* The elder Pliny, about the year seventy-five, wrote the
"History of His Own Time," in thirty-one books, and was the
most celebrated historian of that time, yet we find him as
ignorant as Josephus, or any of the other writers mentioned,
of the thing called Christianity, or sect of Christians;
though, as an historian, he was so minute and circumstantial
as to suffer nothing of importance to escape him. Why did
the Christians, in after times destroy the work above-
mentioned, and leave his "Natural History?" Because he did
not perform an impossibility; that is, he neither did nor
could take notice of their sect, which had no known
existence in his time.
A question naturally presents itself—did the populace of Jerusalem and villages adjacent, who were spectators and witnesses when the miracles in question were wrought, believe in them? No, they did not; to them the operator, whoever he was, must have appeared an impostor, as fully appears by the catastrophe. That such extraordinary events and performances should make no impression upon those who were witnesses to them, is contrary to the natural feelings of mankind, particularly as regards the populace, for in all such cases where the bulk of the people believe in the truth of reputed miracles, they are more actuated by sentiments of reverential awe towards the performer, than a desire to put him to death.
After a lapse of nearly two thousand years since the epoch of these miraculous events, it must ever remain impossible to ascertain whether the second person of this triune godhead had bona fide an incarnate existence; or was merely a metaphorical personification of some principle, as the epithet Christ implies;* but it is certain that this appellative was assumed by a sect of superstitionists known in Egypt, from time immemorial, under the name of therapeutæ, or monks, whose tenets the Judaizing Christians adopted; and from whose writings they made selections in the compilation of their New Testament, as is proved by the testimony of Eusebius himself, who says in his history, book 2nd: "Those ancient therapeutæ were Christians, AND THEIR ANCIENT WRITINGS WERE OUR GOSPELS."
* "Christos being strictly a Greek epithet, would the Jewish
populace give a Greek name to a Jew by birth?"
Thus it is proved by the most zealous of all the Christian fathers, that these gospels, though not brought upon the stage until nearly two centuries after the reputed death of Jesus, existed among the Egyptian monks long before the pretended origin of Christianity. As to the four which have been selected and fitted up by the Church to make part of "the word of God," no man has ever been able to tell by whom, when, or where they were written; nor are they acknowledged by any person but as the learned Christian bishop, Faustus, declared the forgers of them affirmed, "that what was written by themselves, was written 'according' to those persons to whom they ascribed them." It appears that these adopted gospels were first mentioned by Irenæus, about the latter end of the second century; but as the writings of that saint must have come through the manufacturing hands of Eusebius, that early notice of them is rendered extremely suspicious; however, they were first known only as forming part of fifty-four gospels, all equally well authenticated; and some writers have asserted that it was this Irenæus who first selected them out of the above spurious mass, and by his own fiat alone made them canonical. Was it out of respect for the high authority of this saint that the Holy Ghost confirmed his selection, at the Council of Nice, about 175 years afterwards? It has been allowed, even by the most learned Christian divines (as will be shown in a subsequent lecture) that fraud, religious lying and forgery, were then the common practice in promoting the cause of public deception; and, therefore, we have no difficulty in believing that Irenæus had his full share in the fraudful traffic.
If the word of a saint is good for anything, we might quote that of Irenæus in corroboration of what we have elsewhere said respecting the books of the Old Testament; for does he not tell us that "they were fabricated' seventy years after the Babylonish captivity by Esdras"? These are revelations which Christians are extremely unwilling to meet, but they are much better authenticated than any of the artificial ones that claim a supernatural derivation.
Besides the writings of the Egyptian Essenes or monks, it is known that Alexandria abounded with every sort of sectarian rubbish, in the various forms of acts, gospels, epistles, &c.; so that the compilers of the New Testament had an ample supply of matter, out of which to choose what should be the new will of Jehovah. Such pieces as had been written by monks, and by their plastic spirituality, could easily be moulded so as to represent the interests of the priests, and increase their power and importance, very naturally slid in to form part of "God's last Will;" while those which exposed the tricks and knavery of priests, like the story of Bel and the Dragon, in the Old Testament, were rejected as apocryphal.* But as the chosen books were written by unknown or obscure persons of no notoriety, their names were erased, and those of reputed apostles substituted, in order to confer respectability. And whenever it was found that this "New Testament" did not at all points suit the interests of its priesthood, or the views of political rulers in league with them, the necessary alterations were made, and all sorts of pious frauds and forgeries were not only common, but justified by many of the fathers. This was a charge constantly brought against those trimmers by their opponents, whose writings they destroyed to the utmost of their power; but it is proved by a record in the Cronicon of Muis, an African bishop, and the same is also mentioned by Scaliger, that a general alteration of the four gospels took place in the sixth century, by order of the Emperor Anastasius, who decreed:—"That the holy gospels, as written, Idiotis Evangelistis, are to be corrected and amended."**
* It may be said that the Christian compilers would be
willing to expose the tricks of the Pagan priests; but the
esprit du corps is sacred. Priests will not betray that
fundamental deceitfulness that is common to the whole
profession, and inseparable from all supernatural
pretensions.
** Dr. Mill also vouches for the truth of this record, and
says that Messala was consul at the time.
The great father, Origen, in his commentary on Matthew's
gospel, speaking of the phrase, "thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself," which some thought to be spurious, he
says: "If, indeed, there was no disagreement in other
copies, it would be irreligious to suspect that expression
was interpolated and not pronounced by our Savior. But now,
alas! what with the blunders of transcribers—what with the
impious temerity of correcting the text—what with the
licentiousness of others, who interpolate or expunge just
what they please, it is plain the copies do strangely
disagree."
In forming the New Testament, selections were made at different councils; but from all we have been able to learn, it was principally at that of Nice that the compilation was put into form, after it had been decided upon by vote, what should be, and what should not be, the word of God! In order to get rid of the unpleasant truth, that this decision was made by a majority of votes, it has been pretended that the selection was made under supernatural agency, thus:—the whole collection of story, anecdote and fable, was placed upon a great table, and a prayer was addressed to the Holy Ghost, that he would be pleased to cause the apocryphal books to jump under the table, and they did so with prompt obedience, whilst the genuine canonicals proudly kept their stations above. This mode of trial was fair enough, as the Holy Ghost would surely know his own writings. This ridiculous story is recorded in the appendix to the proceedings of the Council of Nice.
A philosopher of the present day has compared the Christian Testament to Lord Chancellor Eldon's silk stocking, that was darned all over with worsted until there was no silk remaining; so, in like manner, it is now impossible to say with certainty what this book was originally, or by whom, where, or when, its component parts were written; and equally futile would it be to attempt to ascertain the number of alterations, additions, varying translations,* and forged interpolations which from time to time it has undergone. Capellus informs us that he was engaged for thirty-six years in writing the book in which he detects the numerous errors and frauds of the Protestant Bible; and even the venerable Calmet, that profound Bible critic, declares that the 7th and 8th verses of the 5th chapter of John's 1st Epistle, "are not in any ancient Bible." This interpolation was a bold stroke to strengthen the Trinity. Thirty years' researches upon the New Testament alone, enabled that most learned English divine, Dr. John Mill, to detect the enormous number of 80,000 different readings of that book, after a laborious examination of all the manuscripts, translations, and the many languages in which it is to be found. Can anything match the stupidity and monstrous credulity of calling such a book the word of God?