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    <h1>
      THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE
    </h1>
    <h2>
      THE AGE OF REASON - PART I and II
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Thomas Paine
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      Collected And Edited By Moncure Daniel Conway
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      VOLUME IV.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      (1796)
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE AGE OF REASON</b> </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION </a><br /><br /><br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I - THE AUTHOR'S PROFESSION OF FAITH.
        </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II - OF MISSIONS AND REVELATIONS. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III - CONCERNING THE CHARACTER OF JESUS
        CHRIST, AND HIS HISTORY. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV - OF THE BASES OF CHRISTIANITY. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V - EXAMINATION IN DETAIL OF THE
        PRECEDING BASES. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI - OF THE TRUE THEOLOGY. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII - EXAMINATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
        </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII - OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX - IN WHAT THE TRUE REVELATION
        CONSISTS. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X - CONCERNING GOD, AND THE LIGHTS CAST
        ON HIS EXISTENCE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI - OF THE THEOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIANS;
        AND THE TRUE THEOLOGY. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII - THE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANISM ON
        EDUCATION; PROPOSED </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII - COMPARISON OF CHRISTIANISM WITH
        THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV - SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV - ADVANTAGES OF THE EXISTENCE OF
        MANY WORLDS IN EACH SOLAR </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI - APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING TO
        THE SYSTEM OF THE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII - OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN ALL
        TIME, AND ALMOST </a>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <hr />
      <p>
        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> <b>THE AGE OF REASON - PART II</b> </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a><br /><br /><br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER I - THE OLD TESTAMENT </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER II - THE NEW TESTAMENT </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER III - CONCLUSION </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <h1>
      THE AGE OF REASON
    </h1>
    <p>
      (1796) <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
    </h2>
    <h3>
      WITH SOME RESULTS OF RECENT RESEARCHES.
    </h3>
    <p>
      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&mdash;Thomas Paine. He had pleaded for Louis
      Caper&mdash;"Kill the king but spare the man." Now he pleaded,&mdash;"Disbelieve
      in the King of kings, but do not confuse with that idol the Father of
      Mankind!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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:&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.)
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;one of which changed "church
      mythologists" into "Christian mythologists,"&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,&mdash;while in England he was denounced as an
      accomplice in the deed,&mdash;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 l'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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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,"&mdash;Paine being then in prison,&mdash;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,&mdash;"The Age of Reason,"&mdash;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,&mdash;a fact which did not
      deter pious mythologists from portraying his death-bed remorse for having
      written the book.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, Gouverneur 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "SIR,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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. &mdash;&mdash;-
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "T. PAINE.
    </p>
    <p>
      "PARIS, December 4, 1795"
    </p>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "SIR,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Your friend, etc.,
    </p>
    <p>
      "THOMAS PAINE."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that
      revised by Paine&mdash;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,&mdash;not even
      "philanthropic" Wilberforce&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER I - THE AUTHOR'S PROFESSION OF FAITH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this
      life.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II - OF MISSIONS AND REVELATIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER III - CONCERNING THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST, AND HIS HISTORY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."&mdash;Editor. (Conway)]
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV - OF THE BASES OF CHRISTIANITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in heaven, in which none of
      the combatants could be either killed or wounded&mdash;put Satan into the
      pit&mdash;let him out again&mdash;given him a triumph over the whole
      creation&mdash;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."&mdash;Editor.] had eaten
      an apple.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER V - EXAMINATION IN DETAIL OF THE PRECEDING BASES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI - OF THE TRUE THEOLOGY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII - EXAMINATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poetry consists principally in two things&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth
  'T is God himself that calls attention forth.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."&mdash;Author.]
</pre>
    <p>
      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
      'propesying' meant the art of making poetry. It also meant the art of
      playing poetry to a tune upon any instrument of music.
    </p>
    <p>
      We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.] came upon Saul, and he prophesied."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;The
      Word of God exists in something else.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII - OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;thou
      knowest not so well as I.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX - IN WHAT THE TRUE REVELATION CONSISTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      BUT some perhaps will say&mdash;Are we to have no word of God&mdash;no
      revelation? I answer yes. There is a Word of God; there is a revelation.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER X - CONCERNING GOD, AND THE LIGHTS CAST ON HIS EXISTENCE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      AND ATTRIBUTES BY THE BIBLE.
    </h3>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XI - OF THE THEOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIANS; AND THE TRUE THEOLOGY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It may be said, that man can make or draw a triangle, and therefore a
      triangle is an human invention.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;and also the sines, tangents, and secants
      generated from the angles, and geometrically measured,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 he
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XII - THE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANISM ON EDUCATION; PROPOSED
    </h2>
    <p>
      REFORMS.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the strange story of Eve,
      the snake, and the apple&mdash;the amphibious idea of a man-god&mdash;the
      corporeal idea of the death of a god&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.&mdash;Editor.
      (Conway)]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIII - COMPARISON OF CHRISTIANISM WITH THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS
    </h2>
    <p>
      INSPIRED BY NATURE.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 he believes both, has thought but little of either.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 crowded 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIV - SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is this leaning of the earth (23 1/2 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, Jupiter, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 line 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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XV - ADVANTAGES OF THE EXISTENCE OF MANY WORLDS IN EACH SOLAR
    </h2>
    <p>
      SYSTEM.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      As therefore the Creator made nothing in vain, so also must it be believed
      that he 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVI - APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING TO THE SYSTEM OF THE
    </h2>
    <p>
      CHRISTIANS.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVII - OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN ALL TIME, AND ALMOST
    </h2>
    <p>
      UNIVERSALLY, TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLES.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, The first two are
      incompatible with true religion, and the third ought always to be
      suspected.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 envelops itself in mystery; and the mystery in
      which it is at any time enveloped, is the work of its antagonist, and
      never of itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But before going further into this subject, it will be proper to inquire
      what is to be understood by a miracle.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      It has been shewn, in a former part of this work, that the original
      meaning of the words prophet and prophesying 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 multitude 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      RECAPITULATION.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."&mdash;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.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE AGE OF REASON - PART II
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   Contents

  * Preface
  * Chapter I - The Old Testament
  * Chapter II - The New Testament
  * Chapter III - Conclusion
</pre>
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    <h2>
      PREFACE
    </h2>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;that priests could
      forgive sins,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      Testament, and speaks of the New as the "Testament."&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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&mdash;July 27, 1794.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Rochambeau 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.&mdash;Editor.]
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Demander que Thomas Paine soit decrete d'accusation, pour l'interet de
      l'Amerique autant que de la France."
    </p>
    <p>
      [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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      THOMAS PAINE. October, 1795.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER I - THE OLD TESTAMENT
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      Israel 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.&mdash;Editor.]&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 showing
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I begin with the book of Genesis.&mdash;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.)
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The passage, therefore, that I have quoted&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."&mdash;I now come
      more immediately to the proof.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 now-a-days go to a conjuror to
      enquire after lost things.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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-time 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 succeeded 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I come now to the two books of Kings, and the two books of Chronicles.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The two books of Chronicles 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
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.
</pre>
    <p>
      Haggai Zechariah all three after the year 588 Medachi [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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the next in course,
      the book of Ezra.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Last Two Verses of 2 Chronicles.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. ***
    </p>
    <p>
      First Three Verses of Ezra.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      *** 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," &amp;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;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 Joshua, Loose thy shoe
      from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standeth is holy. And Joshua
      did so."&mdash;And what then? nothing: for here the story ends, and the
      chapter too.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      [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.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 he 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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 ("Defence
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.,&mdash;immediately preceding
      the proverbs of Lemuel,&mdash;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.&mdash;Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi.
      1) the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or "burden"
      (marg.) in the revised version.&mdash;The prayer of Agur was quoted by
      Paine in his plea for the officers of Excise, 1772.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;I pass on to the book of,
    </p>
    <p>
      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 captive
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those who knew Benjamin 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Solomon's Songs, amorous and foolish enough, but which wrinkled fanaticism
      has called divine.&mdash;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. 1014, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 sorts; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;and
      thus, by taking away the foundation, to overthrow at once the whole
      structure of superstition raised thereon,&mdash;I will however stop a
      moment to expose the fallacious application of this passage.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;whom
      Jeremiah calls, xliii. 10, the servant of God.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall
      live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      What then can we say of these prophets, but that they are impostors and
      liars?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      [The Hebrew word for Seer, in 1 Samuel ix., transliterated, is chozeh, the
      gazer, it is translated in Is. xlvii. 13, "the stargazers."&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;I here close this part of
      the subject.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the former part of 'The Age of Reason' I have spoken of Jonah, and of
      the story of him and the whale.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having published his predictions, he withdrew, says the story, to the east
      side of the city.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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&mdash;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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;I pass on to the books of the
      New Testament.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II - THE NEW TESTAMENT
    </h2>
    <p>
      THE New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the
      Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The history of Jesus Christ is contained in the four books ascribed to
      Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   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
</pre>
    <p>
      [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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,)&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      The inscription is thus stated in those books:
    </p>
    <p>
      Matthew&mdash;This is Jesus the king of the Jews. Mark&mdash;The king of
      the Jews. Luke&mdash;This is the king of the Jews. John&mdash;Jesus of
      Nazareth the king of the Jews.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      The accounts that are given of the circumstances, that they tell us
      attended the crucifixion, are differently related in those four books.
    </p>
    <p>
      The book ascribed to Matthew says 'there was darkness over all the land
      from the sixth hour unto the ninth hour&mdash;that the veil of the temple
      was rent in twain from the top to the bottom&mdash;that there was an
      earthquake&mdash;that the rocks rent&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the veil of the temple&mdash;the earthquake&mdash;the
      rocks&mdash;the graves&mdash;nor the dead men.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;namely, the four men called apostles,
      Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Thus much for this part of the story.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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."&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, that respects the
      pretended appearance of Christ after this pretended resurrection.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into heaven.&mdash;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.&mdash;But to come to the
      point.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,"&mdash;words
      omitted by several ancient authorities.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;that the Bible and the Testament are
      impositions upon the world;&mdash;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;&mdash;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;&mdash;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&mdash;and so help me God.
    </p>
    <p>
      But to retum to the subject.&mdash;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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;How
      then have they been written?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told with that strange
      mixture of the natural and impossible, that distinguishes legendary tale
      from fact. He is represented as suddenly coming in and going out when the
      doors are shut, and of vanishing out of sight, and appearing again, as one
      would conceive of an unsubstantial vision; then again he is hungry, sits
      down to meat, and eats his supper. But as those who tell stories of this
      kind never provide for all the cases, so it is here: they have told us,
      that when he arose he left his grave-clothes behind him; but they have
      forgotten to provide other clothes for him to appear in afterwards, or to
      tell us what he did with them when he ascended; whether he stripped all
      off, or went up clothes and all. In the case of Elijah, they have been
      careful enough to make him throw down his mantle; how it happened not to
      be burnt in the chariot of fire, they also have not told us; but as
      imagination supplies all deficiencies of this kind, we may suppose if we
      please that it was made of salamander's wool.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      [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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      This Bishop Faustus is usually styled "The Manichaeum," Augustine having
      entitled his book, Contra Frustum Manichaeum Libri xxxiii., in which
      nearly the whole of Faustus' very able work is quoted.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      [The Marcionists (a Christian sect) asserted that the evangelists were
      filled with falsities. The Manichaeans, who formed a very numerous sect at
      the commencement of Christianity, rejected as false all the New Testament,
      and showed other writings quite different that they gave for authentic.
      The Corinthians, like the Marcionists, admitted not the Acts of the
      Apostles. The Encratites and the Sevenians adopted neither the Acts, nor
      the Epistles of Paul. Chrysostom, in a homily which he made upon the Acts
      of the Apostles, says that in his time, about the year 400, many people
      knew nothing either of the author or of the book. St. Irene, who lived
      before that time, reports that the Valentinians, like several other sects
      of the Christians, accused the scriptures of being filled with
      imperfections, errors, and contradictions. The Ebionites, or Nazarenes,
      who were the first Christians, rejected all the Epistles of Paul, and
      regarded him as an impostor. They report, among other things, that he was
      originally a Pagan; that he came to Jerusalem, where he lived some time;
      and that having a mind to marry the daughter of the high priest, he had
      himself been circumcised; but that not being able to obtain her, he
      quarrelled with the Jews and wrote against circumcision, and against the
      observation of the Sabbath, and against all the legal ordinances.&mdash;Author.]
      [Much abridged from the Exam. Crit. de la Vie de St. Paul, by N.A.
      Boulanger, 1770.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;(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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Thus much for the
      historical part of the Testament and its evidences.
    </p>
    <p>
      Epistles of Paul&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER III - CONCLUSION
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;for he knows it already&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;not to terrify, but to extirpate. The Jews made no converts:
      they butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the [New] Testament, and both
      are called the word of God. The Christians read both books; the ministers
      preach from both books; and this thing called Christianity is made up of
      both. It is then false to say that Christianity was not established by the
      sword.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Editor.]
      Had they called them by a worse name, they had been nearer the truth.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;repine,
      cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches us?&mdash;to believe
      that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married;
      and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly scattered
      in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing, revealed
      religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, and the bonds by
      which society is held together, and without which it cannot exist; and are
      nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies. The Testament
      teaches nothing new upon this subject, and where it attempts to exceed, it
      becomes mean and ridiculous. The doctrine of not retaliating injuries is
      much better expressed in Proverbs, which is a collection as well from the
      Gentiles as the Jews, than it is in the Testament. It is there said, (Xxv.
      2 I) "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be
      thirsty, give him water to drink:" [According to what is called Christ's
      sermon on the mount, in the book of Matthew, where, among some other [and]
      good things, a great deal of this feigned morality is introduced, it is
      there expressly said, that the doctrine of forbearance, or of not
      retaliating injuries, was not any part of the doctrine of the Jews; but as
      this doctrine is found in "Proverbs," it must, according to that
      statement, have been copied from the Gentiles, from whom Christ had
      learned it. Those men whom Jewish and Christian idolators have abusively
      called heathen, had much better and clearer ideas of justice and morality
      than are to be found in the Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish, or in
      the New. The answer of Solon on the question, "Which is the most perfect
      popular govemment," has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as
      containing a maxim of political morality, "That," says he, "where the
      least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on
      the whole constitution." Solon lived about 500 years before Christ.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;as everything of agriculture, of
      science, and of the mechanical arts, has,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&mdash;Author.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      END OF PART II <br /> <br />
    </p>
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