The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old

by George Bethune English

APPENDIX C.

Extract from Dodwells Dissertations on Irenaeus, Diss. 1, p.p. 38, 39.

The Canonical writings (i. e. of the New Testament), lay concealed in the coffers of private churches, or persons, till the latter times of Trajan, or rather perhaps of Adrian; so that they could not come to the knowledge of the church. For if they had been published, they would have been overwhelmed under such a multitude as were then of apocryphal and suppositious books, that a new examination and a new testimony would be necessary to distinguish them from these false ones. And it is from this new testimony (whereby the genuine writings of the apostles were distinguished from the spurious pieces which went under their names,) that depends all the authority which the truly apostolic writings have formerly obtained, or which they have at present in the Catholic Church. But this fresh attestation of the canon is subject to the same inconveniences with those traditions of the ancient persons that I defend, and whom Irenaeus both heard and saw; for it is equally distant from the original, and could not be made except by such only as had reached those remote times. But it is very certain that before the period I mentioned of Trajans time, the canon of the sacred books, was not yet fixed, nor any certain number of books received in the Catholic Church, whose authority must ever after serve to determine matters of faith; neither were the spurious pieces of heretics yet rejected, nor were the faithful admonished to beware of them for the future. Likewise, the true writings of the apostles used to be so bound up in one volume with the apocryphal, that it was not manifest by any mark of public censure which of them should be preferred to the other. We have at this day, certain authentic writings of ecclesiastical authors of those times, as Clemens Romanus, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, who wrote in the same order wherein I have named them, and after all the other writers of the New Testament, except Jude, and the two Johns. But in Hermas you shall not meet with one passage, or any mention of the New Testament; nor in all the rest is any one of the evangelists called by his own name. And if sometimes they cite any passages like those we read in our gospels; yet, you will find them so much changed, and for the most part so interpolated, that it cannot be known, whether they produced them out of ours, or some apocryphal gospels; nay, they sometimes cite passages which it is most certain are not in the present gospels. From hence, therefore, it is evident that no difference was yet put between the apocryphal and canonical books of the New Testament, especially if it be considered, that they pass no censure on the apocryphal, nor leave any mark whereby the reader might discern whether they attributed less authority to the spurious than to the genuine gospels; from whence it may reasonably be suspected, that if they cite sometimes any passages conformable to ours, it was not done through any certain design, as if dubious things were to be confirmed only by the canonical books, so as it is very possible that both those and the like passages may have been borrowed from other gospels besides these we now have. But what need I mention books that are not canonical, when indeed it does not appear from those of our canonical books which were last written, that the church knew any thing of the gospels, or that the clergy made a common use of them. The writers of these times do not chequer their works with texts of the New Testament, which yet is the custom of the moderns, and was also theirs in such books as they acknowledge for scripture; for they most frequently cite the books of the Old Testament, and would, doubtless, have done so by those of the New, if they had then been received as canonical.

So far Mr. Dodwell, and (excepting the genuineness of the writings of Barnabas and the rest, for they are incontestably ancient,) it is certain that the matters of fact with regard to the New Testament are all true. Whoever has an inclination to write on this subject, is furnished from this passage with a great many curious disquisitions wherein to show his penetration and his judgment, as—how the immediate successors and disciples of the apostles could so grossly confound the genuine writings of their masters with such as were falsely attributed to them; or since they were in the dark about these matters so early, how come such as followed them, by a better light; why all those books which are cited by the earliest fathers with the same respect as those now received, should not be accounted equally authentic by them; and what stress should be laid on the testimony of those fathers, who not only contradict one another, but are often inconsistent with themselves, in relating the very same facts; with a great many other difficulties, which deserve a clear solution from any capable person.

I have said the ancient heretics asserted that the present gospels were forgeries. As an example of this, take the following, from the works of Faustus, quoted by Augustine, contra Faustum Lib. 32, c. 2. You think, (says Faustus to his adversaries,) that of all the books in the world the Testament of the Son only, could not be corrupted; that it alone contains nothing which ought to be disallowed; especially when it appears, that it was not written by the apostles, but a long time after them, by certain obscure persons, who, lest no credit should be given to the stories they told of what they could not know, did prefix, to their writings, the names of the apostles, and partly of those who succeeded the apostles, affirming, that what they wrote themselves, was written by these. Wherein they seem to me to have been the more heinously injurious to the disciples of Christ, by attributing to them what they wrote themselves so dissonant and repugnant; and that they pretended to write those gospels under their names, which are so full of mistakes, of contradictory relations and opinions, that they are neither coherent with themselves, nor consistent with one another. What is this, therefore, but to throw a calumny on good men, and to fix the accusation of discord on the unanimous society of Christs disciples.

ADDENDA. There is, in the Gospel ascribed to John, a passage, quoted as a prophecy, which, as it has been looked on as a proof text, ought to have been mentioned in the 7th chapter. It is this. The evangelist (John xix. 23) says, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat—now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said, therefore, among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them and for my vesture they did cast lots. Now, however plausible this prophesy may appear, it is one of the most impudent applications of passages from the Old Testament that occurs in the New. It is taken from the 18th verse of the 22d Psalm, which Psalm was probably made by David, in reference to his humiliating and wretched expulsion from Jerusalem by his son Absalom, and what was done in consequence, viz., that he was hunted by ferocious enemies, whom he compares to furious bulls, and roaring lions, gaping upon him to devour him; that his palace was plundered, and that they divided his treasured garments, (in the East, where the fashions never change, every great man has constantly presses full of hundreds and thousands of garments, many of them very costly: they are considered as a valuable part of his riches), and cast lots for his robes. This is the real meaning of this passage quoted as a prophecy. In the same Psalm, there is another verse, which has been from time immemorial quoted as a prophecy of the crucifixion, (v. 16,) They pierced my hands and my feet. In the original, there seems to have been a word dropped importing they tear, or something like it, for it is literally, Like a lion—my hands and my feet, and there is there no word answering to pierced. The meaning, however, of the verse is not difficult to be discerned, dogs have compassed me; the assembly of wicked men have enclosed me; like a lion—(they tear) my hands and my feet. The meaning may be discovered from the context, where David represents himself as in the utmost distress, helpless, and abandoned amidst his enemies, raging like wild beasts around him; then, by a strong, but striking Oriental figure, he represents himself like a carcass surrounded by dogs, who are busied in tearing the flesh from his bones; their teeth fixed in his hands and feet, and pulling him asunder. This is the import of the place, and this interpretation is at last adopted, for the first time, I believe, by Christians, in the new version of the Psalms used by the Unitarian Church in London.

There is not a more palpable instance of the facility with which good natured and voracious piety is made to swallow the most flimsy arguments, if only agreeable to its wishes and wants, than the case under consideration. This Psalm, containing these passages, they parted my raiment among them; and they pierced my hands and my feet, is read, and for ages has been read, in the name of God, to the good people of the Church of England, on every Good Friday, as undoubtedly a prophesy of the Crucifixion; when yet the learned divines of the Church of England (and of these it can boast a noble Catalogue indeed) certainly know, and are conscious that the Psalm, which contains these passages, has no more relation to Jesus, than it has to Nebuchadnezzar.

A reference ought to have been subjoined at the end of the 10th chapter to the dialogue, called Philopatris in Lucians Works, for an account of the customs, habits, and personal appearance of the early Christians, corroborative of what is said in the 17th and 18th chapters of this work. Lest, however, Lucians testimony in this matter should be objected to, because he was a satirist, and, of course, may have been guilty of giving an overcharged picture of the subjects of his ridicule, I request the reader to peruse, if he can obtain it, Lamis Account of the domestic habits and personal appearance and practices of the primitive Christians. Lami was a very learned and sincere Christian, and of course his testimony cannot be objected to, and the reader will find, on a perusal of his work, that what I have asserted in the 17th and 18th chapters is altogether true, and not the whole truth neither. Indeed, that the statements in those chapters, as to the effects of the peculiar maxims of the New Testament upon the heart and understanding, are substantially correct, will, I believe, be discovered by asking any honest individual among the Methodists, who is an enthusiast, i. e sincere, and thorough-going in his religion. I have no doubt that he or she will avow, without hesitation, to the enquirer, and glory in it, that chastity is more honourable than marriage; that faith is every thing; that doubt is damnable, and a proof of an unregenerated mind; that all the goods and pleasures of this world are trash; that human institutions are mere carnal ordinances; and that human science and learning is a snare to faith and an abomination to a true disciple of the cross.

Published 1785.

* In the present day, various-attempts, insidious and powerful, have been made, even here, to coerce in matters of conscience, and to overthrow those wise barriers to the destructive effects of sectarian fanaticism and intolerance, which the great founders of the Republic, to their everlasting glory, erected.—D.

* Do you know (says Rousseau) of many Christians who have taken the pains to examine, with care, what the Jews have to say against them? If some persons have seen any thing of the kind, it is in the books of Christians, A fine way, truly, to get instructed in the arguments of their adversaries! But what can they do? If any one should dare to publish among us, books, in which be openly favours their opinions, we punish the author, the editor, the bookseller. This policy is convenient, and sure always to be in the right. There is a pleasure in refuting people who dare not open their lips"—(Emilius.) In the same work he says that he will never be convinced that the Jews have not something strong to say, till they shall be permitted to speak for themselves without fear, and without restraint." It was this hint of Rousseau which first excited the author's curiosity with regard to the subject of this book.—E.

* There are a great many persons who conceive that Christianity is sufficiently proved to be true, if the miracles of Jesus are true, even without any regard to the prophecies, so often appealed to by him. But supposing the miracles to be true; yet no miracles can prove that which is false in itself to be true. If therefore Jesus be not foretold as the Messiah in the Old Testament, no miracles can prove Jesus to be the Messiah foretold. Nay, it would be a stronger argument to prove Jesus to be a false pretender, that he appealed to prophecies as relating to him, when in fact they had no relation whatever to him; and by that means imposed upon the ignorant people; than it would be that he came from God, merely because he worked miracles; for False Christs and false prophets may arise, and may show such great signs and wonders as to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Matt. xxiv. 24. Yet no Christian would allow it to be argued from thence, that those false Christs were true ones: nor would any one conclude; that a man came from God, (notwithstanding any miracle he might do) if he appealed to Scripture for that which is no where in it. In fine, if miracles would prove the Messiahship of Jesus, so also they would prove the Messiahship of the false Christs, and false prophets spoken of above. Nay more, they would demonstrate the Divine mission of Antichrist himself; who, according to the epistle to the Thessalonians, (2 Thes. ch. ii. 8, 9,10) and the Revelations, ch. xiii. 13, 14, was to perform "great signs and wonders," equal to any wrought by Jesus, for the same Greek words are used to express the wonderful works or great signs and wonders of Antichrist, which are elsewhere used to express the miracles, or great signs and wonders of Jesus himself.

It is a striking circumstance, that the earliest apologists for
Christianity laid little stress upon the miracles of its founder.

Justin Martyr, in his Apology, is very shy of appealing to the miracles of Jesus in confirmation of his pretentions; he lays no stress upon them, but relies entirely upon the prophecies he quotes as in his favor. Jerome, in his comment on the eighty-first Psalm, assures us, that the performance of miracles was no extraordinary thing: and that it was no more than what Appollonius, and Apulias, and innumerable impostors had done before.

Lactantius saw so little force in the miracles of Christ, exclusive of the prophecies, that he does not hesitate to affirm their utter inability to support the Christian religion by themselves. [Lactan. Div. Inst. L. v. c. 3.]

Celsus, observing upon the words of Jesus, that false prophets and false Christs shall arise, and show grant signs and wonders," sneeringly observes, "A fine thing truly! that miracles done by him should prove him to be a God, and when done by others should demonstrate them to be false prophets and impostors.

Tertullian, on the words of Jesus, here referred to by Celsus, says as follows;

Christ, foretelling that many imposters should come and perform many wonders, shews, that our faith cannot without great temerity be founded on miracles, since they were so early wrought, by false Christians themselves. [Tertul. in Marc. L. ii. c. 3.]

Indeed, miracles in the two first centuries were allowed very little weight in proving doctrines. Since the Christians did not deny, that the heathens performed miracles in behalf of their gods, and that the heretics performed them as will as the orthodox. This accounts for the perfect indifference of the heathens to the miracles said to have been performed by the founders of Christianity. Hierocles speaks with great contempt of what he calls "the little tricks of Jesus," And Origen, in his reply to Celsus, waves the consideration of the Christian miracles: for (says he) the very mention of these things sets you heathens upon the. broad grin. Indeed, that they laughed very heartily at what in the eighteenth century is read with a grave face, is evident from the few fragments of their works written against Christianity which has escaped the burning zeal of the fathers, and the Christian emperors; who piously sought for, and burned up, these mischievous volumes to prevent their doing mischief to posterity. This conduct of theirs is very suspicious. Why burn writing they could so triumphantly refute, if they were refutable? They should have remembered the just reflection of Arnobius, their own apologist, against the heathens, who were for abolishing at once such writings as promoted Christianity.—"Intercipere scripta et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere."[Arnob. contra Gentes. Liber ni.]—E.

* Before going into the consideration of the following prophecies, the author would warn the reader to bear in mind, that whether these prophecies ever will be fulfilled, is a question of no import in the world to the question under consideration, which is—whether they have been fulfilled eighteen hundred years ago, in the person of Jesus Christ, who is asserted by Christians to be the person foretold in these prophecies, and to have fulfilled their predictions. This question can be easily decided, and only, we think, by appealing to past history, and to the scenes passing around us, and comparing them with these predictions.—E.

* The word in the original being Vayikra, in the Kal or Active form of the verb, and not Vayikare the Niphal or Passive form.—D.

# reprove or argue.—D.

* Or, in righteousness.—D.

# Mr. English very properly takes notice of the disjunctive accent
(Pasek) occurring here in the text.—D.

# For a more correct enumeration of the thirteen cabalistic rules of
exposition, the English reader is referred to vol. 1, page 209, of the
Conciliator of B. Menasseh ben Israel, translated by E, H. Lindo,
Esqr.—D.

# Mr. E. was, doubtless, aware that this is an exposition given by
Jewish Commentators.—D.

# There exists an English translation of this work by Abraham de Sola.
—D.

* The person here spoken of by Isaiah is said to make his grave with the wicked, and be with the rich in his death. Whereas Jesus did exactly the contrary. He was with the wicked (i. e., the two thieves) in his death, and with the rich (i.e., Joseph of Arimathea) in his grave, or tomb. In the original, the words may be translated that he shall avenge, or recompence upon the wicked his grave, and his death upon the rich. Thus does the Targum and the Arabic version interpret the place, and Ezekiel ix. 10, uses the verb in the verse in Isaiah under consideration translated (in The English version)—He made, &c—in the same sense, given to this place in Isaiah, by the Targum, and the Arabic, as said above. See the place in Ezekiel, where it is translated—I will recompence their way upon their head. See also Deut. xxi. 8, in the original. The Syriac has it—The wicked contributed to his burial, and the rich to his death. The Arabic—I will punish the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death. The Targum—He shall send the wicked into hell, and the rich who put him to a cruel death.—E.

# Or, shall destroy.—D.

* The remainder of this chapter is taken from Levi and Wagenseil.—E.

* The reader is requested to consider the reasoning in the last paragraph. The prophecy in the second chapter of Daniel, is commonly supposed to relate to the four Great Empires, the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian and Roman. This last, it is (according to this interpretation,) foretold, should be divided into many kingdoms, and that in the latter days of these kingdoms, (which are now subsisting) God would set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed,—that of the Messiah. Of course, according to this interpretation, the kingdom of the Messiah was not to be not only sustain after the destruction of the Roman Empire, but not till the latter days of the kingdoms which grew up out of its ruins; whereas, Jesus was born in the time of Augustus, i. e., precisely when the Roman Empire itself was in the highest of its splendour and vigour. This is a remarkable, and very striking, repugnance, to the claims of the New Testament, and, if substantiated, must overset them entirely.—E.

* The sum of our argument may be expressed thus. God is represented in the prophecies of the Old Testament as designing to send into the world an eminent deliverer, descended from David, the peace and prosperity of whose reign should far exceed all that went before him, in whom all the glorious things foretold by the prophets should receive their entire completion; and who should be distinguished by the character of the Messiah or Christ. This is an article of faith common to Christians and Jews. But that Jesus of Nazareth should be esteemed this Messiah, and that Christians can support that opinion, by alledging the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures as belonging to, and fulfilled in, him, is what we can by no means allow, and that especially on account of these inconsistencies.

1. Because, these prophecies, acknowledged on both sides to point out the Messiah, could not otherwise answer the end of inspiring them than by an accomplishment so plain and sensible as might sufficiently distinguish the person meant by them to be that Messiah. But no such accomplishment, we contend, can possibly be discerned in Jesus, and, consequently, he cannot be the person meant by them.

2. Because, several predictions which Christians apply to Jesus, are wrested to a meaning which quite destroys the historical sense of scripture, and breaks the connexion of the passages from whence they are taken. Thus many shreds and loose sentences are culled out for this purpose, which do not appear to have any relation to Jesus, or to the Messiah either; but to have received their proper and intended completion in some other person, whom the prophet, as is manifest, had then only in view.

3. Because, in their forced applications of the prophecies, Christians, finding themselves hard pressed by the simple and natural construction, forsake the literal, and take shelter in spiritual and mystical senses; fly to hyperboles and strained metaphors, and thus expound the true meaning and importance of the prophecies quite away; the intent whereof being to instruct men in so necessary a point of faith as that relating to the Messiah, it is reasonable to think they would be delivered in the most perspicuous and intelligible terms. Since ambiguous expressions (capable of such strange meanings as they pretend,) would be too slippery a foundation to build such a point of faith upon; would be of no use, or worse than none; would be unable to teach the clear truth, and apt to ensnare men into dangerous errors, by leaving too great a latitude for fanciful interpretations, and introducing darkness and confusion, and contradiction inexplicable.

4. Because, admitting (as indeed it never was, or can be denied) that many passages of scripture, and of prophetical scripture especially, must be figuratively taken; yet, we must always put a wide difference between a sense not just as the words in their first signification import, and a sense directly the contrary of what they import. And yet we complain that this latter is the sense which Christians labour to obtrude upon the gainsayers. We say, that a kingdom of this world, and not of this world; contempt and adoration; poverty and magnificence; persecution and peace; sufferings and triumph; a cross and a throne; the scandalous death of a private man upon a gibbet, and the everlasting dominion of a universal monarch, must be reconciled, and mean the self same thing, before the prophecies appealed to, can do their cause any service. Granting, then, the goodness of God (according to them,) to have been better than his word, by giving spiritual blessings, instead of temporal; yet, what will become of the truth of God, if He act contrary to his word, even when it would be for our advantage, if He misleads people by expressions, which, if they mean any thing at all, must mean what the Jews understand by them?

In short, it seems to me, that if Providence has, in truth, any concern with the predictions of the Old Testament, it could not have taken more effectual care to justify the unbelief and obstinacy of the Jews, than by ordering matters so, that the life and death of Jesus should be so exactly, and so entirely, the very reverse of all those ideas under which their prophets had constantly described, and the Hebrew nation as constantly expected of their Messiah, and his coming; and to suppose that the Supreme Being meant to describe and point out such a person as Jesus by such descriptions of the Messiah as are contained in the Old Testament, is certainly substantially to accuse him of the moat unjustifiable prevarication, and mockery of his creatures.

In order that the subject we are examining, and the arguments we make use of, may be clearly understood by the reader, he is requested to bear in mind, that the author reasons all along upon the supposed Divine authority of the Old Testament; which is admitted by both Jews and Christians. Whether the supernatural claims of the Old Testament be just, or not, is of no consequence in the world to the controversy we are considering. For the dispute of the Jew with the Christian is one thing, and his dispute with the sceptic is another, totally different. For whether such a personage as the Messiah is described to be, has appeared eighteen hundred years ago, is quite a different thing from the question, whether such a personage will appear at all. The Christian says, that he has appeared in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This the Jew denies, but looks forward to the future fulfilment of the promises of his Bible, while the Sceptic denies that the Messiah has come, or ever will.

But the subject at present under consideration is the dispute of the Jew with the Christian, who acknowledges the Old Testament to be a Revelation, upon which a new Revelation, that of the New Testament, is founded and erected. To him the Jew argues, that if the Old Testament be a Divine Revelation, then the New Testament cannot be a Revelation, because it contradicts, and is repugnant to, the Old Testament, the more ancient, and acknowledged Revelation. Now God cannot be the author of two Revelations, one of which is repugnant to the other. One of them is certainly false. And if the Christian, conscious of the difficulty of reconciling the New, with the Old, Testament, attempts to support the New, at the expense of the Old, Testament, upon which the former is, and was, built by the founders of Christianity; then the Jew would tell him, that he acts as absurdly as would the man who should expect to make his house the firmer, by undermining, and weakening its foundation.

So that whether the Christian affirms, or denies, he is ruined either way. For he is reduced to this fatal dilemma. If the Old Testament contains a Revelation from God, then the New Testament is not from God, for God cannot contradict himself: and it can be proved abundantly, that the New Testament is contradictory, and repugnant to the Old and to itself too. If, on the other hand, the Old Testament contains no Revelation from God, then the New Testament must go down at any rate because it asserts that the Old Testament does contain a Revelation from God, and builds upon it, as a foundation.—E.

* There was nothing which gave the author, in writing this Book, so much uneasiness, at the apprehension of being supposed to entertain disrespectful sentiments of the Founder of the Christian Religion. I would most earnestly entreat the reader to believe my solemn assurances, that by nothing that I have said, or shall be under the necessity of saying, do I think, or mean to intimate the slightest disparagement to the moral character of one, whose purity of morals, and good intentions, deserve any thing else but reproach. That he was an enthusiast, I do not doubt, that he was a wilful impostor I never will believe. And I protest before God, that from the apprehensions above-mentioned alone, I would have confined the contents of this volume to myself, did I not feel compelled to justify myself for having quitted a profession: and did I not, above all, think it my duty, to make a well meant attempt, which I hope will be seconded, to vindicate the unbelief of an unfortunate nation, who, on that account, have for almost eighteen hundred years, been made the victim of rancorous prejudice, the most infernal cruelties, and the most atrocious wickedness. If the Christian religion be, in truth, not well founded, surely it is the duty of every honest and every humane, man, to endeavour to dispel an illusion, which certainly has been, notwithstanding any thing that can be said to the contrary, the bona fide, and real cause of unspeakable misery, and of repeated, and remorseless plunderings, and massacres, to an unhappy people; the journal of whose sufferings, on account of it, forms the blackest page in the history of the human race, and the most detestable one in the history of human superstition.—E.

* Jerome, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, says, that The Church of Christ was not gathered from the Academy, or the Lyceum, but from the lowest of the people. [Vili Plebecula.] And Coecilius, in Minutius Felix, says, that the Christian assemblies were made up de ultima faece collectis, imperitioribus, et mulieribus credulis sexus suae facilitate labentibus, i. e. that they consisted of the lowest of the mob, simple and unlearned, men, and credulous women.

The president of a province is introduced, by Prudentius as thus addressing a martyr:—Tu qui Doctor, ait, seris novellum Commenti genus, ut Leves Puellae, Lucos destituunt, Jovem relinquant; Damnes, si sapias, ANILE DOGMA.

The Christian Fathers confess, and glory in it, that the greater part of their congregations consisted of women and children, slaves, beggars, and vagabonds.

The Jewish Christians were, as appears evidently from the New Testament, exceedingly poor, and therefore there is frequent mention made of contributions for the poor Saints at Jerusalem. From thence it was that the Jewish Christians got the name of Ebionites, i. e. Poor. The Jewish Christian Church consisted of the dregs of the Jewish people, simple and ignorant men, Samaritans, &c. No person in Judea of eminence, or learning, appears to have joined the sect of the Nazarenes, except Paul; after the destruction of Jerusalem they gradually dwindled in number, and became extinct.—E.

* I will here lay before the reader the arguments advanced by the Mahometans in behalf of the miracles of their prophet, extracted from the learned Relands account of Mehometanism. They say that—the miracles of Mahomet and his followers have been recorded in innumerable volumes of the most famous, learned, pious, and subtle Doctors of the Mahometan Faith, who let nothing pass without the strictest and severest examination, and whose tradition, therefore, is unexceptionable among them; that they were known throughout all the regions of Arabia, and transmitted by common and universal tradition from father to son, from generation to generation. That the books of Interpreters and Commentators on the Koran, the books of Historians, especially such as give an account of Mahomets life and actions, the books of annalists and lawyers, the books of mathematicians and philosophers, and, last of all, the books of both Jews and Christians concerning Mahomet, are full of his miracles. That if the authority of so many great and wise doctors be denied, then, for their part, they cannot see but that a universal scepticism as to all other accounts of miracles must obtain among people of all persuasions. For authority being the only proof of facts done out of our time, or out of our sight, if that be denied, there is no way to come to the certainty of any such, without immediate inspiration; and all accounts of matters recorded in history, must be doubtful and precarious.

And these witnesses would not have dared to assert these miracles unless they were true; for such as forged any miracles for his, which he really did not, lay under a hearty curse from the prophet. For it was a received tradition among the faithful, that Mahomet denounced hell and damnation to all those who should tell any lies of him. So that none who believed in Mahomet, durst attribute miracles to him which he was not concerned in; and those who believed not in him, would certainly never have given him the honour of working any, unless he had done so. Christian reader, thou seest how much can be said, and how many respectable witnesses and authorities can be adduced to prove that Mahomet wrought miracles. Canst thou adduce more, or better, authorities in behalf of the miracles of the New Testament? Art thou not rather satisfied how fallacious the evidence of testimony is in all such cases?

This is not all that the Mahometan might urge in behalf of his prophet, for he might tell the Christian, boasting that Jesus and his Apostles converted the Roman world from idolatry, that they overthrew one system of idolatry, only to build up another, since the worship of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints, and their images was established in a few hundred years after Jesus, and continues to this day; an idolatry as rank, and much more inexcusable than the worship of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Whereas, Mahomet cut up root and branch, both Christian and Pagan idolatry, and proclaimed one only God as the object of adoration; and if the Christian should urge the rapid propagation of Christianity, the Mahometan might reply, that Mahomet was a poor camel-driver, but that Islamism made more progress in one hundred years, than Christianity did in a thousand; that it was embraced by the noble, the great, the wise, and the learned, almost as soon as it appeared; whereas, Christianity was skulking and creeping among the mob of the Roman Empire for some hundred years before it dared to raise its head in public view. If the Christian should reply to this, by ascribing the success of Mahometanism to the sword, the Mahometan might reply, with truth, that it was a vulgar error; for that vastly more nations embraced Islamism voluntarily, than there were who freely received Christianity; and he might remind him, how much Christianity owed to the accession of Constantine; to Charlemagne; and the Teutonic Knights; and bid him recollect that the monks were assisted by soldiers to convert to Christianity almost every nation in Modern Europe.—E.

# Compare the above with Maimonides, Hilchot Yessode Hattorah, from chapter 7.—D.

* The reader is requested by the author to understand, and bear in mind, that it is not at all intended by any of the observations contained in this chapter on the histories of the four evangelists, to reflect upon, or to disparage, the characters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, under whose names they go; because he believes, and thinks it is proved in this chapter, that the real authors of these histories were very different persons from the Apostles of Jesus; and that, in fact, the accounts were not written till the middle of the second century, about a hundred years after the supposed authors of them were dead. Of course, none of the observations contained in the chapter relative to these histories, ware considered, or intended, to apply to any of the twelve apostles, who were not men who could make such mistakes as will be pointed out. These mistakes belong entirely to the authors who have assumed their names.—E.

* That the pretended Gospel of Matthew was not written by Matthew, or by an, inhabitant of Palestine, may also be inferred, I think, from the blundering attempts of the author of it to give the meaning of some expressions uttered by Jesus, and used by the Jews, in the language of the country, which was the Syro Chaldaic; and which the real Matthew could hardly be ignorant of. For instance, he says that Golgotha signifies—the place of a skull. Matthew xxvii. 33. Now, this is not true, for Golgotha, or as it should have been written, Golgoltha, does not signify the place of a skull, but simply a skull. The Gospels according to Mark, and John, are guilty of the same mistake, and thus betray the same marks of Gentilism. Again, the pretended Matthew says, that Jesus cried on the cross, Eli Eli lama, sabackthani, which he says meant, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew xxvii. 46.) If the reader will look at what Michaelis, in his introduction to the New Testament, says upon this subject, he will find the real Syro Chaldaic expression which must have been used by Jesus, to be so different from the one given by the supposed Matthew, that he will, (and the observation is not meant as a disparagement to the real Matthew, who certainly had no hand in the imposition of the Gospel covered with his name) I suspect be inclined to believe, that this pretended Matthews knowledge of the vulgar language of the Jews, used in Christs time, must have been about upon a par with the honest sailors knowledge of French; who assured his countrymen, on his return home, that the French called a horse a shovel and a hat a chopper!—E.

* See Addenda, No. 2.

* The author had prepared, in order to subjoin in this place, an examination of the Mosaic Code, and a development of its principles, which he thinks would have satisfied the reader of the truth of what he has said in the last paragraph. But as it would have too much increased the bulk of the volume, it has been omitted. It is an institution however curious enough to be the subject of an interesting discussion, which he should be happy to see from the hands of one able to do it justice.—E.

# Mr. English, it will be perceived, differs in his translation of the Hebrew word nebelati, which is, certainly, in the singular number, and not plural. The correct rendering is, doubtless, with my dead body they, &c.; but this weakens not at all his argument, which is essentially a Jewish one. See the Commentators, Chizoook Emunah, &c. &c.—D.

# This was, originally, a note; but, in order not to divert too much the readers attention, it has been thought advisable to insert it here.—D.