterance, was temporarily driven out of
+polite circles by its complication with the out-lawed vindicator of
+the "Rights of Man." But that long combat has now passed away. Time
+has reduced the "Age of Reason" from a flag of popular radicalism to
+a comparatively conservative treatise, so far as its negations are
+concerned. An old friend tells me that in his youth he heard a sermon
+in which the preacher declared that "Tom Paine was so wicked that he
+could not be buried; his bones were thrown into a box which was
+bandied about the world till it came to a button-manufacturer; and
+now Paine is travelling round the world in the form of buttons!" This
+variant of the Wandering Jew myth may now be regarded as unconscious
+homage to the author whose metaphorical bones may be recognized in
+buttons now fashionable, and some even found useful in holding
+clerical vestments together.
+
+But the careful reader will find in Paine's "Age of Reason" something
+beyond negations, and in conclusion I will especially call attention
+to the new departure in Theism indicated in a passage corresponding
+to a famous aphorism of Kant, indicated by a note in Part II. The
+discovery already mentioned, that Part I. was written at least
+fourteen years before Part II., led me to compare the two; and it is
+plain that while the earlier work is an amplification of Newtonian
+Deism, based on the phenomena of planetary motion, the work of 1795
+bases belief in God on "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 do good ones." This exaltation of the
+moral nature of man to be the foundation of theistic religion, though
+now familiar, was a hundred years ago a new affirmation; it has led
+on a conception of deity subversive of last-century deism, it has
+steadily humanized religion, and its ultimate philosophical and
+ethical results have not yet been reached.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I - THE AUTHOR'S PROFESSION OF FAITH.
+
+IT has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my
+thoughts upon religion; I am well aware of the difficulties that
+attend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to a
+more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the last offering I
+should make to my fellow-citizens of all nations, and that at a time
+when the purity of the motive that induced me to it could not admit
+of a question, even by those who might disapprove the work.
+
+The circumstance that has now taken place in France, of the total
+abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of
+everything appertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and
+compulsive articles of faith, has not only precipitated my intention,
+but rendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest, in the
+general wreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and
+false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the
+theology that is true.
+
+As several of my colleagues, and others of my fellow-citizens of
+France, have given me the example of making their voluntary and
+individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this
+with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man
+communicates with itself.
+
+I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond
+this life.
+
+I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties
+consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
+fellow-creatures happy.
+
+But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in
+addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the
+things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.
+
+I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the
+Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the
+Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is
+my own church.
+
+All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or
+Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to
+terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
+
+I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe
+otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to
+mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be
+mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in
+believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe
+what he does not believe.
+
+It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express
+it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far
+corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe
+his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has
+prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up
+the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify
+himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive
+anything more destructive to morality than this?
+
+Soon after I had published the pamphlet COMMON SENSE, in America, I
+saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of
+government would be followed by a revolution in the system of
+religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it
+had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so
+effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, every discussion upon
+established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until
+the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not
+be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this
+should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow.
+Human inventions and priest-craft would be detected; and man would
+return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God, and
+no more.
+
+CHAPTER II - OF MISSIONS AND REVELATIONS.
+
+EVERY national church or religion has established itself by
+pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain
+individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus
+Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if
+the way to God was not open to every man alike.
+
+Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call
+revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God
+was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that
+their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that
+their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven.
+Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own
+part, I disbelieve them all.
+
+As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I
+proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word
+'revelation.' Revelation when applied to religion, means something
+communicated immediately from God to man.
+
+No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a
+communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case,
+that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not
+revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only.
+When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to
+a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those
+persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to
+every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.
+
+It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a
+revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in
+writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first
+communication. After this, it is only an account of something which
+that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find
+himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to
+believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to
+me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.
+
+When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two
+tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not
+obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it
+than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than
+some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal
+evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts
+such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could
+produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural
+intervention. [NOTE: It is, however, necessary to except the
+declamation which says that God 'visits the sins of the fathers upon
+the children'. This is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
+-- Author.]
+
+When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to
+Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of
+hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not
+see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.
+
+When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or
+gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a
+man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told
+him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance
+required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we
+have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter
+themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is
+hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such
+evidence.
+
+It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was
+given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born
+when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the
+world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of
+such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the
+heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods.
+It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been
+celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a
+matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their
+accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had
+nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable
+to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles,
+or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The
+Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more,
+and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the
+story.
+
+It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the
+Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A
+direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the
+reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that
+then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality,
+which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary
+succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of heroes
+changed into the canonization of saints. The Mythologists had gods
+for everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything.
+The church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been
+with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory
+is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists,
+accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains
+to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.
+
+CHAPTER III - CONCERNING THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST, AND HIS
+HISTORY.
+
+NOTHING that is here said can apply, even with the most distant
+disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous
+and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was
+of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality
+had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek
+philosophers, many years before, by the Quakers since, and by many
+good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.
+
+Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or
+anything else. Not a line of what is called the New Testament is of
+his writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other
+people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and
+ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his
+birth. His historians, having brought him into the world in a
+supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same
+manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.
+
+The wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told, exceeds
+everything that went before it. The first part, that of the
+miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity;
+and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this
+advantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not be
+detected. They could not be expected to prove it, because it was not
+one of those things that admitted of proof, and it was impossible
+that the person of whom it was told could prove it himself.
+
+But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and his
+ascension through the air, is a thing very different, as to the
+evidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the
+womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken
+place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the
+ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all Jerusalem at
+least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that
+the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal;
+and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only
+evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it
+falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead
+of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are
+introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and
+all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it
+appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection; and, as they
+say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration
+himself. So neither will I; and the reason is equally as good for me,
+and for every other person, as for Thomas.
+
+It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter. The
+story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of
+fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were the
+authors of it is as impossible for us now to know, as it is for us to
+be assured that the books in which the account is related were
+written by the persons whose names they bear. The best surviving
+evidence we now have respecting this affair is the Jews. They are
+regularly descended from the people who lived in the time this
+resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say 'it
+is not true.' It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistency to
+cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the story. It is just the
+same as if a man were to say, I will prove the truth of what I have
+told you, by producing the people who say it is false.
+
+That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he was
+crucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, are
+historical relations strictly within the limits of probability. He
+preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man; but he
+preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish
+priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the
+whole order of priest-hood. The accusation which those priests
+brought against him was that of sedition and conspiracy against the
+Roman government, to which the Jews were then subject and tributary;
+and it is not improbable that the Roman government might have some
+secret apprehension of the effects of his doctrine as well as the
+Jewish priests; neither is it improbable that Jesus Christ had in
+contemplation the delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of
+the Romans. Between the two, however, this virtuous reformer and
+revolutionist lost his life. [NOTE: The French work has here:
+"However this may be, for one or the other of these suppositions this
+virtuous reformer, this revolutionist, too little imitated, too much
+forgotten, too much misunderstood, lost his life." -- Editor. (Conway)]
+
+CHAPTER IV - OF THE BASES OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+IT is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case
+I am going to mention, that the Christian mythologists, calling
+themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which for
+absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by anything that is to be
+found in the mythology of the ancients.
+
+The ancient mythologists tell us that the race of Giants made war
+against Jupiter, and that one of them threw a hundred rocks against
+him at one throw; that Jupiter defeated him with thunder, and
+confined him afterwards under Mount Etna; and that every time the
+Giant turns himself, Mount Etna belches fire. It is here easy to see
+that the circumstance of the mountain, that of its being a volcano,
+suggested the idea of the fable; and that the fable is made to fit
+and wind itself up with that circumstance.
+
+The Christian mythologists tell that their Satan made war against the
+Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him afterwards, not under a
+mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy to see that the first fable
+suggested the idea of the second; for the fable of Jupiter and the
+Giants was told many hundred years before that of Satan.
+
+Thus far the ancient and the Christian mythologists differ very
+little from each other. But the latter have contrived to carry the
+matter much farther. They have contrived to connect the fabulous part
+of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating from Mount
+Etna; and, in order to make all the parts of the story tie together,
+they have taken to their aid the traditions of the Jews; for the
+Christian mythology is made up partly from the ancient mythology, and
+partly from the Jewish traditions.
+
+The Christian mythologists, after having confined Satan in a pit,
+were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the
+fable. He is then introduced into the garden of Eden in the shape of
+a snake, or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiar
+conversation with Eve, who is no ways surprised to hear a snake talk;
+and the issue of this tete-a-tate is, that he persuades her to eat an
+apple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind.
+
+After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one would
+have supposed that the church mythologists would have been kind
+enough to send him back again to the pit, or, if they had not done
+this, that they would have put a mountain upon him, (for they say
+that their faith can remove a mountain) or have put him under a
+mountain, as the former mythologists had done, to prevent his getting
+again among the women, and doing more mischief. But instead of this,
+they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give his
+parole. The secret of which is, that they could not do without him;
+and after being at the trouble of making him, they bribed him to
+stay. They promised him ALL the Jews, ALL the Turks by anticipation,
+nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet into the bargain. After
+this, who can doubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology?
+
+Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in heaven, in which
+none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded -- put Satan
+into the pit -- let him out again -- given him a triumph over the
+whole creation -- damned all mankind by the eating of an apple, there
+Christian mythologists bring the two ends of their fable together.
+They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be at
+once both God and man, and also the Son of God, celestially begotten,
+on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that Eve in her longing
+[NOTE: The French work has: "yielding to an unrestrained appetite." --
+Editor.] had eaten an apple.
+
+CHAPTER V - EXAMINATION IN DETAIL OF THE PRECEDING BASES.
+
+PUTTING aside everything that might excite laughter by its absurdity,
+or detestation by its profaneness, and confining ourselves merely to
+an examination of the parts, it is impossible to conceive a story
+more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent with his wisdom,
+more contradictory to his power, than this story is.
+
+In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, the inventors were
+under the necessity of giving to the being whom they call Satan a
+power equally as great, if not greater, than they attribute to the
+Almighty. They have not only given him the power of liberating
+himself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but they have
+made that power increase afterwards to infinity. Before this fall
+they represent him only as an angel of limited existence, as they
+represent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their account,
+omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same time. He occupies
+the whole immensity of space.
+
+Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent him as
+defeating by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation,
+all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent him as
+having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of
+surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and
+sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by
+coming down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the
+shape of a man.
+
+Had the inventors of this story told it the contrary way, that is,
+had they represented the Almighty as compelling Satan to exhibit
+himself on a cross in the shape of a snake, as a punishment for his
+new transgression, the story would have been less absurd, less
+contradictory. But, instead of this they make the transgressor
+triumph, and the Almighty fall.
+
+That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very
+good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I
+have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe
+it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner.
+There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by
+what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making
+a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden
+and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness
+of the story. The more unnatural anything is, the more is it capable
+of becoming the object of dismal admiration. [NOTE: The French work
+has "blind and" preceding dismal. -- Editor.]
+
+CHAPTER VI - OF THE TRUE THEOLOGY.
+
+BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they
+not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair
+creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born -- a world
+furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up
+the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance?
+Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still
+goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future,
+nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other
+subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man
+become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of
+the Creator?
+
+I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but it would be
+paying too great a compliment to their, credulity to forbear it on
+that account. The times and the subject demand it to be done. The
+suspicion that the theory of what is called the Christian church is
+fabulous, is becoming very extensive in all countries; and it will be
+a consolation to men staggering under that suspicion, and doubting
+what to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the subject freely
+investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of the books
+called the Old and the New Testament.
+
+CHAPTER VII - EXAMINATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
+
+THESE books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations,
+(which, by the bye, is a book of riddles that requires a revelation
+to explain it) are, we are told, the word of God. It is, therefore,
+proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know what credit to
+give to the report. The answer to this question is, that nobody can
+tell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however,
+historically appears to be as follows:
+
+When the church mythologists established their system, they collected
+all the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased.
+It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the
+writings as now appear under the name of the Old and the New
+Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they
+found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them
+up.
+
+Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books out of the
+collection they had made, should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should
+not. They rejected several; they voted others to be doubtful, such as
+the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority
+of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise,
+all the people since calling themselves Christians had believed
+otherwise; for the belief of the one comes from the vote of the
+other. Who the people were that did all this, we know nothing of.
+They call themselves by the general name of the Church; and this is
+all we know of the matter.
+
+As we have no other external evidence or authority for believing
+these books to be the word of God, than what I have mentioned, which
+is no evidence or authority at all, I come, in the next place, to
+examine the internal evidence contained in the books themselves.
+
+In the former part of this essay, I have spoken of revelation. I now
+proceed further with that subject, for the purpose of applying it to
+the books in question.
+
+Revelation is a communication of something, which the person, to whom
+that thing is revealed, did not know before. For if I have done a
+thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have done
+it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it.
+
+Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done upon earth
+of which man is himself the actor or the witness; and consequently
+all the historical and anecdotal part of the Bible, which is almost
+the whole of it, is not within the meaning and compass of the word
+revelation, and, therefore, is not the word of God.
+
+When Samson ran off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he ever did so,
+(and whether he did or not is nothing to us,) or when he visited his
+Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did anything else, what has
+revelation to do with these things? If they were facts, he could tell
+them himself; or his secretary, if he kept one, could write them, if
+they were worth either telling or writing; and if they were fictions,
+revelation could not make them true; and whether true or not, we are
+neither the better nor the wiser for knowing them. When we
+contemplate the immensity of that Being, who directs and governs the
+incomprehensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight can
+discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry
+stories the word of God.
+
+As to the account of the creation, with which the book of Genesis
+opens, it has all the appearance of being a tradition which the
+Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and after
+their departure from that country, they put it at the head of their
+history, without telling, as it is most probable that they did not
+know, how they came by it. The manner in which the account opens,
+shows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly. It is nobody that
+speaks. It is nobody that hears. It is addressed to nobody. It has
+neither first, second, nor third person. It has every criterion of
+being a tradition. It has no voucher. Moses does not take it upon
+himself by introducing it with the formality that he uses on other
+occasions, such as that of saying, "The Lords spake unto Moses,
+saying."
+
+Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the creation, I am at a
+loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of such
+subjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated among
+the Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science, and
+particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day; and the
+silence and caution that Moses observes, in not authenticating the
+account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it nor
+believed it. -- The case is, that every nation of people has been
+world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up the
+trade of world-making as any of the rest; and as Moses was not an
+Israelite, he might not chose to contradict the tradition. The
+account, however, is harmless; and this is more than can be said for
+many other parts of the Bible.
+
+Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries,
+the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness,
+with which more than half the Bible [NOTE: It must be borne in mind
+that by the "Bible" Paine always means the Old Testament alone. --
+Editor.] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the
+word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness,
+that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own
+part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
+
+We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but what
+deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to the
+miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publications, the
+Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the latter, we find
+a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of the
+power and benignity of the Almighty; but they stand on no higher rank
+than many other compositions on similar subjects, as well before that
+time as since.
+
+The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though most probably a
+collection, (because they discover a knowledge of life, which his
+situation excluded him from knowing) are an instructive table of
+ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the
+Spaniards, and not more wise and oeconomical than those of the
+American Franklin.
+
+All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by the name of
+the Prophets, are the works of the Jewish poets and itinerant
+preachers, who mixed poetry, anecdote, and devotion together -- and
+those works still retain the air and style of poetry, though in
+translation. [NOTE: As there are many readers who do not see that a
+composition is poetry, unless it be in rhyme, it is for their
+information that I add this note.
+
+Poetry consists principally in two things -- imagery and composition.
+The composition of poetry differs from that of prose in the manner of
+mixing long and short syllables together. Take a long syllable out of
+a line of poetry, and put a short one in the room of it, or put a
+long syllable where a short one should be, and that line will lose
+its poetical harmony. It will have an effect upon the line like that
+of misplacing a note in a song.
+
+The imagery in those books called the Prophets appertains altogether
+to poetry. It is fictitious, and often extravagant, and not
+admissible in any other kind of writing than poetry.
+
+To show that these writings are composed in poetical numbers, I will
+take ten syllables, as they stand in the book, and make a line of the
+same number of syllables, (heroic measure) that shall rhyme with the
+last word. It will then be seen that the composition of those books
+is poetical measure. The instance I shall first produce is from
+Isaiah: --
+
+  "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth
+  'T is God himself that calls attention forth.
+
+Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, to
+which I shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out
+the figure, and showing the intention of the poet.
+
+  "O, that mine head were waters and mine eyes
+  Were fountains flowing like the liquid skies;
+  Then would I give the mighty flood release
+  And weep a deluge for the human race." -- Author.]
+
+There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any word
+that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word that describes
+what we call poetry. The case is, that the word prophet, to which a
+later times have affixed a new idea, was the Bible word for poet, and
+the word 'propesytng' meant the art of making poetry. It also meant
+the art of playing poetry to a tune upon any instrument of music.
+
+We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns -- of
+prophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals, and with every
+other instrument of music then in fashion. Were we now to speak of
+prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the expression
+would have no meaning, or would appear ridiculous, and to some people
+contemptuous, because we have changed the meaning of the word.
+
+We are told of Saul being among the prophets, and also that he
+prophesied; but we are not told what they prophesied, nor what he
+prophesied. The case is, there was nothing to tell; for these
+prophets were a company of musicians and poets, and Saul joined in
+the concert, and this was called prophesying.
+
+The account given of this affair in the book called Samuel, is, that
+Saul met a company of prophets; a whole company of them! coming down
+with a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe, and a harp, and that they
+prophesied, and that he prophesied with them. But it appears
+afterwards, that Saul prophesied badly, that is, he performed his
+part badly; for it is said that an "evil spirit from God [NOTE: As
+thos; men who call themselves divines and commentators are very fond
+of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning of the
+first part of the phrase, that of an evil spirit of God. I keep to
+my text. I keep to the meaning of the word prophesy. -- Author.] came
+upon Saul, and he prophesied."
+
+Now, were there no other passage in the book called the Bible, than
+this, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the original meaning of
+the word prophesy, and substituted another meaning in its place, this
+alone would be sufficient; for it is impossible to use and apply the
+word prophesy, in the place it is here used and applied, if we give
+to it the sense which later times have affixed to it. The manner in
+which it is here used strips it of all religious meaning, and shews
+that a man might then be a prophet, or he might Prophesy, as he may
+now be a poet or a musician, without any regard to the morality or
+the immorality of his character. The word was originally a term of
+science, promiscuously applied to poetry and to music, and not
+restricted to any subject upon which poetry and music might be
+exercised.
+
+Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they predicted
+anything, but because they composed the poem or song that bears their
+name, in celebration of an act already done. David is ranked among
+the prophets, for he was a musician, and was also reputed to be
+(though perhaps very erroneously) the author of the Psalms. But
+Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not called prophets; it does not appear
+from any accounts we have, that they could either sing, play music,
+or make poetry.
+
+We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They might as
+well tell us of the greater and the lesser God; for there cannot be
+degrees in prophesying consistently with its modern sense. But there
+are degrees in poetry, and there-fore the phrase is reconcilable to
+the case, when we understand by it the greater and the lesser poets.
+
+It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer any observations
+upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. The axe goes at
+once to the root, by showing that the original meaning of the word
+has been mistaken, and consequently all the inferences that have been
+drawn from those books, the devotional respect that has been paid to
+them, and the laboured commentaries that have been written upon them,
+under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about. -- In
+many things, however, the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a
+better fate than that of being bound up, as they now are, with the
+trash that accompanies them, under the abused name of the Word of God.
+
+If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must
+necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the
+utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or
+accident whatever, in that which we would honour with the name of the
+Word of God; and therefore the Word of God cannot exist in any
+written or human language.
+
+The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is
+subject, the want of an universal language which renders translation
+necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the
+mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of
+wilful alteration, are of themselves evidences that human language,
+whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of
+God. -- The Word of God exists in something else.
+
+Did the book called the Bible excel in purity of ideas and expression
+all the books now extant in the world, I would not take it for my
+rule of faith, as being the Word of God; because the possibility
+would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. But when I see
+throughout the greatest part of this book scarcely anything but a
+history of the grossest vices, and a collection of the most paltry
+and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonour my Creator by calling it
+by his name.
+
+CHAPTER VIII - OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
+
+THUS much for the Bible; I now go on to the book called the New
+Testament. The new Testament! that is, the 'new' Will, as if there
+could be two wills of the Creator.
+
+Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to establish
+a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the system himself,
+or procured it to be written in his life time. But there is no
+publication extant authenticated with his name. All the books called
+the New Testament were written after his death. He was a Jew by birth
+and by profession; and he was the son of God in like manner that
+every other person is; for the Creator is the Father of All.
+
+The first four books, called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, do not
+give a history of the life of Jesus Christ, but only detached
+anecdotes of him. It appears from these books, that the whole time of
+his being a preacher was not more than eighteen months; and it was
+only during this short time that those men became acquainted with
+him. They make mention of him at the age of twelve years, sitting,
+they say, among the Jewish doctors, asking and answering them
+questions. As this was several years before their acquaintance with
+him began, it is most probable they had this anecdote from his
+parents. From this time there is no account of him for about sixteen
+years. Where he lived, or how he employed himself during this
+interval, is not known. Most probably he was working at his father's
+trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not appear that he had
+any school education, and the probability is, that he could not
+write, for his parents were extremely poor, as appears from their not
+being able to pay for a bed when he was born. [NOTE: One of the few
+errors traceable to Paine's not having a Bible at hand while writing
+Part I. There is no indication that the family was poor, but the
+reverse may in fact be inferred. -- Editor.]
+
+It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names are the
+most universally recorded were of very obscure parentage. Moses was a
+foundling; Jesus Christ was born in a stable; and Mahomet was a mule
+driver. The first and the last of these men were founders of
+different systems of religion; but Jesus Christ founded no new
+system. He called men to the practice of moral virtues, and the
+belief of one God. The great trait in his character is philanthropy.
+
+The manner in which he was apprehended shows that he was not much
+known, at that time; and it shows also that the meetings he then held
+with his followers were in secret; and that he had given over or
+suspended preaching publicly. Judas could no otherways betray him
+than by giving information where he was, and pointing him out to the
+officers that went to arrest him; and the reason for employing and
+paying Judas to do this could arise only from the causes already
+mentioned, that of his not being much known, and living concealed.
+
+The idea of his concealment, not only agrees very ill with his
+reputed divinity, but associates with it something of pusillanimity;
+and his being betrayed, or in other words, his being apprehended, on
+the information of one of his followers, shows that he did not intend
+to be apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend to be
+crucified.
+
+The Christian mythologists tell us that Christ died for the sins of
+the world, and that he came on Purpose to die. Would it not then have
+been the same if he had died of a fever or of the small pox, of old
+age, or of anything else?
+
+The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon Adam, in
+case he ate of the apple, was not, that thou shalt surely be
+crucified, but, thou shale surely die. The sentence was death, and
+not the manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or any other
+particular manner of dying, made no part of the sentence that Adam
+was to suffer, and consequently, even upon their own tactic, it could
+make no part of the sentence that Christ was to suffer in the room of
+Adam. A fever would have done as well as a cross, if there was any
+occasion for either.
+
+This sentence of death, which, they tell us, was thus passed upon
+Adam, must either have meant dying naturally, that is, ceasing to
+live, or have meant what these mythologists call damnation; and
+consequently, the act of dying on the part of Jesus Christ, must,
+according to their system, apply as a prevention to one or other of
+these two things happening to Adam and to us.
+
+That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die;
+and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since the
+crucifixion than before: and with respect to the second explanation,
+(including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute
+for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) it is
+impertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking the
+sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. That
+manufacturer of, quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear
+his name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon
+the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins in
+fact, and suffers by proxy; the other who sins by proxy, and suffers
+in fact. A religion thus interlarded with quibble, subterfuge, and
+pun, has a tendency to instruct its professors in the practice of
+these arts. They acquire the habit without being aware of the cause.
+
+If Jesus Christ was the being which those mythologists tell us he
+was, and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a word they
+sometimes use instead of 'to die,' the only real suffering he could
+have endured would have been 'to live.' His existence here was a
+state of exilement or transportation from heaven, and the way back to
+his original country was to die. -- In fine, everything in this
+strange system is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It is the
+reverse of truth, and I become so tired of examining into its
+inconsistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the conclusion of
+it, in order to proceed to something better.
+
+How much, or what parts of the books called the New Testament, were
+written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can know
+nothing of, neither are we certain in what language they were
+originally written. The matters they now contain may be classed under
+two heads: anecdote, and epistolary correspondence.
+
+The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are
+altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken place.
+They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others did and
+said to him; and in several instances they relate the same event
+differently. Revelation is necessarily out of the question with
+respect to those books; not only because of the disagreement of the
+writers, but because revelation cannot be applied to the relating of
+facts by the persons who saw them done, nor to the relating or
+recording of any discourse or conversation by those who heard it. The
+book called the Acts of the Apostles (an anonymous work) belongs also
+to the anecdotal part.
+
+All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book of enigmas,
+called the Revelations, are a collection of letters under the name of
+epistles; and the forgery of letters has been such a common practice
+in the world, that the probability is at least equal, whether they
+are genuine or forged. One thing, however, is much less equivocal,
+which is, that out of the matters contained in those books, together
+with the assistance of some old stories, the church has set up a
+system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person
+whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue
+in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and
+poverty.
+
+The invention of a purgatory, and of the releasing of souls
+therefrom, by prayers, bought of the church with money; the selling
+of pardons, dispensations, and indulgences, are revenue laws, without
+bearing that name or carrying that appearance. But the case
+nevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from the
+proxysm of the crucifixion, and the theory deduced therefrom, which
+was, that one person could stand in the place of another, and could
+perform meritorious services for him. The probability, therefore, is,
+that the whole theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption
+(which is said to have been accomplished by the act of one person in
+the room of another) was originally fabricated on purpose to bring
+forward and build all those secondary and pecuniary redemptions upon;
+and that the passages in the books upon which the idea of theory of
+redemption is built, have been manufactured and fabricated for that
+purpose. Why are we to give this church credit, when she tells us
+that those books are genuine in every part, any more than we give her
+credit for everything else she has told us; or for the miracles she
+says she has performed? That she could fabricate writings is certain,
+because she could write; and the composition of the writings in
+question, is of that kind that anybody might do it; and that she did
+fabricate them is not more inconsistent with probability, than that
+she should tell us, as she has done, that she could and did work
+miracles.
+
+Since, then, no external evidence can, at this long distance of time,
+be produced to prove whether the church fabricated the doctrine
+called redemption or not, (for such evidence, whether for or against,
+would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabricated,) the case
+can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries
+of itself; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a
+fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory or
+doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary
+justice, and not that of moral justice.
+
+If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put
+me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay
+it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the
+case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the
+guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to
+do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the
+thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate
+revenge.
+
+This single reflection will show that the doctrine of redemption is
+founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt
+which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea
+corresponds again with the system of second redemptions, obtained
+through the means of money given to the church for pardons, the
+probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the
+other of those theories; and that, in truth, there is no such thing
+as redemption; that it is fabulous; and that man stands in the same
+relative condition with his Maker he ever did stand, since man
+existed; and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.
+
+Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and morally,
+than by any other system. It is by his being taught to contemplate
+himself as an out-law, as an out-cast, as a beggar, as a mumper, as
+one thrown as it were on a dunghill, at an immense distance from his
+Creator, and who must make his approaches by creeping, and cringing
+to intermediate beings, that he conceives either a contemptuous
+disregard for everything under the name of religion, or becomes
+indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the latter case, he
+consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it. His prayers are
+reproaches. His humility is ingratitude. He calls himself a worm, and
+the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the blessings of life by the
+thankless name of vanities. He despises the choicest gift of God to
+man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavoured to force upon himself
+the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully
+calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself.
+
+Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility, and this contempt
+for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions. He finds
+fault with everything. His selfishness is never satisfied; his
+ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself to direct the
+Almighty what to do, even in the govemment of the universe. He prays
+dictatorially. When it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is
+rain, he prays for sunshine. He follows the same idea in everything
+that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers, but an
+attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than
+he does? It is as if he were to say -- thou knowest not so well as I.
+
+CHAPTER IX - IN WHAT THE TRUE REVELATION CONSISTS.
+
+BUT some perhaps will say -- Are we to have no word of God -- no
+revelation? I answer yes. There is a Word of God; there is a
+revelation.
+
+THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word,
+which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh
+universally to man.
+
+Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of
+being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information.
+The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they say, the glad
+tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth unto the other, is
+consistent only with the ignorance of those who know nothing of the
+extent of the world, and who believed, as those world-saviours
+believed, and continued to believe for several centuries, (and that
+in contradiction to the discoveries of philosophers and the
+experience of navigators,) that the earth was flat like a trencher;
+and that a man might walk to the end of it.
+
+But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He
+could speak but one language, which was Hebrew; and there are in the
+world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the
+same language, or understand each other; and as to translations,
+every man who knows anything of languages, knows that it is
+impossible to translate from one language into another, not only
+without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of
+mistaking the sense; and besides all this, the art of printing was
+wholly unknown at the time Christ lived.
+
+It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any end
+be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be
+accomplished. It is in this that the difference between finite and
+infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in
+accomplishing his end, from a natural inability of the power to the
+purpose; and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power
+properly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to fail
+as man faileth. The means it useth are always equal to the end: but
+human language, more especially as there is not an universal
+language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of
+unchangeable and uniform information; and therefore it is not the
+means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man.
+
+It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a
+word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language,
+independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and
+various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man
+can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot
+be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not
+depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it
+publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches
+to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man
+all that is necessary for man to know of God.
+
+Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of
+the creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the
+unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed.
+Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance
+with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy?
+We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the
+unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the
+book called the scripture, which any human hand might make, but the
+scripture called the Creation.
+
+CHAPTER X - CONCERNING GOD, AND THE LIGHTS CAST ON HIS EXISTENCE AND
+ATTRIBUTES BY THE BIBLE.
+
+THE only idea man can affix to the name of God, is that of a first
+cause, the cause of all things. And, incomprehensibly difficult as it
+is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the
+belief of it, from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it.
+It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no
+end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult
+beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we
+call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there
+shall be no time.
+
+In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself
+the internal evidence that it did not make itself. Every man is an
+evidence to himself, that he did not make himself; neither could his
+father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race;
+neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it is the
+conviction arising from this evidence, that carries us on, as it
+were, by necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally
+existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we
+know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first
+cause, man calls God.
+
+It is only by the exercise of reason, that man can discover God. Take
+away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding
+anything; and in this case it would be just as consistent to read
+even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How then is it
+that those people pretend to reject reason?
+
+Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that convey to us
+any idea of God, are some chapters in Job, and the 19th Psalm; I
+recollect no other. Those parts are true deistical compositions; for
+they treat of the Deity through his works. They take the book of
+Creation as the word of God; they refer to no other book; and all the
+inferences they make are drawn from that volume.
+
+I insert in this place the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into English
+verse by Addison. I recollect not the prose, and where I write this I
+have not the opportunity of seeing it:
+
+  The spacious firmament on high,
+  With all the blue etherial sky,
+  And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
+  Their great original proclaim.
+  The unwearied sun, from day to day,
+  Does his Creator's power display,
+  And publishes to every land
+  The work of an Almighty hand.
+  Soon as the evening shades prevail,
+  The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
+  And nightly to the list'ning earth
+  Repeats the story of her birth;
+  Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
+  And all the planets, in their turn,
+  Confirm the tidings as they roll,
+  And spread the truth from pole to pole.
+  What though in solemn silence all
+  Move round this dark terrestrial ball
+  What though no real voice, nor sound,
+  Amidst their radiant orbs be found,
+  In reason's ear they all rejoice,
+  And utter forth a glorious voice,
+  Forever singing as they shine,
+  THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE.
+
+What more does man want to know, than that the hand or power that
+made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe this,
+with the force it is impossible to repel if he permits his reason to
+act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course.
+
+The allusions in job have all of them the same tendency with this
+Psalm; that of deducing or proving a truth that would be otherwise
+unknown, from truths already known.
+
+I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert them
+correctly; but there is one that occurs to me that is applicable to
+the subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out
+God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"
+
+I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I keep no
+Bible; but it contains two distinct questions that admit of distinct
+answers.
+
+First, Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes. Because, in the
+first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence;
+and by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no
+other thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things
+exist; therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting
+from this search, that there is a power superior to all those things,
+and that power is God.
+
+Secondly, Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? No. Not
+only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in the structure
+of the Creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible; but because
+even this manifestation, great as it is is probably but a small
+display of that immensity of power and wisdom, by which millions of
+other worlds, to me invisible by their distance, were created and
+continue to exist.
+
+It is evident that both of these questions were put to the reason of
+the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed; and it
+is only by admitting the first question to be answered affirmatively,
+that the second could follow. It would have been unnecessary, and
+even absurd, to have put a second question, more difficult than the
+first, if the first question had been answered negatively. The two
+questions have different objects; the first refers to the existence
+of God, the second to his attributes. Reason can discover the one,
+but it falls infinitely short in discovering the whole of the other.
+
+I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the
+men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Those
+writings are chiefly controversial; and the gloominess of the subject
+they dwell upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better
+suited to the gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not
+impossible they were written, than to any man breathing the open air
+of the Creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any
+reference to the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can
+be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ, as a remedy
+against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil
+not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the
+allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea,
+and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty of the
+man.
+
+CHAPTER XI - OF THE THEOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIANS; AND THE TRUE THEOLOGY.
+
+As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of
+atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe
+in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of
+man-ism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism as twilight
+is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque
+body, which it calls a redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque
+self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a
+religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. It has put the whole
+orbit of reason into shade.
+
+The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everything
+upside down, and representing it in reverse; and among the
+revolutions it has thus magically produced, it has made a revolution
+in Theology.
+
+That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole
+circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is
+the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in
+his works, and is the true theology.
+
+As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study
+of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the
+study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works
+or writings that man has made; and it is not among the least of the
+mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it
+has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a
+beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the
+hag of superstition.
+
+The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the church admits to
+be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in
+the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to
+the original system of theology. The internal evidence of those
+orations proves to a demonstration that the study and contemplation
+of the works of creation, and of the power and wisdom of God revealed
+and manifested in those works, made a great part of the religious
+devotion of the times in which they were written; and it was this
+devotional study and contemplation that led to the discovery of the
+principles upon which what are now called Sciences are established;
+and it is to the discovery of these principles that almost all the
+Arts that contribute to the convenience of human life owe their
+existence. Every principal art has some science for its parent,
+though the person who mechanically performs the work does not always,
+and but very seldom, perceive the connection.
+
+It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences 'human
+inventions;' it is only the application of them that is human. Every
+science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and
+unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed.
+Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
+
+For example: Every person who looks at an almanack sees an account
+when an eclipse will take place, and he sees also that it never fails
+to take place according to the account there given. This shows that
+man is acquainted with the laws by which the heavenly bodies move.
+But it would be something worse than ignorance, were any church on
+earth to say that those laws are an human invention.
+
+It would also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that the
+scientific principles, by the aid of which man is enabled to
+calculate and foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are an human
+invention. Man cannot invent any thing that is eternal and immutable;
+and the scientific principles he employs for this purpose must, and
+are, of necessity, as eternal and immutable as the laws by which the
+heavenly bodies move, or they could not be used as they are to
+ascertain the time when, and the manner how, an eclipse will take
+place.
+
+The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the
+foreknowledge of an eclipse, or of any thing else relating to the
+motion of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part of
+science that is called trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle,
+which, when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called
+astronomy; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the ocean,
+it is called navigation; when applied to the construction of figures
+drawn by a rule and compass, it is called geometry; when applied to
+the construction of plans of edifices, it is called architecture;
+when applied to the measurement of any portion of the surface of the
+earth, it is called land-surveying. In fine, it is the soul of
+science. It is an eternal truth: it contains the mathematical
+demonstration of which man speaks, and the extent of its uses are
+unknown.
+
+It may be said, that man can make or draw a triangle, and therefore a
+triangle is an human invention.
+
+But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of the
+principle: it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to the
+mind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. The
+triangle does not make the principle, any more than a candle taken
+into a room that was dark, makes the chairs and tables that before
+were invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist independently
+of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought
+of by man. Man had no more to do in the formation of those properties
+or principles, than he had to do in making the laws by which the
+heavenly bodies move; and therefore the one must have the same divine
+origin as the other.
+
+In the same manner as, it may be said, that man can make a triangle,
+so also, may it be said, he can make the mechanical instrument called
+a lever. But the principle by which the lever acts, is a thing
+distinct from the instrument, and would exist if the instrument did
+not; it attaches itself to the instrument after it is made; the
+instrument, therefore, can act no otherwise than it does act; neither
+can all the efforts of human invention make it act otherwise. That
+which, in all such cases, man calls the effect, is no other than the
+principle itself rendered perceptible to the senses.
+
+Since, then, man cannot make principles, from whence did he gain a
+knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not only to things
+on earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so immensely distant
+from him as all the heavenly bodies are? From whence, I ask, could he
+gain that knowledge, but from the study of the true theology?
+
+It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledge to
+man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of every principle
+upon which every part of mathematical science is founded. The
+offspring of this science is mechanics; for mechanics is no other
+than the principles of science applied practically. The man who
+proportions the several parts of a mill uses the same scientific
+principles as if he had the power of constructing an universe, but as
+he cannot give to matter that invisible agency by which all the
+component parts of the immense machine of the universe have influence
+upon each other, and act in motional unison together, without any
+apparent contact, and to which man has given the name of attraction,
+gravitation, and repulsion, he supplies the place of that agency by
+the humble imitation of teeth and cogs. All the parts of man's
+microcosm must visibly touch. But could he gain a knowledge of that
+agency, so as to be able to apply it in practice, we might then say
+that another canonical book of the word of God had been discovered.
+
+If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could he
+alter the properties of the triangle: for a lever (taking that sort
+of lever which is called a steel-yard, for the sake of explanation)
+forms, when in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from, (one
+point of that line being in the fulcrum,) the line it descends to,
+and the chord of the arc, which the end of the lever describes in the
+air, are the three sides of a triangle. The other arm of the lever
+describes also a triangle; and the corresponding sides of those two
+triangles, calculated scientifically, or measured geometrically, --
+and also the sines, tangents, and secants generated from the angles,
+and geometrically measured, -- have the same proportions to each
+other as the different weights have that will balance each other on
+the lever, leaving the weight of the lever out of the case.
+
+It may also be said, that man can make a wheel and axis; that he can
+put wheels of different magnitudes together, and produce a mill.
+Still the case comes back to the same point, which is, that he did
+not make the principle that gives the wheels those powers. This
+principle is as unalterable as in the former cases, or rather it is
+the same principle under a different appearance to the eye.
+
+The power that two wheels of different magnitudes have upon each
+other is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter of the two
+wheels were joined together and made into that kind of lever I have
+described, suspended at the part where the semi-diameters join; for
+the two wheels, scientifically considered, are no other than the two
+circles generated by the motion of the compound lever.
+
+It is from the study of the true theology that all our knowledge of
+science is derived; and it is from that knowledge that all the arts
+have originated.
+
+The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the
+structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation.
+It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call
+ours, "I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have
+rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the
+arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY
+MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER."
+
+Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that his eye
+is endowed with the power of beholding, to an incomprehensible
+distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? Or
+of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man?
+What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, with
+the star he calls the north star, with the moving orbs he has named
+Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are to follow
+from their being visible? A less power of vision would have been
+sufficient for man, if the immensity he now possesses were given only
+to waste itself, as it were, on an immense desert of space glittering
+with shows.
+
+It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, as the
+book and school of science, that he discovers any use in their being
+visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immensity of
+vision. But when be contemplates the subject in this light, he sees
+an additional motive for saying, that nothing was made in vain; for
+in vain would be this power of vision if it taught man nothing.
+
+CHAPTER XII - THE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANISM ON EDUCATION; PROPOSED
+REFORMS.
+
+As the Christian system of faith has made a revolution in theology,
+so also has it made a revolution in the state of learning. That which
+is now called learning, was not learning originally. Learning does
+not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of
+languages, but in the knowledge of things to which language gives
+names.
+
+The Greeks were a learned people, but learning with them did not
+consist in speaking Greek, any more than in a Roman's speaking Latin,
+or a Frenchman's speaking French, or an Englishman's speaking
+English. From what we know of the Greeks, it does not appear that
+they knew or studied any language but their own, and this was one
+cause of their becoming so learned; it afforded them more time to
+apply themselves to better studies. The schools of the Greeks were
+schools of science and philosophy, and not of languages; and it is in
+the knowledge of the things that science and philosophy teach that
+learning consists.
+
+Almost all the scientific learning that now exists, came to us from
+the Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek language. It therefore
+became necessary to the people of other nations, who spoke a
+different language, that some among them should learn the Greek
+language, in order that the learning the Greeks had might be made
+known in those nations, by translating the Greek books of science and
+philosophy into the mother tongue of each nation.
+
+The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the same manner
+for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of a linguist;
+and the language thus obtained, was no other than the means, or as it
+were the tools, employed to obtain the learning the Greeks had. It
+made no part of the learning itself; and was so distinct from it as
+to make it exceedingly probable that the persons who had studied
+Greek sufficiently to translate those works, such for instance as
+Euclid's Elements, did not understand any of the learning the works
+contained.
+
+As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead languages,
+all the useful books being already translated, the languages are
+become useless, and the time expended in teaching and in learning
+them is wasted. So far as the study of languages may contribute to
+the progress and communication of knowledge (for it has nothing to do
+with the creation of knowledge) it is only in the living languages
+that new knowledge is to be found; and certain it is, that, in
+general, a youth will learn more of a living language in one year,
+than of a dead language in seven; and it is but seldom that the
+teacher knows much of it himself. The difficulty of learning the dead
+languages does not arise from any superior abstruseness in the
+languages themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation
+entirely lost. It would be the same thing with any other language
+when it becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does
+not understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian
+milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or a
+milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect to pronunciation and idiom,
+not so well as the cows that she milked. It would therefore be
+advantageous to the state of learning to abolish the study of the
+dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it originally did,
+in scientific knowledge.
+
+The apology that is sometimes made for continuing to teach the dead
+languages is, that they are taught at a time when a child is not
+capable of exerting any other mental faculty than that of memory. But
+this is altogether erroneous. The human mind has a natural
+disposition to scientific knowledge, and to the things connected with
+it. The first and favourite amusement of a child, even before it
+begins to play, is that of imitating the works of man. It builds
+bouses with cards or sticks; it navigates the little ocean of a bowl
+of water with a paper boat; or dams the stream of a gutter, and
+contrives something which it calls a mill; and it interests itself in
+the fate of its works with a care that resembles affection. It
+afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed by the barren
+study of a dead language, and the philosopher is lost in the linguist.
+
+But the apology that is now made for continuing to teach the dead
+languages, could not be the cause at first of cutting down learning
+to the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry; the cause therefore
+must be sought for elsewhere. In all researches of this kind, the
+best evidence that can be produced, is the internal evidence the
+thing carries with itself, and the evidence of circumstances that
+unites with it; both of which, in this case, are not difficult to be
+discovered.
+
+Putting then aside, as matter of distinct consideration, the outrage
+offered to the moral justice of God, by supposing him to make the
+innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose morality and low
+contrivance of supposing him to change himself into the shape of a
+man, in order to make an excuse to himself for not executing his
+supposed sentence upon Adam; putting, I say, those things aside as
+matter of distinct consideration, it is certain that what is called
+the christian system of faith, including in it the whimsical account
+of the creation -- the strange story of Eve, the snake, and the apple
+-- the amphibious idea of a man-god -- the corporeal idea of the
+death of a god -- the mythological idea of a family of gods, and the
+christian system of arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three,
+are all irreconcilable, not only to the divine gift of reason, that
+God has given to man, but to the knowledge that man gains of the
+power and wisdom of God by the aid of the sciences, and by studying
+the structure of the universe that God has made.
+
+The setters up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian system
+of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progressive
+knowledge that man would gain by the aid of science, of the power and
+wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the universe, and in
+all the works of creation, would militate against, and call into
+question, the truth of their system of faith; and therefore it became
+necessary to their purpose to cut learning down to a size less
+dangerous to their project, and this they effected by restricting the
+idea of learning to the dead study of dead languages.
+
+They not only rejected the study of science out of the christian
+schools, but they persecuted it; and it is only within about the last
+two centuries that the study has been revived. So late as 1610,
+Galileo, a Florentine, discovered and introduced the use of
+telescopes, and by applying them to observe the motions and
+appearances of the heavenly bodies, afforded additional means for
+ascertaining the true structure of the universe. Instead of being
+esteemed for these discoveries, he was sentenced to renounce them, or
+the opinions resulting from them, as a damnable heresy. And prior to
+that time Virgilius was condemned to be burned for asserting the
+antipodes, or in other words, that the earth was a globe, and
+habitable in every part where there was land; yet the truth of this
+is now too well known even to be told. [NOTE: I cannot discover the
+source of this statement concerning the ancient author whose Irish
+name Feirghill was Latinized into Virgilius. The British Museum
+possesses a copy of the work (Decalogiunt) which was the pretext of
+the charge of heresy made by Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence, against
+Virgilius, Abbot -- bishop of Salzburg, These were leaders of the
+rival "British" and "Roman parties, and the British champion made a
+countercharge against Boniface of irreligious practices." Boniface
+had to express a "regret," but none the less pursued his rival. The
+Pope, Zachary II., decided that if his alleged "doctrine, against God
+and his soul, that beneath the earth there is another world, other
+men, or sun and moon," should be acknowledged by Virgilius, he should
+be excommunicated by a Council and condemned with canonical
+sanctions. Whatever may have been the fate involved by condemnation
+with "canonicis sanctionibus," in the middle of the eighth century,
+it did not fall on Virgilius. His accuser, Boniface, was martyred,
+755, and it is probable that Virgilius harmonied his Antipodes with
+orthodoxy. The gravamen of the heresy seems to have been the
+suggestion that there were men not of the progeny of Adam. Virgilius
+was made Bishop of Salzburg in 768. He bore until his death, 789, the
+curious title, "Geometer and Solitary," or "lone wayfarer"
+(Solivagus). A suspicion of heresy clung to his memory until 1233,
+when he was raised by Gregory IX, to sainthood beside his accuser,
+St. Boniface. -- Editor. (Conway)]
+
+If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it would
+make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove them.
+There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat like a
+trencher, any more than there was moral virtue in believing it was
+round like a globe; neither was there any moral ill in believing that
+the Creator made no other world than this, any more than there was
+moral virtue in believing that he made millions, and that the
+infinity of space is filled with worlds. But when a system of
+religion is made to grow out of a supposed system of creation that is
+not true, and to unite itself therewith in a manner almost
+inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an entirely different ground.
+It is then that errors, not morally bad, become fraught with the same
+mischiefs as if they were. It is then that the truth, though
+otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential, by becoming the
+criterion that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies
+by contradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself. In
+this view of the case it is the moral duty of man to obtain every
+possible evidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other
+part of creation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But
+this, the supporters or partizans of the christian system, as if
+dreading the result, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the
+sciences, but persecuted the professors. Had Newton or Descartes
+lived three or four hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as
+they did, it is most probable they would not have lived to finish
+them; and had Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds at the same
+time, it would have been at the hazard of expiring for it in flames.
+
+Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals, but,
+however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may be to
+believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age
+of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. There was more
+knowledge in the world before that period, than for many centuries
+afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as
+already said, was only another species of mythology; and the
+mythology to which it succeeded, was a corruption of an ancient
+system of theism. [NOTE by Paine: It is impossible for us now to know
+at what time the heathen mythology began; but it is certain, from the
+internal evidence that it carries, that it did not begin in the same
+state or condition in which it ended. All the gods of that mythology,
+except Saturn, were of modern invention. The supposed reign of Saturn
+was prior to that which is called the heathen mythology, and was so
+far a species of theism that it admitted the belief of only one God.
+Saturn is supposed to have abdicated the govemment in favour of his
+three sons and one daughter, Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno; after
+this, thousands of other gods and demigods were imaginarily created,
+and the calendar of gods increased as fast as the calendar of saints
+and the calendar of courts have increased since.
+
+All the corruptions that have taken place, in theology and in
+religion have been produced by admitting of what man calls 'revealed
+religion.' The mythologists pretended to more revealed religion than
+the christians do. They had their oracles and their priests, who were
+supposed to receive and deliver the word of God verbally on almost
+all occasions.
+
+Since then all corruptions down from Moloch to modern
+predestinarianism, and the human sacrifices of the heathens to the
+christian sacrifice of the Creator, have been produced by admitting
+of what is called revealed religion, the most effectual means to
+prevent all such evils and impositions is, not to admit of any other
+revelation than that which is manifested in the book of Creation.,
+and to contemplate the Creation as the only true and real word of God
+that ever did or ever will exist; and every thing else called the
+word of God is fable and imposition. -- Author.]
+
+It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other
+cause, that we have now to look back through a vast chasm of many
+hundred years to the respectable characters we call the Ancients. Had
+the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with the stock
+that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up with
+characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and those
+Ancients we now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the
+background of the scene. But the christian system laid all waste; and
+if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we
+look back through that long chasm, to the times of the Ancients, as
+over a vast sandy desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept
+the vision to the fertile hills beyond.
+
+It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, that any
+thing should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to be
+irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe
+that God had made. But the fact is too well established to be denied.
+The event that served more than any other to break the first link in
+this long chain of despotic ignorance, is that known by the name of
+the Reformation by Luther. From that time, though it does not appear
+to have made any part of the intention of Luther, or of those who are
+called Reformers, the Sciences began to revive, and Liberality, their
+natural associate, began to appear. This was the only public good the
+Reformation did; for, with respect to religious good, it might as
+well not have taken place. The mythology still continued the same;
+and a multiplicity of National Popes grew out of the downfall of the
+Pope of Christendom.
+
+CHAPTER XIII - COMPARISON OF CHRISTIANISM WITH THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS
+INSPIRED BY NATURE.
+
+HAVING thus shewn, from the internal evidence of things, the cause
+that produced a change in the state of learning, and the motive for
+substituting the study of the dead languages, in the place of the
+Sciences, I proceed, in addition to the several observations already
+made in the former part of this work, to compare, or rather to
+confront, the evidence that the structure of the universe affords,
+with the christian system of religion. But as I cannot begin this
+part better than by referring to the ideas that occurred to me at an
+early part of life, and which I doubt not have occurred in some
+degree to almost every other person at one time or other, I shall
+state what those ideas were, and add thereto such other matter as
+shall arise out of the subject, giving to the whole, by way of
+preface, a short introduction.
+
+My father being of the quaker profession, it was my good fortune to
+have an exceedingly good moral education, and a tolerable stock of
+useful learning. Though I went to the grammar school, I did not learn
+Latin, not only because I had no inclination to learn languages, but
+because of the objection the quakers have against the books in which
+the language is taught. But this did not prevent me from being
+acquainted with the subjects of all the Latin books used in the
+school.
+
+The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had some turn, and I
+believe some talent for poetry; but this I rather repressed than
+encouraged, as leading too much into the field of imagination. As
+soon as I was able, I purchased a pair of globes, and attended the
+philosophical lectures of Martin and Ferguson, and became afterwards
+acquainted with Dr. Bevis, of the society called the Royal Society,
+then living in the Temple, and an excellent astronomer.
+
+I had no disposition for what was called politics. It presented to my
+mind no other idea than is contained in the word jockeyship. When,
+therefore, I turned my thoughts towards matters of government, I had
+to form a system for myself, that accorded with the moral and
+philosophic principles in which I had been educated. I saw, or at
+least I thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to the world in
+the affairs of America; and it appeared to me, that unless the
+Americans changed the plan they were then pursuing, with respect to
+the government of England, and declared themselves independent, they
+would not only involve themselves in a multiplicity of new
+difficulties, but shut out the prospect that was then offering itself
+to mankind through their means. It was from these motives that I
+published the work known by the name of Common Sense, which is the
+first work I ever did publish, and so far as I can judge of myself, I
+believe I should never have been known in the world as an author on
+any subject whatever, had it not been for the affairs of America. I
+wrote Common Sense the latter end of the year 1775, and published it
+the first of January, 1776. Independence was declared the fourth of
+July following. [NOTE: The pamphlet Common Sense was first
+advertised, as "just published," on January 10, 1776. His plea for
+the Officers of Excise, written before leaving England, was printed,
+but not published until 1793. Despite his reiterated assertion that
+Common Sense was the first work he ever published the notion that he
+was "junius" still finds some believers. An indirect comment on our
+Paine-Junians may be found in Part 2 of this work where Paine says a
+man capable of writing Homer "would not have thrown away his own fame
+by giving it to another." It is probable that Paine ascribed the
+Letters of Junius to Thomas Hollis. His friend F. Lanthenas, in his
+translation of the Age of Reason (1794) advertises his translation of
+the Letters of Junius from the English "(Thomas Hollis)." This he
+could hardly have done without consultation with Paine. Unfortunately
+this translation of Junius cannot be found either in the Bibliotheque
+Nationale or the British Museum, and it cannot be said whether it
+contains any attempt at an identification of Junius -- Editor.]
+
+Any person, who has made observations on the state and progress of
+the human mind, by observing his own, can not but have observed, that
+there are two distinct classes of what are called Thoughts; those
+that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking,
+and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always
+made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility,
+taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth
+entertaining; and it is from them I have acquired almost all the
+knowledge that I have. As to the learning that any person gains from
+school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in
+the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards. Every person of
+learning is finally his own teacher; the reason of which is, that
+principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be
+impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the
+understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by
+conception. Thus much for the introductory part.
+
+From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting upon it
+by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the christian system, or
+thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was: but
+I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a
+sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the
+church, upon the subject of what is called Redemption by the death of
+the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden,
+and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect
+the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and
+thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a
+passionate man, that killed his son, when he could not revenge
+himself any other way; and as I was sure a man would be hanged that
+did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such
+sermons. This was not one of those kind of thoughts that had any
+thing in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection,
+arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an
+action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it.
+I believe in the same manner to this moment; and I moreover believe,
+that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the
+mind of a child, cannot be a true system.
+
+It seems as if parents of the christian profession were ashamed to
+tell their children any thing about the principles of their religion.
+They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the
+goodness of what they call Providence; for the Christian mythology
+has five deities: there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy
+Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the christian
+story of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing people
+to do it, (for that is the plain language of the story,) cannot be
+told by a parent to a child; and to tell him that it was done to make
+mankind happier and better, is making the story still worse; as if
+mankind could be improved by the example of murder; and to tell him
+that all this is a mystery, is only making an excuse for the
+incredibility of it.
+
+How different is this to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The
+true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in
+contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his
+works, and in endeavouring to imitate him in every thing moral,
+scientifical, and mechanical.
+
+The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true Deism,
+in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the
+quakers: but they have contracted themselves too much by leaving the
+works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their
+philanthropy, I can not help smiling at the conceit, that if the
+taste of a quaker could have been consulted at the creation, what a
+silent and drab-colored creation it would have been! Not a flower
+would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been permitted to sing.
+
+Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. After I had
+made myself master of the use of the globes, and of the orrery, [NOTE
+by Paine: As this book may fall into the bands of persons who do not
+know what an orrery is, it is for their information I add this note,
+as the name gives no idea of the uses of the thing. The orrery has
+its name from the person who invented it. It is a machinery of
+clock-work, representing the universe in miniature: and in which the
+revolution of the earth round itself and round the sun, the
+revolution of the moon round the earth, the revolution of the planets
+round the sun, their relative distances from the sun, as the center
+of the whole system, their relative distances from each other, and
+their different magnitudes, are represented as they really exist in
+what we call the heavens. -- Author.] and conceived an idea of the
+infinity of space, and of the eternal divisibility of matter, and
+obtained, at least, a general knowledge of what was called natural
+philosophy, I began to compare, or, as I have before said, to
+confront, the internal evidence those things afford with the
+christian system of faith.
+
+Though it is not a direct article of the christian system that this
+world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet it
+is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of
+the creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of
+that story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise,
+that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least
+as numerous as what we call stars, renders the christian system of
+faith at once little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like
+feathers in the air. The two beliefs can not be held together in the
+same mind; and he who thinks that be believes both, has thought but
+little of either.
+
+Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familiar to the
+ancients, it is only within the last three centuries that the extent
+and dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained.
+Several vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailed
+entirely round the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come
+round by the contrary side of the circle to the spot he set out from.
+The circular dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as a man
+would measure the widest round of an apple, or a ball, is only
+twenty-five thousand and twenty English miles, reckoning sixty-nine
+miles and an half to an equatorial degree, and may be sailed round in
+the space of about three years. [NOTE by Paine: Allowing a ship to
+sail, on an average, three miles in an hour, she would sail entirely
+round the world in less than one year, if she could sail in a direct
+circle, but she is obliged to follow the course of the ocean. --
+Author.]
+
+A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be
+great; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which it
+is suspended, like a bubble or a balloon in the air, it is infinitely
+less in proportion than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of
+the world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean, and is
+therefore but small; and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one of
+a system of worlds, of which the universal creation is composed.
+
+It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of space
+in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we follow a
+progression of ideas. When we think of the size or dimensions of, a
+room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and there they stop.
+But when our eye, or our imagination darts into space, that is, when
+it looks upward into what we call the open air, we cannot conceive
+any walls or boundaries it can have; and if for the sake of resting
+our ideas we suppose a boundary, the question immediately renews
+itself, and asks, what is beyond that boundary? and in the same
+manner, what beyond the next boundary? and so on till the fatigued
+imagination returns and says, there is no end. Certainly, then, the
+Creator was not pent for room when he made this world no larger than
+it is; and we have to seek the reason in something else.
+
+If we take a survey of our own world, or rather of this, of which the
+Creator has given us the use as our portion in the immense system of
+creation, we find every part of it, the earth, the waters, and the
+air that surround it, filled, and as it were crouded with life, down
+from the largest animals that we know of to the smallest insects the
+naked eye can behold, and from thence to others still smaller, and
+totally invisible without the assistance of the microscope. Every
+tree, every plant, every leaf, serves not only as an habitation, but
+as a world to some numerous race, till animal existence becomes so
+exceedingly refined, that the effluvia of a blade of grass would be
+food for thousands.
+
+Since then no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it to be
+supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void, lying in
+eternal waste? There is room for millions of worlds as large or
+larger than ours, and each of them millions of miles apart from each
+other.
+
+Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas only one
+thought further, we shall see, perhaps, the true reason, at least a
+very good reason for our happiness, why the Creator, instead of
+making one immense world, extending over an immense quantity of
+space, has preferred dividing that quantity of matter into several
+distinct and separate worlds, which we call planets, of which our
+earth is one. But before I explain my ideas upon this subject, it is
+necessary (not for the sake of those that already know, but for those
+who do not) to show what the system of the universe is.
+
+CHAPTER XIV - SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+THAT part of the universe that is called the solar system (meaning
+the system of worlds to which our earth belongs, and of which Sol, or
+in English language, the Sun, is the center) consists, besides the
+Sun, of six distinct orbs, or planets, or worlds, besides the
+secondary bodies, called the satellites, or moons, of which our earth
+has one that attends her in her annual revolution round the Sun, in
+like manner as the other satellites or moons, attend the planets or
+worlds to which they severally belong, as may be seen by the
+assistance of the telescope.
+
+The Sun is the center round which those six worlds or planets revolve
+at different distances therefrom, and in circles concentric to each
+other. Each world keeps constantly in nearly the same tract round the
+Sun, and continues at the same time turning round itself, in nearly
+an upright position, as a top turns round itself when it is spinning
+on the ground, and leans a little sideways.
+
+It is this leaning of the earth (231/2 degrees) that occasions summer
+and winter, and the different length of days and nights. If the earth
+turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the plane or level
+of the circle it moves in round the Sun, as a top turns round when it
+stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would be always of
+the same length, twelve hours day and twelve hours night, and the
+season would be uniformly the same throughout the year.
+
+Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns round itself,
+it makes what we call day and night; and every time it goes entirely
+round the Sun, it makes what we call a year, consequently our world
+turns three hundred and sixty-five times round itself, in going once
+round the Sun.
+
+The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and which are
+still called by the same names, are Mercury, Venus, this world that
+we call ours, Mars, Jupitcr, and Saturn. They appear larger to the
+eye than the stars, being many million miles nearer to our earth than
+any of the stars are. The planet Venus is that which is called the
+evening star, and sometimes the morning star, as she happens to set
+after, or rise before the Sun, which in either case is never more
+than three hours.
+
+The Sun as before said being the center, the planet or world nearest
+the Sun is Mercury; his distance from the Sun is thirty- four million
+miles, and he moves round in a circle always at that distance from
+the Sun, as a top may be supposed to spin round in the tract in
+which a horse goes in a mill. The second world is Venus; she is
+fifty-seven million miles distant from the Sun, and consequently
+moves round in a circle much greater than that of Mercury. The third
+world is this that we inhabit, and which is eighty-eight million
+miles distant from the Sun, and consequently moves round in a circle
+greater than that of Venus. The fourth world is Mars; he is distant
+from the sun one hundred and thirty- four million miles, and
+consequently moves round in a circle greater than that of our earth.
+The fifth is Jupiter; he is distant from the Sun five hundred and
+fifty-seven million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle
+greater than that of Mars. The sixth world is Saturn; he is distant
+from the Sun seven hundred and sixty-three million miles, and
+consequently moves round in a circle that surrounds the circles or
+orbits of all the other worlds or planets.
+
+The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space, that
+our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform their
+revolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a strait lirie of
+the whole diameter of the orbit or circle in which Saturn moves round
+the Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fifteen
+hundred and twenty-six million miles; and its circular extent is
+nearly five thousand million; and its globical content is almost
+three thousand five hundred million times three thousand five hundred
+million square miles. [NOTE by Paine: If it should be asked, how can
+man know these things? I have one plain answer to give, which is,
+that man knows how to calculate an eclipse, and also how to calculate
+to a minute of time when the planet Venus, in making her revolutions
+round the Sun, will come in a strait line between our earth and the
+Sun, and will appear to us about the size of a large pea passing
+across the face of the Sun. This happens but twice in about a hundred
+years, at the distance of about eight years from each other, and has
+happened twice in our time, both of which were foreknown by
+calculation. It can also be known when they will happen again for a
+thousand years to come, or to any other portion of time. As
+therefore, man could not be able to do these things if he did not
+understand the solar system, and the manner in which the revolutions
+of the several planets or worlds are performed, the fact of
+calculating an eclipse, or a transit of Venus, is a proof in point
+that the knowledge exists; and as to a few thousand, or even a few
+million miles, more or less, it makes scarcely any sensible
+difference in such immense distances. -- Author.]
+
+But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. Beyond
+this, at a vast distance into space, far beyond all power of
+calculation, are the stars called the fixed stars. They are called
+fixed, because they have no revolutionary motion, as the six worlds
+or planets have that I have been describing. Those fixed stars
+continue always at the same distance from each other, and always in
+the same place, as the Sun does in the center of our system. The
+probability, therefore, is that each of those fixed stars is also a
+Sun, round which another system of worlds or planets, though too
+remote for us to discover, performs its revolutions, as our system of
+worlds does round our central Sun. By this easy progression of ideas,
+the immensity of space will appear to us to be filled with systems of
+worlds; and that no part of space lies at waste, any more than any
+part of our globe of earth and water is left unoccupied.
+
+Having thus endeavoured to convey, in a familiar and easy manner,
+some idea of the structure of the universe, I return to explain what
+I before alluded to, namely, the great benefits arising to man in
+consequence of the Creator having made a Plurality of worlds, such as
+our system is, consisting of a central Sun and six worlds, besides
+satellites, in preference to that of creating one world only of a
+vast extent.
+
+CHAPTER XV - ADVANTAGES OF THE EXISTENCE OF MANY WORLDS IN EACH SOLAR
+SYSTEM.
+
+IT is an idea I have never lost sight of, that all our knowledge of
+science is derived from the revolutions (exhibited to our eye and
+from thence to our understanding) which those several planets or
+worlds of which our system is composed make in their circuit round
+the Sun.
+
+Had then the quantity of matter which these six worlds contain been
+blended into one solitary globe, the consequence to us would have
+been, that either no revolutionary motion would have existed, or not
+a sufficiency of it to give us the ideas and the knowledge of science
+we now have; and it is from the sciences that all the mechanical arts
+that contribute so much to our earthly felicity and comfort are
+derived.
+
+As therefore the Creator made nothing in vain, so also must it be
+believed that be organized the structure of the universe in the most
+advantageous manner for the benefit of man; and as we see, and from
+experience feel, the benefits we derive from the structure of the
+universe, formed as it is, which benefits we should not have had the
+opportunity of enjoying if the structure, so far as relates to our
+system, had been a solitary globe, we can discover at least one
+reason why a plurality of worlds has been made, and that reason calls
+forth the devotional gratitude of man, as well as his admiration.
+
+But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, only, that the
+benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. The
+inhabitants of each of the worlds of which our system is composed,
+enjoy the same opportunities of knowledge as we do. They behold the
+revolutionary motions of our earth, as we behold theirs. All the
+planets revolve in sight of each other; and, therefore, the same
+universal school of science presents itself to all.
+
+Neither does the knowledge stop here. The system of worlds next to us
+exhibits, in its revolutions, the same principles and school of
+science, to the inhabitants of their system, as our system does to
+us, and in like manner throughout the immensity of space.
+
+Our ideas, not only of the almightiness of the Creator, but of his
+wisdom and his beneficence, become enlarged in proportion as we
+contemplate the extent and the structure of the universe. The
+solitary idea of a solitary world, rolling or at rest in the immense
+ocean of space, gives place to the cheerful idea of a society of
+worlds, so happily contrived as to administer, even by their motion,
+instruction to man. We see our own earth filled with abundance; but
+we forget to consider how much of that abundance is owing to the
+scientific knowledge the vast machinery of the universe has unfolded.
+
+CHAPTER XVI - APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING TO THE SYSTEM OF THE
+CHRISTIANS.
+
+BUT, in the midst of those reflections, what are we to think of the
+christian system of faith that forms itself upon the idea of only one
+world, and that of no greater extent, as is before shown, than
+twenty-five thousand miles. An extent which a man, walking at the
+rate of three miles an hour for twelve hours in the day, could he
+keep on in a circular direction, would walk entirely round in less
+than two years. Alas! what is this to the mighty ocean of space, and
+the almighty power of the Creator!
+
+From whence then could arise the solitary and strange conceit that
+the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on his
+protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in
+our world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an
+apple! And, on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in
+the boundless creation had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a
+redeemer? In this case, the person who is irreverently called the Son
+of God, and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to do than
+to travel from world to world, in an endless succession of death,
+with scarcely a momentary interval of life.
+
+It has been by rejecting the evidence, that the word, or works of God
+in the creation, affords to our senses, and the action of our reason
+upon that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical systems of faith,
+and of religion, have been fabricated and set up. There may be many
+systems of religion that so far from being morally bad are in many
+respects morally good: but there can be but ONE that is true; and
+that one necessarily must, as it ever will, be in all things
+consistent with the ever existing word of God that we behold in his
+works. But such is the strange construction of the christian system
+of faith, that every evidence the heavens affords to man, either
+directly contradicts it or renders it absurd.
+
+It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure in encouraging
+myself to believe it, that there have been men in the world who
+persuaded themselves that what is called a pious fraud, might, at
+least under particular circumstances, be productive of some good. But
+the fraud being once established, could not afterwards be explained;
+for it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action, it begets a
+calamitous necessity of going on.
+
+The persons who first preached the christian system of faith, and in
+some measure combined with it the morality preached by Jesus Christ,
+might persuade themselves that it was better than the heathen
+mythology that then prevailed. From the first preachers the fraud
+went on to the second, and to the third, till the idea of its being a
+pious fraud became lost in the belief of its being true; and that
+belief became again encouraged by the interest of those who made a
+livelihood by preaching it.
+
+But though such a belief might, by such means, be rendered almost
+general among the laity, it is next to impossible to account for the
+continual persecution carried on by the church, for several hundred
+years, against the sciences, and against the professors of science,
+if the church had not some record or tradition that it was originally
+no other than a pious fraud, or did not foresee that it could not be
+maintained against the evidence that the structure of the universe
+afforded.
+
+CHAPTER XVII - OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN ALL TIME, AND ALMOST
+UNIVERSALLY, TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLES.
+
+HAVING thus shown the irreconcileable inconsistencies between the
+real word of God existing in the universe, and that which is called
+the word of God, as shown to us in a printed book that any man might
+make, I proceed to speak of the three principal means that have been
+employed in all ages, and perhaps in all countries, to impose upon
+mankind.
+
+Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, The first two
+are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought always to be
+suspected.
+
+With respect to Mystery, everything we behold is, in one sense, a
+mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery: the whole vegetable
+world is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that an acorn, when
+put into the ground, is made to develop itself and become an oak. We
+know not how it is that the seed we sow unfolds and multiplies
+itself, and returns to us such an abundant interest for so small a
+capital.
+
+The fact however, as distinct from the operating cause, is not a
+mystery, because we see it; and we know also the means we are to use,
+which is no other than putting the seed in the ground. We know,
+therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know; and that part of
+the operation that we do not know, and which if we did, we could not
+perform, the Creator takes upon himself and performs it for us. We
+are, therefore, better off than if we had been let into the secret,
+and left to do it for ourselves.
+
+But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word
+mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can
+be applied to light. The God in whom we believe is a God of moral
+truth, and not a God of mystery or obscurity. Mystery is the
+antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention that obscures
+truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never invelops itself
+in mystery; and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped, is
+the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.
+
+Religion, therefore, being the belief of a God, and the practice of
+moral truth, cannot have connection with mystery. The belief of a
+God, so far from having any thing of mystery in it, is of all beliefs
+the most easy, because it arises to us, as is before observed, out of
+necessity. And the practice of moral truth, or, in other words, a
+practical imitation of the moral goodness of God, is no other than
+our acting towards each other as he acts benignly towards all. We
+cannot serve God in the manner we serve those who cannot do without
+such service; and, therefore, the only idea we can have of serving
+God, is that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation
+that God has made. This cannot be done by retiring ourselves from the
+society of the world, and spending a recluse life in selfish devotion.
+
+The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express it, prove
+even to demonstration that it must be free from every thing of
+mystery, and unincumbered with every thing that is mysterious.
+Religion, considered as a duty, is incumbent upon every living soul
+alike, and, therefore, must be on a level to the understanding and
+comprehension of all. Man does not learn religion as he learns the
+secrets and mysteries of a trade. He learns the theory of religion by
+reflection. It arises out of the action of his own mind upon the
+things which he sees, or upon what he may happen to hear or to read,
+and the practice joins itself thereto.
+
+When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems of
+religion incompatible with the word or works of God in the creation,
+and not only above but repugnant to human comprehension, they were
+under the necessity of inventing or adopting a word that should serve
+as a bar to all questions, inquiries and speculations. The word
+mystery answered this purpose, and thus it has happened that
+religion, which is in itself without mystery, has been corrupted into
+a fog of mysteries.
+
+As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as an
+occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the
+latter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other the
+legerdemain.
+
+But before going further into this subject, it will be proper to
+inquire what is to be understood by a miracle.
+
+In the same sense that every thing may be said to be a mystery, so
+also may it be said that every thing is a miracle, and that no one
+thing is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, though larger,
+is not a greater miracle than a mite: nor a mountain a greater
+miracle than an atom. To an almighty power it is no more difficult to
+make the one than the other, and no more difficult to make a million
+of worlds than to make one. Every thing, therefore, is a miracle, in
+one sense; whilst, in the other sense, there is no such thing as a
+miracle. It is a miracle when compared to our power, and to our
+comprehension. It is not a miracle compared to the power that
+performs it. But as nothing in this description conveys the idea that
+is affixed to the word miracle, it is necessary to carry the inquiry
+further.
+
+Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which what they
+call nature is supposed to act; and that a miracle is something
+contrary to the operation and effect of those laws. But unless we
+know the whole extent of those laws, and of what are commonly called
+the powers of nature, we are not able to judge whether any thing that
+may appear to us wonderful or miraculous, be within, or be beyond, or
+be contrary to, her natural power of acting.
+
+The ascension of a man several miles high into the air, would have
+everything in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it were
+not known that a species of air can be generated several times
+lighter than the common atmospheric air, and yet possess elasticity
+enough to prevent the balloon, in which that light air is inclosed,
+from being compressed into as many times less bulk, by the common air
+that surrounds it. In like manner, extracting flashes or sparks of
+fire from the human body, as visibly as from a steel struck with a
+flint, and causing iron or steel to move without any visible agent,
+would also give the idea of a miracle, if we were not acquainted with
+electricity and magnetism; so also would many other experiments in
+natural philosophy, to those who are not acquainted with the subject.
+The restoring persons to life who are to appearance dead as is
+practised upon drowned persons, would also be a miracle, if it were
+not known that animation is capable of being suspended without being
+extinct.
+
+Besides these, there are performances by slight of hand, and by
+persons acting in concert, that have a miraculous appearance, which,
+when known, are thought nothing of. And, besides these, there are
+mechanical and optical deceptions. There is now an exhibition in
+Paris of ghosts or spectres, which, though it is not imposed upon the
+spectators as a fact, has an astonishing appearance. As, therefore,
+we know not the extent to which either nature or art can go, there is
+no criterion to determine what a miracle is; and mankind, in giving
+credit to appearances, under the idea of their being miracles, are
+subject to be continually imposed upon.
+
+Since then appearances are so capable of deceiving, and things not
+real have a strong resemblance to things that are, nothing can be
+more inconsistent than to suppose that the Almighty would make use of
+means, such as are called miracles, that would subject the person who
+performed them to the suspicion of being an impostor, and the person
+who related them to be suspected of lying, and the doctrine intended
+to be supported thereby to be suspected as a fabulous invention.
+
+Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to obtain belief
+to any system or opinion to which the name of religion has been
+given, that of miracle, however successful the imposition may have
+been, is the most inconsistent. For, in the first place, whenever
+recourse is had to show, for the purpose of procuring that belief
+(for a miracle, under any idea of the word, is a show) it implies a
+lameness or weakness in the doctrine that is preached. And, in the
+second place, it is degrading the Almighty into the character of a
+show-man, playing tricks to amuse and make the people stare and
+wonder. It is also the most equivocal sort of evidence that can be
+set up; for the belief is not to depend upon the thing called a
+miracle, but upon the credit of the reporter, who says that he saw
+it; and, therefore, the thing, were it true, would have no better
+chance of being believed than if it were a lie.
+
+Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book, a
+hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen and wrote every
+word that is herein written; would any body believe me? Certainly
+they would not. Would they believe me a whit the more if the thing
+had been a fact? Certainly they would not. Since then a real miracle,
+were it to happen, would be subject to the same fate as the
+falsehood, the inconsistency becomes the greater of supposing the
+Almighty would make use of means that would not answer the purpose
+for which they were intended, even if they were real.
+
+If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out of the
+course of what is called nature, that she must go out of that course
+to accomplish it, and we see an account given of such a miracle by
+the person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the mind very
+easily decided, which is, -- Is it more probable that nature should
+go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never
+seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good
+reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same
+time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that the reporter
+of a miracle tells a lie.
+
+The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large
+enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvellous; but it would
+have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle, if Jonah had
+swallowed the whale. In this, which may serve for all cases of
+miracles, the matter would decide itself as before stated, namely, Is
+it more probable that a man should have, swallowed a whale, or told a
+lie?
+
+But suppose that Jonah had really swallowed the whale, and gone with
+it in his belly to Nineveh, and to convince the people that it was
+true have cast it up in their sight, of the full length and size of a
+whale, would they not have believed him to have been the devil
+instead of a prophet? or if the whale had carried Jonah to Nineveh,
+and cast him up in the same public manner, would they not have
+believed the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one of his imps?
+
+The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related in
+the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus
+Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain; and to the
+top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and
+promising to him all the kingdoms of the world. How happened it that
+he did not discover America? or is it only with kingdoms that his
+sooty highness has any interest.
+
+I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ to believe
+that he told this whale of a miracle himself: neither is it easy to
+account for what purpose it could have been fabricated, unless it
+were to impose upon the connoisseurs of miracles, as is sometimes
+practised upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's farthings, and
+collectors of relics and antiquities; or to render the belief of
+miracles ridiculous, by outdoing miracle, as Don Quixote outdid
+chivalry; or to embarrass the belief of miracles, by making it
+doubtful by what power, whether of God or of the devil, any thing
+called a miracle was performed. It requires, however, a great deal of
+faith in the devil to believe this miracle.
+
+In every point of view in which those things called miracles can be
+placed and considered, the reality of them is improbable, and their
+existence unnecessary. They would not, as before observed, answer any
+useful purpose, even if they were true; for it is more difficult to
+obtain belief to a miracle, than to a principle evidently moral,
+without any miracle. Moral principle speaks universally for itself.
+Miracle could be but a thing of the moment, and seen but by a few;
+after this it requires a transfer of faith from God to man to believe
+a miracle upon man's report. Instead, therefore, of admitting the
+recitals of miracles as evidence of any system of religion being
+true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of its being fabulous.
+It is necessary to the full and upright character of truth that it
+rejects the crutch; and it is consistent with the character of fable
+to seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much for Mystery and Miracle.
+
+As Mystery and Miracle took charge of the past and the present,
+Prophecy took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of faith.
+It was not sufficient to know what had been done, but what would be
+done. The supposed prophet was the supposed historian of times to
+come; and if he happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand
+years, to strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of
+posterity could make it point-blank; and if he happened to be
+directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and
+Nineveh, that God had repented himself and changed his mind. What a
+fool do fabulous systems make of man!
+
+It has been shewn, in a former part of this work, that the original
+meaning of the words prophet and prohesying has been changed, and
+that a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used, is a creature
+of modern invention; and it is owing to this change in the meaning of
+the words, that the flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and
+phrases and expressions now rendered obscure by our not being
+acquainted with the local circumstances to which they applied at the
+time they were used, have been erected into prophecies, and made to
+bend to explanations at the will and whimsical conceits of sectaries,
+expounders, and commentators. Every thing unintelligible was
+prophetical, and every thing insignificant was typical. A blunder
+would have served for a prophecy; and a dish-clout for a type.
+
+If by a prophet we are to suppose a man to whom the Almighty
+communicated some event that would take place in future, either there
+were such men, or there were not. If there were, it is consistent to
+believe that the event so communicated would be told in terms that
+could be understood, and not related in such a loose and obscure
+manner as to be out of the comprehension of those that heard it, and
+so equivocal as to fit almost any circumstance that might happen
+afterwards. It is conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty, to
+suppose he would deal in this jesting manner with mankind; yet all
+the things called prophecies in the book called the Bible come under
+this description.
+
+But it is with Prophecy as it is with Miracle. It could not answer
+the purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy should be
+told could not tell whether the man prophesied or lied, or whether it
+had been revealed to him, or whether he conceited it; and if the
+thing that he prophesied, or pretended to prophesy, should happen, or
+some thing like it, among the multitunic of things that are daily
+happening, nobody could again know whether he foreknew it, or guessed
+at it, or whether it was accidental. A prophet, therefore, is a
+character useless and unnecessary; and the safe side of the case is
+to guard against being imposed upon, by not giving credit to such
+relations.
+
+Upon the whole, Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, are appendages that
+belong to fabulous and not to true religion. They are the means by
+which so many Lo heres! and Lo theres! have been spread about the
+world, and religion been made into a trade. The success of one
+impostor gave encouragement to another, and the quieting salvo of
+doing some good by keeping up a pious fraud protected them from
+remorse.
+
+RECAPITULATION.
+
+HAVING now extended the subject to a greater length than I first
+intended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a summary from
+the whole.
+
+First, That the idea or belief of a word of God existing in print, or
+in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself for the reasons
+already assigned. These reasons, among many others, are the want of
+an universal language; the mutability of language; the errors to
+which translations are subject, the possibility of totally
+suppressing such a word; the probability of altering it, or of
+fabricating the whole, and imposing it upon the world.
+
+Secondly, That the Creation we behold is the real and ever existing
+word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. It proclaimeth his
+power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his goodness and
+beneficence.
+
+Thirdly, That the moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral
+goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards
+all his creatures. That seeing as we daily do the goodness of God to
+all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practise the same
+towards each other; and, consequently, that every thing of
+persecution and revenge between man and man, and every thing of
+cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty.
+
+I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content
+myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power
+that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner
+he pleases, either with or without this body; and it appears more
+probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I
+should have had existence, as I now have, before that existence began.
+
+It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all
+religions agree. All believe in a God, The things in which they
+disgrace are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and therefore,
+if ever an universal religion should prevail, it will not be
+believing any thing new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and
+believing as man believed at first. ["In the childhood of the world,"
+according to the first (French) version; and the strict translation
+of the final sentence is: "Deism was the religion of Adam, supposing
+him not an imaginary being; but none the less must it be left to all
+men to follow, as is their right, the religion and worship they
+prefer. -- Editor.] Adam, if ever there was such a man, was created a
+Deist; but in the mean time, let every man follow, as he has a right
+to do, the religion and worship he prefers.
+
+-- End of Part I
+
+                      The Age Of Reason - Part II
+
+
+Contents
+
+  * Preface
+  * Chapter I - The Old Testament
+  * Chapter II - The New Testament
+  * Chapter III - Conclusion
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+I HAVE mentioned in the former part of The Age of Reason that it had
+long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon Religion; but that
+I had originally reserved it to a later period in life, intending it
+to be the last work I should undertake. The circumstances, however,
+which existed in France in the latter end of the year 1793,
+determined me to delay it no longer. The just and humane principles
+of the Revolution which Philosophy had first diffused, had been
+departed from. The Idea, always dangerous to Society as it is
+derogatory to the Almighty, -- that priests could forgive sins, --
+though it seemed to exist no longer, had blunted the feelings of
+humanity, and callously prepared men for the commission of all
+crimes. The intolerant spirit of church persecution had transferred
+itself into politics; the tribunals, stiled Revolutionary, supplied
+the place of an Inquisition; and the Guillotine of the Stake. I saw
+many of my most intimate friends destroyed; others daily carried to
+prison; and I had reason to believe, and had also intimations given
+me, that the same danger was approaching myself.
+
+Under these disadvantages, I began the former part of the Age of
+Reason; I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament [It must be borne
+in mind that throughout this work Paine generally means by "Bible"
+only the Old Testamut, and speaks of the Now as the "Testament." --
+Editor.] to refer to, though I was writing against both; nor could I
+procure any; notwithstanding which I have produced a work that no
+Bible Believer, though writing at his ease and with a Library of
+Church Books about him, can refute. Towards the latter end of
+December of that year, a motion was made and carried, to exclude
+foreigners from the Convention. There were but two, Anacharsis Cloots
+and myself; and I saw I was particularly pointed at by Bourdon de
+l'Oise, in his speech on that motion.
+
+Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, I sat
+down and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible; and I
+had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has since
+appeared, [This is an allusion to the essay which Paine wrote at an
+earlier part of 1793. See Introduction. -- Editor.] before a guard
+came there, about three in the morning, with an order signed by the
+two Committees of Public Safety and Surety General, for putting me in
+arrestation as a foreigner, and conveying me to the prison of the
+Luxembourg. I contrived, in my way there, to call on Joel Barlow, and
+I put the Manuscript of the work into his hands, as more safe than in
+my possession in prison; and not knowing what might be the fate in
+France either of the writer or the work, I addressed it to the
+protection of the citizens of the United States.
+
+It is justice that I say, that the guard who executed this order, and
+the interpreter to the Committee of General Surety, who accompanied
+them to examine my papers, treated me not only with civility, but
+with respect. The keeper of the 'Luxembourg, Benoit, a man of good
+heart, shewed to me every friendship in his power, as did also all
+his family, while he continued in that station. He was removed from
+it, put into arrestation, and carried before the tribunal upon a
+malignant accusation, but acquitted.
+
+After I had been in Luxembourg about three weeks, the Americans then
+in Paris went in a body to the Convention to reclaim me as their
+countryman and friend; but were answered by the President, Vadier,
+who was also President of the Committee of Surety General, and had
+signed the order for my arrestation, that I was born in England.
+[These excited Americans do not seem to have understood or reported
+the most important item in Vadeer's reply, namely that their
+application was "unofficial," i.e. not made through or sanctioned by
+Gouverneur Morris, American Minister. For the detailed history of all
+this see vol. iii. -- Editor.] I heard no more, after this, from any
+person out of the walls of the prison, till the fall of Robespierre,
+on the 9th of Thermidor -- July 27, 1794.
+
+About two months before this event, I was seized with a fever that in
+its progress had every symptom of becoming mortal, and from the
+effects of which I am not recovered. It was then that I remembered
+with renewed satisfaction, and congratulated myself most sincerely,
+on having written the former part of The Age of Reason. I had then
+but little expectation of surviving, and those about me had less. I
+know therefore by experience the conscientious trial of my own
+principles.
+
+I was then with three chamber comrades: Joseph Vanheule of Bruges,
+Charles Bastfni, and Michael Robyns of Louvain. The unceasing and
+anxious attention of these three friends to me, by night and day, I
+remember with gratitude and mention with pleasure. It happened that a
+physician (Dr. Graham) and a surgeon, (Mr. Bond,) part of the suite
+of General O'Hara, [The officer who at Yorktown, Virginia, carried
+out the sword of Cornwallis for surrender, and satirically offered it
+to Rochambcau instead of Washington. Paine loaned him 300 pounds when
+he (O'Hara) left the prison, the money he had concealed in the lock
+of his cell-door. -- Edifor.] were then in the Luxembourg: I ask not
+myself whether it be convenient to them, as men under the English
+Government, that I express to them my thanks; but I should reproach
+myself if I did not; and also to the physician of the Luxembourg, Dr.
+Markoski.
+
+I have some reason to believe, because I cannot discover any other,
+that this illness preserved me in existence. Among the papers of
+Robespierre that were examined and reported upon to the Convention by
+a Committee of Deputies, is a note in the hand writing of
+Robespierre, in the following words:
+
+"Demander que Thomas Paine soit decrete d'accusation, pour l'interet
+de l'Amerique autant que de la France."
+
+[Demand that Thomas Paine be decreed of accusation, for the interest
+of America, as well as of France.] From what cause it was that the
+intention was not put in execution, I know not, and cannot inform
+myself; and therefore I ascribe it to impossibility, on account of
+that illness.
+
+The Convention, to repair as much as lay in their power the injustice
+I had sustained, invited me publickly and unanimously to return into
+the Convention, and which I accepted, to shew I could bear an injury
+without permitting it to injure my principles or my disposition. It
+is not because right principles have been violated, that they are to
+be abandoned.
+
+I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publications
+written, some in America, and some in England, as answers to the
+former part of "The Age of Reason." If the authors of these can amuse
+themselves by so doing, I shall not interrupt them, They may write
+against the work, and against me, as much as they please; they do me
+more service than they intend, and I can have no objection that they
+write on. They will find, however, by this Second Part, without its
+being written as an answer to them, that they must return to their
+work, and spin their cobweb over again. The first is brushed away by
+accident.
+
+They will now find that I have furnished myself with a Bible and
+Testament; and I can say also that I have found them to be much worse
+books than I had conceived. If I have erred in any thing, in the
+former part of the Age of Reason, it has been by speaking better of
+some parts than they deserved.
+
+I observe, that all my opponents resort, more or less, to what they
+call Scripture Evidence and Bible authority, to help them out. They
+are so little masters of the subject, as to confound a dispute about
+authenticity with a dispute about doctrines; I will, however, put
+them right, that if they should be disposed to write any more, they
+may know how to begin.
+
+THOMAS PAINE.
+October, 1795.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I - THE OLD TESTAMENT
+
+IT has often been said that any thing may be proved from the Bible;
+but before any thing can be admitted as proved by Bible, the Bible
+itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or
+the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot
+be admitted as proof of any thing.
+
+It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible,
+and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on
+the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have
+disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the
+supposeable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has
+said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another
+that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant
+neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and
+this they have called understanding the Bible.
+
+It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former
+part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these
+pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and
+understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each
+understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling
+their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.
+
+Now instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves in
+fractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible,
+these men ought to know, and if they do not it is civility to inform
+them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is
+sufficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God,
+or whether there is not?
+
+There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express
+command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every idea
+we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, by
+Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in
+the East Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When we
+read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (the
+Israelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the
+history itself shews, had given them no offence; that they put all
+those nations to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy;
+that they utterly destroyed men, women and children; that they left
+not a soul to breathe; expressions that are repeated over and over
+again in those books, and that too with exulting ferocity; are we
+sure these things are facts? are we sure that the Creator of man
+commissioned those things to be done? Are we sure that the books that
+tell us so were written by his authority?
+
+It is not the antiquity of a tale that is an evidence of its truth;
+on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous; for the more
+ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resemblance
+of a fable. The origin of every nation is buried in fabulous
+tradition, and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as any
+other.
+
+To charger the commission of things upon the Almighty, which in their
+own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes, as all
+assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants,
+is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us, that those
+assassinations were done by the express command of God. To believe
+therefore the Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in
+the moral justice of God; for wherein could crying or smiling infants
+offend? And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo every
+thing that is tender, sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of
+man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that the Bible
+is fabulous, than the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true,
+that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice.
+
+But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I will,
+in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence as even a
+priest cannot deny; and show, from that evidence, that the Bible is
+not entitled to credit, as being the word of God.
+
+But, before I proceed to this examination, I will show wherein the
+Bible differs from all other ancient writings with respect to the
+nature of the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity; and
+this is is the more proper to be done, because the advocates of the
+Bible, in their answers to the former part of 'The Age of Reason,'
+undertake to say, and they put some stress thereon, that the
+authenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of any other
+ancient book: as if our belief of the one could become any rule for
+our belief of the other.
+
+I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively
+challenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's
+Elements of Geometry; [Euclid, according to chronological history,
+lived three hundred years before Christ, and about one hundred before
+Archimedes; he was of the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. -- Author.]
+and the reason is, because it is a book of self-evident
+demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and of every thing
+relating to time, place, and circumstance. The matters contained in
+that book would have the same authority they now have, had they been
+written by any other person, or had the work been anonymous, or had
+the author never been known; for the identical certainty of who was
+the author makes no part of our belief of the matters contained in
+the book. But it is quite otherwise with respect to the books
+ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, etc.: those are books of
+testimony, and they testify of things naturally incredible; and
+therefore the whole of our belief, as to the authenticity of those
+books, rests, in the first place, upon the certainty that they were
+written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; secondly, upon the credit we
+give to their testimony. We may believe the first, that is, may
+believe the certainty of the authorship, and yet not the testimony;
+in the same manner that we may believe that a certain person gave
+evidence upon a case, and yet not believe the evidence that he gave.
+But if it should be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua,
+and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part
+of the authority and authenticity of those books is gone at once; for
+there can be no such thing as forged or invented testimony; neither
+can there be anonymous testimony, more especially as to things
+naturally incredible; such as that of talking with God face to face,
+or that of the sun and moon standing still at the command of a man.
+
+The greatest part of the other ancient books are works of genius; of
+which kind are those ascribed to Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to
+Demosthenes, to Cicero, etc. Here again the author is not an
+essential in the credit we give to any of those works; for as works
+of genius they would have the same merit they have now, were they
+anonymous. Nobody believes the Trojan story, as related by Homer, to
+be true; for it is the poet only that is admired, and the merit of
+the poet will remain, though the story be fabulous. But if we
+disbelieve the matters related by the Bible authors (Moses for
+instance) as we disbelieve the things related by Homer, there remains
+nothing of Moses in our estimation, but an imposter. As to the
+ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far
+as they relate things probable and credible, and no further: for if
+we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were
+performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man, and a blind man,
+in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ
+by his historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by
+Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and
+his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles
+are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do
+not believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to
+establish our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the
+Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief
+to natural and probable things; and therefore the advocates for the
+Bible have no claim to our belief of the Bible because that we
+believe things stated in other ancient writings; since that we
+believe the things stated in those writings no further than they are
+probable and credible, or because they are self-evident, like Euclid;
+or admire them because they are elegant, like Homer; or approve them
+because they are sedate, like Plato; or judicious, like Aristotle.
+
+Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the authenticity
+of the Bible; and I begin with what are called the five books of
+Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. My
+intention is to shew that those books are spurious, and that Moses is
+not the author of them; and still further, that they were not written
+in the time of Moses nor till several hundred years afterwards; that
+they are no other than an attempted history of the life of Moses, and
+of the times in which he is said to have lived, and also of the times
+prior thereto, written by some very ignorant and stupid pretenders to
+authorship, several hundred years after the death of Moses; as men
+now write histories of things that happened, or are supposed to have
+happened, several hundred or several thousand years ago.
+
+The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from the books
+themselves; and I will confine myself to this evidence only. Were I
+to refer for proofs to any of the ancient authors, whom the advocates
+of the Bible call prophane authors, they would controvert that
+authority, as I controvert theirs: I will therefore meet them on
+their own ground, and oppose them with their own weapon, the Bible.
+
+In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses is
+the author of those books; and that he is the author, is altogether
+an unfounded opinion, got abroad nobody knows how. The style and
+manner in which those books are written give no room to believe, or
+even to suppose, they were written by Moses; for it is altogether the
+style and manner of another person speaking of Moses. In Exodus,
+Leviticus and Numbers, (for every thing in Genesis is prior to the
+times of Moses and not the least allusion is made to him therein,)
+the whole, I say, of these books is in the third person; it is
+always, the Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord; or
+Moses said unto the people, or the people said unto Moses; and this
+is the style and manner that historians use in speaking of the person
+whose lives and actions they are writing. It may be said, that a man
+may speak of himself in the third person, and, therefore, it may be
+supposed that Moses did; but supposition proves nothing; and if the
+advocates for the belief that Moses wrote those books himself have
+nothing better to advance than supposition, they may as well be
+silent.
+
+But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of himself
+in the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that
+manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, that it is
+Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and
+absurd: -- for example, Numbers xii. 3: "Now the man Moses was very
+MEEK, above all the men which were on the face of the earth." If
+Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he
+was one of the most vain and arrogant coxcombs; and the advocates for
+those books may now take which side they please, for both sides are
+against them: if Moses was not the author, the books are without
+authority; and if he was the author, the author is without credit,
+because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie
+in sentiment.
+
+In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks more evidently
+than in the former books that Moses is not the writer. The manner
+here used is dramatical; the writer opens the subject by a short
+introductory discourse, and then introduces Moses as in the act of
+speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his harrangue, he (the
+writer) resumes his own part, and speaks till he brings Moses forward
+again, and at last closes the scene with an account of the death,
+funeral, and character of Moses.
+
+This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book: from the
+first verse of the first chapter, to the end of the fifth verse, it
+is the writer who speaks; he then introduces Moses as in the act of
+making his harrangue, and this continues to the end of the 40th verse
+of the fourth chapter; here the writer drops Moses, and speaks
+historically of what was done in consequence of what Moses, when
+living, is supposed to have said, and which the writer has
+dramatically rehearsed.
+
+The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifth
+chapter, though it is only by saying that Moses called the people of
+Isracl together; he then introduces Moses as before, and continues
+him as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 26th chapter. He
+does the same thing at the beginning of the 27th chapter; and
+continues Moses as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 28th
+chapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks again through the
+whole of the first verse, and the first line of the second verse,
+where he introduces Moses for the last time, and continues him as in
+the act of speaking, to the end of the 33d chapter.
+
+The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of Moses,
+comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last chapter: he
+begins by telling the reader, that Moses went up to the top of
+Pisgah, that he saw from thence the land which (the writer says) had
+been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that he, Moses, died
+there in the land of Moab, that he buried him in a valley in the land
+of Moab, but that no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day, that
+is unto the time in which the writer lived who wrote the book of
+Deuteronomy. The writer then tells us, that Moses was one hundred and
+ten years of age when he died -- that his eye was not dim, nor his
+natural force abated; and he concludes by saying, that there arose
+not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom, says this
+anonymous writer, the Lord knew face to face.
+
+Having thus shewn, as far as grammatical evidence implies, that Moses
+was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a few
+observations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book of
+Deuteronomy, proceed to shew, from the historical and chronological
+evidence contained in those books, that Moses was not, because he
+could not be, the writer of them; and consequently, that there is no
+authority for believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of
+men, women, and children, told of in those books, were done, as those
+books say they were, at the command of God. It is a duty incumbent on
+every true deist, that he vindicates the moral justice of God against
+the calumnies of the Bible.
+
+The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, for it is an
+anonymous work, is obscure, and also contradictory with himself in
+the account he has given of Moses.
+
+After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does not
+appear from any account that he ever came down again) he tells us,
+that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he buried him in
+a valley in the land of Moab; but as there is no antecedent to the
+pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was, that did bury him. If the
+writer meant that he (God) buried him, how should he (the writer)
+know it? or why should we (the readers) believe him? since we know
+not who the writer was that tells us so, for certainly Moses could
+not himself tell where he was buried.
+
+The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of
+Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which this writer lived;
+how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land
+of Moab? for as the writer lived long after the time of Moses, as is
+evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a
+great length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not
+at his funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses
+himself could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto
+this day. To make Moses the speaker, would be an improvement on the
+play of a child that hides himself and cries nobody can find me;
+nobody can find Moses.
+
+This writer has no where told us how he came by the speeches which he
+has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore we have a
+right to conclude that he either composed them himself, or wrote them
+from oral tradition. One or other of these is the more probable,
+since he has given, in the fifth chapter, a table of commandments, in
+which that called the fourth commandment is different from the fourth
+commandment in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. In that of Exodus,
+the reason given for keeping the seventh day is, because (says the
+commandment) God made the heavens and the earth in six days, and
+rested on the seventh; but in that of Deuteronomy, the reason given
+is, that it was the day on which the children of Israel came out of
+Egypt, and therefore, says this commandment, the Lord thy God
+commanded thee to kee the sabbath-day This makes no mention of the
+creation, nor that of the coming out of Egypt. There are also many
+things given as laws of Moses in this book, that are not to be found
+in any of the other books; among which is that inhuman and brutal
+law, xxi. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes parents, the father and
+the mother, to bring their own children to have them stoned to death
+for what it pleased them to call stubbornness. -- But priests have
+always been fond of preaching up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy
+preaches up tythes; and it is from this book, xxv. 4, they have taken
+the phrase, and applied it to tything, that "thou shalt not muzzle
+the ox when he treadeth Out the corn:" and that this might not escape
+observation, they have noted it in the table of contents at the head
+of the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two
+lines. O priests! priests! ye are willing to be compared to an ox,
+for the sake of tythes. [An elegant pocket edition of Paine's
+Theological Works (London. R. Carlile, 1822) has in its title a
+picture of Paine, as a Moses in evening dress, unfolding the two
+tables of his "Age of Reason" to a farmer from whom the Bishop of
+Llandaff (who replied to this work) has taken a sheaf and a lamb
+which he is carrying to a church at the summit of a well stocked
+hill. -- Editor.] -- Though it is impossible for us to know
+identically who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to
+discover him professionally, that he was some Jewish priest, who
+lived, as I shall shew in the course of this work, at least three
+hundred and fifty years after the time of Moses.
+
+I come now to speak of the historical and chronological evidence. The
+chronology that I shall use is the Bible chronology; for I mean not
+to go out of the Bible for evidence of any thing, but to make the
+Bible itself prove historically and chronologically that Moses is not
+the author of the books ascribed to him. It is therefore proper that
+I inform the readers (such an one at least as may not have the
+opportunity of knowing it) that in the larger Bibles, and also in
+some smaller ones, there is a series of chronology printed in the
+margin of every page for the purpose of shawing how long the
+historical matters stated in each page happened, or are supposed to
+have happened, before Christ, and consequently the distance of time
+between one historical circumstance and another.
+
+I begin with the book of Genesis. -- In Genesis xiv., the writer
+gives an account of Lot being taken prisoner in a battle between the
+four kings against five, and carried off; and that when the account
+of Lot being taken came to Abraham, that he armed all his household
+and marched to rescue Lot from the captors; and that he pursued them
+unto Dan. (ver. 14.)
+
+To shew in what manner this expression of Pursuing them unto Dan
+applies to the case in question, I will refer to two circumstances,
+the one in America, the other in France. The city now called New
+York, in America, was originally New Amsterdam; and the town in
+France, lately called Havre Marat, was before called Havre-de-Grace.
+New Amsterdam was changed to New York in the year 1664;
+Havre-de-Grace to Havre Marat in the year 1793. Should, therefore,
+any writing be found, though without date, in which the name of
+New-York should be mentioned, it would be certain evidence that such
+a writing could not have been written before, and must have been
+written after New Amsterdam was changed to New York, and consequently
+not till after the year 1664, or at least during the course of that
+year. And in like manner, any dateless writing, with the name of
+Havre Marat, would be certain evidence that such a writing must have
+been written after Havre-de-Grace became Havre Marat, and
+consequently not till after the year 1793, or at least during the
+course of that year.
+
+I now come to the application of those cases, and to show that there
+was no such place as Dan till many years after the death of Moses;
+and consequently, that Moses could not be the writer of the book of
+Genesis, where this account of pursuing them unto Dan is given.
+
+The place that is called Dan in the Bible was originally a town of
+the Gentiles, called Laish; and when the tribe of Dan seized upon
+this town, they changed its name to Dan, in commemoration of Dan, who
+was the father of that tribe, and the great grandson of Abraham.
+
+To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis to
+chapter xviii. of the book called the Book of judges. It is there
+said (ver. 27) that "they (the Danites) came unto Laish to a people
+that were quiet and secure, and they smote them with the edge of the
+sword [the Bible is filled with murder] and burned the city with
+fire; and they built a city, (ver. 28,) and dwelt therein, and [ver.
+29,] they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan,
+their father; howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first."
+
+This account of the Danites taking possession of Laish and changing
+it to Dan, is placed in the book of Judges immediately after the
+death of Samson. The death of Samson is said to have happened B.C.
+1120 and that of Moses B.C. 1451; and, therefore, according to the
+historical arrangement, the place was not called Dan till 331 years
+after the death of Moses.
+
+There is a striking confusion between the historical and the
+chronological arrangement in the book of judges. The last five
+chapters, as they stand in the book, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, are put
+chronologically before all the preceding chapters; they are made to
+be 28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 before the 15th, 245 before
+the 13th, 195 before the 9th, go before the 4th, and 15 years before
+the 1st chapter. This shews the uncertain and fabulous state of the
+Bible. According to the chronological arrangement, the taking of
+Laish, and giving it the name of Dan, is made to be twenty years
+after the death of Joshua, who was the successor of Moses; and by the
+historical order, as it stands in the book, it is made to be 306
+years after the death of Joshua, and 331 after that of Moses; but
+they both exclude Moses from being the writer of Genesis, because,
+according to either of the statements, no such a place as Dan existed
+in the time of Moses; and therefore the writer of Genesis must have
+been some person who lived after the town of Laish had the name of
+Dan; and who that person was nobody knows, and consequently the book
+of Genesis is anonymous, and without authority.
+
+I come now to state another point of historical and chronological
+evidence, and to show therefrom, as in the preceding case, that Moses
+is not the author of the book of Genesis.
+
+In Genesis xxxvi. there is given a genealogy of the sons and
+descendants of Esau, who are called Edomites, and also a list by name
+of the kings of Edom; in enumerating of which, it is said, verse 31,
+"And these are the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned
+any king over the children of Israel."
+
+Now, were any dateless writing to be found, in which, speaking of any
+past events, the writer should say, these things happened before
+there was any Congress in America, or before there was any Convention
+in France, it would be evidence that such writing could not have been
+written before, and could only be written after there was a Congress
+in America or a Convention in France, as the case might be; and,
+consequently, that it could not be written by any person who died
+before there was a Congress in the one country, or a Convention in
+the other.
+
+Nothing is more frequent, as well in history as in conversation, than
+to refer to a fact in the room of a date: it is most natural so to
+do, because a fact fixes itself in the memory better than a date;
+secondly, because the fact includes the date, and serves to give two
+ideas at once; and this manner of speaking by circumstances implies
+as positively that the fact alluded to is past, as if it was so
+expressed. When a person in speaking upon any matter, says, it was
+before I was married, or before my son was born, or before I went to
+America, or before I went to France, it is absolutely understood, and
+intended to be understood, that he has been married, that he has had
+a son, that he has been in America, or been in France. Language does
+not admit of using this mode of expression in any other sense; and
+whenever such an expression is found anywhere, it can only be
+understood in the sense in which only it could have been used.
+
+The passage, therefore, that I have quoted -- that "these are the
+kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the
+children of Israel," could only have been written after the first
+king began to reign over them; and consequently that the book of
+Genesis, so far from having been written by Moses, could not have
+been written till the time of Saul at least. This is the positive
+sense of the passage; but the expression, any king, implies more
+kings than one, at least it implies two, and this will carry it to
+the time of David; and, if taken in a general sense, it carries
+itself through all times of the Jewish monarchy.
+
+Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that professed to
+have been written after kings began to reign in Israel, it would have
+been impossible not to have seen the application of it. It happens
+then that this is the case; the two books of Chronicles, which give a
+history of all the kings of Israel, are professedly, as well as in
+fact, written after the Jewish monarchy began; and this verse that I
+have quoted, and all the remaining verses of Genesis xxxvi. are, word
+for word, In 1 Chronicles i., beginning at the 43d verse.
+
+It was with consistency that the writer of the Chronicles could say
+as he has said, 1 Chron. i. 43, "These are the kings that reigned in
+Edom, before there reigned any king ever the children of Israel,"
+because he was going to give, and has given, a list of the kings that
+had reigned in Israel; but as it is impossible that the same
+expression could have been used before that period, it is as certain
+as any thing can be proved from historical language, that this part
+of Genesis is taken from Chronicles, and that Genesis is not so old
+as Chronicles, and probably not so old as the book of Homer, or as
+AEsop's Fables; admitting Homer to have been, as the tables of
+chronology state, contemporary with David or Solomon, and AEsop to
+have lived about the end of the Jewish monarchy.
+
+Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which
+only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and
+there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories,
+fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright
+lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark,
+drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, without the merit of being
+entertaining, and the account of men living to eight and nine hundred
+years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the
+Mythology.
+
+Besides, the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most
+horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the
+wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the
+pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation,
+committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the
+history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance:
+
+When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and
+murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi.
+13): "And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the
+congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was
+wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over
+thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle;
+and Moses said unto them, "Have ye saved all the women alive?"
+behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of
+Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor,
+and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now
+therefore, "kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
+woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-
+children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for
+Yourselves."
+
+Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have
+disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than
+Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys,
+to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters.
+
+Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers, one
+child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the
+hands of an executioner: let any daughter put herself in the
+situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of
+a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? It is in
+vain that we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will have her
+course, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is a false
+religion.
+
+After this detestable order, follows an account of the plunder taken,
+and the manner of dividing it; and here it is that the profaneings of
+priestly hypocrisy increases the catalogue of crimes. Verse 37, "And
+the Lord's tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and
+fifteen; and the beeves were thirty and six thousand, of which the
+Lord's tribute was threescore and twelve; and the asses were thirty
+thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was threescore and one; and the
+persons were sixteen thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was thirty
+and two." In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as
+in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to
+read, or for decency to hear; for it appears, from the 35th verse of
+this chapter, that the number of women-children consigned to
+debauchery by the order of Moses was thirty-two thousand.
+
+People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended
+word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for
+granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit
+themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of
+the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been
+taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is
+quite another thing, it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy;
+for what can be greater blasphemy, than to ascribe the wickedness of
+man to the orders of the Almighty!
+
+But to return to my subject, that of showing that Moses is not the
+author of the books ascribed to him, and that the Bible is spurious.
+The two instances I have already given would be sufficient, without
+any additional evidence, to invalidate the authenticity of any book
+that pretended to be four or five hundred years more ancient than the
+matters it speaks of, refers to, them as facts; for in the case of
+pursuing them unto Dan, and of the kings that reigned over the
+children of Israel; not even the flimsy pretence of prophecy can be
+pleaded. The expressions are in the preter tense, and it would be
+downright idiotism to say that a man could prophecy in the preter
+tense.
+
+But there are many other passages scattered throughout those books
+that unite in the same point of evidence. It is said in Exodus,
+(another of the books ascribed to Moses,) xvi. 35: "And the children
+of Israel did eat manna until they came to a land inhabited; they did
+eat manna until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan."
+
+Whether the children of Israel ate manna or not, or what manna was,
+or whether it was anything more than a kind of fungus or small
+mushroom, or other vegetable substance common to that part of the
+country, makes no part of my argument; all that I mean to show is,
+that it is not Moses that could write this account, because the
+account extends itself beyond the life time of Moses. Moses,
+according to the Bible, (but it is such a book of lies and
+contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe, or whether
+any) died in the wilderness, and never came upon the borders of 'the
+land of Canaan; and consequently, it could not be he that said what
+the children of Israel did, or what they ate when they came there.
+This account of eating manna, which they tell us was written by
+Moses, extends itself to the time of Joshua, the successor of Moses,
+as appears by the account given in the book of Joshua, after the
+children of Israel had passed the river Jordan, and came into the
+borders of the land of Canaan. Joshua, v. 12: "And the manna ceased
+on the morrow, after they had eaten of the old corn of the land;
+neither had the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat
+of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."
+
+But a more remarkable instance than this occurs in Deuteronomy;
+which, while it shows that Moses could not be the writer of that
+book, shows also the fabulous notions that prevailed at that time
+about giants' In Deuteronomy iii. 11, among the conquests said to be
+made by Moses, is an account of the taking of Og, king of Bashan:
+"For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the race of giants; behold,
+his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the
+children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four
+cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." A cubit is 1
+foot 9 888/1000 inches; the length therefore of the bed was 16 feet 4
+inches, and the breadth 7 feet 4 inches: thus much for this giant's
+bed. Now for the historical part, which, though the evidence is not
+so direct and positive as in the former cases, is nevertheless very
+presumable and corroborating evidence, and is better than the best
+evidence on the contrary side.
+
+The writer, by way of proving the existence of this giant, refers to
+his bed, as an ancient relick, and says, is it not in Rabbath (or
+Rabbah) of the children of Ammon? meaning that it is; for such is
+frequently the bible method of affirming a thing. But it could not be
+Moses that said this, because Moses could know nothing about Rabbah,
+nor of what was in it. Rabbah was not a city belonging to this giant
+king, nor was it one of the cities that Moses took. The knowledge
+therefore that this bed was at Rabbah, and of the particulars of its
+dimensions, must be referred to the time when Rabbah was taken, and
+this was not till four hundred years after the death of Moses; for
+which, see 2 Sam. xii. 26: "And Joab [David's general] fought against
+Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and took the royal city," etc.
+
+As I am not undertaking to point out all the contradictions in time,
+place, and circumstance that abound in the books ascribed to Moses,
+and which prove to demonstration that those books could not be
+written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses, I proceed to the book of
+Joshua, and to shew that Joshua is not the author of that book, and
+that it is anonymous and without authority. The evidence I shall
+produce is contained in the book itself: I will not go out of the
+Bible for proof against the supposed authenticity of the Bible. False
+testimony is always good against itself.
+
+Joshua, according to Joshua i., was the immediate successor of Moses;
+he was, moreover, a military man, which Moses was not; and he
+continued as chief of the people of Israel twenty-five years; that
+is, from the time that Moses died, which, according to the Bible
+chronology, was B.C. 1451, until B.C. 1426, when, according to the
+same chronology, Joshua died. If, therefore, we find in this book,
+said to have been written by Joshua, references to facts done after
+the death of Joshua, it is evidence that Joshua could not be the
+author; and also that the book could not have been written till after
+the time of the latest fact which it records. As to the character of
+the book, it is horrid; it is a military history of rapine and
+murder, as savage and brutal as those recorded of his predecessor in
+villainy and hypocrisy, Moses; and the blasphemy consists, as in the
+former books, in ascribing those deeds to the orders of the Almighty.
+
+In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in the
+preceding books, is written in the third person; it is the historian
+of Joshua that speaks, for it would have been absurd and vainglorious
+that Joshua should say of himself, as is said of him in the last
+verse of the sixth chapter, that "his fame was noised throughout all
+the country." -- I now come more immediately to the proof.
+
+In Joshua xxiv. 31, it is said "And Israel served the Lord all the
+days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over-lived
+Joshua." Now, in the name of common sense, can it be Joshua that
+relates what people had done after he was dead? This account must not
+only have been written by some historian that lived after Joshua, but
+that lived also after the elders that out-lived Joshua.
+
+There are several passages of a general meaning with respect to time,
+scattered throughout the book of Joshua, that carries the time in
+which the book was written to a distance from the time of Joshua, but
+without marking by exclusion any particular time, as in the passage
+above quoted. In that passage, the time that intervened between the
+death of Joshua and the death of the elders is excluded descriptively
+and absolutely, and the evidence substantiates that the book could
+not have been written till after the death of the last.
+
+But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am going to
+quote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, they imply
+a time far more distant from the days of Joshua than is contained
+between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders. Such is the
+passage, x. 14, where, after giving an account that the sun stood
+still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at the
+command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to amuse children) [NOTE: This
+tale of the sun standing still upon Motint Gibeon, and the moon in
+the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself.
+Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known all
+over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun did not
+rise, and the other why it did not set; and the tradition of it would
+be universal; whereas there is not a nation in the world that knows
+anything about it. But why must the moon stand still? What occasion
+could there be for moonlight in the daytime, and that too whilst the
+sun shined? As a poetical figure, the whole is well enough; it is
+akin to that in the song of Deborah and Barak, The stars in their
+courses fought against Sisera; but it is inferior to the figurative
+declaration of Mahomet to the persons who came to expostulate with
+him on his goings on, Wert thou, said he, to come to me with the sun
+in thy right hand and the moon in thy left, it should not alter my
+career. For Joshua to have exceeded Mahomet, he should have put the
+sun and moon, one in each pocket, and carried them as Guy Faux
+carried his dark lanthorn, and taken them out to shine as he might
+happen to want them. The sublime and the ridiculous are often so
+nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One
+step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the
+ridiculous makes the sublime again; the account, however, abstracted
+from the poetical fancy, shews the ignorance of Joshua, for he should
+have commanded the earth to have stood still. -- Author.] the passage
+says: "And there was no day like that, before it, nor after it, that
+the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man."
+
+The time implied by the expression after it, that is, after that day,
+being put in comparison with all the time that passed before it,
+must, in order to give any expressive signification to the passage,
+mean a great length of time: -- for example, it would have been
+ridiculous to have said so the next day, or the next week, or the
+next month, or the next year; to give therefore meaning to the
+passage, comparative with the wonder it relates, and the prior time
+it alludes to, it must mean centuries of years; less however than one
+would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admissible.
+
+A distant, but general time is also expressed in chapter viii.;
+where, after giving an account of the taking the city of Ai, it is
+said, ver. 28th, "And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an heap for ever,
+a desolation unto this day;" and again, ver. 29, where speaking of
+the king of Ai, whom Joshua had hanged, and buried at the entering of
+the gate, it is said, "And he raised thereon a great heap of stones,
+which remaineth unto this day," that is, unto the day or time in
+which the writer of the book of Joshua lived. And again, in chapter
+x. where, after speaking of the five kings whom Joshua had hanged on
+five trees, and then thrown in a cave, it is said, "And he laid great
+stones on the cave's mouth, which remain unto this very day."
+
+In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of the tribes, and
+of the places which they conquered or attempted, it is said, xv. 63,
+"As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of
+Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the
+children of Judah AT JERUSALEM unto this day." The question upon this
+passage is, At what time did the Jebusites and the children of Judah
+dwell together at Jerusalem? As this matter occurs again in judges i.
+I shall reserve my observations till I come to that part.
+
+Having thus shewn from the book of Joshua itself, without any
+auxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not the author of that
+book, and that it is anonymous, and consequently without authority, I
+proceed, as before-mentioned, to the book of Judges.
+
+The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it; and, therefore,
+even the pretence is wanting to call it the word of God; it has not
+so much as a nominal voucher; it is altogether fatherless.
+
+This book begins with the same expression as the book of Joshua. That
+of Joshua begins, chap i. 1, Now after the death of Moses, etc., and
+this of the Judges begins, Now after the death of Joshua, etc. This,
+and the similarity of stile between the two books, indicate that they
+are the work of the same author; but who he was, is altogether
+unknown; the only point that the book proves is that the author lived
+long after the time of Joshua; for though it begins as if it followed
+immediately after his death, the second chapter is an epitome or
+abstract of the whole book, which, according to the Bible chronology,
+extends its history through a space of 306 years; that is, from the
+death of Joshua, B.C. 1426 to the death of Samson, B.C. 1120, and
+only 25 years before Saul went to seek his father's asses, and was
+made king. But there is good reason to believe, that it was not
+written till the time of David, at least, and that the book of Joshua
+was not written before the same time.
+
+In Judges i., the writer, after announcing the death of Joshua,
+proceeds to tell what happened between the children of Judah and the
+native inhabitants of the land of Canaan. In this statement the
+writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusalem in the 7th verse, says
+immediately after, in the 8th verse, by way of explanation, "Now the
+children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and taken it;"
+consequently this book could not have been written before Jerusalem
+had been taken. The reader will recollect the quotation I have just
+before made from Joshua xv. 63, where it said that the Jebusites
+dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at this day; meaning
+the time when the book of Joshua was written.
+
+The evidence I have already produced to prove that the books I have
+hitherto treated of were not written by the persons to whom they are
+ascribed, nor till many years after their death, if such persons ever
+lived, is already so abundant, that I can afford to admit this
+passage with less weight than I am entitled to draw from it. For the
+case is, that so far as the Bible can be credited as an history, the
+city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David; and
+consequently, that the book of Joshua, and of Judges, were not
+written till after the commencement of the reign of David, which was
+370 years after the death of Joshua.
+
+The name of the city that was afterward called Jerusalem was
+originally Jebus, or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebusites.
+The account of David's taking this city is given in 2 Samuel, v. 4,
+etc.; also in 1 Chron. xiv. 4, etc. There is no mention in any part
+of the Bible that it was ever taken before, nor any account that
+favours such an opinion. It is not said, either in Samuel or in
+Chronicles, that they "utterly destroyed men, women and children,
+that they left not a soul to breathe," as is said of their other
+conquests; and the silence here observed implies that it was taken by
+capitulation; and that the Jebusites, the native inhabitants,
+continued to live in the place after it was taken. The account
+therefore, given in Joshua, that "the Jebusites dwell with the
+children of Judah" at Jerusalem at this day, corresponds to no other
+time than after taking the city by David.
+
+Having now shown that every book in the Bible, from Genesis to
+Judges, is without authenticity, I come to the book of Ruth, an idle,
+bungling story, foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about a
+strolling country-girl creeping slily to bed to her cousin Boaz. [The
+text of Ruth does not imply the unpleasant sense Paine's words are
+likely to convey. -- Editor.] Pretty stuff indeed to be called the
+word of God. It is, however, one of the best books in the Bible, for
+it is free from murder and rapine.
+
+I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to shew that those books
+were not written by Samuel, nor till a great length of time after the
+death of Samuel; and that they are, like all the former books,
+anonymous, and without authority.
+
+To be convinced that these books have been written much later than
+the time of Samuel, and consequently not by him, it is only necessary
+to read the account which the writer gives of Saul going to seek his
+father's asses, and of his interview with Samuel, of whom Saul went
+to enquire about those lost asses, as foolish people nowa-days go to
+a conjuror to enquire after lost things.
+
+The writer, in relating this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses,
+does not tell it as a thing that had just then happened, but as an
+ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in the
+language or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which obliges
+the writer to explain the story in the terms or language used in the
+time the writer lived.
+
+Samuel, in the account given of him in the first of those books,
+chap. ix. 13 called the seer; and it is by this term that Saul
+enquires after him, ver. 11, "And as they [Saul and his servant] went
+up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw
+water; and they said unto them, Is the seer here?" Saul then went
+according to the direction of these maidens, and met Samuel without
+knowing him, and said unto him, ver. 18, "Tell me, I pray thee, where
+the seer's house is? and Samuel answered Saul, and said, I am the
+seer."
+
+As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions and
+answers, in the language or manner of speaking used in the time they
+are said to have been spoken, and as that manner of speaking was out
+of use when this author wrote, he found it necessary, in order to
+make the story understood, to explain the terms in which these
+questions and answers are spoken; and he does this in the 9th verse,
+where he says, "Before-tune in Israel, when a man went to enquire of
+God, thus he spake, Come let us go to the seer; for he that is now
+called a prophet, was before-time called a seer." This proves, as I
+have before said, that this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, was
+an ancient story at the time the book of Samuel was written, and
+consequently that Samuel did not write it, and that the book is
+without authenticity,
+
+But if we go further into those books the evidence is still more
+positive that Samuel is not the writer of them; for they relate
+things that did not happen till several years after the death of
+Samuel. Samuel died before Saul; for i Samuel, xxviii. tells, that
+Saul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up after he was dead; yet
+the history of matters contained in those books is extended through
+the remaining part of Saul's life, and to the latter end of the life
+of David, who succeded Saul. The account of the death and burial of
+Samuel (a thing which he could not write himself) is related in i
+Samuel xxv.; and the chronology affixed to this chapter makes this to
+be B.C. 1060; yet the history of this first book is brought down to
+B.C. 1056, that is, to the death of Saul, which was not till four
+years after the death of Samuel.
+
+The second book of Samuel begins with an account of things that did
+not happen till four years after Samuel was dead; for it begins with
+the reign of David, who succeeded Saul, and it goes on to the end of
+David's reign, which was forty-three years after the death of Samuel;
+and, therefore, the books are in themselves positive evidence that
+they were not written by Samuel.
+
+I have now gone through all the books in the first part of the Bible,
+to which the names of persons are affixed, as being the authors of
+those books, and which the church, styling itself the Christian
+church, have imposed upon the world as the writings of Moses, Joshua
+and Samuel; and I have detected and proved the falsehood of this
+imposition. -- And now ye priests, of every description, who have
+preached and written against the former part of the 'Age of Reason,'
+what have ye to say? Will ye with all this mass of evidence against
+you, and staring you in the face, still have the assurance to march
+into your pulpits, and continue to impose these books on your
+congregations, as the works of inspired penmen and the word of God?
+when it is as evident as demonstration can make truth appear, that
+the persons who ye say are the authors, are not the authors, and that
+ye know not who the authors are. What shadow of pretence have ye now
+to produce for continuing the blasphemous fraud? What have ye still
+to offer against the pure and moral religion of deism, in support of
+your system of falsehood, idolatry, and pretended revelation? Had the
+cruel and murdering orders, with which the Bible is filled, and the
+numberless torturing executions of men, women, and children, in
+consequence of those orders, been ascribed to some friend, whose
+memory you revered, you would have glowed with satisfaction at
+detecting the falsehood of the charge, and gloried in defending his
+injured fame. It is because ye are sunk in the cruelty of
+superstition, or feel no interest in the honour of your Creator, that
+ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous
+indifference. The evidence I have produced, and shall still produce
+in the course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without
+authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness of a priest,
+relieve and tranquillize the minds of millions: it will free them
+from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which priestcraft and
+the Bible had infused into their minds, and which stood in
+everlasting opposition to all their ideas of his moral justice and
+benevolence.
+
+I come now to the two books of Kings, and the two books of
+Chronicles. -- Those books are altogether historical, and are chiefly
+confined to the lives and actions of the Jewish kings, who in general
+were a parcel of rascals: but these are matters with which we have no
+more concern than we have with the Roman emperors, or Homer's account
+of the Trojan war. Besides which, as those books are anonymous, and
+as we know nothing of the writer, or of his character, it is
+impossible for us to know what degree of credit to give to the
+matters related therein. Like all other ancient histories, they
+appear to be a jumble of fable and of fact, and of probable and of
+improbable things, but which distance of time and place, and change
+of circumstances in the world, have rendered obsolete and
+uninteresting.
+
+The chief use I shall make of those books will be that of comparing
+them with each other, and with other parts of the Bible, to show the
+confusion, contradiction, and cruelty in this pretended word of God.
+
+The first book of Kings begins with the reign of Solomon, which,
+according to the Bible chronology, was B.C. 1015; and the second book
+ends B.C. 588, being a little after the reign of Zedekiah, whom
+Nebuchadnezzar, after taking Jerusalem and conquering the Jews,
+carried captive to Babylon. The two books include a space of 427
+years.
+
+The two books of Chroniclcs are an history of the same times, and in
+general of the same persons, by another author; for it would be
+absurd to suppose that the same author wrote the history twice over.
+The first book of Chronicles (after giving the genealogy from Adam to
+Saul, which takes up the first nine chapters) begins with the reign
+of David; and the last book ends, as in the last book of Kings, soon,
+after the reign of Zedekiah, about B.C. 588. The last two verses of
+the last chapter bring the history 52 years more forward, that is, to
+536. But these verses do not belong to the book, as I shall show when
+I come to speak of the book of Ezra.
+
+The two books of Kings, besides the history of Saul, David, and
+Solomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain an abstract of the
+lives of seventeen kings, and one queen, who are stiled kings of
+Judah; and of nineteen, who are stiled kings of Israel; for the
+Jewish nation, immediately on the death of Solomon, split into two
+parties, who chose separate kings, and who carried on most rancorous
+wars against each other.
+
+These two books are little more than a history of assassinations,
+treachery, and wars. The cruelties that the Jews had accustomed
+themselves to practise on the Canaanites, whose country they had
+savagely invaded, under a pretended gift from God, they afterwards
+practised as furiously on each other. Scarcely half their kings died
+a natural death, and in some instances whole families were destroyed
+to secure possession to the successor, who, after a few years, and
+sometimes only a few months, or less, shared the same fate. In 2
+Kings x., an account is given of two baskets full of children's
+heads, seventy in number, being exposed at the entrance of the city;
+they were the children of Ahab, and were murdered by the orders of
+Jehu, whom Elisha, the pretended man of God, had anointed to be king
+over Israel, on purpose to commit this bloody deed, and assassinate
+his predecessor. And in the account of the reign of Menahem, one of
+the kings of Israel who had murdered Shallum, who had reigned but one
+month, it is said, 2 Kings xv. 16, that Menahem smote the city of
+Tiphsah, because they opened not the city to him, and all the women
+therein that were with child he ripped up.
+
+Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Almighty would
+distinguish any nation of people by the name of his chosen people, we
+must suppose that people to have been an example to all the rest of
+the world of the purest piety and humanity, and not such a nation of
+ruffians and cut-throats as the ancient Jews were, -- a people who,
+corrupted by and copying after such monsters and imposters as Moses
+and Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, and David, had distinguished themselves
+above all others on the face of the known earth for barbarity and
+wickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut our eyes and steel our
+hearts it is impossible not to see, in spite of all that
+long-established superstition imposes upon the mind, that the
+flattering appellation of his chosen people is no other than a LIE
+which the priests and leaders of the Jews had invented to cover the
+baseness of their own characters; and which Christian priests
+sometimes as corrupt, and often as cruel, have professed to believe.
+
+The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same crimes; but
+the history is broken in several places, by the author leaving out
+the reign of some of their kings; and in this, as well as in that of
+Kings, there is such a frequent transition from kings of Judah to
+kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of Judah, that the
+narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same book the history
+sometimes contradicts itself: for example, in 2 Kings, i. 17, we are
+told, but in rather ambiguous terms, that after the death of Ahaziah,
+king of Israel, Jehoram, or Joram, (who was of the house of Ahab),
+reigned in his stead in the second Year of Jehoram, or Joram, son of
+Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; and in viii. 16, of the same book, it is
+said, "And in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of
+Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of
+Jehoshaphat king of judah, began to reign." That is, one chapter says
+Joram of Judah began to reign in the second year of Joram of Israel;
+and the other chapter says, that Joram of Israel began to reign in
+the fifth year of Joram of Judah.
+
+Several of the most extraordinary matters related in one history, as
+having happened during the reign of such or such of their kings, are
+not to be found in the other, in relating the reign of the same king:
+for example, the two first rival kings, after the death of Solomon,
+were Rehoboam and Jeroboam; and in i Kings xii. and xiii. an account
+is given of Jeroboam making an offering of burnt incense, and that a
+man, who is there called a man of God, cried out against the altar
+(xiii. 2): "O altar, altar! thus saith the Lord: Behold, a child
+shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee
+shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon
+thee, and men's bones shall be burned upon thee." Verse 4: "And it
+came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God,
+which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his
+hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him; and his hand which he
+put out against him dried up so that he could not pull it again to
+him."
+
+One would think that such an extraordinary case as this, (which is
+spoken of as a judgement,) happening to the chief of one of the
+parties, and that at the first moment of the separation of the
+Israelites into two nations, would, if it,. had been true, have been
+recorded in both histories. But though men, in later times, have
+believed all that the prophets have said unto them, it does appear
+that those prophets, or historians, disbelieved each other: they knew
+each other too well.
+
+A long account also is given in Kings about Elijah. It runs through
+several chapters, and concludes with telling, 2 Kings ii. 11, "And it
+came to pass, as they (Elijah and Elisha) still went on, and talked,
+that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire,
+and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into
+heaven." Hum! this the author of Chronicles, miraculous as the story
+is, makes no mention of, though he mentions Elijah by name; neither
+does he say anything of the story related in the second chapter of
+the same book of Kings, of a parcel of children calling Elisha bald
+head; and that this man of God (ver. 24) "turned back, and looked
+upon them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and there came
+forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children
+of them." He also passes over in silence the story told, 2 Kings
+xiii., that when they were burying a man in the sepulchre where
+Elisha had been buried, it happened that the dead man, as they were
+letting him down, (ver. 21) "touched the bones of Elisha, and he (the
+dead man) revived, and stood up on his feet." The story does not tell
+us whether they buried the man, notwithstanding he revived and stood
+upon his feet, or drew him up again. Upon all these stories the
+writer of the Chronicles is as silent as any writer of the present
+day, who did not chose to be accused of lying, or at least of
+romancing, would be about stories of the same kind.
+
+But, however these two historians may differ from each other with
+respect to the tales related by either, they are silent alike with
+respect to those men styled prophets whose writings fill up the
+latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time of Hezekiab,
+is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these histories
+are speaking of that reign; but except in one or two instances at
+most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are so much as spoken
+of, or even their existence hinted at; though, according to the Bible
+chronology, they lived within the time those histories were written;
+and some of them long before. If those prophets, as they are called,
+were men of such importance in their day, as the compilers of the
+Bible, and priests and commentators have since represented them to
+be, how can it be accounted for that not one of those histories
+should say anything about them?
+
+The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is brought
+forward, as I have already said, to the year B.C. 588; it will,
+therefore, be proper to examine which of these prophets lived before
+that period.
+
+Here follows a table of all the prophets, with the times in which
+they lived before Christ, according to the chronology affixed to the
+first chapter of each of the books of the prophets; and also of the
+number of years they lived before the books of Kings and Chronicles
+were written:
+
+TABLE of the Prophets, with the time in which they lived before
+Christ, and also before the books of Kings and Chronicles were
+written:
+
+                    Years     Years before
+     NAMES.         before     Kings and     Observations.
+                    Christ.   Chronicles.
+
+Isaiah..............  760        172         mentioned.
+
+                                             (mentioned only in
+Jeremiah............. 629         41         the last [two] chapters
+                                             of Chronicles.
+
+Ezekiel.............. 595          7         not mentioned.
+
+Daniel............... 607         19         not mentioned.
+
+Hosea................ 785         97         not mentioned.
+
+Joel................. 800        212         not mentioned.
+
+Amos................. 789        199         not mentioned.
+
+Obadiah.............. 789        199         not mentioned.
+
+Jonah................ 862        274         see the note.
+
+Micah................ 750        162         not mentioned.
+
+Nahum...............  713        125         not mentioned.
+
+Habakkuk............. 620         38         not mentioned.
+
+Zepbaniah............ 630         42         not mentioned.
+
+Haggai
+Zechariah                all three after the year 588
+Mdachi
+[NOTE In 2 Kings xiv. 25, the name of Jonah is mentioned on account
+of the restoration of a tract of land by Jeroboam; but nothing
+further is said of him, nor is any allusion made to the book of
+Jonah, nor to his expedition to Nineveh, nor to his encounter with
+the whale. -- Author.]
+
+This table is either not very honourable for the Bible historians, or
+not very honourable for the Bible prophets; and I leave to priests
+and commentators, who are very learned in little things, to settle
+the point of etiquette between the two; and to assign a reason, why
+the authors of Kings and of Chronicles have treated those prophets,
+whom, in the former part of the 'Age of Reason,' I have considered as
+poets, with as much degrading silence as any historian of the present
+day would treat Peter Pindar.
+
+I have one more observation to make on the book of Chronicles; after
+which I shall pass on to review the remaining books of the Bible.
+
+In my observations on the book of Genesis, I have quoted a passage
+from xxxvi. 31, which evidently refers to a time, after that kings
+began to reign over the children of Israel; and I have shown that as
+this verse is verbatim the same as in 1 Chronicles i. 43, where it
+stands consistently with the order of history, which in Genesis it
+does not, that the verse in Genesis, and a great part of the 36th
+chapter, have been taken from Chronicles; and that the book of
+Genesis, though it is placed first in the Bible, and ascribed to
+Moses, has been manufactured by some unknown person, after the book
+of Chronicles was written, which was not until at least eight hundred
+and sixty years after the time of Moses.
+
+The evidence I proceed by to substantiate this, is regular, and has
+in it but two stages. First, as I have already stated, that the
+passage in Genesis refers itself for time to Chronicles; secondly,
+that the book of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself, was
+not begun to be written until at least eight hundred and sixty years
+after the time of Moses. To prove this, we have only to look into 1
+Chronicles iii. 15, where the writer, in giving the genealogy of the
+descendants of David, mentions Zedekiah; and it was in the time of
+Zedekiah that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, B.C. 588, and
+consequently more than 860 years after Moses. Those who have
+superstitiously boasted of the antiquity of the Bible, and
+particularly of the books ascribed to Moses, have done it without
+examination, and without any other authority than that of one
+credulous man telling it to another: for, so far as historical and
+chronological evidence applies, the very first book in the Bible is
+not so ancient as the book of Homer, by more than three hundred
+years, and is about the same age with AEsop's Fables.
+
+I am not contending for the morality of Homer; on the contrary, I
+think it a book of false glory, and tending to inspire immoral and
+mischievous notions of honour; and with respect to AEsop, though the
+moral is in general just, the fable is often cruel; and the cruelty
+of the fable does more injury to the heart, especially in a child,
+than the moral does good to the judgment.
+
+Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the next in
+course, the book of Ezra.
+
+As one proof, among others I shall produce to shew the disorder in
+which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been put together,
+and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we have only to look at
+the first three verses in Ezra, and the last two in 2 Chronicles; for
+by what kind of cutting and shuffling has it been that the first
+three verses in Ezra should be the last two verses in 2 Chronicles,
+or that the last two in 2 Chronicles should be the first three in
+Ezra? Either the authors did not know their own works or the
+compilers did not know the authors.
+
+Last Two Verses of 2 Chronicles.
+
+Ver. 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, that the
+word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be
+accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of
+Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and
+put it also in writing, saying.
+
+earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to
+build him an house in Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is there among
+you of all his people? the Lord his God be with him, and let him go
+up. ***
+
+First Three Verses of Ezra.
+
+Ver. 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word
+of the Lord, by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be fulfilled, the Lord
+stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a
+proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing,
+saying.
+
+2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath
+given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to
+build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
+
+3. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and
+let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of
+the Lord God of Israel (he is the God) which is in Jerusalem.
+
+*** The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends in the
+middle of the phrase with the word 'up' without signifying to what
+place. This abrupt break, and the appearance of the same verses in
+different books, show as I have already said, the disorder and
+ignorance in which the Bible has been put together, and that the
+compilers of it had no authority for what they were doing, nor we any
+authority for believing what they have done. [NOTE I observed, as I
+passed along, several broken and senseless passages in the Bible,
+without thinking them of consequence enough to be introduced in the
+body of the work; such as that, 1 Samuel xiii. 1, where it is said,
+"Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over
+Israel, Saul chose him three thousand men," &c. The first part of the
+verse, that Saul reigned one year has no sense, since it does not
+tell us what Saul did, nor say any thing of what happened at the end
+of that one year; and it is, besides, mere absurdity to say he
+reigned one year, when the very next phrase says he had reigned two
+for if he had reigned two, it was impossible not to have reigned one.
+
+Another instance occurs in Joshua v. where the writer tells us a
+story of an angel (for such the table of contents at the head of the
+chapter calls him) appearing unto Joshua; and the story ends
+abruptly, and without any conclusion. The story is as follows: --
+Ver. 13. "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he
+lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over
+against him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto
+him and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?"
+Verse 14, "And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord
+am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did
+worship and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?"
+Verse 15, "And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Josbua, Loose
+thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standeth is
+holy. And Joshua did so." -- And what then? nothing: for here the
+story ends, and the chapter too.
+
+Either this story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told
+by some Jewish humourist in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission
+from God, and the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design
+of the story, have told it as a serious matter. As a story of humour
+and ridicule it has a great deal of point; for it pompously
+introduces an angel in the figure of a man, with a drawn sword in his
+hand, before whom Joshua falls on his face to the earth, and worships
+(which is contrary to their second commandment;) and then, this most
+important embassy from heaven ends in telling Joshua to pull off his
+shoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches.
+
+It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit every thing
+their leaders told them, as appears from the cavalier manner in which
+they speak of Moses, when he was gone into the mount. As for this
+Moses, say they, we wot not what is become of him. Exod. xxxii. 1. --
+Author.]
+
+The only thing that has any appearance of certainty in the book of
+Ezra is the time in which it was written, which was immediately after
+the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about B.C. 536.
+Ezra (who, according to the Jewish commentators, is the same person
+as is called Esdras in the Apocrypha) was one of the persons who
+returned, and who, it is probable, wrote the account of that affair.
+Nebemiah, whose book follows next to Ezra, was another of the
+returned persons; and who, it is also probable, wrote the account of
+the same affair, in the book that bears his name. But those accounts
+are nothing to us, nor to any other person, unless it be to the Jews,
+as a part of the history of their nation; and there is just as much
+of the word of God in those books as there is in any of the histories
+of France, or Rapin's history of England, or the history of any other
+country.
+
+But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writers
+are to be depended upon. In Ezra ii., the writer gives a list of the
+tribes and families, and of the precise number of souls of each, that
+returned from Babylon to Jerusalem; and this enrolment of the persons
+so returned appears to have been one of the principal objects for
+writing the book; but in this there is an error that destroys the
+intention of the undertaking.
+
+The writer begins his enrolment in the following manner (ii. 3): "The
+children of Parosh, two thousand one hundred seventy and four." Ver.
+4, "The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two." And
+in this manner he proceeds through all the families; and in the 64th
+verse, he makes a total, and says, the whole congregation together
+was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore.
+
+But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several
+particulars, will find that the total is but 29,818; so that the
+error is 12,542. What certainty then can there be in the Bible for
+any thing?
+
+[Here Mr. Paine includes the long list of numbers from the Bible of
+all the children listed and the total thereof. This can be had
+directly from the Bible.]
+
+Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned families, and
+of the number of each family. He begins as in Ezra, by saying (vii.
+8): "The children of Parosh, two thousand three hundred and
+seventy-two;" and so on through all the families. (The list differs
+in several of the particulars from that of Ezra.) In ver. 66,
+Nehemiah makes a total, and says, as Ezra had said, "The whole
+congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and
+threescore." But the particulars of this list make a total but of
+31,089, so that the error here is 11,271. These writers may do well
+enough for Bible-makers, but not for any thing where truth and
+exactness is necessary.
+
+The next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madam Esther
+thought it any honour to offer herself as a kept mistress to
+Ahasuerus, or as a rival to Queen Vashti, who had refused to come to
+a drunken king in the midst of a drunken company, to be made a show
+of, (for the account says, they had been drinking seven days, and
+were merry,) let Esther and Mordecai look to that, it is no business
+of ours, at least it is none of mine; besides which, the story has a
+great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is also anonymous. I
+pass on to the book of Job.
+
+The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have
+hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of this book;
+it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with the
+vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and
+struggling against the pressure. It is a highly wrought composition,
+between willing submission and involuntary discontent; and shows man,
+as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than he is capable
+of being. Patience has but a small share in the character of the
+person of whom the book treats; on the contrary, his grief is often
+impetuous; but he still endeavours to keep a guard upon it, and seems
+determined, in the midst of accumulating ills, to impose upon himself
+the hard duty of contentment.
+
+I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job in the former
+part of the 'Age of Reason,' but without knowing at that time what I
+have learned since; which is, that from all the evidence that can be
+collected, the book of Job does not belong to the Bible.
+
+I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, Abenezra and
+Spinoza, upon this subject; they both say that the book of Job
+carries no internal evidence of being an Hebrew book; that the genius
+of the composition, and the drama of the piece, are not Hebrew; that
+it has been translated from another language into Hebrew, and that
+the author of the book was a Gentile; that the character represented
+under the name of Satan (which is the first and only time this name
+is mentioned in the Bible) [In a later work Paine notes that in "the
+Bible" (by which be always means the Old Testament alone) the word
+Satan occurs also in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, and remarks that the action
+there ascribed to Satan is in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, attributed to Jehovah
+("Essay on Dreams"). In these places, however, and in Ps. cix. 6,
+Satan means "adversary," and is so translated (A.S. version) in 2
+Sam. xix. 22, and 1 Kings v. 4, xi. 25. As a proper name, with the
+article, Satan appears in the Old Testament only in Job and in Zech.
+iii. 1, 2. But the authenticity of the passage in Zechariah has been
+questioned, and it may be that in finding the proper name of Satan in
+Job alone, Paine was following some opinion met with in one of the
+authorities whose comments are condensed in his paragraph. --
+Editor.] does not correspond to any Hebrew idea; and that the two
+convocations which the Deity is supposed to have made of those whom
+the poem calls sons of God, and the familiarity which this supposed
+Satan is stated to have with the Deity, are in the same case.
+
+It may also be observed, that the book shows itself to be the
+production of a mind cultivated in science, which the Jews, so far
+from being famous for, were very ignorant of. The allusions to
+objects of natural philosophy are frequent and strong, and are of a
+different cast to any thing in the books known to be Hebrew. The
+astronomical names, Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are Greek and not
+Hebrew names, and it does not appear from any thing that is to be
+found in the Bible that the Jews knew any thing of astronomy, or that
+they studied it, they had no translation of those names into their
+own language, but adopted the names as they found them in the poem.
+[Paine's Jewish critic, David Levi, fastened on this slip ("Detence
+of the Old Testament," 1797, p. 152). In the original the names are
+Ash (Arcturus), Kesil' (Orion), Kimah' (Pleiades), though the
+identifications of the constellations in the A.S.V. have been
+questioned. -- Editor.]
+
+That the Jews did translate the literary productions of the Gentile
+nations into the Hebrew language, and mix them with their own, is not
+a matter of doubt; Proverbs xxxi. i, is an evidence of this: it is
+there said, The word of king Lemuel, the prophecy which his mother
+taught him. This verse stands as a preface to the proverbs that
+follow, and which are not the proverbs of Solomon, but of Lemuel; and
+this Lemuel was not one of the kings of Israel, nor of Judah, but of
+some other country, and consequently a Gentile. The Jews however have
+adopted his proverbs; and as they cannot give any account who the
+author of the book of Job was, nor how they came by the book, and as
+it differs in character from the Hebrew writings, and stands totally
+unconnected with every other book and chapter in the Bible before it
+and after it, it has all the circumstantial evidence of being
+originally a book of the Gentiles. [The prayer known by the name of
+Agur's Prayer, in Proverbs xxx., -- immediately preceding the
+proverbs of Lemuel, -- and which is the only sensible,
+well-conceived, and well-expressed prayer in the Bible, has much the
+appearance of being a prayer taken from the Gentiles. The name of
+Agur occurs on no other occasion than this; and he is introduced,
+together with the prayer ascribed to him, in the same manner, and
+nearly in the same words, that Lemuel and his proverbs are introduced
+in the chapter that follows. The first verse says, "The words of
+Agur, the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy:" here the word prophecy is
+used with the same application it has in the following chapter of
+Lemuel, unconnected with anything of prediction. The prayer of Agur
+is in the 8th and 9th verses, "Remove far from me vanity and lies;
+give me neither riches nor poverty, but feed me with food convenient
+for me; lest I be full and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? or
+lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." This
+has not any of the marks of being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never
+prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but
+victory, vengeance, or riches. -- Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1,
+the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or
+"burden" (marg.) in the revised version. -- The prayer of Agur was
+quoted by Paine in his plea for the officers of Excise, 1772. --
+Editor.]
+
+The Bible-makers, and those regulators of time, the Bible
+chronologists, appear to have been at a loss where to place and how
+to dispose of the book of Job; for it contains no one historical
+circumstance, nor allusion to any, that might serve to determine its
+place in the Bible. But it would not have answered the purpose of
+these men to have informed the world of their ignorance; and,
+therefore, they have affixed it to the aera of B.C. 1520, which is
+during the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and for which they have
+just as much authority and no more than I should have for saying it
+was a thousand years before that period. The probability however is,
+that it is older than any book in the Bible; and it is the only one
+that can be read without indignation or disgust.
+
+We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is called)
+was before the time of the Jews, whose practice has been to
+calumniate and blacken the character of all other nations; and it is
+from the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them heathens.
+But, as far as we know to the contrary, they were a just and moral
+people, and not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and revenge, but
+of whose profession of faith we are unacquainted. It appears to have
+been their custom to personify both virtue and vice by statues and
+images, as is done now-a-days both by statuary and by painting; but
+it does not follow from this that they worshipped them any more than
+we do. -- I pass on to the book of,
+
+Psalms, of which it is not necessary to make much observation. Some
+of them are moral, and others are very revengeful; and the greater
+part relates to certain local circumstances of the Jewish nation at
+the time they were written, with which we have nothing to do. It is,
+however, an error or an imposition to call them the Psalms of David;
+they are a collection, as song-books are now-a- days, from different
+song-writers, who lived at different times. The 137th Psalm could not
+have been written till more than 400 years after the time of David,
+because it is written in commemoration of an event, the captivity of
+the Jews in Babylon, which did not happen till that distance of time.
+"By the rivers of Babylon we sat down; yea, we wept when we
+remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst
+thereof; for there they that carried us away cartive required of us a
+song, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion." As a man would say
+to an American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, sing us one
+of your American songs, or your French songs, or your English songs.
+This remark, with respect to the time this psalm was written, is of
+no other use than to show (among others already mentioned) the
+general imposition the world has been under with respect to the
+authors of the Bible. No regard has been paid to time, place, and
+circumstance; and the names of persons have been affixed to the
+several books which it was as impossible they should write, as that a
+man should walk in procession at his own funeral.
+
+The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collection, and
+that from authors belonging to other nations than those of the Jewish
+nation, as I have shewn in the observations upon the book of Job;
+besides which, some of the Proverbs ascribed to Solomon did not
+appear till two hundred and fifty years after the death of Solomon;
+for it is said in xxv. i, "These are also proverbs of Solomon which
+the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out." It was two hundred
+and fifty years from the time of Solomon to the time of Hezekiah.
+When a man is famous and his name is abroad he is made the putative
+father of things he never said or did; and this, most probably, has
+been the case with Solomon. It appears to have been the fashion of
+that day to make proverbs, as it is now to make jest-books, and
+father them upon those who never saw them. [A "Tom Paine's Jest Book"
+had appeared in London with little or nothing of Paine in it. --
+Editor.]
+
+The book of Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, is also ascribed to
+Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is written
+as the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as Solomon
+was, who looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy, cries out All
+is Vanity! A great deal of the metaphor and of the sentiment is
+obscure, most probably by translation; but enough is left to show
+they were strongly pointed in the original. [Those that look out of
+the window shall be darkened, is an obscure figure in translation for
+loss of sight. -- Author.] From what is transmitted to us of the
+character of Solomon, he was witty, ostentatious, dissolute, and at
+last melancholy. He lived fast, and died, tired of the world, at the
+age of fifty-eight years.
+
+Seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, are worse than
+none; and, however it may carry with it the appearance of heightened
+enjoyment, it defeats all the felicity of affection, by leaving it no
+point to fix upon; divided love is never happy. This was the case
+with Solomon; and if he could not, with all his pretensions to
+wisdom, discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied, the
+mortification he afterwards endured. In this point of view, his
+preaching is unnecessary, because, to know the consequences, it is
+only necessary to know the cause. Seven hundred wives, and three
+hundred concubines would have stood in place of the whole book. It
+was needless after this to say that all was vanity and vexation of
+spirit; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the company of
+those whom we deprive of happiness.
+
+To be happy in old age it is necessary that we accustom ourselves to
+objects that can accompany the mind all the way through life, and
+that we take the rest as good in their day. The mere man of pleasure
+is miserable in old age; and the mere drudge in business is but
+little better: whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and
+mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and
+in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests, and of superstition, the
+study of those things is the study of the true theology; it teaches
+man to know and to admire the Creator, for the principles of science
+are in the creation, and are unchangeable, and of divine origin.
+
+Those who knew Benjaman Franklin will recollect, that his mind was
+ever young; his temper ever serene; science, that never grows grey,
+was always his mistress. He was never without an object; for when we
+cease to have an object we become like an invalid in an hospital
+waiting for death.
+
+Solomon's Songs, amorous and foolish enough, but which wrinkled
+fanaticism has called divine. -- The compilers of the Bible have
+placed these songs after the book of Ecclesiastes; and the
+chronologists have affixed to them the aera of B.C. 1O14, at which
+time Solomon, according to the same chronology, was nineteen years of
+age, and was then forming his seraglio of wives and concubines. The
+Bible-makers and the chronologists should have managed this matter a
+little better, and either have said nothing about the time, or chosen
+a time less inconsistent with the supposed divinity of those songs;
+for Solomon was then in the honey-moon of one thousand debaucheries.
+
+It should also have occurred to them, that as he wrote, if he did
+write, the book of Ecclesiastes, long after these songs, and in which
+he exclaims that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, that he
+included those songs in that description. This is the more probable,
+because he says, or somebody for him, Ecclesiastes ii. 8, I got me
+men-singers, and women-singers (most probably to sing those songs],
+and musical instruments of all sores; and behold (Ver. ii), "all was
+vanity and vexation of spirit." The compilers however have done their
+work but by halves; for as they have given us the songs they should
+have given us the tunes, that we might sing them.
+
+The books called the books of the Prophets fill up all the remaining
+part of the Bible; they are sixteen in number, beginning with Isaiah
+and ending with Malachi, of which I have given a list in the
+observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen prophets, all of whom
+except the last three lived within the time the books of Kings and
+Chronicles were written, two only, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are mentioned
+in the history of those books. I shall begin with those two,
+reserving, what I have to say on the general character of the men
+called prophets to another part of the work.
+
+Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to Isaiah,
+will find it one of the most wild and disorderly compositions ever
+put together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; and, except
+a short historical part, and a few sketches of history in the first
+two or three chapters, is one continued incoherent, bombastical rant,
+full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of
+meaning; a school-boy would scarcely have been excusable for writing
+such stuff; it is (at least in translation) that kind of composition
+and false taste that is properly called prose run mad.
+
+The historical part begins at chapter xxxvi., and is continued to the
+end of chapter xxxix. It relates some matters that are said to have
+passed during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, at which time
+Isaiah lived. This fragment of history begins and ends abruptly; it
+has not the least connection with the chapter that precedes it, nor
+with that which follows it, nor with any other in the book. It is
+probable that Isaiah wrote this fragment himself, because he was an
+actor in the circumstances it treats of; but except this part there
+are scarcely two chapters that have any connection with each other.
+One is entitled, at the beginning of the first verse, the burden of
+Babylon; another, the burden of Moab; another, the burden of
+Damascus; another, the burden of Egypt; another, the burden of the
+Desert of the Sea; another, the burden of the Valley of Vision: as
+you would say the story of the Knight of the Burning Mountain, the
+story of Cinderella, or the glassen slipper, the story of the
+Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, etc., etc.
+
+
+I have already shown, in the instance of the last two verses of 2
+Chronicles, and the first three in Ezra, that the compilers of the
+Bible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with
+each other; which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient to
+destroy the authenticity of an compilation, because it is more than
+presumptive evidence that the compilers are ignorant who the authors
+were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in the book ascribed to
+Isaiah: the latter part of the 44th chapter, and the beginning of the
+45th, so far from having been written by Isaiah, could only have been
+written by some person who lived at least an hundred and fifty years
+after Isaiah was dead.
+
+These chapters are a compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the Jews to
+return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity, to rebuild
+Jerusalem and the temple, as is stated in Ezra. The last verse of the
+44th chapter, and the beginning of the 45th [Isaiah] are in the
+following words: "That saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall
+perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be
+built; and to the temple thy foundations shall be laid: thus saith
+the Lord to his enointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to
+subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings to
+open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be
+shut; I will go before thee," etc.
+
+What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to impose this
+book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, when Isaiah, according
+to their own chronology, died soon after the death of Hezekiah, which
+was B.C. 698; and the decree of Cyrus, in favour of the Jews
+returning to Jerusalem, was, according to the same chronology, B.C.
+536; which is a distance of time between the two of 162 years. I do
+not suppose that the compilers of the Bible made these books, but
+rather that they picked up some loose, anonymous essays, and put them
+together under the names of such authors as best suited their
+purpose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is next to
+inventing it; for it was impossible but they must have observed it.
+
+When we see the studied craft of the scripture-makers, in making
+every part of this romantic book of school-boy's eloquence bend to
+the monstrous idea of a Son of God, begotten by a ghost on the body
+of a virgin, there is no imposition we are not justified in
+suspecting them of. Every phrase and circumstance are marked with the
+barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced into meanings it
+was impossible they could have. The head of every chapter, and the
+top of every page, are blazoned with the names of Christ and the
+Church, that the unwary reader might suck in the error before he
+began to read.
+
+Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son (Isa. vii. I4), has
+been interpreted to mean the person called Jesus Christ, and his
+mother Mary, and has been echoed through christendom for more than a
+thousand years; and such has been the rage of this opinion, that
+scarcely a spot in it but has been stained with blood and marked with
+desolation in consequence of it. Though it is not my intention to
+enter into controversy on subjects of this kind, but to confine
+myself to show that the Bible is spurious, -- and thus, by taking
+away the foundation, to overthrow at once the whole structure of
+superstition raised thereon, -- I will however stop a moment to
+expose the fallacious application of this passage.
+
+Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah, to whom
+this passage is spoken, is no business of mine; I mean only to show
+the misapplication of the passage, and that it has no more reference
+to Christ and his mother, than it has to me and my mother. The story
+is simply this:
+
+The king of Syria and the king of Israel (I have already mentioned
+that the Jews were split into two nations, one of which was called
+Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem, and the other Israel) made
+war jointly against Ahaz, king of Judah, and marched their armies
+towards Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became alarmed, and the
+account says (Is. vii. 2), Their hearts were moved as the trees of
+the wood are moved with the wind.
+
+In this situation of things, Isaiah addresses himself to Ahaz, and
+assures him in the name of the Lord (the cant phrase of all the
+prophets) that these two kings should not succeed against him; and to
+satisfy Ahaz that this should be the case, tells him to ask a sign.
+This, the account says, Ahaz declined doing; giving as a reason that
+he would not tempt the Lord; upon which Isaiah, who is the speaker,
+says, ver. 14, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
+behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son;" and the 16th verse
+says, "And before this child shall know to refuse the evil, and
+choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest or dreadest [meaning
+Syria and the kingdom of Israel] shall be forsaken of both her
+kings." Here then was the sign, and the time limited for the
+completion of the assurance or promise; namely, before this child
+shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good.
+
+Isaiah having committed himself thus far, it became necessary to him,
+in order to avoid the imputation of being a false prophet, and the
+consequences thereof, to take measures to make this sign appear. It
+certainly was not a difficult thing, in any time of the world, to
+find a girl with child, or to make her so; and perhaps Isaiah knew of
+one beforehand; for I do not suppose that the prophets of that day
+were any more to be trusted than the priests of this: be that,
+however, as it may, he says in the next chapter, ver. 2, "And I took
+unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah
+the son of Jeberechiah, and I went unto the prophetess, and she
+conceived and bare a son."
+
+Here then is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this child and
+this virgin; and it is upon the barefaced perversion of this story
+that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interest of
+priests in later times, have founded a theory, which they call the
+gospel; and have applied this story to signify the person they call
+Jesus Christ; begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they call holy, on
+the body of a woman engaged in marriage, and afterwards married, whom
+they call a virgin, seven hundred years after this foolish story was
+told; a theory which, speaking for myself, I hesitate not to believe,
+and to say, is as fabulous and as false as God is true. [In Is. vii.
+14, it is said that the child should be called Immanuel; but this
+name was not given to either of the children, otherwise than as a
+character, which the word signifies. That of the prophetess was
+called Maher-shalalhash- baz, and that of Mary was called Jesus. --
+Author.]
+
+But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah we have only to
+attend to the sequel of this story; which, though it is passed over
+in silence in the book of Isaiah, is related in 2 Chronicles, xxviii;
+and which is, that instead of these two kings failing in their
+attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as Isaiah had pretended to
+foretel in the name of the Lord, they succeeded: Ahaz was defeated
+and destroyed; an hundred and twenty thousand of his people were
+slaughtered; Jerusalem was plundered, and two hundred thousand women
+and sons and daughters carried into captivity. Thus much for this
+lying prophet and imposter Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that
+bears his name. I pass on to the book of Jeremiah. This prophet, 
+as he is called, lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged 
+Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah; and the
+suspicion was strong against him that he was a traitor in the interest
+of Nebuchadnezzar. Every thing relating to Jeremiah shows him to have
+been a man of an equivocal character: in his metaphor of the potter
+and the clay, (ch. xviii.) he guards his prognostications in such a
+crafty manner as always to leave himself a door to escape by, in case
+the event should be contrary to what he had predicted. In the 7th and
+8th verses he makes the Almighty to say, "At what instant I shall speak
+concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull
+down, and destroy it, if that nation, against whom I have pronounced,
+turn from their evil, I will repent me of the evil that I thought to
+do unto them." Here was a proviso against one side of the case: now
+for the other side. Verses 9 and 10, "At what instant I shall speak
+concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant
+it, if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will
+repent me of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them." Here is
+a proviso against the other side; and, according to this plan of
+prophesying, a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the
+Almighty might be. This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this manner
+of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent
+with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible.
+
+As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to read it
+in order to decide positively that, though some passages recorded
+therein may have been spoken by Jeremiah, he is not the author of the
+book. The historical parts, if they can be called by that name, are
+in the most confused condition; the same events are several times
+repeated, and that in a manner different, and sometimes in
+contradiction to each other; and this disorder runs even to the last
+chapter, where the history, upon which the greater part of the book
+has been employed, begins anew, and ends abruptly. The book has all
+the appearance of being a medley of unconnected anecdotes respecting
+persons and things of that time, collected together in the same rude
+manner as if the various and contradictory accounts that are to be
+found in a bundle of newspapers, respecting persons and things of the
+present day, were put together without date, order, or explanation. I
+will give two or three examples of this kind.
+
+It appears, from the account of chapter xxxvii. that the army of
+Nebuchadnezzer, which is called the army of the Chaldeans, had
+besieged Jerusalem some time; and on their hearing that the army of
+Pharaoh of Egypt was marching against them, they raised the siege and
+retreated for a time. It may here be proper to mention, in order to
+understand this confused history, that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged
+and taken Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoakim, the redecessor of
+Zedekiah; and that it was Nebuchadnezzar who had make Zedekiah king,
+or rather viceroy; and that this second siege, of which the book of
+Jeremiah treats, was in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiah against
+Nebuchadnezzar. This will in some measure account for the suspicion
+that affixes itself to Jeremiah of being a traitor, and in the
+interest of Nebuchadnezzar, -- whom Jeremiah calls, xliii. 10, the
+servant of God.
+
+Chapter xxxvii. 11-13, says, "And it came to pass, that, when the
+army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem, for fear of
+Pharaoh's army, that Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem, to go (as
+this account states) into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself
+thence in the midst of the people; and when he was in the gate of
+Benjamin a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah ...
+and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the
+Chaldeans; then Jeremiah said, It is false; I fall not away to the
+Chaldeans." Jeremiah being thus stopt and accused, was, after being
+examined, committed to prison, on suspicion of being a traitor, where
+he remained, as is stated in the last verse of this chapter.
+
+But the next chapter gives an account of the imprisonment of
+Jeremiah, which has no connection with this account, but ascribes his
+imprisonment to another circumstance, and for which we must go back
+to chapter xxi. It is there stated, ver. 1, that Zedekiah sent Pashur
+the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, to
+Jeremiah, to enquire of him concerning Nebuchadnezzar, whose army was
+then before Jerusalem; and Jeremiah said to them, ver. 8, "Thus saith
+the Lord, Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of
+death; he that abideth in this city shall die by the sword and by the
+famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth out and falleth to
+the Clialdeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be
+unto him for a prey."
+
+This interview and conference breaks off abruptly at the end of the
+10th verse of chapter xxi.; and such is the disorder of this book
+that we have to pass over sixteen chapters upon various subjects, in
+order to come at the continuation and event of this conference; and
+this brings us to the first verse of chapter xxxviii., as I have just
+mentioned. The chapter opens with saying, "Then Shaphatiah, the son
+of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of
+Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah, (here are more persons
+mentioned than in chapter xxi.) heard the words that Jeremiah spoke
+unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, He that remaineth
+in this city, shall die by the sword, by famine, and by the
+pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live; for
+he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live"; [which are the
+words of the conference;] therefore, (say they to Zedekiah,) "We
+beseech thee, let this man be put to death, for thus he weakeneth the
+hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of
+all the people, in speaking such words unto them; for this man
+seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt:" and at the 6th
+verse it is said, "Then they took Jeremiah, and put him into the
+dungeon of Malchiah."
+
+These two accounts are different and contradictory. The one ascribes
+his imprisonment to his attempt to escape out of the city; the other
+to his preaching and prophesying in the city; the one to his being
+seized by the guard at the gate; the other to his being accused
+before Zedekiah by the conferees. [I observed two chapters in I
+Samuel (xvi. and xvii.) that contradict each other with respect to
+David, and the manner he became acquainted with Saul; as Jeremiah
+xxxvii. and xxxviii. contradict each other with respect to the cause
+of Jeremiah's imprisonment.
+
+In 1 Samuel, xvi., it is said, that an evil spirit of God troubled
+Saul, and that his servants advised him (as a remedy) "to seek out a
+man who was a cunning player upon the harp." And Saul said, ver. 17,
+"Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then
+answered one of his servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of
+Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty
+man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person,
+and the Lord is with him; wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse,
+and said, Send me David, thy son. And (verse 21) David came to Saul,
+and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his
+armour-bearer; and when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul,
+(verse 23) David took his harp, and played with his hand, and Saul
+was refreshed, and was well."
+
+But the next chapter (xvii.) gives an account, all different to this,
+of the manner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it is
+ascribed to David's encounter with Goliah, when David was sent by his
+father to carry provision to his brethren in the camp. In the 55th
+verse of this chapter it is said, "And when Saul saw David go forth
+against the Philistine (Goliah) he said to Abner, the captain of the
+host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul
+liveth, 0 king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Enquire thou whose
+son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughter of the
+Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head
+of the Philistine in his hand; and Saul said unto him, Whose son art
+thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy
+servant, Jesse, the Betblehemite," These two accounts belie each
+other, because each of them supposes Saul and David not to have known
+each other before. This book, the Bible, is too ridiculous for
+criticism. -- Author.]
+
+In the next chapter (Jer. xxxix.) we have another instance of the
+disordered state of this book; for notwithstanding the siege of the
+city by Nebuchadnezzar has been the subject of several of the
+preceding chapters, particularly xxxvii. and xxxviii., chapter xxxix.
+begins as if not a word had been said upon the subject, and as if the
+reader was still to be informed of every particular respecting it;
+for it begins with saying, ver. 1, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah
+king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of
+Babylon, and all his army, against Jerusalem, and besieged it," etc.
+
+But the instance in the last chapter (lii.) is still more glaring;
+for though the story has been told over and over again, this chapter
+still supposes the reader not to know anything of it, for it begins
+by saying, ver. i, "Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he
+began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, and his
+mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah." (Ver.
+4,) "And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth
+month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army,
+against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against
+it," etc.
+
+It is not possible that any one man, and more particularly Jeremiah,
+could have been the writer of this book. The errors are such as could
+not have been committed by any person sitting down to compose a work.
+Were I, or any other man, to write in such a disordered manner, no
+body would read what was written, and every body would suppose that
+the writer was in a state of insanity. The only way, therefore, to
+account for the disorder is, that the book is a medley of detached
+unauthenticated anecdotes, put together by some stupid book-maker,
+under the name of Jeremiah; because many of them refer to him, and to
+the circumstances of the times he lived in.
+
+Of the duplicity, and of the false predictions of Jeremiah, I shall
+mention two instances, and then proceed to review the remainder of
+the Bible.
+
+It appears from chapter xxxviii. that when Jeremiah was in prison,
+Zedekiah sent for him, and at this interview, which was private,
+Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zedekiah to surrender himself to the
+enemy. "If," says he, (ver. 17,) thou wilt assuredly go forth unto
+the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live," etc.
+Zedekiah was apprehensive that what passed at this conference should
+be known; and he said to Jeremiah, (ver. 25,) "If the princes
+[meaning those of Judah] hear that I have talked with thee, and they
+come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thou hast
+said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to
+death; and also what the king said unto thee; then thou shalt say
+unto them, I presented my supplication before the king that he would
+not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there. Then came
+all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him, and "he told them
+according to all the words the king had commanded." Thus, this man
+of God, as he is called, could tell a lie, or very strongly
+prevaricate, when he supposed it would answer his purpose; for
+certainly he did not go to Zedekiah to make this supplication,
+neither did he make it; he went because he was sent for, and he
+employed that opportunity to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself to
+Nebuchadnezzar.
+
+In chapter xxxiv. 2-5, is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zedekiah in these
+words: "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give this city into the
+hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire; and thou
+shalt not escape out of his hand, but thou shalt surely be taken, and
+delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the
+king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and
+thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of the Lord; O Zedekiah,
+king, of Judah, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not die by the sword,
+but thou shalt die in Peace; and with the burnings of thy fathers,
+the former kings that were before thee, so shall they burn odours for
+thee, and they will lament thee, saying, Ah, Lord! for I have
+pronounced the word, saith the Lord."
+
+Now, instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king of Babylon,
+and speaking with him mouth to mouth, and dying in peace, and with
+the burning of odours, as at the funeral of his fathers, (as Jeremiah
+had declared the Lord himself had pronounced,) the reverse, according
+to chapter Iii., 10, 11 was the case; it is there said, that the king
+of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: then he put out
+the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and carried him to
+Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.
+
+What then can we say of these prophets, but that they are impostors
+and liars?
+
+As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He was taken
+into favour by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to the captain
+of the guard (xxxix, 12), "Take him (said he) and look well to him,
+and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee."
+Jeremiah joined himself afterwards to Nebuchadnezzar, and went about
+prophesying for him against the Egyptians, who had marched to the
+relief of Jerusalem while it was besieged. Thus much for another of
+the lying prophets, and the book that bears his name.
+
+I have been the more particular in treating of the books ascribed to
+Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are spoken of in the books of
+Kings and Chronicles, which the others are not. The remainder of the
+books ascribed to the men called prophets I shall not trouble myself
+much about; but take them collectively into the observations I shall
+offer on the character of the men styled prophets.
+
+In the former part of the 'Age of Reason,' I have said that the word
+prophet was the Bible-word for poet, and that the flights and
+metaphors of Jewish poets have been foolishly erected into what are
+now called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this opinion,
+not only because the books called the prophecies are written in
+poetical language, but because there is no word in the Bible, except
+it be the word prophet, that describes what we mean by a poet. I have
+also said, that the word signified a performer upon musical
+instruments, of which I have given some instances; such as that of a
+company of prophets, prophesying with psalteries, with tabrets, with
+pipes, with harps, etc., and that Saul prophesied with them, 1 Sam.
+x., 5. It appears from this passage, and from other parts in the book
+of Samuel, that the word prophet was confined to signify poetry and
+music; for the person who was supposed to have a visionary insight
+into concealed things, was not a prophet but a seer, [I know not what
+is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the word seer in English; but
+I observe it is translated into French by Le Voyant, from the verb
+voir to see, and which means the person who sees, or the seer. --
+Author.
+
+The Hebrew word for Seer, in 1 Samuel ix., transliterated, is chozeh,
+the gazer, it is translated in Is. xlvii. 13, "the stargazers." --
+Editor.] (i Sam, ix. 9;) and it was not till after the word seer went
+out of use (which most probably was when Saul banished those he
+called wizards) that the profession of the seer, or the art of
+seeing, became incorporated into the word prophet.
+
+According to the modern meaning of the word prophet and prophesying,
+it signifies foretelling events to a great distance of time; and it
+became necessary to the inventors of the gospel to give it this
+latitude of meaning, in order to apply or to stretch what they call
+the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the times of the New. But
+according to the Old Testament, the prophesying of the seer, and
+afterwards of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word "seer"
+was incorporated into that of prophet, had reference only to things
+of the time then passing, or very closely connected with it; such as
+the event of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a journey,
+or of any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of any
+circumstance then pending, or of any difficulty they were then in;
+all of which had immediate reference to themselves (as in the case
+already mentioned of Ahaz and Isaiah with respect to the expression,
+Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,) and not to any
+distant future time. It was that kind of prophesying that corresponds
+to what we call fortune-telling; such as casting nativities,
+predicting riches, fortunate or unfortunate marriages, conjuring for
+lost goods, etc.; and it is the fraud of the Christian church, not
+that of the Jews, and the ignorance and the superstition of modern,
+not that of ancient times, that elevated those poetical, musical,
+conjuring, dreaming, strolling gentry, into the rank they have since
+had.
+
+But, besides this general character of all the prophets, they had
+also a particular character. They were in parties, and they
+prophesied for or against, according to the party they were with; as
+the poetical and political writers of the present day write in
+defence of the party they associate with against the other.
+
+After the Jews were divided into two nations, that of Judah and that
+of Israel, each party had its prophets, who abused and accused each
+other of being false prophets, lying prophets, impostors, etc.
+
+The prophets of the party of Judah prophesied against the prophets of
+the party of Israel; and those of the party of Israel against those
+of Judah. This party prophesying showed itself immediately on the
+separation under the first two rival kings, Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
+The prophet that cursed, or prophesied against the altar that
+Jeroboam had built in Bethel, was of the party of Judah, where
+Rehoboam was king; and he was way-laid on his return home by a
+prophet of the party of Israel, who said unto him (i Kings xiii.)
+"Art thou the man of God that came from Judah? and he said, I am."
+Then the prophet of the party of Israel said to him "I am a prophet
+also, as thou art, [signifying of Judah,] and an angel spake unto me
+by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee unto thine
+house, that he may eat bread and drink water; but (says the 18th
+verse) he lied unto him." The event, however, according to the story,
+is, that the prophet of Judah never got back to Judah; for he was
+found dead on the road by the contrivance of the prophet of Israel,
+who no doubt was called a true prophet by his own party, and the
+prophet of Judah a lying prophet.
+
+In 2 Kings, iii., a story is related of prophesying or conjuring that
+shews, in several particulars, the character of a prophet.
+Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and Joram king of Israel, had for a while
+ceased their party animosity, and entered into an alliance; and these
+two, together with the king of Edom, engaged in a war against the
+king of Moab. After uniting and marching their armies, the story
+says, they were in great distress for water, upon which Jehoshaphat
+said, "Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire
+of the Lord by him? and one of the servants of the king of Israel
+said here is Elisha. [Elisha was of the party of Judah.] And
+Jehoshaphat the king of Judah said, The word of the Lord is with
+him." The story then says, that these three kings went down to
+Elisha; and when Elisha [who, as I have said, was a Judahmite
+prophet] saw the King of Israel, he said unto him, "What have I to do
+with thee, get thee to the prophets of thy father and the prophets of
+thy mother. Nay but, said the king of Israel, the Lord hath called
+these three kings together, to deliver them into the hands of the
+king of Moab," (meaning because of the distress they were in for
+water;) upon which Elisha said, "As the Lord of hosts liveth before
+whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of
+Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not look towards thee nor see
+thee." Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet. We are
+now to see the performance, or manner of prophesying.
+
+Ver. 15. "Bring me," (said Elisha), "a minstrel; and it came to pass,
+when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him."
+Here is the farce of the conjurer. Now for the prophecy: "And Elisha
+said, [singing most probably to the tune he was playing], Thus saith
+the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches; "which was just telling
+them what every countryman could have told them without either fiddle
+or farce, that the way to get water was to dig for it.
+
+But as every conjuror is not famous alike for the same thing, so
+neither were those prophets; for though all of them, at least those I
+have spoken of, were famous for lying, some of them excelled in
+cursing. Elisha, whom I have just mentioned, was a chief in this
+branch of prophesying; it was he that cursed the forty-two children
+in the name of the Lord, whom the two she-bears came and devoured. We
+are to suppose that those children were of the party of Israel; but
+as those who will curse will lie, there is just as much credit to be
+given to this story of Elisha's two she- bears as there is to that of
+the Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said:
+
+Poor children three devoured be,
+That could not with him grapple;
+And at one sup he eat them up,
+As a man would eat an apple.
+
+There was another description of men called prophets, that amused
+themselves with dreams and visions; but whether by night or by day we
+know not. These, if they were not quite harmless, were but little
+mischievous. Of this class are
+
+EZEKIEL and DANIEL; and the first question upon these books, as upon
+all the others, is, Are they genuine? that is, were they written by
+Ezekiel and Daniel?
+
+Of this there is no proof; but so far as my own opinion goes, I am
+more inclined to believe they were, than that they were not. My
+reasons for this opinion are as follows: First, Because those books
+do not contain internal evidence to prove they were not written by
+Ezekiel and Daniel, as the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel,
+etc., prove they were not written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, etc.
+
+Secondly, Because they were not written till after the Babylonish
+captivity began; and there is good reason to believe that not any
+book in the bible was written before that period; at least it is
+proveable, from the books themselves, as I have already shown, that
+they were not written till after the commencement of the Jewish
+monarchy.
+
+Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed to Ezekiel
+and Daniel are written, agrees with the condition these men were in
+at the time of writing them.
+
+Had the numerous commentators and priests, who have foolishly
+employed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and unriddle
+those books, been carred into captivity, as Ezekiel and Daniel were,
+it would greatly have improved their intellects in comprehending the
+reason for this mode of writing, and have saved them the trouble of
+racking their invention, as they have done to no purpose; for they
+would have found that themselves would be obliged to write whatever
+they had to write, respecting their own affairs, or those of their
+friends, or of their country, in a concealed manner, as those men
+have done.
+
+These two books differ from all the rest; for it is only these that
+are filled with accounts of dreams and visions: and this difference
+arose from the situation the writers were in as prisoners of war, or
+prisoners of state, in a foreign country, which obliged them to
+convey even the most trifling information to each other, and all
+their political projects or opinions, in obscure and metaphorical
+terms. They pretend to have dreamed dreams, and seen visions, because
+it was unsafe for them to speak facts or plain language. We ought,
+however, to suppose, that the persons to whom they wrote understood
+what they meant, and that it was not intended anybody else should.
+But these busy commentators and priests have been puzzling their wits
+to find out what it was not intended they should know, and with which
+they have nothing to do.
+
+Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon, under the first
+captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, nine years before the second
+captivity in the time of Zedekiah. The Jews were then still numerous,
+and had considerable force at Jerusalem; and as it is natural to
+suppose that men in the situation of Ezekiel and Daniel would be
+meditating the recovery of their country, and their own deliverance,
+it is reasonable to suppose that the accounts of dreams and visions
+with which these books are filled, are no other than a disguised mode
+of correspondence to facilitate those objects: it served them as a
+cypher, or secret alphabet. If they are not this, they are tales,
+reveries, and nonsense; or at least a fanciful way of wearing off the
+wearisomeness of captivity; but the presumption is, they are the
+former.
+
+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
+shawed 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 be 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 Fsustum 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 Cerinthians, 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 Agee 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 Cliristianity 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 Gentilcs 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
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. IV
+by Thomas Paine
+