II.
The most ignorant Hebrews having given the most vogue to the law of Moses were the first to run after Jesus, and as their number was infinite and they encouraged each other, it is not marvellous that these errors spread so easily. It is not that novelty does not always beget suffering, but it is the glory that is expected that one hopes will smooth the difficulties. Thus the Disciples of Jesus, miserable as they were, reduced at times to nourish themselves with grains of corn which they gathered from the fields (Luke vi., 1), and seeing themselves shamefully excluded from places where they thought to enter to ease their fatigue (Luke ix., 52–53) they began to be discouraged with living; their Master being without the pale of the law and unable to give them the benefits, glory and grandeur which he had promised them.
After his death his disciples, in despair at seeing their hopes frustrated, and pursued by the Jews who wished to treat them as they had treated their Master, made a virtue of necessity and scattered over the country, where by the report of some women ([John xx, 18]) they told of his resurrection, his divine affiliation and the rest of the fables with which the Gospels are filled.[1] The trouble which they had to make progress among the Jews made them resolve to pass among the Gentiles, and try to serve themselves better among them; but as it was necessary to have more learning for that than they possessed—the Gentiles being philosophers and too much in love with truth to resort to trifles—they gained over a young man (Saul or St. Paul) of an active and eager mind and a little better informed than the simple fishermen or than the greater babblers who associated with them. A stroke from Heaven made him blind, as is said (without this the trick would have been useless) and this incident for a time attracted some weak souls.[2] By the fear of Hell, taken from some of the fables of the ancient poets, and by the hope of a glorious Resurrection and a Paradise which is hardly more supportable than that of Mahomet; all these procured for their Master the honor of passing for a God, which he himself was unable to obtain while living. In which this kind of Jesus was no better than Homer: six cities which had driven the latter out with contempt and scorn during his life, disputed with each other after his death to determine with whom remained the honor of having been his birth-place.
By this it may be seen that Christianity depends, like all other things, on the caprice of men, in whose opinion all passes either for good or bad, according as the notion strikes them. Further, if Jesus was God, nothing could resist him, for St. Paul (Romans, v. 19), is witness that nothing could overcome his will. Yet this passage is directly opposed to another in Genesis (iv, 7), where it is said that as the desires and appetites of man belong to him, who is the Master, so it is agreed to accord free-will to the master of animals, that is to say, man, for whom it is said God has created the universe.
But without wandering in a maze of errors and positive contradictions, of which we have discoursed sufficiently, let us say something of Mahomet, who founded a law upon maxims totally opposed to those of Jesus Christ.
[1] Which determined the Emperor Julian to abandon the sect of Nazarenes whose faith he regarded as a vulgar fiction of the human mind, which he found based solely on a simple tale of Perdiccas. [↑]
[2] Also his belief in visions and the legend of his translation to Heaven. [↑]