Epicurus was the greatest of all freethinkers, and consequently the most virtuous man in the world. His opinions in religion were the most complete system of atheism that ever appeared. Christians ought to have the greatest veneration for him, because he taught a higher point of virtue than Christ; I mean the virtue of friendship, which in the sense we usually understand it, is not so much as named in the New Testament.
Plutarch was a freethinker, notwithstanding his being a priest; but indeed he was a heathen priest. His freethinking appears by showing the innocence of atheism, (which at worst is only false reasoning,) and the mischiefs of superstition; and explains what superstition is, by calling it a conceit of immortal ills after death, the opinion of hell torments, dreadful aspects, doleful groans, and the like. He is likewise very satirical upon the public forms of devotion in his own country (a qualification absolutely necessary to a freethinker) yet those forms which he ridicules, are the very same that now pass for true worship in almost all countries: I am sure some of them do so in ours; such as abject looks, distortions, wry faces, beggarly tones, humiliation, and contrition.
Varro,[26] the most learned among the Romans, was a freethinker; for he said, the heathen divinity contained many fables below the dignity of immortal beings; such, for instance, as Gods BEGOTTEN and PROCEEDING from other Gods. These two words I desire you will particularly remark, because they are the very terms made use of by our priests in their doctrine of the Trinity: He says likewise, that there are many things false in religion, and so say all freethinkers; but then he adds; "which the vulgar ought not to know, but it is expedient they should believe." In this last he indeed discovers the whole secret of a statesman and politician, by denying the vulgar the privilege of freethinking, and here I differ from him. However, it is manifest from hence, that the Trinity was an invention of statesmen and politicians.
[Footnote 26: Marcus Terentius Varro (born B.C. 117) was the friend of Cicero. He was a profound grammarian, historian, and philosopher. The expression Swift applies to him as "the most learned among the Romans" is one by which he is generally called. [T. S.] ]
The grave and wise Cato the censor will for ever live in that noble freethinking saying—"I wonder," said he, "how one of our priests can forbear laughing when he sees another!" (For contempt of priests is another grand characteristic of a freethinker). This shews that Cato understood the whole mystery of the Roman religion "as by law established." I beg you, sir, not to overlook these last words, "religion as by law established." I translate hanisfax, into the general word, priest. Thus I apply the sentence to our priests in England, and, when Dr. Smallridge sees Dr. Atterbury, I wonder how either of them can forbear laughing at the cheat they put upon the people, by making them believe their "religion as by law established."
Cicero, that consummate philosopher, and noble patriot, though he was a priest, and consequently more likely to be a knave; gave the greatest proofs of his freethinking. First, he professed the sceptic philosophy, which doubts of everything. Then, he wrote two treatises;[27] in the first, he shews the weakness of the Stoics' arguments for the being of the Gods: In the latter, he has destroyed the whole revealed religion of the Greeks and Romans (for why should not theirs be a revealed religion as well as that of Christ?) Cicero likewise tells us, as his own opinion, that they who study philosophy, do not believe there are any Gods: He denies the immortality of the soul, and says, there can be nothing after death.
[Footnote 27: "De Natura Deomm." [T. S.] ]
And because the priests have the impudence to quote Cicero in their pulpits and pamphlets, against freethinking; I am resolved to disarm them of his authority. You must know, his philosophical works are generally in dialogues, where people are brought in disputing against one another: Now the priests when they see an argument to prove a God, offered perhaps by a Stoic, are such knaves or blockheads, to quote it as if it were Cicero's own; whereas Cicero was so noble a freethinker, that he believed nothing at all of the matter, nor ever shews the least inclination to favour superstition, or the belief of a God, and the immortality of the soul; unless what he throws out sometimes to save himself from danger, in his speeches to the Roman mob; whose religion was, however, much more innocent and less absurd, than that of popery at least: And I could say more—but you understand me.
Seneca was a great freethinker, and had a noble notion of the worship of the gods, for which our priests would call any man an atheist: He laughs at morning devotions, or worshipping upon Sabbath-days; he says God has no need of ministers and servants, because he himself serves mankind. This religious man, like his religious brethren the Stoics, denies the immortality of the soul, and says, all that is feigned to be so terrible in hell, is but a fable: Death puts an end to all our misery, &c. Yet the priests were anciently so fond of Seneca, that they forged a correspondence of letters between him and St. Paul.
Solomon himself, whose writings are called "the word of God," was such a freethinker, that if he were now alive, nothing but his building of churches could have kept our priests from calling him an atheist. He affirms the eternity of the world almost in the same manner with Manilius,[28] the heathen philosophical poet, (which opinion entirely overthrows the history of the creation by Moses, and all the New Testament): He denies the immortality of the soul, assures us that men die like beasts, and that both go to one place.