You will assuredly find in it three persons, but not three persons in one God. Read with all the acuteness of your mind, the only treasure that your tyrants have left you, the common prayer which the Christians, by the mouth of their bishop, offered in their meetings in the second century:
“O all-powerful, unengendered, inaccessible God, the one true God, father of Christ thy only son, God of the paraclete, God of all, thou hast made the disciples of Christ doctors, etc.”[58]
Here, clearly, is one sole God who commands Christ and the paraclete [Holy Ghost]. Judge for yourselves if that has any resemblance to the trinity and consubstantiality which were afterwards declared at Nicæa, in spite of the strong protest of eighteen bishops and two thousand priests.[59]
In another place (III., xvi.) the author of the Apostolic Constitutions, who is probably a bishop of the Christians at Rome, says expressly that the father is God above all.
That is the doctrine of Paul, finding expression so frequently in his epistles. “We have peace in God through Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans v., 1). “If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” (Romans v., 15). “We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans viii., 17). “Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Romans xv., 7). “To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever” (Romans xvi., 27). “That the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom” (Ephesians i., 17).
Thus does the Jew-Christian Saul Paul always express himself, and thus is Jesus himself made to speak in the gospels. “My Father is greater than I” (John xiv., 28); that is to say, God can do what men cannot do. All the Jews said “my father” when they spoke of God.
The Lord’s Prayer begins with the words “Our Father.” Jesus said: “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew xxiv., 36); and “That is not mine to give, but for whom it is prepared by my Father” (Matthew xx., 23). It is also very remarkable that when Jesus awaited arrest, and sweated blood and water, he cried out: “Father, remove this cup from me” (Luke xxii., 42). No gospel has put into his mouth the blasphemy that he was God, or consubstantial with God.
You will ask me, Romans, why and how he was made into a God in the course of time? I will ask you in turn why and how Bacchus, Perseus, Hercules, and Romulus were made gods? In their case, moreover, the sacrilege did not go so far as to give them the title of supreme god and creator. This blasphemy was reserved for the Christian outgrowth of the Jewish sect.
Sixth Chief Imposture
I pass over the countless impostures of “The Travels of Simon Barjona,” the “Gospel of Simon Barjona,” his “Apocalypse,” the “Apocalypse” of Cerinthus (ridiculously attributed to John), the epistles of Barnaby, the “Gospel of the Twelve Apostles,” their liturgies, the “Canons of the Council of the Apostles,” the “Apostles’ Creed,” the “Travels of Matthew,” the “Travels of Thomas,” and so many other vagaries that are now recognised to be the work of forgers, who passed them off under venerated Christian names.