2021. It should be recollected that this diabolical address was made to the Christian son and successor of Constantine. Can there be a more shocking picture of the mischievous consequences of the example and doctrines of Moses as respects idolaters? Certainly, Constantius was not any better for his Christianity, when he could listen, without indignation, to such wicked suggestions!
2022. It is alleged that in the city of Thessalonica the Emperor Theodosius put to death all the pagans that breathed, in obedience to Christianized Mosaic intolerance, which in modern times was carried out in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day, and the Inquisition. Such were the effects of the propagation of Christianity, with the appendage of the Pentateuch to the swordlike attributes with which Christ endowed himself: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword!” Matt. x. 34.
2023. Shakspeare truly makes one of his characters say that whosoever takes away the good name of another commits a more wicked theft than one who takes a purse. But in this portrait of the effect of calumny there is one important feature omitted, which is sometimes the most injurious: I allude to the pain of mind created by a false accusation. If, as I have before urged, it be wrong to hurt the flesh by a blow, is it not wrong to hurt the soul by calumny? The sting of the fangs of the viper, no less than the paw of the lion, may give a mortal infliction; but no less painful may be the effect of a false human tongue. Is it not as great a wrong to wound a man’s soul as his flesh? Yet there never has been any hesitation on the part of sectarians to express any painful opinion as to heretics or idolaters. The word infidel, so much more deserved by themselves for their violation of the precepts they profess, is used as a matter of course, and, coupling with an error in worship a heinous sinfulness, the idolater is always in the wrong. But reasonably, upon the grounds which have been advanced in the preceding portion of this work, ([1245],) idolatry may be an imputation against the intellectual pretension, but not against the integrity, of the worshipper; and for one I consider the propensity to the worship of idols displayed throughout the whole of the Jewish history, and even by Solomon the “Wise,” as a strong proof that there never was sufficient evidence presented to the Jews of the divine origin of the books of Moses, or any others represented as conveying God’s holy word.
2024. It is not doing as we would be done by to accuse any worshipper of bad motives, for the reasons which I have above given; and when it is considered how unwilling people are to part with their property, the fact that the Israelites gave their gold ornaments to enable Aaron to cast a golden calf, shows that they sincerely believed that their worship would be acceptable to some deity who had the best claim to their acknowledgment. If they mistook the object, it must have been an error of the understanding, which it would have been evidently more reasonable to have corrected by reasoning and evidence, than by punishment.
2025. While such eminent men as Mahan, and the learned Goliah of my mundane guardian spirit, will hold up this, to my mind, barbarous and preposterous Pentateuch as the word of God, I am obliged to meet them upon the ground thus stated; but there are other highly respectable clergymen, who concur in questioning that the Pentateuch existed until after the return of the Jews from their captivity; and there is evidence, agreeably to the quotations I have made, that this alleged work of divine inspiration, or word of God, as stated in the Second Book of Chronicles, and 22d chapter of the Second Book of Kings, has no better foundation than the word of the priest Hilkiah and his accomplices.
2026. The Rev. Mr. Norton, in a laborious investigation, shows that, according to internal evidence, almost all the important facts stated in Genesis and Exodus are inconsistent with each other or the circumstances under which they are alleged to have happened.
2027. Mr. Mahan conceives that the willingness of the believers in the gospel to sacrifice their lives in testimony of the sincerity of their conviction proves the truth of revelation. Wherefore, then, does not their exposure to the slaughtering sword of the partisans of Moses prove the sincerity of the Israelites in their worship of their idol? No wise knave would do any thing so absurd. History shows that many of those who have been most willing to make sacrifices for their belief have been great fanatics. Their willingness to suffer only proves the intensity of their belief, not the truth of the miracles which they believe.
2028. Having first assumed, contrary to the fact, that the mission of Christ was generally accredited in the contemporaneous pagan communities, Mr. Mahan claims this to be evidence of the facts stated by the evangelists.
2029. But if the belief in a mission by contemporaries is evidence in its favour, is not the disbelief of contemporaries evidence on the other side? Is not the fact that Moses could only expel idolatry from the Hebrews by the sword, a proof that he was unable to convince them by any adequate evidence of his claims to inspiration?
2030. This surmise, respecting the inadequacy of the facts and reasoning which Moses had to advance in favour of his pretensions as a missionary of Jehovah, appears to be fully justified in the history given by Josephus. From the following language, which this distinguished Jewish historian alleges to have been held by one of the Israelites, it is evident that Moses was then viewed as no better than Mohammed or any of the usurping popes of Christendom. While Protestants sanction such religious despots as Moses and Samuel, they ought not to complain of the papal despots of Christendom, (note to 1091.)