Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul

by Peter Annet

CHAPTER III. Of the Authority of the Councils, of the Fathers of the Church, and of Tradition

It is only in the Fathers of the Church, and the Councils, that we can find the proofs of the authenticity of the Christian traditions, and according to the proofs which remain it appears, that they only approved or rejected opinions, as they found them favourable or injurious to the interests of the party which they had embraced. Every ecclesiastical writer, and every assembly of Bishops, adopted as canonical the writings in which they found their own particular dogmas, the others they treated as apocryphal or suppositious. A slight acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers, will show us that we cannot rely on them for any facts; we shall find that their books are filled with negligences, tales, impertinences and falsehoods; we shall see them buried in the thickest darkness of superstition and prejudice. Every word announces their incredulity or their insincerity. St. Clement the Roman, believed the fable of the phoenix reviving from its ashes, and cites it as a proof of the resurrection.

Papias, who was the master of St. Irenæus, was, in the opinion of Eusebius himself, a man of weak mind, a fabulous author, who had contributed to lead many men into error, and amongst others St. Irenæus who was his disciple, whom Eusebius regards as a very credulous man, though he was the first ecclesiastical historian of note. It is not surprising that those who have followed such guides have fallen into error.

On the other side, we should never finish, were we to enter into a detail of the excesses committed by the Fathers of the Church and the Councils: their history would only serve to prove their ambition their pride, their infatuation, their seditious spirit, their cheats, their intrigues, and their cruelties in the persecutions which they excited against their adversaries. It is nevertheless on the probity and on the knowledge of these great personages that we are called to rely! It is pretended that it is from them that we hold the pure oracles of truth; must we then take lessons of mildness, of charity, of, holiness, from the writings of some factious individuals, who were perpetually quarrelling and treating their adversaries with the utmost cruelty, whose works were filled with gall, whose conduct it is admitted even by their own friends and admirers, was almost always unjust, violent, and criminal? How can it be expected that we should find any point of unity in the canons and decrees of assemblies agitated by intrigue, discord, and animosity? How can we regard as saints, and infallible doctors, as persons worthy of our confidence, perverse men, continually involved in disputations with others, and in contradictions with themselves? What guide can we expect to find in turbulent priests whose ambition, avarice, and intriguing and persecuting spirit are every where visible? It is only necessary to read ecclesiastical history to be convinced that the picture which we have drawn of the Councils and Fathers is no ways exaggerated.

On the other hand the writers and Councils on whose authority, Christians are called upon to found their belief, do, in all their traditions, but blindly follow and copy each other; we see them devoid of the arts of reasoning, of logic, and of criticism; hence their works are found filled with fables, vulgar errors, and forgeries. Is it possible to believe the traditions of such a man as St. Jerome, who in his life of St. Anthony, assures us that this holy man had a conference with satyrs with goats feet? Do we not justly doubt the sincerity of St. Augustine, when he says, "that he had seen a nation composed of men, who had eyes in the middle of their stomachs?" Are such authors more entitled to credit, than those of Robinson Crusoe, and of the Thousand and One Nights?

Supposing even that at the commencement of Christianity, there had been authentic books in which the actions and the discourses of Jesus Christ and his Apostles had been faithfully related, should we be justified in supposing that they have been handed down to us such as they were originally? Prior to the invention of printing, it was doubtless much easier to impose upon the public than it is now, and notwithstanding, we see that the Press gives currency to innumerable falsehoods.

The spirit of party causes every thing to be adopted that is useful to its own cause. That granted, how easy was it for the heads of the Church, who were once the only guardians of the holy books, either from pious fraud, or a determined wish to deceive, to insert falsehoods and articles of faith, in the books entrusted to their care.

The learned Dodwell admits, that the books which compose the New Testament did not appear in public, until at least 100 Years after Christ. If this fact be certain, how shall we convince ourselves that they existed prior to this time? These books were solely entrusted to the care of the ecclesiastical gentry, till the third or fourth century, that is to say, to the guardianship of men, whose conduct was universally regulated by self interest and party spirit, and who possessed neither the probity nor knowledge requisite for discovering the truth, or of transmitting it in its original purity. Thus each doctor had the power of making such holy books as he pleased, and when, under Constantine, the Christians saw themselves supported by the Emperor, their chiefs were able to accept, and cause to be accepted as authentic, and of rejecting as apocryphal, such books as suited their interest, or did not agree with the prevailing doctrine. But were we even sure of the authenticity of the books, which the church of this day adopts, we are nevertheless, without any other guarantee of the authority of the scriptures than the books themselves. Is there a history which has the right to prove itself by itself? Can we rely upon witnesses who give no other proof of what they advance than their own words? Yet the first Christians have rendered themselves famous by their deceptions, their factions, and their frauds, which are termed pious when they tend to the advantage of religion. Have not these pious falsehoods been ascribed to the works of Jesus Christ himself and to the Apostles his successors? Have we not, in their manner, sybilline verses, which are evidently all Christian prophecies, made afterwards, and often copied word for word into the Old and New Testament? If it had pleased the Fathers at the council of Nice, to regard these prophecies as divinely inspired, what or who should have prevented them from inserting them into the canon of the Scriptures? And from that the Christians would not have failed to regard them in the present day, as indubitable proofs of the truth of their religion.

If the Christians at the commencement of Christianity, gave credit to works filled with reveries, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of the Infancy, the Letter of Jesus Christ to Algarus, what confidence can we have in such of their books as remain? Can we flatter ourselves, with having even these such as they were originally written? How can we at the present time, distinguish the true from the false, in books, in which enthusiasm, roguery and credulity pervade every page.

Since the gospels themselves fail in the proofs necessary to establish their authenticity, and the truth of the facts which they relate, I do not see that the epistles of St. Paul, or the Acts of the Apostles, enjoy in this respect a greater advantage. If the first Christians had no difficulty in attributing works to Jesus, would they have been over scrupulous, in doing the same to his apostles, or in making for them romantic legends, which length of time has caused to pass for respectable books? If a body of powerful men, had it in their power to command the credulity of the people, and found it their interest, they would succeed, at the end of a few centuries, in establishing the belief that the adventures of Don Quixote were perfectly true, and that the prophecies of Nostradamus were inspirations of the divinity. By means of glossaries, commentaries and allegories, we may find and prove whatever we desire; however glaring an imposture may be, it may, by the aid of time, deception, and force, pass in the end for a truth, which it is not permitted to doubt; Determined cheats supported by public authority may cause ignorance, which is always credulous to believe whatever they choose, especially by persuading it that there is merit in not perceiving inconsistencies, contradictions, and palpable absurdities, and that there is danger in reasoning.