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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
VICTOR HUGO’S
ORATION
PRICE
on
VOLTAIRE,
OUST ZE
ZE’ZEHSTJSrX"-
------ ♦------
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY RAMSEY AND FOOTE,
AT STONECUTTER STREET, E.O.
�&Z6 07
VICTOR HUGO’S
Oration on Voltaire.
Delivered at Paris, May 30, 1878, the hundredth anni
versary of Voltaire’s death.
TRANSLATED BY JAMES PARTON.
A hundred years ago to-day a man died. He died
immortal. He departed laden with years, laden with
works, laden with the most illustrious and the most
fearful of responsibilities, the responsibility of the
human conscience informed and rectified. He went
cursed and blessed—cursed by the psst, blessed by
the future; and these, gentlemen, are the two superb
forms of glory. On his death-bed he had, on the
one hand, the acclaim of contemporaries and of pos
terity ; on the other, that triumph of hooting and of
hate which the implacable past bestows upon those
who have combated it. He was more than a man;
he was an age. He had exercised a function and
fulfilled a mission. He had been evidently chosen
for the work which he had done, by the supreme will,
which manifests itself as visibly in the laws of destiny
as in the laws of nature.
The eighty-four years which this man lived occupy
the interval that separates the monarchy at its apogee
�4
from the revolution in its dawn. When he was born
Louis XIV. still reigned; when he died Louis AVI.
reigned already ; so that his cradle could see the last
rays of the great throne and his coffin the first gleams
from the great abyss.
,
Before going further, let us come to an understand
ing gentlemen, upon the word abyss. There are
good abysses : such are the abysses in which evil is
^Gentlemen, since I have interrupted myself, allow
me to complete my thought. No word imprudent or
unsound will be pronounced here. We are here to
perform an act of civilisation. We are here to make
affirmation of progress, to pay respect to philosophers
for the benefits of philosophy, to bring to the
eighteenth century the testimony of the nineteenth,
to honor magnanimous combatants and good servants,
to felicitate the noble effort of peoples, industry,
science, the valiant march in advance, the toil to
cement human concord ; in one word, to glorify peace,
that sublime, universal desire. Peace is the virtue
of civilisation; war is its crime We are here, at
this grand moment, in this solemn hour, to bow
religiously before the moral law, and to say to the
worid, which hears France, this: There is only one
power, conscience in the service of justice ; and there
is only one glory, genius in the service of truth.
That said, I continue.
o4.w,z»
Before the revolution, gentlemen, the social struc
ture was this:
At the base, the people ;
Above the people, religion represented by the
451 Bythe side of religion, justice represented by the
^And^at’that period of human society, what was
the people ? It was ignorance. What was religion ?
�5
It was intolerance. And what was justice ? It
was injustice. Am I going too far m my words .
k
I will confine myself to the citation of two facts,
but decisive.
,
„
,
At Toulouse, October 13, 1761, there was found,
in a lower story of a house, a young man hanged.
The crowd gathered, the clergy fulminated, the magis
tracy investigated. It was a suicide; they made ot
it an assassination. In what interest ? In the interest
of religion. And who was accused ? The father. He
was a Huguenot, and he wished to hinder his son from
becoming a Catholic. There was here a moral mons
trosity and a material impossibility. No matter .
This father had killed his son; this old man had
hanged this young man. Justice set to work, and this
was the result. On the month of March, 1762, a man
with white hair, Jean Calas, was conducted to a public
place, stripped naked, stretched upon a wheel, the
limbs bound upon it, the head hanging. three
men are there upon a scaffold—a magistrate, named
David, charged to superintend the punishment, a
priest to hold the crucifix, and the executioner, with
a bar of iron in his hand. The patient, stupefied with
terror, regards not the priest, and looks at the exe
cutioner. The executioner lifts the bar of iron, and
breaks one of his arms. The victim groans and swoons.
The magistrate comes forward. They make the con
demned inhale salts. He returns to life. ^en
another stroke of the bar. Another groan. Calas
loses consciousness. They revive him, and the exe
cutioner begins again ; and, as each limb befoie being
broken in two places receives two blows, that makes
eight punishments. After the eighth swooning the
priest offers him the crucifix to kiss. Calas turns
away his head, and the executioner gives him the
coup do grace—that is to say, crushes in his chest
�6
with the thick end of the bar of iron. So died Jean
Calas.
That lasted two hours. After his death, the evi
dence of the suicide came to light. But an assassina
tion had been committed. By whom ? By the
judges.
Another fact. After the old man, the young man.
Three years later, in 1765, at Abbeville, the day after
a night of storm and high wind, there was found
upon the pavement of a bridge an old crucifix of
worm-eaten wood, which for three centuries had
been fastened to the parapet. Who had thrown
down this crucifix ? Who committed this sacrilege ?
It is not known. Perhaps a passer-by. Perhaps
the wind. Who is the guilty one ? The Bishop of
Amiens launches a momioire. Note what a monitoire
was : it was an order to all the faithful, on pain of
hell, to declare what they knew, or believed they
knew, of some fact or other—a murderous injunc
tion, when addressed by fanaticism to ignorance.
The monitoire of the Bishop of Amiens does its work;
the town gossip takes upon itself the work of denun
ciation. Justice discovers, or believes it discovers,
that on the night when the crucifix was thrown down
two men, two officers, one named La Barre, the other
d’Etallonde, passed over the bridge of Abbeville,
that they were drunk, and that they sang a guard
room song. The tribunal was the Seneschalcy of
Abbeville. The Seneschalcy of Abbeville was like
the court of the Capitouls of Toulouse. It was
not less just. Two orders for arrest were issued.
D’Etallonde escaped, La Barre was taken. Him they
delivered to judicial examination. He denied having
crossed the bridge; he confessed to having sung the
song. The Seneschalcy of Abbeville condemned
him; he appealed to the Parliament of Paris. He
was conducted to Paris; the sentence was found
�7
good and confirmed. He was conducted back to Abbe
ville in chains. labridge. The monstrous hour arrives.
They begin by subjecting the Chevalier de La Barre
to the torture, ordinary and extraordinary, to make
him reveal his accomplices. Accomplices in what ?
In having crossed a bridge and sung a song. During
the torture one of his knees was broken; his con
fessor, on hearing the bones crack, fainted away.
The next day, June 5, 1766, La Barre was drawn to
the great square of Abbeville, where flamed a peni
tential fire; the sentence was read to La Barre;
then they cut off one of his hands ; then they tore out
his tongue with iron pincers; then, in mercy, his
head was cut off and thrown into the fire. So died
the Chevalier de La Barre. He was nineteen years
of age.
Then, O Voltaire ! thou didst utter a cry of horror,
and it will be thine eternal glory!
Then didst thou enter upon the appalling trial of
the past; thou didst plead against tyrants and mon
sters the cause of the human race, and thou didst
gain it. Great man, blessed be thou for ever!
Gentlemen, the frightful things which I have
recalled took place in the midst of a polite
society ; its life was gay and light; people went and
came; they looked neither above nor below them
selves ; their indifference had become carelessness;
graceful poets, Saint-Aulaire, Bouffiers, Gentil-Bernard, composed pretty verses; the court wa? all
festival; Versailles was brilliant; Paris ignored
what was passing; and then it was that through
religious ferocity the judges made an old man die upon
the wheel, and the priests tore out a child's tongue
for a song.
In the presence of this society, frivolous and dismal,
Voltaire alone, having before his eyes those united
forces, the court, the nobility, the capitalist; that
�■8
unconscious power, the blind multitude; that terrible
magistracy, so severe to subjects, so docile to the
master, crushing and flattering, kneeling upon the
people before the king ; that clergy, vile compound of
hypocrisy and fanaticism; Voltaire alone, I repeat it,
declared war against that coalition of all the social
iniquities, against that enormous and terrible world,
and he accepted battle with it. And what was his
weapon ? That which has the lightness of the wind
and the power of the thunder-bolt—a pen.
With that weapon he fought: with that weapon
he conquered.
Gentlemen, let us salute that memory.
..Voltaire conquered. Voltaire waged the splendid
kind of warfare, the war of one alone against all—that is to say, the grand warfare; the war of thought
against matter; the war of reason against prejudice,
the war of the just against the unjust; the war for
the oppressed against the oppressor; the war of good
ness ; the war of kindness. He had the tenderness
of a woman and the wrath of a hero. He was a great
mind, and an immense heart.
He conquered the old code and the old dogma.
He conquered the feudal lord, the Gothic judge, the
Roman priest. He raised the populace to the dignity
of people. He taught, pacified and civilised. He
fought for Sirven and Montbailly, as for Calas and
La Barre. He accepted all the menaces, all the perse
cutions, calumny and exile. He was indefatigable
and immovable. He conquered violence by a smile,
despotism by sarcasm, infallibility by irony, obstinacy
by perseverance, ignorance by truth.
I have just pronounced the word smile. I pause at
it. Smile ! It is Voltaire.
Let us say it, gentlemen, pacification (apaisement)
is the great work of philosophy. In Voltaire the
equilibrium always re-establishes itself at last. What-
�9
ever may be bis just wrath, it passes, and the irritated
Voltaire always gives place to the Voltaire calmed.
Then in that profound eye the smile appears.
That smile is wisdom. That smile, I repeat, is
Voltaire. That smile sometimes becomes laughter,
but the philosophic sadness tempers it. Towards the
strong it is mockery ; towards the weak it is a caress.
It disquiets the oppressor, and reassures the oppressed.
Against the great, it is raillery; for the little, it is
pity. Ah, let us be moved by that smile ! It had in
it the rays of the dawn. It illuminated the true, the
just, the good, and what there is of worthy in the
useful. It lighted up the interior of superstitions.
Those ugly things it is salutary to see : he has shown
them. Luminous, that smile was fruitful also. The
new society, the desire for equality and concession,
and that beginning of fraternity which called itself
tolerance, reciprocal good-will, the just accord of men
and rights, reason recognised as the supreme law, the
annihilation of prejudices and fixed opinions, the
serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of
pardon, harmony, peace—behold what has come from
that great smile 1
On the day—very near, without any doubt—when
the identity of wisdom and clemency will be recog
nised, the day when the amnesty will be proclaimed,
I affirm it, up there, in the stars, Voltaire will smile.
Gentlemen, between two servants of Humanity,
who appeared eighteen hundred years apart, there is
a mysterious relation.
To combat Pharisaism; to unmask imposture; to
overthrow tyrannies, usurpations, prejudices, false
hoods, superstitions ; to demolish the temple in order
to rebuild it—that is to say, to replace the false by
the true; to attack a ferocious magistracy ; to attack
a sanguinary priesthood; to take a whip and drive
the money-changers from the sanctuary; to reclaim
�10
the heritage of the disinherited; to protect the weak,
the poor, the suffering, the overwhelmed ; to struggle
for the persecuted and oppressed—that was the war
of Jesus Christ! And who waged that war ? It was
Voltaire.
The completion of the evangelical work is the philo
sophical work; the spirit of meekness began, the
spirit of tolerance continued. Let us say it with a
sentiment of profound respect: Jesus wept ; Voltaire
smiled. Of that divine tear and of that human smile
is composed the sweetness of the present civilisation.
Did Voltaire always smile? No. He was often
indignant. You remarked it in my first words.
Certainly, gentlemen, measure, reserve, proportion,
are reasons supreme law. We can say that modera
tion is the very respiration of the philosopher. The
effort of the wise man ought to be to condense into a
sort of serene certainty all the approximations of
which philosophy is composed. But at certain
moments the passion for the true rises powerful and
violent, and it is within its right in so doing, like the
stormy winds which purify. Never, I insist upon it,
will any wise man shake those two august supports of
social labor, justice and hope; and all will respect
the judge if he is embodied justice, and all will
venerate the priest if he represents hope. But if the
magistracy calls itself torture, if the Church calls
itself Inquisition, then Humanity looks them in the
face and says to the judge : “ I will none of thy
law !” and says to the priest: “ I will none of thy
dogma ! I will none of thy fire upon the earth and
thy hell in the future I” Then philosophy rises in
wrath, and arraigns the judge before justice and the
priest before God !
This is what Voltaire did. It was grand.
What Voltaire was, I have said; what his age was,
I am about to say.
�11
Gentlemen, great men rarely come alone; large trees
seem larger when they dominate a forest ; there they
are at home. There was a forest of minds around
Voltaire; that forest was the eighteenth century.
Among those minds there were summits, Montesquieu,
Buffon, Beaumarchais, and among others, two, the
highest after Voltaire—Rousseau and Diderot. Those
thinkers taught men to reason ; reasoning well leads
to acting well ; justness in the mind becomes justice
in the heart. Those toilers for progress labored use
fully. Buffon founded naturalism; Beaumarchais
discovered, outside of Molière, a kind of comedy till
then unknown, almost the social comedy ; Montes
quieu made in law some excavations so profound that
he succeeded in exhuming the right. As to Rousseau,
as to Diderot, let us pronounce those two names
apart. Diderot, a vast intelligence, inquisitive, a
tender heart, a thirst for justice, wished to give
certain notions as the foundation of true ideas, and
created the encyclopaedia. Rousseau rendered to
woman an admirable service, completing the mother
by the nurse, placing near one another those two
majesties of the cradle. Rousseau, a writer, eloquent
and pathetic, a profound oratorical dreamer, often
divined and proclaimed political truth ; his ideal
borders upon the real; he had the glory of being
the first man in France who called himself citizen.
The civic fibre vibrates in Rousseau ; that which
vibrates in Voltaire is the universal fibre. One can
say that in the fruitful eighteenth century Rousseau
represented the people; Voltaire, still more vast,
1 epresented Man. Those powerful writers disap
peared, but they left us their soul, the Revolu
tion.
Yes, the French Revolution was their soul. It was
their radiant manifestation. It came from them ; we
find them everywhere in that blest and superb
�12
catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past
and the opening of the future. In that clear light,
which is peculiar to revolutions, and which beyond
causes permits us to perceive effects, and beyond the
first plan the second, we see behind Danton Diderot,
behind Robespierre Rousseau, and behind Mirabeau
Voltaire. These formed those.
Gentlemen, to sum up epochs, by giving them the
names of men, to make of them in some sort human
personages, has only been done by three peoples,
Greece, Italy, France. We say, the Age of Pericles,
the Age of Augustus, the Age of Leo X., the Age of
Louis XIV., the Age of Voltaire. Those appellations
have a great significance. This privilege of giving
names to periods, belonging exclusively to Greece, to
Italy and to France, is the highest mark of civilisa
tion. Until Voltaire they were the names of the chiefs
of states. Voltaire is more than the chief of a
state; he is a chief of ideas. With Voltaire a new
cycle begins. We feel that henceforth the supreme
governmental power is to be Thought. Civilisation
obeyed force ; it will obey the ideal. It is the
sceptre and the sword broken, to be replaced by
the ray of light; that is to say, authority trans
figured into liberty. Henceforth no other sove
reignty than the law for the people and the conscience
for the individual. For each of us the two aspects
of progress separate themselves clearly, and they are
these : to exercise one’s right—that is to say, to be
a man ; to perform one’s duty—that is to say, to be
a citizen.
Such is the signification of that word, the Age of
Voltaire; such is the meaning of that august event,
the French Revolution.
The two memorable centuries which preceded the
eighteenth prepared for it ; Rabelais warned royalty
in “ Gargantua,” and Molière warned the church in
�13
“Tartuffe.” Hatred of force and respect for right
are visible in those two illustrious spirits.
Whoever says to-day, might makes right, performs
an act of the Middle Ages, and speaks to men three
hundred years behind their time.
Gentlemen, the nineteenth century glorifies the
eighteenth century. The eighteenth proposed, the
nineteenth decides. And my last word will be the
declaration, tranquil but inflexible, of progress.
The time has come. The right has found its formula
—human federation.
To-day force is called violence, and begins to be
judged. War is arraigned. Civilisation, upon the
complaint of the human race, orders the trial, and
draws up the great criminal indictment of conquerors
and captains. The witness, History, is summoned.
The reality appears. The factitious brilliancy is dis
sipated. In many cases, the hero is a species of
assassin. The peoples begin to comprehend that
increasing the magnitude of a crime cannot be its
diminution; that, if to kill is a crime, to kill much
cannot be an extenuating circumstance; that, if to
steal is a shame, to invade cannot be a glory ; that
Te Deums do not count for much in this matter ; that
homicide is homicide; that bloodshed is bloodshed ;
that it serves nothing to call one’s self Caesar or
Napoleon; and that, in the eyes of the eternal God,
the figure of a murderer is not changed because, in
stead of a gallow’s cap, there is placed upon his head
an emperor’s crown.
Ah ! let us proclaim absolute truths. Let us dis
honor war. No; glorious war does not exist. No ;
it is not good, and it is not useful, to make corpses.
No; it cannot be that life travails for death. No.
Oh, mothers who surround me, it cannot be that war,
the robber, should continue to take from you your
children 1 No; it cannot be that women should bear
�14
children in pain; that men should be born; that
people should plough and sow ; that the farmer should
fertilise the fields, and the workmen enrich the city that industry should produce marvels; that genius
should produce prodigies; that the vast human activity
should, in presence of the starry sky, multiply efforts
and creations—all to result in that frightful inter
national exposition which is called a field of battle !
The true field of battle, behold it here ! It is this
rendezvous of the masterpieces of human labor which
Pans offers the world at this moment.*
The true victory is the victory of Paris.
Alas ! we cannot hide it from ourselves, that the
present hour, worthy as it is of admiration and respect,
has still some mournful aspects; there are still
shadows upon the horizon; the tragedy of the peoples
is not finished; war, wicked war, is still there, and
it has the audacity to lift its head in the midst of this
august festival of peace. Princes, for two vears past
obstinately adhere to a fatal misunderstanding; their
discord forms an obstacle to our concord, and they
are ill-inspired to condemn us to the statement of such
a contrast.
Let this contrast lead us back to Voltaire. In the
presence of menacing possibilities, let us be more
pacific than ever. Let us turn toward that great
death, toward that great life, toward that great spirit.
Let us bend before the venerated tombs. Let us take
counsel of him whose life, useful to men, was extin
guished a hundred years ago, but whose work is
immortal. Let us take counsel of the other powerful
thinkers, the auxiliaries of this glorious Voltaire, of
Jean Jacques, of Diderot, of Montesquieu. Let us
give the word to those great voices. Let us stop the
effusion of human blood. Enough! enough! despots
* The Exposition of 1878 was then open in Paris.
�15
Ah ! barbarism persists. Then let civilisation be
indignant. Let the eighteenth century come to the
help of the nineteenth. The philosophers, our pre
decessors, are the apostles of the true ; let us invoke
those illustrious shades; let them, before monarchies
meditate wars, proclaim the right of man to life, the
right of conscience to liberty, the sovereignty of
reason, the holiness of labor, the beneficence of peace;
and since night issues from the thrones, let the light
come from the tombs.
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Victor Hugo's oration on Voltaire
Creator
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Hugo, Victor
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Delivered at Paris, May 30 1878, the hundredth anniversary of Voltaire's death. Publisher's advertisements on back page. Printed by Ramsey & Foote, London, E.C. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Progressive Publishing Company
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1885
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N314
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Voltaire
Enlightenment
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Text
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English
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Parton, James (tr)
NSS
Voltaire
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Price One Penny.
23rd Thousand.
II
Reprinted with additions from “JUSTICE,”
BY J. L. JOYNES.
1885.
Published at The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
I.—DIVISION OF TOIL.
Q. Why is it necessary that any work should be done in the world ? A. Because men
require food, clothing, and shelter; and these cannot be obtained without work.
Q. Is the work which must be done in order to produce these necessaries either very
hard or very long ? A. It is neither the one nor the other. After all the necessary work
has been done, there is ample opportunity for the enjoyment of leisure and the produc
tion of beautiful things.
Q. Then why do immense numbers of men spend their whole lives in doing work
which gives them no pleasure, while the enjoyment of leisure is an impossibility for
them ? A. Because there is smother large class of men who keep all the available leisure
and pleasure for themselves.
Q. How may these two sets of persons be roughly distinguished? A. As employers
and employed; idlers and workers ; privileged and plundered ; or, more simply still, asrich and poor.
Q. Cannot the poor provide the rich witn rood, clothing, and shelter, and yet have
enough time for leisure even after they have done this ? A. Certainly; but the rich are
not content with exacting simple necesswies from the poor.
Q, What more do they compel them to contribute ? A. Luxuries; and there is no
end to the amount of labour which ma« be wasted in the painful production of useless
things.
Q. Why do the poor consent to produce by their labour all these necessary and un
necessary things for persons who d» nothing for them in return ? A. Simply because
they cannot help themselves.
Q. But how does it happen that <ney are in this helpless position ? A. It is due to
the fact that society is at present organised solely in the interests of the rich.
Q. Why cannot the poor organise society on a system which will prevent their being
robbed of their own productions’ A Because the existing organisation itself keeps them
ignorant of its own causes, and «xmsequently powerless to resist its effects,
Q. What is the first step towards a better state of things ? A. The education of the
poor to understand how it is that their own excessive work enables the rich to live in
idleness upon its fruits.
Q. What is the most hopeful sign that they are ready for enlightenment on this point ?
A. Discontent with the disagreeable and degrading conditions of their own lives.
Q. What is the first principle to which they may appeal for relief from these condi
tions? A. The principle of justice, since it is manifestly unfair that those who do all
the work should obtain the smallest share of the good things which it produces.
Q. What is the alternative to the present unequal distribution of work and good
things? A. That all should be obliged to do their fair share of the work, and to content
themselves with a fair share of the good things.
Q. Are those who insist upon the practical enforcement of this principle Conservatives
or Radicals ? A. They are neither, since they are necessarily opposed to all political
parties.
Q. What then are they called ? A. From the fact that they wish to displace the pre
sent system of competition for the bare means of subsistence, where each man is for
himself, and to establish in its stead the principle of associated work and common enjoy
ment, where each is for all and all for each, they are called Socialists
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IL—THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM.
•
Q, What is wealth ? A. Everything that supplies the wants of man, and ministers in
any way to his comfort and enjoyment.
Q, Whence is wealth derived? A. From labour usefully employed upon natural
objects.
Q. Give instances of labour usefully employed? A. Ploughing, sowing, spinning
weaving, etc., etc.
Q. Give instances of useless employment of labour? A. Digging a pit for the pur
pose of filling it up again, making a road that leads nowhere, supporting people in abso
lute idleness by presenting them with food and clothing for doing nothing, etc., etc.
Q. What do we mean when we say that an article has value ? A. That it is useful or
agreeable to human beings.
Q. When is an article said to have an “ exchange value” in addition to its usefulness
or “ use value ” ? A. When it embodies a certain amount of generally useful labour.
Q. Are the two sorts of value ever identical ? A. They cannot be compared at all.
Q. Explain by an instance what you mean by this? A. The hunger of a starving
man who enters a baker’s shop does not affect the exchange-value of a loaf, which is
measured by the amount of labour which has been expended in making and baking it.
Q. What is its use-value to him ? J. Its use-value is infinitely great, as it is a ques
tion of life and death with him to obtain it.
Q. What is its use-value to another man? A. Its use-value is nothing at all to a
turtle-fed aiderman, sick already with excessive eating, but its exchange-value remains
the same in all cases.
Q. Is there no exception to this rule? A. If the baker has a monopoly of baking, and
no other loaves are anywhere obtainable, he can charge a much higher price than the
amount of his expended labour entitles him to demand.
Q. Is this often done ? A. Every monopolist does it, as a matter of course.
Q. Who are the chief monopolists ? A. There are two great classes. The landlord s
monopolise the land, and the capitalists the machinery.
Q. What is capital ? A. Capital is the result of past labour devoted to present pro
duction,—machinery and factories for example.
Q. How does the landlord secure his profit ? A. By extorting from the labourer a
share of all that he produces, under threat of excluding him from the land.
Q. How does the capitalist act? A. He extorts from those labourers who are ex
cluded from the land a share of all that they produce, under threat of withholding
from them the implements of production, and thus refusing to let them work at all.
Q. On what terms does the capitalist allow the labourers to work ? A. The capitalist
agrees to return to them as wages about a quarter of what they have produced by their
work, keeping the remaining three quarters for himself and his class.
Q. What is this system called ? A. The capitalist system.
Q. What is it that regulates the amount returned to the labourer ? A. The amount
that is necessary to keep him and his family alive.
Q. Why does the capitalist care to keep him alive ? A. Because capital without
labour is helpless.
Q. How is this amount settled ? A. By competition among the labourers, and the
higgling of the labour market.
Q. Is it invariable? A. It varies with all the variations of trade and locality, and the
different degrees of skill of the different labourers, but it constantly tends to a bare
subsistence for the mass of the labourers.
Q. By what name is this law known ? A. The iron law of wages.
Q. How can it be proved ? A. By reckoning up the amount of food and clothing
consumed by those who produce them.
Q Is there any independent testimony to its truth ? A. The witness of all doctors
who have studied the subject.
Q. What evidence do they give upon it ? A. They declare that diseases arising from
insufficient nourishment are constantly present throughout the labouring classes, and
that “ the poor are permanently afflicted with one disease—starvation."
Q. What remedy for this do Socialists propose ? A. Simply that the labouring
classes should become their own employers.
Q. What effect would this have? A. The classes who live in idleness on the fruits
of the labour of other people would be improved off the face of the earth, every one
being obliged to take his share of honest work.
Q. On what compulsion ? A. The alternative of starvation would stare them in the
�face, as soon as the labourers ceased to supply them gratis with food, clothing, shelter,
and luxuries.
Q. Are not the “upper classes” useful as organisers of labour? A. Those who
organise labour are always worthy of their hire, though the hire may be fixed too high
at present; but it is only the absolutely idle, and those whose work, however hard it may
be, consists in perfecting and organising the arrangements for plundering the labourers
of their reward, who are simply the enemies of the workers.
Q. Are shareholders in companies, for instance, useful in organising labour ? A. As
a rule they employ others to organise labour, and the work done by the company would
go on just as well if the shareholders disappeared.
Ill—SURPLUS VALUE.
Q. In whose interest is present production carried on? A. In that of the employing
classes.
Q. Explain this. A. The labourers produce the machinery, which the employers
take away from them as soon as it is made. The labourers are then employed to work it,
in order to produce profit for their masters at a faster rate.
Q. What interest have the labourers in the continuance of capitalism, that is, the
capitalist system ? A. Manifestly none.
Q. Is capital, therefore, useless? A. Certainly not. The way in which it is used i»
attacked by Socialists, not the thing itself.
Q. How is it possible that it should be used in the labourer’s interest? A. Only by
means of a democratic State, acting in the interest of the producers.
Q. In what way would the State effect this? A. By taking into its own hands all the
land and capital, or “ means of production,” which are now used as monopolies for
the benefit of the possessing class.
Q. Is there any precedent for this? A. As the State has already taken over the
Post Office and the Telegraphs, so it might take over the Railways, Shipping, Mines,
Factories, and all other industries.
Q. Is the Post Office worked on Socialist principles ? A. Certainly not. There is no
pretence that the interests of its labourers, the postmen, are considered at all.
Q. What principle regulates their employment? A. That which regulates the em
ployment of all other labourers, competition, reducing their wages to the lowest
possible point, except in the case of the higher officials, who are paid much more than
would willingly be accepted by equally capable men,
Q. Cannot the workers combine together by co-operation to defeat this principle of
competition ? A. Co-operative societies cannot defeat this principle, unless the whole
body of workers are included in one society, and that is simply Socialism
Q. Why cannot different societies defeat competition? A. Because they are com
pelled to compete against each other, to exploit those labourers who are not members
of their body, and to be exploited by others in their turn.
Q. What do you mean by the word “ exploit " ? A. To exploit is to get more than
one gives in a bargain.
Q. To what extent is the exploitation of the labourers commonly carried? A. The
employers give them a bare subsistence, and take from them all the rest of the fruits of
their labour.
Q. What is the difference between the two called ? A. Surplus-value.
Q. What proportion expresses its amount ? A. The proportion between the two or
three hours of necessary labour, and the ordinary ten, twelve, or more hours’ work.
Q. W’hat do you mean by necessary labour? A. That which would feed and clothe
and keep in comfort the nation if all took their part in performing it.
Q. Is any individual employer responsible for the exploitation of the labourers?
A. No, the blame applies to the whole class. Individual employers may be ruined, but
the employing class continue to appropriate the surplus-value.
Q. How do you account for this ? A. Because competition is as keen among the
capitalists as among the labourers.
Q. How does it act with them ? A. It determines the division of the spoil, different
sets of people struggling to get a share in the surplus-value.
Q. How does this competition above affect the labourers below ? A. It does not affect
them at all. It is assumed that the plunder is to be shared among the “ upper classes,’
and the only question is in what proportion this shall be done.
Q. How do. the upper classes label this plunder? A. By many names, such as rent
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brokerage, fees, profits, wages of superintendence, reward of abstinence, insurance
against risk, but above all, interest on capital.
Q. Are all these deducted from the labourers’ earnings ? A. There is no other fund
from which they could possibly come.
Q. Is surplus-value paid for at all ? A. By no means. It is the produce of unpaid
labour, and is simply taken for nothing, just as a thief accumulates his stolen goods,
Q. Does not the progress of civilisation decrease the amount of the surplus-value ? A.
On the contrary it largely increases it.
Q. How is this? A. Improvements in agriculture, method, and machinery, which
civilisation renders possible, multiply manifold the productiveness of the labourer’s toil;
but competition among the labourers prevents them from reaping the benefit.
Q. Does not competition among capitalists in the same way lower the rate of interest ?
A. Certainly it does, but the rate of interest has nothing whatever to do with the rate
of exploitation or of surplus-value.
Q. What is interest ? A. Interest is a fine, paid by the private organiser of labour
out of the surplus-value which his labourers supply, to the idle person from whom he
borrows his capital.
Q. What is the tendency of the two rates of interest and surplus-value ? A. The rate
of interest falls, while the rate of surplus value rises.
Q. Why is this ? A. Because with the storing up of the increased surplus-value by
the capitalist, or in other words, with the accumulation of capital, the competition among
capitalists who are anxious to lend on interest becomes keener, and each individual is
obliged to be content with less.
Q. Does not this lessening of the rate of interest benefit the labourer ? A. No; since
it is only due to the multiplication of those who share in his surplus-value, the result
being the same as it would be if he were allowed to pay a penny to six people instead of
sixpence to one.
Q. How do the capitalists adjust their own conflicting claims ? A. It is a question of
division of spoil among plunderers. If the surplus-value is high, there is more to divide
among the capitalists, but if the capitalists are numerous there is so much less for each
individual among them.
Q. Explain this by an example A. Take the case of Belgium. The labourers are
there exploited to the uttermost, there being no "factory laws” to restrain the greed of
the employer, but since capital is plentiful, the surplus-value is shared among many
capitalists, and the rate of interest is low.
IV.—METHODS OF EXTORTION.
Q. What did you mean by saying that capital without labour is helpless ?. A. The
most ingenious machinery can do nothing but rust or rot unless it is kept going by
labourers.
Q. Why do not the labourers decline to work the machinery for the capitalist?
A. Because they have no other means of making their livelihood.
Q. How could this be remedied ? The State could compete with the capitalist by
providing employment for the labourers, and paying them the full value of their pro
ductions.
Q. What would be the effect of this upon the private capitalist ? A. His power would
be gone at once, since no labourers would work for him, except on such terms as would
leave him no surplus-value whatever.
Q. Is not the existence of capital in private hands an evil? A. Yes, certainly; but
capital, as such, would cease to exist.
Q. Is not wealth in private hands an evil ? A. Large accumulations of wealth by
individuals are an evil, but the evil is different in kind, for they could no longer be used
to carry out the capitalist system.
Q. Why not? A. Because the capitalist system presupposes the existence of two
factors, and is unworkable and impossible without them.
Q. What are these two factors ? A. First, private property in accumulated wealth ;
and, secondly, the presence of property-less labourers in the market who are forced to
sell their services at cost price.
Q. What do you mean by cost price? A. The wages which will give them a bare
subsistence and enable them to work on the morrow, this being the cost of the daily
reproduction of the force or power to labour which constitutes their sole property.
Q. Could not the capitalists obtain labourers by offering them the full value of their
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productions ? A. Possibly, but since the only object of the capitalist system is to
produce for profit, they would cease to wish to employ them when the source of interest
and profit was cut off.
Q. But supposing, in spite of their previous principles, they still wished to employ
them, what would be the result ? A. The labourers would have nothing to complain of
in this case; but the result would be that private capital would gradually dwindle away,
since it would not be replaced by surplus-value, and the capitalist could not compete
with the State on equal terms.
Q | What has hitherto prevented the workers from combining for the overthrow of the
capitalist system ? A. Ignorance and disorganisation.
Q. What has left them in ignorance ? A. The system itself, by compelling them to
spend all their lives upon monotonous toil, and leaving them no time for education
Q. What account have they been given of the system which oppresses them ? A. The
priest has explained that the perpetual presence of the poor is necessitated by a law of
God ; the economist has proved its necessity by a law of Nature; and between them
they have succeeded in convincing the labourers of the hopelessness of any opposition to
the capitalist system.
Q. How is it that the labourers cannot see for themselves that they are legally robbed ?
A. Because the present method of extracting their surplus value is one of fraud rather
than of force, and has grown up gradually.
Q. Has this not always been the case? A. Certainly not. Under the slave-owning
system there was no fraud involved, but only force.
Q. What similarity is there between the slave-owning and the capitalist system ? A.
The parallel is complete, with the single exception that force was used in place of fraud.
Q. Explain this. A. The slave-owner received the produce of the slave’s toil, and re
turned to him part of it in the shape of food, clothing, and shelter. The capitalist takes
the whole produce of the labourer’s toil, and returns to him such proportion of it as will
provide him with necessaries.
Q. What constitutes the chief difference between capitalism and slave-owning? A.
The fact that the capitalist goes through the form of bargaining with the labourer as ic
the amount of the portion of the produce that shall be returned to him.
Q. What is this farce called ? A. Freedom of contract.
Q. In what sense is it free? A. In this sense—that the labourer is free to take what
is offered or nothing.
Q. Has he anything to fall back upon? A. He has absolutely nothing in countries
where the tyranny of capitalism is untempered by any form of Socialism.
Q. What is the case in England? A. Humanity has revolted against the reign of
the capitalist, and provided the workhouse as a last resource for the labourer, taxing the
capitalist for its support.
Q. How has the capitalist turned this piece of Socialism to his own ends? A. By
rendering the workhouse so unpleasant to the poor that starvation is often thought pre
ferable ; and by insisting that no useful work done in the workhouse shall be brought
into his market, where its presence would disturb his calculations, and impair his profits.
Q. Why does he allow it to exist at all ? A. Because he knows that its existence may
stave off for a time the Revolution which he dreads.
Q. What do you mean by the Revolution ? A. The complete change in the conditions
of society which will abolish all unjust privileges, distinctions of rank, or difference
between wage-payers and wage-earners, and will render the workers their own employers.
Q. What other method of appropriating surplus-value has prevailed besides those of
slavery and capitalism ? A. In purely agricultural countries, as for instance in Ireland
and South-Eastern Europe, different types of landlordism have been quite as effectual.
Q. Does landlordism represent the forcible or the fraudulent method? A. Force is
its chief element, since it labels the surplus-value ‘ rents,' and uses all the resources of
civilisation in the shape of police and soldiery to enforce their payment by the people,
but the element of fraud is present, since the labourer is told that he is free to give up
his holding if he does not wish to pay rent.
Q. Mention a special type of landlordism ? A. The system called corvee.
Q. How does this work? A. The labourer is allowed to work on his own land for a
certain number of days, and to keep for himself all the produce of his toil during
that time, on the condition that he spends all his remaining time upon the land which
belongs to the landlord, who appropriates its fruits.
Q. How does this differ from the capitalist method of appropriation ? A. Chiefly in the
fact that the labourer knows exactly when he is working for his own benefit, and whe t
for that of the landlord ; while under the capitalist system there it no line of distinction
and neither he nor anyone else can tell precisely the exact length of time during whic.i
he gives away his labour gratis, although it is clear that his first two or three hours are
for himself, and the remaining seven or eight for some one else.
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Q. Can you show this to be the case ? A. As the producers only get from one-fourth
to one-third of the total produce, the remainder of their work obviously goes to benefit
the non-producers.
V—MACHINES AND THEIR USE.
Q. What is the use of machinery ? A. Labour-saving machinery is used, as its name
indicates, to reduce the cost of production.
Q. What do you mean by the cost of production ? A. The amount of human labour
necessary to produce useful things.
Q. How ought this reduction of the necessary hours of labour to affect the labouring
class ? A. It ought to benefit them in every way, by increasing their wealth as well as
their opportunities of leisure.
Q. Has it done so ? A. Certainly not.
Q. Why not ? A. Because the capitalist class has appropriated to itself nearly all the
benefit.
Q. What, then, has been the result ? A. The available surplus-value has largely
increased, and the idle classes have become more numerous and more idle.
Q. Support your opinion by that of an economist? A. “It is questionable,” says
John Stuart Mill, " if all the improvements in machinery have lightened the day’s toil
of a single man.”
Q. In what aspect of the case is this correct ? A. In respect of the whole labouring
class as a body.
Q. What is the effect upon individuals of the introduction of a labour-saving machine ?'
A. It lightens the day’s toil to a certain number of labourers most effectually, by taking
away their employment altogether, and throwing them helpless on the streets.
Q. Is such a lamentable event frequent ? A. It is a matter of every-day occurrence.
Q. What is the result to their employer ? A. He “ saves their labour ” in the senseof getting the same work done by the machine without having to pay their wages.
Q. Is this a permanent advantage to him individually ? A. As long as he has a mono
poly of the machine, it is a great advantage to him, but other capitalists soon introduce
it also, and compel him to share the spoil with them.
Q. In what way is this result obtained ? A. By comp dtion. The owners of the
machines try to undersell each other, with a view to keeizug the production in their
own hands.
Q. How far does competition beat down prices? A. Until the normal level of capitalist
profits is reached, below which they all decline to go.
Q. What inference do the economists draw from the result of competition? A. That
the whole nation shares equally in the advantage of the machine, since prices are every
where reduced.
Q. What fallacy underlies this argument ? A. The same fallacy which vitiates every
argument of the economists, and that is the assumption that the labourers have no right
to complain so long as the employers are content with taking only the normal rate of
profits as their share of the surplus-value.
Q. What other consideration is omitted by the economists ? A. The fact that society
is divided into two classes of idlers and workers. They assume again that the workers
have no right to complain, so long as they seem to obtain an equal share with the idlers
in the advantage gained by the saving of their own toil.
Q. How do they seem to share this advantage ? A. By the reduction in cost of articles
which they buy.
Q. Is not cheapness of production a benefit to the workers ? A. It is only an apparent,
not a real benefit.
Q. How could it be rendered real? A. It would be real if all who consumed were
also workers. As it is, the working-class get all the disadvantage of the low wages, and
of the adulteration, which has been described as a form of competition.
Q. What makes the reduction of cost appear advantageous to the wage-earners ?
A. The fact that their wages are paid in money.
Q. How is this ? A. The money-price of all articles has risen enormously during the
last three centuries owing to the increased abundance of gold. The money wages have
risen also, but not in anything like the same proportion.
Q. What has prevented them from rising in the same proportion ? A. The cheapening
of the labour-cost of the necessaries of life, which has thus been rendered an empty boon
to the wage-earners.
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Q. Give an instance of the misapirehension of these facts* A. The regular boast of
the Free-Traders, recently reiterated by John Bright, is that the Liberals have given
the labourers two loaves whereas the Tories wished them to be content with only one.
Q. What is this boast based upon ? A. The undeniable fact that bread is cheaper in
England under Free Trade than under Protection.
Q, Then how can you tell that the labourer does not get twice as much bread as
he would otherwise enjoy ? A. Simply because it has been proved again and again on
the highest authority that the labourers as a body at present obtain so bare a subsistence
that it does not suffice to keep them in health; therefore they could not at any time have
lived on half the amount.
Q. What would be the effect if bread became twice as dear ? A. Wages would neces
sarily rise. A Wiltshire farm labourer could not maintain his family on half their pre
sent food; and though capital cares nothing about individuals, it takes good care that
the labourers shall not starve in a body.
Q. What, then, is the general result of the cheapness which is caused by the introduc
tion of labour-saving machinery? A. The advantage of the cheapening of luxuries is
obviously reaped directly by the idlers, since the workers cannot afford to purchase
them. In the case of necessaries the advantage seems at first sight to be shared between
idlers and workers; but ultimately the idlers secure the whole advantage, because
money-wages are proportioned to what money will buy, and the iron law keeps them
down to the price of a bare subsistence.
Q. Do the labourers suffer any direct disadvantage from machinery? A. Certainly
they do. Numbers of them are thrown out of employment at each fresh invention; their
position is rendered ‘precarious in the extreme; and there is a constant tendency to
replaced skilled labour by unskilled, and men by women.
Q. If this is so, would not the workers be wise to destroy the machinery ? A. To
destroy what they have themselves produced, merely because it is at present stolen
from them, would be absurd.
Q. What course should they pursue ? A. Organise their ranks; demand restitution
of their property; keep it under their control; and work it for their own benefit.
.
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VI.—DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
«
Q. Is it the case that the prices of articles would be raised if the community were
organised on Socialist principles? A. Not necessarily, nor in most cases; but in some
this would certainly be the result.
Q. On what principle? A. The principle governing the price of all ordinary things
would be that the worker should receive the full value of his labour.
Q. Would not this always raise the price of his production? A. No, it would only
ensure its being paid to him instead of to an idler.
Q. Explain this? A. In many cases the full labour-value of an article is paid by the
consumer, although the producer gets only his bare subsistence, all the surplus-value
being intercepted by the numerous unnecessary middlemen.
Q. Why is this not always the case? A. Because the employer of labour, instead of
always dividing the surplus-value among middlemen, often competes with his neighbours
by offering a share of it to the consumer.
Q. How can he do this ? A. Simply by selling his goods below their full labour-value.
Q. Give an instance of this? A. A notorious example of this occurs in the match-box
trade, for although several middlemen secure their share of the surplus-value of the
match-box makers, they are still sold to the public at a lower price than their full labour
value, the buyer thus becoming a partner in the employer’s theft by receiving a share of
his stolen goods.
Q. Who are the middlemen who intercept and share the surplus-value produced by
the labourer ? A. The unnecessary agents and distributors, the holders of stocks, bonds,
and shares of every description, and all those who are supported by the wealth-producers
either in idleness or in useless labour, of which latter class of persons flunkeys are a
conspicuous example.
Q. Do not the rich support their own flunkeys, and maintain in comfort those who
produce luxuries for them ? A. Certainly not. These people are maintained entirely
by the workers, though the maintenance is passed through the hands of the rich, who
therefore imagine that they produce it.
Q. Is not expenditure for luxuries “good for trade," and so beneficial to the workers ?
A. It is only good for the trade of the producers of luxuries by exactly the amount
which it withdraws from the producers of useful things.
�.'•WSSf^'vNvi-
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Q. Would not the money employed upon luxuries otherwise be idle? A. By no
means. The rich are not in the habit of keeping their riches in a stocking, and the
bankers are compelled to keep all the money lent them in full use, or they would them
selves be ruined.
Q. What then is the result of spending money upon luxuries? A. The destruction
of a certain amount of wealth and the absolute waste of the labour spent in repro
ducing it.
Q. Does not the expenditure of a wealthy man in keeping up a large household
benefit the poor ? A. Decidedly not.
Q. What then is the result of spending money in maintaining flunkeys ? A. The
utter waste of all the food and clothing they consume.
Q. Would not they in any case consume food and clothing ? A. Certainly : but they
would repay the waste by producing useful things themselves.
Q. How does all this work affect the labourers ? A. It compels them to produce
more food and clothing than would otherwise be necessary, or else to consume less of it
themselves.
Q. How is this ? A. Because the food which the flunkeys eat cannot be also eaten
by the labourers; while the labourers are obliged to produce it, since somebody must
do this, and it is perfectly evident that the flunkeys do not.
Q. Does not this apply to all the idle classes ? A. Certainly. We have only to ask
where the food which they eat and the clothes which they wear, come from, and we see
that they are produced by somebody else without any return being made for them by
the idlers. That is to say, they represent unpaid labour, or in other words surplus
value.
Q. Then if one man is living in idleness, what is the inevitable result ? A. That
another man is producing what he consumes; or that several are each doing more than
their fair share of work to make up for his deficiency.
Q. How would Socialism deal with this question of work? A. It would compel every
one to do his share of the necessary work of the world.
Q. Under what penalty ? A. Under penalty of starvation, since those who refused to
work would get nothing to eat.
Q. What would happen to the old and infirm and the children? A. They would be,
as they are in any society, a perfectly just charge upon the able-bodied workers, in
creasing the necessary work of the world by the amount which must be devoted to their
maintenance and education.
Q. Would the workers then receive the full value of their toil ? A. Deductions from
it for such purposes as those just mentioned are, of course, inevitable, and must be
made under every form of society, as well as certain other deductions for other measures
of public utility.
Q. What deductions can be prevented by Socialism ? A. Nothing could be subtracted
from the labourers’ reward for the purpose of maintaining in idleness any persons
whatever who are capable of work, nor for the aggrandisement of private individuals,
nor for the furthering of objects of no public utility merely to satisfy individual caprice.
YII—THEORIES OF PROFIT.
Q. What is the use of money ? A. It facilitates the exchange of articles, especially
those of unequal value.
Q. How is this effected? A. If A produces wheat, and B cloth, money serves as a
convenient measure of the labour-value of each. A exchanges his wheat for money,
and buys cloth with that. B exchanges his cloth for money and buys wheat with that.
Q. Are they both enriched by the bargain ? A. Not in the matter of exchange-value,
since wheat which has cost a day’s labour exchanges for cloth which has cost the same,
but in the matter of use-value they are both enriched, since each gets what he wants,
anil gives what he does not want.
Q. Is this always the case? A. Always, in the ordinary exchange between producers
who are working for their own benefit, and exchange goods for money, and that money
for other goods.
Q. Can a profit be made out of money transactions altogether apart from the exchange
©f goods ? A. Yes, by gambling either on the race-course or on the stock-exchange,
but in this case one gambler's gain is another’s loss.
Q. Whaf other form of exchange now prevails? A. That of those who, not being
workers, produce no goods, but yet have command of money.
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Q. How do they use it ? A. They exchange their money for goods, and those goods
back again into money.
Q. Then what is the use of the process if they only get money at the end, when they
had money at the beginning ? A. Because at the second exchange they get more money
than they gave at the first.
Q. How has this fact been explained by economists? A. By the mere statement
that the money-monger either gave less money than the goods were worth at the first
exchange, or got more than they were worth at the second.
Q. What consideration did they omit in this theory ? A. The fact that these same
money-mongers are in the market both as buyers and sellers, and that without a miracle
they cannot all gain on both transactions, but must lose in selling precisely the amount
they gain in buying.
Q. What other inadequate explanation has been put forward ? A. The theory that
in buying machinery they buy something which has the power of adding an extra exchange-value to the goods upon which it is employed.
Q. What made this theory seem plausible? A. The fact that with a machine the
labourer can produce goods much faster than without it.
Q. Does not this add exchange-value to his productions? A. Not unless he has a
monopoly of the machine, and can thus fear no competition except that of hand-labour;
otherwise the ex change-value of his goods sinks in proportion to the increased rapidity
of their production.
Q. Explain this. A. If he can make two yards of cloth in the time which he formerly
devoted to one, and all other weavers can do the same, the price or exchange-value of
two yards sinks to the former price of one; though, of course, the use-value of two is
always greater than that of one.
Q. Are not monopolies frequent ? A. No individual capitalist can keep a monopoly
for any great length of time, as all inventions become common property at last, and,
although it is true that the capitalists as a body have a monopoly of machinery as against
the workers, which adds a fictitious value to machine-made goods, and will continue to
do so until the workers take control of the machinery, yet this extra value is too small
to account for a tithe of the profits of the money-mongers.
Q. What is the one thing needful, which they must be able to buy in the market, in
order to make these profits ? A. Something whichjshall itself have the power of creating
exchange-value largely in excess of its own cost, in order that at the end of the transac
tion they may have secured more money than they have expended.
Q, What is to be bought in the market having this power ? A. There is only one
thing with this power, and that is the labourer himself, who offers his labour-force on
the market.
Q. On what terms does he offer it ? A. Competition compels him to be content with
its cost price.
Q. What is this ? A. Subsistence wages, that is, enough to keep himself and his
family from starvation.
Q. What does this represent in labour? A. The value produced by his labour
expendedBsefully for two or three hours every day.
Q. Is he, then, at leisure after two or three hours’ work? A. By no means. The
bargain between him and the capitalist requires him to give ten hours or more of work
for the cost price of two or three.
Q. Why does he make such an unequal bargain ? A. Because, in spite of all so-called
freedom of contract, he has no other choice.
Q. Has the capitalist no conscience? A. Individuals cannot alter the system, even if
they would ; and the capitalist is now often represented by a company, which, if it had
a conscience, could not pay its five per cent.
Q. After the labourer has produced the price of his own wages, what does he go on to
do ? A. To produce exchange-value, for which he is not paid at all, for the benefit of
the capitalist.
Q. What is the value produced by this unpaid labour called? A. Surplus value, as
we said before.
, Q. What does the capitalist do with the surplus value? A. He keeps as much as
he can for himself under the name of profits of his business.
Q. Why does he not keep it all ? A. Because out of it he has to pay landlords, other
capitalists from whom he has borrowed capital, bankers and brokers who have effected
these loans for him, middlemen who sell his wares to the public, and finally the public,
in order to induce them to buy from him instead of from rival manufacturers.
Q. How does he justify this appropriation of surplus-value by his class ? A. He tries
to persuade himself that capital has the power of breeding and producing interest by as
natural a process as the reproduction of animals.
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Q. Can he find any dupes to believe in so absurd a theory ? A. He instils a genuine
belief into himself and others that this is really the case.
Q. What is the inference from this? A. That the labourer ought to be grateful to the
capitalist for furnishing him with employment.
Q. For what have the labourers really to thank the capitalist? A. For defrauding
them of three-quarters of the fruits of their toil, and rendering leisure, education, and
natural enjoyment almost impossible for them to attain.
H
VIII.—INADEQUATE OBJECTIONS.
Fi
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Q. What kind of objectors do Socialists mostly meet with ? A. Those who from
interested motives prefer the present anarchy to the proposed organisation of labour,
and those who consider Socialists as a set of well-meaning persons busied about an
impracticable scheme.
Q. What objection do they chiefly urge against Socialism? A. That Socialists, if
poor, are interested schemers for the overthrow of an excellent society, in order that,
being themselves idle and destitute, they may be able to seize upon the wealth accumu
lated by more industrious people.
Q. What have they to say against Socialists of wealth and industry ? A. That they must
obviously be insincere in their Socialism, or they would at once give away all their
capital, instead of denouncing what they themselves possess.
Q. How should Socialist working men meet the charge? A. With contempt. The
idea that people who are treated with injustice have no right to demand justice because
they would be gainers by its enforcement, is too absurd to require refutation.
Q. How should wealthy Socialists reply? A. They should point out that, so long as
the capitalist system remains, it is impossible to evade the responsibility of wealth by
merely transferring it to other persons.
Q. Explain this by an instance ? A. In a capitalist society the mere purchasing of an
article in the market involves the exploitation of the labourers who produced it; and
this is not in any way remedied or atoned for by giving away the article afterwards to
somebody else.
Q. How does this illustrate the case ? A. The owner of capital cannot prevent it from
exploiting the labourers by giving it away. It cannot be used as Socialism enjoins
except under an organised system of Socialism.
Q. Can the wealthy Socialist do nothing to frustrate the capitalist system? A. He
can mitigate the severity of competition in all his personal relations. Beyond that he
can do nothing except use his wealth in helping on the Socialist cause.
Q. How may Socialists reply to the taunt that their scheme is impracticable ? A. By
quoting the opinion of J. S. Mill that the difficulties of Socialism are greatly over-rated;
and they should declare that, so far from being an impracticable Utopian scheme, it is
the necessary and inevitable result of the historical evolution of society.
Q. How can they prove this ? A, They can point to the fact that production is becom
ing more and mere socialised every day.
Q. Explain this? A. Production, which was once carried on by individuals working
separately for themselves, is now organised by companies and joint-stock concerns, by
massing large numbers of producers together, and uniting their efforts for a common end.
Q. For what end? A. -For the profits of the shareholders of the company.
Q. How could the State take advantage of this? A. By taking into its own hands
the organisation which the capitalists have prepared for it, and using it for the benefit
of the producers alone.
Q. Would not the capitalists start fresh companies in opposition to those managed by
the State ? A. They could no more compete with the State than they can now with the
Post Office; and they would be equally helpless in the case of the Railways and all the
great industries.
Q. Would it not be easier for the capitalists to compete with the State in the case of
smaller concerns ? A. It would in any case be impossible for them to get labourers, since
the State would be paying the labourers the full value of their labour, and they would
therefore decline to work for the capitalists.
Q. Would the expropriated capitalists be entitled to compensation? A. As a matter
of principle it is unjust to compensate the holders of stolen goods out of the pockets of
those who have suffered the theft; but it might be expedient to grant some compensation
in the shape of annuities.
Q. What is the tendency of the evolution of society? A. It tends always towards
�11
more complex organisation, and to a greater interdependence of all men upon each other;
each individual becoming more and more helpless by himself, but more and more power
ful as part of a mightier society.
Q. Is it true that individuality would be crushed by Socialism ? J. On the contrary,
it is crushed by the present state of society, and would then alone be fairly developed.
Q. What does J. S. Mill say on this point? A “The restraints of Communism
would be freedom in comparison with the present condition of the majority of the human
race. The generality of labourers in this and most other countries have as little choice
of occupation or freedom of locomotion, are practically as dependent on fixed rules and
on the will of others, as they could be in any system short of actual slavery.”
Q. What does Mr. Fawcett say on the same subject ? A. That there is no choice of
work or possibility of change for the factory hand ; and that the boy who is brought up
to the plough must remain at the plough-tail to the end of his days.
Q. What other objection has been urged against Socialism ? A. That it will take away
all the incentives to exertion, and induce universal idleness in consequence.
Q. Is this the case? A. On the contrary, it will apply the strongest incentive to all
alike, for all must work if they wish to eat, while at present large classes are exempted
by the accident of birth from the necessity of working at all.
Q. Name another common objection. A. That Socialism will destroy culture and
refinement by compelling the leisured classes who have a monopoly of them to do some
honest work.
Q. Is this the case ? A. On the contrary, it will bring the opportunity of culture and
refinement to all by putting an end to the wearisome labour that continues all day long;
while the leisured class will learn by experience that work is a necessity for perfect
culture.
Q. What other objection is often .urged ? A. That State management would give rise
to jobbery and corruption.
Q. How may this be answered? A. By pointing to the present State organisation
either of the police or the Post Office, in neither of which are jobbery and corruption
conspicuous features.
Q. Would not the State be in a different postion as regards the people ? A. At present
it is the people's master, but under any democratic scheme of Socialism it would become
their servant, and merely be charged with carrying out their will.
Q. Name another objection to the practicability of Socialism? A. The cuckoo cry
that “if you make all men equal to-day, they will all be unequal to-morrow, because of
their different natural capabilities.”
Q. What equality do Socialists aim at ? A. Equality of opportunities, not of natural
powers.
Q. What is the Socialist view of the duties of those who are especially gifted by
nature ? A. That they owe a larger return to the community than those who are less
naturally gifted.
Q. What is the capitalist view of their rights and duties ? A. That they are indepen
dent of all duties, and have the right of taxing the community, which supports them,
for luxuries and waste to the full extent of their individual caprice.
Q, In accordance with this view, what method do capitalists take in dealing with
them ? A. Capitalists arrange that persons of extra industry and talent shall have every
opportunity of enslaving their less fortunate neighbours, thus adding an inequality of
conditions to the natural inequality of talent.
Q. What is the Socialist method ? A. Socialists insist that the talented as well as the
cunning shall be restrained by the organisation of society from appropriating the surplus
value created by their less fortunate neighbours.
IX—GLUTS AND THEIR RESULTS.
Q. To what is the periodical depression of trade, with its accompanying distress among
the labourers, due ? A. To the fact that individual capitalists are striving to enrich
themselves alone, instead of co-operating to supply the needs of the community.
Q. Explain this? A. During a period of activity, when prices are high and the markets
for goods are not over-stocked, a great competition goes on among capitalists, who wish
to take advantage of the high prices and produce more quickly the goods which can
command them.
Q. What is the effect of this competition ? A. All the available labourers are employed;
all the machinery is set going ; and no effort is spared by the manufacturers to produoe
the utmost quantity of the goods which are in demand on the market.
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Q. What is the inevitable result ? A. A glut is shortly created of these goods. Far
more than were wanted have been made. All the store-houses are full, and no more
purchasers are to be found.
Q. What is the next step in the process ? A. The capitalists soon get tired of heaping
up what they cannot sell, and wish to stop production.
Q. How can they manage this ? A. They turn off all their extra hands, and propose
such a reduction of wages that the rest agree to strike rather than accept it.
Q. With what result ? A. Production is stopped for a time, and the capitalists are not
obliged to pay wages, or else agree to pay only for half time until the glut has gradually
disappeared, as the goods are absorbed by the public.
Q. What follows? A. A fresh demand arises. The workers are all employed again,
and the glut recurs with the utmost regularity.
Q. Is there any necessity for this periodical distress ? A. Not the smallest,
Q .What is it that vitiates the whole system of production at present? A. The pre
vailing idea that goods are not to be produced for the sake of their usefulness, but for
the sake of making a profit for capitalists and giving employment to labourers.
Q. What definite evil is the result of this idea ? A. Adulteration and fraud of everv
description; cheap and nasty wares driving expensive and sound goods out of the market
Q Who are the greatest sufferers from all this ? A. The workers themselves.
Q. In what way? A. Being the least able to protect themselves against adulteration
and fraud, they are cheated to a fearful extent in all that they buy ; and are the first to
suffer from a glut in the market.
Q. How is this ? A. Because they are first compelled to produce more food and
Ciothing than can possibly be sold at a profit, and then are deprived of the means of
buying what they have themselves produced, although they are in urgent need both of
food and clothing, because the capitalists throw them out of work as soon as their work
ceases to pay its percentage.
Q. What advice is given to the labourer by well-meaning reformers who do not under
stand the labour question ? A. To be sober and thrifty.
Q. Is this advice sound? A. As addressed to the individual struggling against his
neighbours under the capitalist system, it is excellent.
Q How can it benefit the individual? A. It may enable him to “ rise ” into the capitalist
class; that is, to exchange his position in the ranks of the oppressed for one in those of
the oppressors.
Q. What is the Socialist criticism of this advice? A. That as a panacea for the
wrongs of the system, or as a cure for the sufferings of the labourers as a class, it is
inadequate , because a general improvement in intelligence, thrift, and sobriety, if
shared by the whole class of labourers, merely supplies the capitalist class with a better
instrument for the production of surplus-value.
Q. What is the result of improvement in the ability of the workers in the present
system? A. The same result as an improvement in machinery, namely, that goods are
more rapidly produced by the workers, and accumulated by the capitalists ; so that the
periodical glut, with its accompanying crisis, depression, and distress, is more quickly
achieved than before.
Q. Is there any possibility of an incidental advantage to the labourers? A. Only in
this respect: the labourer is a two-edged tool in the hands of the capitalist; and when it
becomes sharper and more efficient for his work, it becomes also more likely to cut the
hand that uses it.
Q. Explain what you mean by this ? A. A general improvement among the labourers
in intelligence and sobriety will probably be followed by improved organisation, with a
view to expropriating the classes that confiscate the fruits of their labour.
Q. Is this the end at which so-called “ social reformers ” aim ? A. By no means; but
they seem incapable of understanding either the inefficacy in one way, or the efficacy in
another, of their well-meant advice to the labourers as a class.
Q. What advice do the Malthusians give to the labourer ? A, To limit his family, as
they think that overpopulation is the cause of the distress.
Q. Is this the case I A. It has never been so in England.
Q. How can this be proved ? A. By the fact that the amount of wealth produced
which might be exchanged for food for the workers, if the capitalist system did not pre
vent it, has always increased faster than the number of producers.
Q. Why is this? A. Because the labour of those who are working in concert is far
more efficient than that of isolated workers, and machinery vastly enhances this
efficiency.
Q. What is the element of truth in the Malthusian theory? A. It is perfectly true
that a limited space of land cannot support an unlimited number of people, but as even
England, to say nothing of the world, has not reached that limit to population, it has at
present no bearing on the case.
�*3
Q. What is the element of truth as regards families? A. It is perfectly true that
in the present capitalist system the man who has no children at all is in a better
pecuniary position than the man with a large family, since, just as in actual warfare,
children in the modern competitive battle-field are an encumbrance, where every man
has to fight for his living, and maintain his family as best he may.
Q. How does the standpoint of the Malthusians differ from that of the Socialists’
A. The former accept the basis of the capitalist society, namely, the existence of two
distinct classes of wage-payers and wage-earners, and merely advise the workers to
attempt to secure a larger wage.
Q. How do Socialists regard this advice ? A. They consider that the discussion as to
whether the workers shall enjoy one-half or one-third of the wealth which they have
produced is comparatively unimportant, and they continue to urge the rightful claim of
the workers to the full value of their own productions.
Q. How soon is this claim likely to be attended to ? A. As soon as ever the majority
of the workers really understand their own position, and consequently become convinced
of the advantages of Socialism.
Q. How can the capitalists be converted to the same view? A. Appeals to justice
may make isolated conversions of individual capitalists, but nothing short of a display
of organised force will enable the idlers as a body to perceive the advantage of taking
their due share in the necessary work of society under a just system of Socialism.
X—REVOLUTION.
Q. On what ground do capitalists defend the principle of competition ? A. On the
eround that it brings into play a man’s best qualities.
Q. Does it effect this? A. This is occasionally its result; but it also brings out his
worst qualities, by stimulating him to struggle with his fellows for the relative improve
ment of his own position rather than for the absolute advancement of the interests of all.
Q. Why does this happen? A. Because in ordinary competition one man’s gain is
another’s loss.
Q. What is the theory of the Survival of the Fittest? A. That the class of persons
who are most fitted to live and propagate their race in the conditions with which it is
surrounded, is certain to survive the rest.
Q. Are the existing social conditions favourable to the survival of those persons whose
character renders them most valuable to society ? A. On the contrary, they favour the
survival of the most valueless.
Q. What is the final result of such conditions and surroundings as the filth, foul airand squalor of a town rookery ? A. The crushing out of those who are least able to
adapt themselves to these surroundings; and the consequent survival of those who are
most fit for filth, but least for decent social life.
Q. Does the law of the Survival of the Fittest affect men in the same way as it affects
the lower animals? A. No; because it is possible for men to alter their surroundings,
while other animals must simply adapt themselves to them, whatever they may be.
Q. What is the Revolution for which Socialists strive? A. A Revolution in the
methods of the distribution of wealth corresponding to that which has already taken
place in the means of its production.
Q. What change has already taken place ? A . Wealth is now almost entirely pro
duced by the associated effort of great numbers of men working in concert, instead of by
individual effort as in former times; while individuals still possess command of its
distribution, and use their power in their own interests.
Q. How are forms of government changed so as to re-adjust them to the economical
changes in the forms of production which have been silently evolving in the body of
society ? A. By means of Revolutions.
Q. Give an instance of this ? A. The French Revolution of 1789.
Q. Did that Revolution fail to attain its objects ? A. Certainly not; but its objects
were not those at which Socialists aim.
Q. What were its objects ? A. The political expression of the fact that feudalism was
demolished, and the reign of capitalism established on its ruins
Q. What do you mean by this? A. The overthrow of the political supremacy of
the landed aristocracy, and the establishment of a bourgeois plutocracy; that is, putting
the political power into the hands of the merchants and money-lords of the middle
class.
Q. What change in the forms of production had rendered this inevitable? A The
�fact that the possession of agricultural land had ceased to be the chief means to the
attainment of wealth.
Q. What, then, had taken its place ? A. The possession of capital and the use of
machinery.
Q. In what sense was that Revolution a selfish struggle? A. After the displacement
of the upper by the middle-class in political and social supremacy, the latter established
its own pow’er irrespectively of the rights of any other class.
Q. Is not the struggle which precedes and heralds the Social Revolution one of selfish
class interests in the same way ? A. By no means; Socialists do not aim at the
supremacy of a class or section of the community at the expense of other sections.
Q. Do they not wish the workers to control the State ? A. Certainly they do.
Q. Is not this the supremacy of a class? A. No, for they insist that every ablebodied person of sound mind should do a fair share of necessary wcrk. When all are
workers, the workers will be no longer a class, but a nation.
Q. What, then will become of the class-selfishnes of the workers ? A. Selfishness will
then become public spirit, when the motives which formerly led men to work for the
interests and advancement of themselves alone, operate for the benefit of the whole
human race with which their class has become identified.
THE
OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
g. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion to the population, such dwellings to
be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone.
Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together with the provision
of at least one wholesome meal a day in each school.
�Eight Hours or less to be the normal working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
exceeding /"300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation cf agricultural and
industrial armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic Federation advocates :
Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
tation.
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
out of the Rates.
Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities. Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
Membership of Branches of the Federation is open to all who agree
with its objects, and subscribe One Penny per week.
Those ready to form Branches should communicate with the
Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars. E. C.
All who are interested, in Socialism
should, read.
THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS OF
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Which will be sent post free at the published prices on receipt of
an order amounting to one shilling or more.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
Socialism made Plain.
The social and political
manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883 ;
with “The Unemployed,” a Manifesto issued after the “ Riots in
the West End” on 8th February, 1886. Sixty-first thousand.
Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id.
“ JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
Socialist Rhymes
from Justice.
By J. L. Joynes.
Reprinted chiefly
Demy 8-vo., price id.
Summary of the Principles of Socialism.
By
H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp.
crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d.
This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and concludes with a
statement of the demands of English Socialists for the immediate future.
Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman.
16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id.
�'x'\x\'cw\xye^A>:
I
Socialism and Soldiering*; with some comments on the
Army Enlistment Fraud. By George Bateman (Late 23rd Regi
ment), with Portrait. With an introduction by H. H. Champion
(Late Royal Artillery). Price One Penny.
The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German
by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Robbery of the Poor.
By W. H. P. Campbell.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Appeal to the Young.
By Prince Peter
Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and
reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever penned by a
scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years’ imprisonment at the hands of the
French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers
Wage-Labour and Capital. From the German of
Karl Marx translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice.
New and cheaper edition, Royal 8-vo., price id.
By Edward Carpenter —Social Progress and Indi
vidual Effort; Desirable Mansions; and Co-operative Production.
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The Man with the Red Flag: Being John Burns’
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The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted
with additions from Justice.
Demy 8-vo., price id. 20th thousand.
Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman.
(In
The Emigration Fraud Exposed.
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What an Eight Hours Bill Means.
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reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on “ The Coming Slavery.”)
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Thousand. Price one penny.
Socialism and the Worker.
By F.
A.
Sixth
Sorge.
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An explanation in the simplest language of tne main idea of Socialism.
The Chicago Riots and the Class War in the
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International Trade Union Congress, held at Paris,
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24-pp., Royal 8-vo.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The socialist catechism
Creator
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Joynes, J. L. (James Leigh) [-1893.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 4, [2] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Reprinted with additions from: Justice. 23rd thousand edition. Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end. Information on the Social-Democratic Federation, p. 14.
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
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1885
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G4976
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Socialism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A defence of atheism: being a lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston, April 10, 1861), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Capitalism
Socialism
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Text
Price One Penny.
NOW SUFFFRING FIVE YEARS* IMPRISONMENT UNDER
THE
FRENCH REPUBLIC FOR ADVOCATING THE
CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE.
Translated by H. M. Hyndman. Reprinted from “TO-DAY" (Monthly 3d.).
1885.
Published at The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
T T is to the young that I wish to address myself to-day. Let the
-L old—I mean of course the old in heart and mind—lay the
pamphlet down therefore without tiring their eyes in reading what
will tell them nothing.
I assume that you are about eighteen or twenty years of age ;
that you have finished your apprenticeship or your studies; that
you are just entering on life. I take it for granted that you have a
mind free from the superstition which your teachers have sought to
force upon you ; that you don’t fear the devil and that you do not go
to hear parsons and ministers rant. More, that you are not one of
the fops, sad products of a society in decay, who display their
well-cut trousers and their monkey faces in the park and who even
at their early age have only an insatiable longing for pleasure at
any price. ... I assume on the contrary that you have a
warm heart and for this reason I talk to you.
A first question, I know, occurs to you—you have often asked
yourself—“ What am I going to be ? ” In fact when a man is
young he understands that after having studied a trade or a science
for several years—at the cost of society, mark—he has not done
this in order that he should make use of his acquirements as instru
ments of plunder for his own gain, and he must be depraved
indeed and utterly cankered by vice, who has not dreamed that one
day he would apply his intelligence, his abilities, his knowledge to
help on the enfranchisement of those who to-day grovel in misery
and in ignorance.
You are one of those who has had such a vision, are you not ?
Very well, let us see what you must do to make your dream a
reality.
I do not know in what rank you were born. Perhaps, favoured
�2
by fortune, you have turned your attention to the study of science;
you are to be a doctor, a barrister, a man of letters, or a scientific
man ; a wide field opens up before you ; you enter upon life with
extensive knowledge, with a trained intelligence ; or, on the other
hand, you are, perhaps, only an honest artisan whose knowledge
of science is limited by the little that you have learnt at school;
but you have had the advantage of learning at first hand what
a life of exhausting toil is the lot of the worker of our time.
I stop at the first supposition, to return afterwards to the second ",
I assume then that you have received a scientific education. Let
us suppose that you intend to be a—doctor.
To-morrow a man in corduroys will come to fetch you to see a
sick woman. He will lead you into one of those alleys where the
opposite neighbours can almost shake hands over the heads of the
passers-by ; you ascend into a foul atmosphere by the flickering
light of a little ill-trimmed lamp ; you climb two, three, four, five
flights of filthy stairs and in a dark, cold room you find the sick
woman, lying on a pallet covered with dirty rags. Pale, livid
children, shivering under their scanty garments, gaze at you with
their big eyes wide open. The husband has worked all his life
twelve or thirteen hours a-day at no matter what; now he has
been out of work for three months. To be out of employ is not
rare in his trade; it happens every year, periodically; but,
formerly, when he was out of work his wife went out as a char
woman—perhaps to wash your shirts—at the rate of fifteen-pence
a-day ; but now she has been bedridden for two months and misery
glares upon the family in all its squalid hideousness.
What will you prescribe for the sick woman, doctor ? you who
have seen at a glance that the cause of her illness is general
anaemia, want of good food, lack of fresh air ? Say a good beef
steak every day ? a little exercise in the country ? a dry and wellventilated bed-room ? What irony ! If she could have afforded
it this would have all have been done long since without waiting
for your advice I
If you have a good heart, a frank address, an honest face, the
family will tell you many things. They will tell you that the woman
on the other side of the partition, who coughs a cough which tears
your heart, is a poor ironer; that a flight of stairs lower down
all the children have the fever ; that the washerwoman who occu
pies the ground floor will not live to see the spring, and that in the
house next door things are still worse.
What will you say to all these sick people ? Recommend them
generous diet, change of air, less exhausting toil. . . . You
only wish you could, but you daren’t, and you go out heartbroken
with a curse on your lips.
The next day, as you still brood over the fate of the dwellers in
this dog-hutch, your partner tells you that yesterday a footman
came to fetch him, this time in a carriage. It was for the owner of
a fine house, for a lady worn out with sleepless nights, who devotes
all her life to dressing, visits, balls, and squabbles with a stupid
husband. Your friend has prescribed for her a less preposterous
habit of life, a less heating diet, walks in the fresh air, an even
temperament and, in order to make up in some measure for the
want of useful work, a little gymnastic exercise in her bedroom.
�3
The one is dying because she has never had enough food nor
enough rest in her whole life ; the other pines because she has never
known what work is since she was born.
If you are one of those miserable natures who adapt themselves
to anything, who at the sight of the most revolting spectacles
console themselves with a gentle sigh and a glass of sherry, then
you will gradually become used to these contrasts and the nature
of the beast favouring your endeavours, your sole idea will be to
lift yourself into the ranks of the pleasure-seekers, so that you may
never again find yourself among the wretched. But if you are a
Man, if every sentiment is translated in your case into an action of
the will, if, in you, the beast has not crushed the intelligent being,
then you will return home one day saying to yourself, “ No, it is
unjust; this must not go on so any longer. It is not enough to
cure diseases, we must prevent them. A little good living and
intellectual development would score off our lists half the patients
and half the diseases. Throw physic to the dogs! Air, good diet,
less crushing toil,—that is how we must begin. Without this, the
whole profession of a doctor is nothing but trickery and humbug.”
That very day you will understand Socialism. You will wish
to know it thoroughly and if altruism is not a word devoid of
significance for you, if you apply to the study of the social question
the rigid induction of the natural philosopher you will end by
finding yourself in our ranks, and you will work, as we work, to
bring about the Social Revolution.
But perhaps you will say, “ Mere practical business may go to
the devil! I will devote myself to pure science ; I will be an
astronomer, a physiologist, a chemist. Such work a 5 that always
bears fruit, if only for future generations.”
Let us first try to understand what you seek in devoting your
self to science. Is it only the pleasure—doubtless immense—
which we derive from the study of nature and the exercise of our
intellectual faculties ? In that case I ask you in what respect does
the philosopher, who pursues science in order that he may pass his
life pleasantly to himself, differ from that drunkard there, who only
seeks for the immediate gratification that gin affords him ? The
philosopher has, past all question, chosen his enjoyment more
wisely, since it affords him a pleasure far deeper and more lasting
than that of the toper. But that is all! Both one and the other
have the same selfish end in view, personal gratification.
But no, you have no wish to lead this selfish life. By working
at science you mean to work for humanity, and that is the idea
which will guide you in your investigations.
A charming illusion ! Which of us has not hugged it for a
moment when giving himself up for the first time to science ?
But then, if you are really thinking about humanity, if you look
to the good of mankind in your studies, a formidable objection rises
before you ; for, however little you may have of the critical spirit,
you must at once note that in dur society of to-day science is only
an appendage to luxury which serves to render life pleasanter for
the few, but remains absolutely inaccessible to the bulk of mankind.
�4
Now more than a century has passed since science laid down
sound propositions as to the origin of the universe, but how many
have mastered them or possess the really scientific spirit of
criticism ? A few thousands at the outside, who are lost in the
midst of hundreds of millions still steeped in prejudices and super
stitions worthy of savages, who are consequently ever ready to serve
as puppets for religious impostors.
Or, to go a step further, let us glance at what science has done
to establish rational foundations for physical and moral health.
Science tells us how we ought to live in order to preserve the health
q£ our own bodies, how to maintain in good conditions of existence
the crowded masses of our population. But does not all the vast
amount of work done in these two directions remain a dead letter
in our books ? We know it does. And why ?—Because science
to-day exists only for a handful of privileged persons, because
social inequality which divides society into two classes—the wage
slaves and the grabbers of capital—renders all its teachings as to
the conditions of a rational existence only the bitterest irony to
nine-tenths of mankind.
I could give plenty more examples, but I stop short : only go
outside Faust’s closet, whose windows, darkened by dust, scarce let
the light of heaven glimmer on its shelves full of books, look round,
and at each step you will find fresh proof in support of this view.
It is now no longer a question of accumulating scientific truths
and discoveries. We need above everything to spread the truths
already mastered by science, to make them part of our daily life,
to render them common property. We have to order things so
that all, so that the mass of mankind, may be capable of understand
ing and applying them ; we have to make science no longer a luxury
but the foundation of every man’s life. This is what justice demands.
I go farther: I say that the interests of science itself lie m the
same direction. Science only makes real progress when a new
truth finds a soil already prepared to receive it. The theory of the
mechanical origin of heat, though enunciated in the last century in
the same terms that Hirn and Clausius formulate it to-day, re
mained for eighty years buried in the Academical Records until
such time as knowledge of physics had spread widely enough to
create a public capable of accepting it. Three generations had to
go by before the ideas of Erasmus Darwin on the variation ot
species could be favourably received from his grandson, and that
they should be admitted by academical philosophers, not without
pressure from public opinion even then. The philosopher, like the
poet or artist, is always the product of the society m which he
moves and teaches.
...
,
,
But, if you are imbued with these ideas, you will understand
that it is above all important to bring about a radical change in
this state of affairs, which to-day condemns the philosopher to be
crammed with scientific truths, and almost the whole of the rest of
human beings to remain what they were five, ten centuries ago,
that is to say in the state of slaves and machines, incapable ot
mastering established truths. And the day when you are imbued
with wide, deep, humane and profoundly scientific trutn, tha ay
you will lose your taste for pure science. You will set to work to
�5
find out the means to effect this transformation, and if you bring to
your investigations the impartiality which has guided you in your
Scientific researches you will of necessity adopt the cause of
Socialism ; you will make an end of sophisms and you will come
amongst us ; weary of working to procure pleasures for this small
group, which already has such a large share of them, you will place
your information and your devotion at the service of the oppressed.
And be sure that then the feeling of duty accomplished, and of
a real accord established between your sentiments and your
actions, you will find powers in yourself of whose existence you
»ever even dreamed. When, too, one day—it is not far distant in
any case, saving the presence of our professors—when one day, I
say, the change for which you are working shall have been brought
about, then, deriving new forces from collective scientific work, and
from the powerful help of armies of labourers who will come to
place their energies at its service, science will take a new bound
forward, in comparison with which the slow progress of to-day will
appear the simple exercises of tyros.
Then you will enjoy science ; that pleasure will be a pleasure for
all.
If you have finished reading law and are about to be called to
the Bar, perhaps you too have some illusions as to your future
activity—I assume that you are one of the nobler spirits, that you
know what altruism means. Perhaps you think “ To devote my
life to an unceasing and vigorous struggle against all injustice ! To
apply my whole faculties to bringing about the triumph of law, the
public expression of supreme justice—can any career be nobler? ”
and you begin the real work of life confident in yourself and in the
profession you have chosen.
Very well: let us turn to any page of the Law Reports and see
what actual life will tell you.
Here we have a rich landowner; he demands the eviction of a
cottier tenant who has not paid his rent. From the legal point of
view the case is beyond dispute ; since the poor farmer can’t pay,
out he must go. But if we look into the facts we shall learn some
thing like this. The landlord has squandered his rents persistently
in rollicking pleasure; the tenant has worked hard all day and
■every day. The landlord has done nothing to improve his estate,
nevertheless its value has trebled in fifty years owing to the rise in
price of land due to the construction of a railway, to the making of
new highroads, to the draining of a marsh, to the enclosure and
cultivation of waste lands; but the tenant who has contributed
largely towards this increase has ruined himself; he fell into the
hands of usurers and, head over ears in debt, he can no longer pay
the landlord. The law, always on the side of property, is quite
clear : the landlord is in the right. But you, whose feeling of
justice has not yet been stifled by legal fictions, what will you do ?
Will you contend that the farmer ought to be turned out upon the
high road ?—for that is what the law ordains—or will you urge that
the landlord should pay back to the farmer the whole of the increase
of value in his property which is due to the farmer’s labour ?—this
is what equity decrees. Which side will you take ? for the law and
against justice ? or for justice and against the law?
�W"
6
Or when workmen have gone out on strike against a master
without notice, which side will you take then ? The side of the
law, that is to say the part of the master who, taking advantage of
a period of crisis, has made outrageous profits ? or against the law,
but on the side of the workers who received during the whole time
only 2s. a day as wages, and saw their wives and children fade
away before their eyes? Will you stand up for that piece of
chicanery which consists in affirming “ freedom of contract ” ? Or
will you uphold equity, according to which a contract entered into
between a man who has dined well and the man who sells his
labour for bare subsistence, between the strong and the weak, is
not a contract.
Take another case. Here in London a man was loitering near
a butcher’s shop. He stole a beefsteak and ran off with it.
Arrested and questioned, it turns out that he is an artisan out of
work, and that he and his family have had nothing to eat for four
days. The butcher is asked to let the man off, but he is all for the
triumph of justice ! He prosecutes, and the man is sentenced to
six months’ imprisonment. Blind Themis so wills it! Does not
your conscience revolt against the law and against society when
you hear similar judgments pronounced every day ?
Or again, will you call for the enforcement of the law against this
man who, badly brought up and ill-used from his childhood, has
arrived at man’s estate without having heard one sympathetic word,
and completes his career by murdering his neighbour in order to
rob him of a shilling ? Will you demand his execution, or—worse
still—that he should be imprisoned for twenty years, when you know
very well that he is rather a madman than a criminal, and, in any
case, that his crime is the fault of our entire society ?
Will you claim that these weavers should be thrown into prison
who in a moment of desperation have set fire to a mill ? That this
man who shot at a crowned murderer should be imprisoned for
life ? That these insurgents should be shot down who plant the
flag of the future on the barricades ?—no, a thousand times no !
If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you
analyse the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it
has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the
right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the
consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through
its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this,
your contempt for the law will be profound indeed. You will
understand that to remain the servant of the written law is to place
yourself every day in opposition to the law of conscience, and to
make a bargain on the wrong side ; and since this struggle cannot
go on for ever you will either silence your conscience and become
a scoundrel, or you will break with tradition, and you will work
with us for the utter destruction of all this injustice, economical,
social, and political.
But then you will be a Socialist, you will be a Revolutionist.
. And you, young engineer, you who dream of improving the lot
of the workers by the application of science to industry,—what a
sad disappointment, what terrible disillusions await you ! You
devote the youthful energy of your mind to working out the scheme
�7
of a railway which, running along the brink of precipices anti
burrowing into the very heart of mountains of granite, will bind,
together two countries which nature has separated. But, once at
work, you see whole regiments of workers decimated by privations
and sickness in this dark tunnel, you see others of them returning
home carrying with them may be a few pence and the undoubted
seeds of consumption, you see human corpses—the results of
a grovelling greed—as landmarks along each yard of your road, and,
when the railway is finished, you see lastly that it becomes the
highway for the artillery of an invading army. . . .
You have given up the prime of your youth to perfect an in
vention which will facilitate production, and, after many experi
ments, many sleepless nights, you are at length master of this
valuable discovery. You make use of it and the result surpasses
your expectations. Ten, twenty thousand men are thrown
out upon the streets ! Those who remain, most of them children,
will be reduced to mere machines I Three, four, ten masters will
make their fortunes and will drink deep on the strength of it. . . .
Is this your dream ?
. , ,
,
.u <Finally, you study recent industrial advances and you see that
the sempstress has gained nothing, absolutely nothing, by the in
vention of the sewing machine; that the labourer m the bt.
Gothard tunnel dies of ankylostoma, notwithstanding diamond
drills • that the mason and the day labourer are out of work just
as before at the foot of the Giffard lifts—and, if you discuss social
problems with the same independence of spirit which has guided
you in your mechanical investigations, you necessarily come to the
conclusion that under the domination of private property and
wage-slavery, every new invention, far from increasing the well
being of the worker, only makes his slavery heavier, his labour
more degrading, the periods of slack work more frequent, the crisis
sharper, and that the man who already has every conceivable
pleasure for himself is the only one who profits by it.
.
What will you do when you have once come to this conclusion .
—either you will begin by silencing your conscience by sophisms ;
then one fine day you will bid farewell to the honest dreams of
your youth and you will try to obtain, for yourself, what commands
pleasure and enjoyment—you will then go over into the camp of
the exploiters. Or if you have a tender heart, you will say to
yourself
“ No, this is not the time for inventions. Let us work
first to transform the domain of production ; when private property
is put an end to, then each new advance in industry will be made
for the benefit of all mankind ; and this mass of workers, mere
machines as they are to-day, will then become thinking beings who
apply to industry their intelligence, strengthened by study and
skilled in manual labour, and thus mechanical progress will take
a bound forward which will carry out in fifty years what nowa
days we cannot even dream of.
And what shall I say to the schoolmaster—not to the man who
looks upon his profession as a wearisome business, but to him who
when surrounded by a joyous band of young pickles feels exhilarated
by their cheery looks, and in the midst of their happy laughter,and
who tries to plant in their little heads those ideas of humanity
which he cherished himself when he was young.
�8
Often I see that you are sad and I know what it is that makes
you knit your brows. This very day, your favourite pupil, who is
not very well up in Latin it is true, but who has none the less an
excellent heart, recited the story of William Tell with so much
vigour! his eyes sparkled, he seemed to wish to stab all tyrants
there and then ; he gave with such fire the passionate lines of
Schiller:—
Before the slave when he breaks his chain,
Before the free man tremble not.
But when he returned home, his mother, his father, his uncle,
sharply rebuked him for want of respect to the minister or the
rural policeman ; they held forth to him by the hour on “ prudence,
respect for authority, submission to his betters ”, till he put Schiller
aside in order to read “ Self-Help.”
And then only yesterday you were told that your best pupils have
all turned out badly ; the one does nothing but dream of becoming
an officer ; another in league with his master robs the workers of
their slender wages ; and you, who had such hopes of these young
people, you now brood over the sad contrast between your ideal
and life as it is.
You still brood over it ! then I foresee that in two years at the
outside, after having suffered disappointment after disappointment,
you will lay your favourite authors on the shelf, and you will end
by saying that Tell was no doubt a very honest fellow, but after all
a trifle cracked, that poetry is a first-rate thing for the fireside,
especially when a man has been teaching the rule-of-three all day
long, but still poets are always in the clouds and their views have
nothing to do with the life of to-day, nor with the next visit of the
Inspector of Schools. . . .
Or, on the other hand, the dreams of your youth will become the
firm convictions of your mature age. You will wish to have wide,
human education for all, in school and out of school; and, seeing
that this is impossible in existing conditions, you will attack
the very foundations of bourgeois society. Then, discharged,
as you will be by the Education Department, you will leave
your school and come among us and be of us; you will tell men of
riper years but of smaller attainments than yourself, how enticing
knowledge is, what mankind ought to be, nay what we could be.
You will come and work with Socialists for the complete trans
formation of the existing system, will strive side by side with us to
attain true equality, real fraternity, never-ending liberty for the
world.
Lastly you, young artist, sculptor, painter, poet, musician, do
you not observe that the sacred fire which inspired your prede
cessors is wanting in the men of to-day ? that art is commonplace
and mediocrity reigns supreme ?
Could it be otherwise ? The delight of having re-discovered the
ancient world, of having bathed afresh in the springs of nature
which created the master-pieces of the Renaissance no longer
exists for the art of our time ; the revolutionary ideal has left it
cold until now, and, failing an ideal, our art fancies that it has
found one in realism when it painfully photographs in colours the
dewdrop on the leaf of a plan# imitates the muscles in the leg of a
�9
eow, or describes minutely in prose and in verse the suffocating
filth of a sewer, the boudoir of a whore of high degree.
“ But, if this is so, what is to be done ? ” you say.—If, I reply,
the sacred fire that you say you possess is nothi ng better than a
smoking wick, then you will go on doing as you have done, and
your art will speedily degenerate into the trade of decorator of
tradesmen’s shops, of a purveyor of libretti to third-rate operettas
and tales for Christmas Annuals—most of you are already running
down that grade with a fine head of steam on.
....
But, if your heart really beats in unison with that of humanity,
if like a true poet you have an ear for Life, then, gazing out upon this
sea of sorrow whose tide sweeps up around you, face to face with
these people dying of hunger, in the presence of these corpses piled
up in the mines, and these mutilated bodies lying in heaps on the
barricades, looking on these long lines of exiles who are going to
bury themselves in the snows of Siberia and in the marshes of
tropical islands, in full view of this desperate battle which is
being fought, amid the cries of pain from the conquered and the
orgies of the victors, of heroism in conflict with cowardice, of
noble determination and contemptible cunning—you cannot re
main neutral: you will come and take the side of the oppressed
because you know that the beautiful, the sublime, the spirit of life
itself are on the side of those who fight for light, for humanity, for
justice!
You stop me at last!
“ What the devil!” you say. “ But if abstract science is a luxury
and the practice of medicine mere chicane ; if law spells injustice
and mechanical invention is but a means of robbery; if the school,
at variance with the wisdom of the practical man,” is sure to be
overcome, and art without the revolutionary idea can only de
generate, what remains for me to do ?”
Well, I will tell you.
A vast and most enthralling task ; a work in which your actions
will be in complete harmony with your conscience, an undertaking
capable of rousing the noblest and most vigorous natures.
What work ?—I will now tell you.
It rests with you either to palter continually with your con
science, and in the end to say one fine day “ Perish humanity,
provided I can have plenty of pleasures and enjoy them to the full,
so long as the people are foolish enough to let me.” Or, once
more the inevitable alternative, to take part with the Socialists
and work with them for the complete transformation of society.
Such is the irrefragable consequence of the analysis we have gone
through. That is the logical conclusion which every intelligent
man must perforce arrive at, provided that he reasons honestly
about what passes around him, and discards the sophisms which
his bourgeois education and the interested views of those about
him whisper in his ear.
This conclusion once arrived at, the question, “ What is to be
done ?” is naturally put.
The answer is easy.
Leave this environment in which you are placed and where it is
the fashion to say that the people are nothing but a lot of brutes,
Come among these people—and the answer will come of itself.
�IO
You will see that everywhere, in England as well as in France,
in Germany as well as in Italy, in Russia as well as in the United
States, everywhere where there is a privileged and an oppressed
class, there is a tremendous work going on in the midst of the
working-class, whose object is to break down for ever the slavery
enforced by the capitalist feudality and to lay the foundation of a.
society established on the basis of justice and equality. It is
no longer enough for the man of the people to-day to pour forth
his complaints in one of these songs whose melody breaks your
heart, such as were sung by the serfs of the eighteenth century
and are still sung by the Slav peasant; he labours with his
fellow-toilers for his enfranchisement, with the knowledge of
what he is doing and against every obstacle put in his way.
His thoughts are constantly exercised in considering what
should be done in order that life, instead of being a curse for threefourths of mankind, may be a real enjoyment for all. He takes up
the hardest problems of sociology and tries to solve them by his
good sense, his spirit of observation, his hard experience. In order
to come to an understanding with others as miserable as himself,
he seeks to form groups, to organise. He forms societies, main
tained with difficulty by small contributions ; he tries to make
terms with his fellows beyond the frontier, and he prepares the
day when wars between peoples shall be impossible far better than
the frothy philanthropists who now potter with the fad of universal
peace. In order to know what his brothers are doing, to have a
closer connection with them, to elaborate his ideas and pass them
round, he maintains—but at the price of what privations, what
ceaseless efforts!—his working press. At length when the hour
has come he rises, and reddening the pavements and the barricades
with his blood, he bounds forward to conquer those liberties which
the rich and powerful will afterwards know how to corrupt and to
turn against him again.
What an unending series of efforts ! what an incessant struggle !
What a toil perpetually begun afresh; sometimes to fill up the
gaps occasioned by desertion—the result of weariness, corruption,
prosecutions ; sometimes to rally the broken forces decimated by
fusillades and cold-blooded butchery I at another time to recom
mence the studies sternly broken off by wholesale slaughter.
The newspapers are set on foot by men who have been obliged
to force from society scraps of knowledge by depriving themselves
of sleep and food ; the agitation is kept up by halfpence deducted
from the amount needed to get the barest necessaries of life ; and
all this under the constant dread of seeing his family reduced to
the most fearful misery, as soon as the master learns that “ his
workman, his slave, is tainted with Socialism.”
This is what you will see if you go among the people._
And in this endless struggle how often has not the toiler vainly
asked, as he stumbled under the weight of his burden :
“ Where,
TAUGHT AT
then,
are these
OUR EXPENSE ?
young
THESE
CLOTHED WHILE THEY STUDIED ?
people
who have
YOUTHS WHOM
WE
FED
been
AND
WHERE ARE THOSE FOR WHOM,
�II
OUR
BENT
BACKS
DOUBLE
BENEATH
BURDENS
OUR
OUR
AND
BELLIES EMPTY, WE HAVE BUILT THESE HOUSES, THESE COLLEGES,
THESE LECTURE-ROOMS, THESE MUSEUMS ?
FOR
WHOSE
BENEFIT
PRINTED THESE
read
?
Where
POSSESS
ITSELF IS
THE
WITH
WE,
FINE
are
OUR
BOOKS, MOST
they,
SCIENCE
NOT WORTH
OF
these
WORN
FACES, HAVE
WE CANNOT
OF WHICH
professors
MANKIND, AND
A RARE
WHERE ARE THE MEN
PALE,
WHOM
FOR
MEN WHO ARE EVER SPEAKING IN PRAISE OF LIBERTY,
THINK TO CHAMPION OUR
BENEATH THEIR FEET ?
FREEDOM, TRAMPLED AS
WHERE
THE
WHOLE
WITH TEARS
FIND
GANG
IN
OF
THEIR
THEMSELVES
HYPOCRITES WHO
EYES BUT WHO
AMONG
US
HELPING
ARE THE
AND
NEVER
IT IS EACH DAY
ARE THEY, THESE
POETS, THESE PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS?
to
HUMANITY
WHERE
CATERPILLAR ?
EVEN
claim
who
WRITERS AND
WHERE IN A WORD IS
SPEAK
OF
NEVER, BY
US
IN
THE
PEOPLE
ANY
CHANCE,
OUR
LABORIOUS
WORK ?”
Where are they, indeed ?
Why, some are taking their ease with the most cowardly in
difference; others, the majority, despise the “dirty mob,” and are
ready to pounce upon them if they dare touch one of their
privileges.
Now and then, it is true, a young man comes among us who*
dreams of drums and barricades, and seeks sensational scenes;
but he deserts the cause of the people as soon as he perceives that
the road to the barricade is long, that the work is heavy, and that
the crowns of laurel to be won in this campaign are inter
mingled with thorns. Generally these are ambitious schemers out
of work, who having failed in their first efforts, try in this way to
cajole people out of their votes, but who a little later will be the
first to denounce them, when the people wish to apply the
principles which they themselves have professed ; perhaps will
even be ready to turn artillery and Gatlings upon them if they dare
to move before they, the heads of the movement, give the signal.
Add mean insult, haughty contempt, cowardly calumny from
the great majority, and you know what the people may expect
now-a-days from most of the youth of the upper and middle classes
in the way of help towards the social evolution.
But then you ask, “ What shall we do ? ” When there is every
thing to be done I When a whole army of young people would
find plenty to employ the entire vigour of their youthful energy, the
full force of their intelligence and their talents to help the people
in the vast enterprise they have undertaken 1
What shall we do ? Listen.
You lovers of pure science, if you are imbued with the principles
of Socialism, if you have understood the real meaning of the revo
lution which is even now knocking at the door, don’t you see that
all science has to be recast in order to place it in harmony with the
new principles; that it is your business to accomplish in this field
�12
;,
a revolution far greater than that which was accomplisnea m every
branch of science during the eighteenth century ? Don’t you under
stand that history—which to-day is an old wife’s tale about great
kings, great statesinen and great parliaments—that history itself
has to be written from the point of view of the people, from the
point of view of work done by the masses in the long evolutions of
mankind ? That social economy—which to-day is merely the
sanctification of capitalist robbery—has to be worked out afresh as
well in its fundamental principles as in its innumerable applica
tions ? That anthropology, sociology, ethics must be completely
recast, and that the very natural sciences themselves, regarded
from another point of view, must undergo a profound modification,
alike in regard to the conception of natural phenomena and with
respect to the method of exposition.
Very well, then. Set to work I Place your abilities at the com
mand of the good cause. Especially help us with your clear logic
to combat prejudice and to lay by your synthesis the foundations
of a better organisation ; yet more, teach us to apply in our daily
arguments the fearlessness of true scientific investigation, and show
us, as your predecessors did, how men dare sacrifice even life itself
for the triumph of the truth.
You, doctors, who have learnt Socialism by a bitter experience,
never weary of telling us to-day, to-morrow, in season and out of
season, that humanity itself hurries onward to decay if men remain
in the present conditions of existence and of work ; that all your
medicaments must be powerless against disease while the majority
of mankind vegetate in conditions absolutely contrary to those
which science tells us are healthful; that it is the causes of disease
which must be uprooted, and what is necessary to remove them.
Come with your scalpel and dissect for us with an unerring
hand this society of ours hastening to putrefaction. Tell us what
a rational existence should and might be. Insist, as true surgeons,
that a gangrenous limb must be amputated when it may poison the
whole body.
You, who have worked at the application of science to industry,
come and tell us frankly what has been the outcome of your dis
coveries. Convince those who dare not march boldly towards the
future, what new inventions the knowledge we have already acquired
carries in its womb, what industry could do under better conditions,
what man might easily produce if he produced always with a view
to enhance his own production.
You poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, if you understand your
true mission and the very interests of art itseli, come with us.
Place your pen, your pencil, your chisel, your ideas at the service
of the revolution. Figure forth to us, in your eloquent style or
your impressive pictures, the heroic struggles of the people against
their oppressors ; fire the hearts of our youth with that glorious
revolutionary enthusiasm which inflamed the souls of our ancestors ;
tell women what a noble career is that of a husband who devotes
his life to the great cause of social emancipation. Show the people
how hideous is their actual life, and place our hand on the causes
of its ugliness; tell us what a rational life would be if it did not
encounter at every step the follies and the ignominies of our pre
sent social order.
�J3
Lastly, all of you who possess knowledge, talent, capacity,
industry, if you have a spark of sympathy in your nature, come,
you and your companions, come and place your services at the
disposal of those who most need them. And remember, if you do
come, that you come not as masters, but as comrades in the
struggle ; that you come not to govern but to gain strength for
yourselves in a new life which sweeps upwards to the conquest of
the future; that you come less to teach than to grasp the aspira
tions of the many : to divine them, to give them shape, and then to
work, without rest and without haste, with all the fire of youth and
all the judgment of age, to realise them in actual life—then and
then only will you lead a complete, a noble, a rational existence.
Then you will see that your every effort on this path bears with it
fruit in abundance, and this sublime harmony once established
between your actions and the dictates of your conscience, will give
you powers which you never dreamt lay dormant in yourselves.
The never-ceasing struggle for truth, justice, and equality
among the people, whose gratitude you will earn—what nobler
career can the youth of all nations desire than this ?
It has taken me long to show you of the well-to-do classes that
in view of the dilemma which life presents to you, you will be
forced, if courageous and sincere, to come and work side by side
with Socialists, and champion in their ranks the cause of the social
revolution. And yet how simple this truth is after all I But when
one is speaking to those who have suffered from the effects of
bourgeois surroundings, how many sophisms must be combated !
how many prejudices overcome ! how many interested objections
pushed aside 1
It is easy to be brief to-day in addressing you, the youth of the
people. The very pressure of events impels you to become Social
ists, however little you may have the courage to reason and to act.
To rise from the ranks of the working people, and not devote
oneself to bringing about the triumph of Socialism, is to miscon
ceive the real interests at stake, to give up the cause and the true
historic mission.
Do you remember the time, when still a mere lad, you went
down one winter’s day to play in your dark court ? The cold
nipped your shoulders through your thm clothes, and the mud
worked into your worn-out shoes. Even then when you saw
chubby children richly clad pass in the distance, looking at you
with an air of contempt—you knew right well that these imps,
dressed up to the nines, were not the equals of yourself and your
comrades, either in intelligence, common sense, or energy. But,
later, when you were forced to shut yourself up in a filthy
factory from five or six o’clock in the morning, to remain twelve
hours on end close to a whirling machine, and, a machine yourself,
forced to follow day after day for whole years in succession its
movements with their relentless throbbing—during all this time
they, the others, were going quietly to be taught at fine schools, at
academies, at the universities. And now these same children, less
intelligent, but better taught than you, and become your masters,
are enjoying all the pleasures of life, and all the advantages of
civilisation—and you ? What sort of lot awaits you ?
�T4
You return to little, dark, damp lodgings where five or six
human beings pig together within a few square feet; where your
mother, sick of life, aged by care rather than in years, offers you
dry bread and potatoes as your only food, washed down by a
blackish fluid called, in irony, tea ; and to distract your thoughts
you have ever the same never-ending question, “ How shall I be
able to pay the baker to-morrow, and the landlord the day after ? ”
What! must you drag cn the same weary existence as your
father and mother for thirty or forty years ? Must you toil your
life long to procure for others all the pleasures of well-being, of
knowledge, of art, and keep for yourself only the eternal anxiety
as to whether you can get a bit of bread ? Will you for ever give
up all that makes life so beautiful, to devote yourself to providing
every luxury for a handful of idlers ? Will you wear yourself out
with toil and have in return only trouble, if not misery, when hard
times—the fearful hard times—come upon you ? Is this what you
long for in life ?
Perhaps you will give up ? Seeing no way out of your con
dition whatever, maybe you say to yourself, “ Whole generations
have undergone the same lot, and I, who can alter nothing in the
matter, I must submit also ! Let us work on then and endeavour
to live as well as we can ! ”
Very well. In that case life itself will take pains to enlighten
you.
One day a crisis comes, one of those crises which are no longer
mere passing phenomena, as they were a while ago, but a crisis
which destroys a whole industry, which plunges thousands of
workers into misery, which crushes whole families. You struggle
like the rest against the calamity. But you will soon see how your
wife, your child, your friend, little by little succumb to privations,
fade away under your very eyes, and for sheer want of food, for
lack of care and medical assistance, they end their days on the
pauper’s stretcher, while the life of the rich sweeps past in joyous
crowds through the streets of the great city gleaming in the sun
light—utterly careless and indifferent to the dying cries of those
who perish.
Then you will understand how utterly revolting this society is ;
you will reflect upon the causes of this crisis, and your examina
tion will go to the very depths of this abomination which puts
millions of human beings at the mercy of the brutal greed of a
handful of useless triflers ; then you will understand that Socialists
are right when they say that our present society can be, that it
must be, reorganised from top to bottom.
To pass from general crises to your particular case, one day when
your master tries by a new reduction of wages to squeeze out of
you a few more sous in order to increase his fortune still further,
you will protest; but he will haughtily answer, “ Go and eat grass,
if you will not work at the price I offer.” Then you will under
stand that your master not only tries to shear you like a sheep, but
that he looks upon you as an inferior kind of animal altogether;
that not content with holding you in his relentless grip by means
of the wage-system, he is further anxious to make you a slave in
every respect. Then you will either bow down before him, you
�IC
will give up the feeling of human dignity, and you will end by
suffering every possible humiliation. Or the blood will rush to
your head, you will shudder at the hideous slope on which you are
slipping down, you will retort, and, turned out workless on the
street, you will understand how right Socialists are when they say
“ Revolt 1 rise against this economical slavery, for that is the
cause of all slavery.” Then you will come and take your place in
the ranks of the Socialists, and you will work with them, for the
complete destruction of all slavery,—economical, social and
political.
Some day again you will learn the story of that charming young
girl whose brisk gait, frank manners, and cheerful conversation •
you so lovingly admired. After having struggled for years and
years against misery, she left her native village for the metropolis.
There she knew right well that the struggle for existence must be
hard, but she hoped at least to be able to gain her living honestly.
Well, now you know what has been her fate. Courted by the son
of some capitalist she allowed herself to be enticed by his fine
words, she gave herself up to him with all the passion of youth,
only to see herself abandoned with a baby in her arms. Ever
courageous she never ceased to struggle on ; but she broke down
in this unequal strife against cold and hunger, and she ended her
days in one of the hospitals, no one knows which........................................
What will you do ? Once more there are two courses open to
you. Either you will push aside the whole unpleasant reminiscence
with some stupid phrase :—“ She wasn’t the first and won’t be
the last,” you will say; perhaps, some evening, you will be heard in
a public room, in company with other beasts like yourself, out
raging the young girl’s memory by some dirty stories ; or, on the
other hand, your remembrance of the past will touch your heart;
you will try to meet the wretched seducer to denounce him to his
face ; you will reflect upon the causes of these events which recur
every day, and you will comprehend that they will never cease, so
long as society is divided into two camps, on one side the wretched
and on the other the lazy—the jugglers with fine phrases and
bestial lusts. You will understand that it is high time to bridge
over this gulf of separation, and you will rush to place yourself
among the Socialists.
And you, woman of the people, has this tale left you cold and
unmoved ? While caressing the pretty head of that child who
nestles close to you, do you never think about the lot that awaits
him, if the present social conditions are not changed ? Do you
never reflect on the future awaiting your young sister, and all your
own children ? Do you wish that your sons, they too, should
vegetate as your father vegetated, with no other care than how to
get his daily bread, with no other pleasure than that of the gin
palace ? Do you want your husband, your lads, to be ever at the
mercy of the first comer who has inherited from his father a capital
to exploit them with ? Are you anxious that they should always
remain slaves of a master, food for powder, mere dung wherewith
to manure the pasture-lands of the rich expropriator ?
Nay, never ; a thousand times no ! I know right well that your
blood has boiled when you have heard that your husbands after
4C
�16 '
they entered on a strike, full of fire and determination, have ended
by accepting, hat in hand, the conditions dictated by the bloated
bourgeois in a tone of haughty contempt! I know that you have
admired those Spanish women who in a popular rising presented
their breasts to the bayonets of the soldiery in the front ranks ot
the insurrectionists ! I am certain that you mention with rever
ence the name of the woman who lodged a bullet in the chest of
that ruffianly official who dared to outrage a Socialist prisoner in
his cell. And I am confident that your heart beat faster when you
read how the women of the people in Paris gathered under a rain
of shells to encourage “ their men ” to heroic action.
All this, I say, I have no doubt about, and that is why I cannot
question that you also, you will end by joining those who work for
the conquest of the future.
Every one of you then, honest young folks, men and women,
peasants, labourers, artisans and soldiers, you will understand
what are your rights and you will come along with us ; you will
come in order to work with your brethren in the preparation of
that Revolution which sweeping away every vestige of slavery,
tearing the fetters asunder, breaking with the old worn-out traditions
and opening to all mankind a new and wider scope of joyous ex
istence, shall at length establish true Liberty, real Equality, un
grudging Fraternity throughout human society; work with all%
work for all—the full enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, the
complete development of all their faculties ; a rational, human and
happy life !
Don’t let anyone tell us that we—but a small band—are too
weak to attain unto the magnificent end at which we aim.
Count and see how many of us there are who suffer this in
justice.
We peasants who work for others and who mumble the straw
while our master eats the wheat, we by ourselves are millions of
men ; so numerous are we that we alone form the mass of the
people.
We workers who weave silks and velvets in order that we may
be clothed in rags, we, too, are a great multitude ; and when the
clang of the factories permits us a moment’s repose, we overflow
the streets and squares like the sea in a spring tide.
We soldiers who are driven along to the word of command, or
by blows, we who receive the bullets for which our officers get
crosses and pensions, we, too, poor fools who have hitherto known
no better than to shoot our brothers, why we have only to make a
right-about-face towards these plumed and decorated personages
who are so good as to command us, to see a ghastly pallor over
spread their faces.
Ay, all of us together, we who suffer and are insulted daily, we
are a multitude whom no man can number, we are the ocean that
can embrace and swallow up all else.
When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will
Justice be done: that very instant the tyrants of the earth shall
bite the dust.
Catalogue of Publications of the Modern Press sent on receipt of stamped
envelope.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
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Title
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An appeal to the young
Creator
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Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich [1842-1921]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm.
Series number: no. 6
Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'. Reprinted from 'To-Day'. At the time of publication the author was serving "five years' imprisonment under the French Republic for advocating the cause of the people" [Title page].
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
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1885
Identifier
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G4969
Subject
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Socialism
Contributor
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Hyndman, H. M. (Henry Mayers) (tr)
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (An appeal to the young), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Peter Kropotkin
Socialism
Young people
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NATIONAL SECULAR SUCuii x
CRIMES
OF
CHRISTIANITY.
G. W. FOOTE
AND
J.
M. WHEELER.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1885.
*
<
*
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY RAMSEY AND FOOTE, AT
14 CLERKENWELL GREEN, E.O.
�PREFA 0 E.
An Irish orator was once protesting his immaculate
honesty before a suspicious audience of his country
men. “Gintlemin,”he exclaimed, displaying his dexter
palm, “ thur’s a hond that niver tuk a broibe.” Where
upon a smart auditor cried, “ How about the one
behoind yer back ?”
Our purpose is to show the hand behind the back.
The task is by no means a pleasant one, but we sacrifice
our feelings on the altar of liberty and progress.
Christianity is plausible and fair-spoken to-day, al
though it occasionally emits a fierce flash of its devilish
old spirit. Its advocates are no longer able to crush
opposition ; they are obliged to answer its arguments,
or at least to make a show of defending their own
doctrines. They scruple at damning heretics, and
blandly expect a reciprocation of the courtesy. Feeling
that the tendency of modern thought is against them,
and afraid to resist it, they bend before it rather than
break. Their only object is to weather the storm at
any cost, even by sacrificing large quantities of their
freightage.
We do not believe that Christianity will weather the
storm ; in our opinion it is unrepealably doomed.
Nevertheless, as earnest Freethinkers, we feel incum
bent on us the duty of assisting in its destruction. We
are anxious that, as religions die of being found out,
Christianity shall be seen in its true light. We desire
that it shall not be judged by its present promises, but
by it past performance. We wish to show the people
�Prefaee.
iv.
what it was in the evil days of its supremacy, when
opportunity matched inclination, and it acted according
to the laws of its nature, unchecked by science, freethought and humanity.
Adversity tries a man, says the proverb. True, but
not like prosperity. No man is really known until he
possesses power, and the same may be said of religions.
They should be tested, not by what they pretend in
their weakness, but by what they do in their strength.
American statesmen are expected to show a good
“record
the citizens judge them by their past. We
want the same test applied to Christianity, and we
publish the following treatise as a sample of its
“ record.”
Eloquence is less our aim than truth. What we
wish to be heard is, not our own voice, but the voice of
history. We therefore let the historian speak whenever
possible, and we always appeal to the best authorities,
so that our little work may be a kind of text-book,
trustworthy from title to imprint, and a guide to the
student as well as instructive to the common reader.
Eloquence is good in its way, but there is little need
of it here, for Christianity is damned by facts ; facts
that are hard as adamant and unshakeable as an Alp.
May, 1885.
G. W. Foote.
J. M. Wheeler.
�Price Id.
PART I.
CHRIST
to
CONSTANTINE.
When Jesus Christ had disappeared from this world,
in what manner it is beside our purpose to discuss, the
Jewish sect he had founded continued to assemble at
Jerusalem. They were not then called Christians, but
we will anticipate history by giving them that desig
nation. The infant Church was under the leader
ship of Simon Peter, and it observed the communistic
maxims which Jesus had enjoined. Every member
sold his property and paid the proceeds into the
common exchequer.
One married couple, however, named Ananias and
Sapphira, retained a portion of the price of their estate
for their private use. This having come to the know
ledge of Peter, he taxed them in succession with their
offence, and each fell down dead in his presence.
Their corpses were immediately buried by the godly
young men who were waiting in the chamber of exe
cution. No investigation into the affair appears to have
been made by the authorities, but if such a thing had
occurred in an age of coroner’s inquests, it is possible
that Peter would have met another fate than leaving
the world with his head downwards.
Paul’s treatment of dissentients was very similar.
He smote Elymas with blindness as “a child of the
devil,” and charitably “ delivered ” Hymenseus and
Alexander “ unto Satan,” perhaps with the opinion that
only the Grand Inquisitor of the Universe could ade
quately punish them for blasphemy and backsliding.
The other apostles were imbued with the same
amiable spirit. Even in the lifetime of their master
they continually disputed who should be greatest, and
were only pacified by his informing them that they
should all occupy twelve equal thrones of judgment
over Israel.
�6
Crimes of Christianity.
After his death their differences grew more acrimo
nious. John, in his Revelation, scowls at Paul and his
Gentile following, who “ say they are Jews and are not,
but are of the synagogue of Satan.” He denounces the
doctrines of Nicolas, one of the seven first deacons of the
Church, as hateful; and he expresses his detestation
of the Laodiceans by saying that the Almighty would
spue them out of his mouth. Paul returns the com
pliment by “ withstanding ” Peter, and sneering at
James and John as “seeming to be pillars,”the former
of whom retorts that Paul is a “ vain man.” Paul
vehemently tells the Galatians : “ If any man preach
any othei’ gospel unto you than that ye have received,
let him be accursed.” Even “the beloved disciple,” in
his second Epistle, manifests the same persecuting
spirit :
“ If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, re
ceive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. For
he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”
In the very first century Christianity was split into
many petty sects, each denouncing the other as teach
ing false doctrine. The early Nazarenes, who kept
to the Jewish law, were called Ebionites, or contemp
tible people. The Ebionites denounced the Paulinists,
and declared that Paul was an impostor who became
a Christian because he w7as not allowed to marry a
Jewish woman. In an epistle of Peter to James, pre
fixed to the Clementine Recognitions, and as genuine
as any other portion of the writings ascribed to Peter,
Paul is alluded to as “ the enemy,” and the author of
lawless and foolish teachings. Of the Recognitions
itself, a work ascribed to Clement, and undoubtedly
belonging to the first era of Christian history, the
author of “ Supernatural Religion ” says :
“ There cannot be a doubt that the apostle Paul is attacked in
it as the great enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of
Simon, the magician, whom Peter followed everywhere for the
purpose of unmasking and confuting him. He is robbed of the
title of 1 Apostle of the Gentiles,’ which, together with the honor
of founding the Churches of Antioch, of Laodicea, and of Rome,
is ascribed to Peter. All that opposition to Paul which is
implied in the Epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere (1 Cor. i., 11,
12 ■ 2 Cor. xi., 18—20; Philip, i., 15, 16) is here realised and
�Crimes of Christianity.
7
exaggerated, and the personal difference with Peter to which
Paul refers is widened into the most bitter animosity.”*
Irenaeus, in the second century, in his work against
Heretics, stigmatises them with the most abusive
epithets, and accuses them of the most abominable
crimes. He calls them “ thieves and robbers,” “ slip
pery serpents,” “ miserable little foxes,” and so forth,
and declares that they practise lewdness in their
assemblies.
Tertullian, in the third century, displays a full
measure of bigotry, with an added sense of exultation
over the sufferings in reserve for his pagan opponents.
“ How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when
I behold so many proud monarchs and fancied gods groaning in
the lowest abyss of darkness ; so many magistrates who perse
cuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they
ever kindled against the Christians ; so many sage philosophers
blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars ; so many
celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but
of Christ; so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression
of their own sufferings!” f
The pious Father continues at some length in the
same strain.
Jerome, in the next century, exhibits a still more
execrable spirit than Tertullian, exhorting the Chris
tians to direct their bigotry against their dearest
relations :
“If thy father lies down across thy threshold, if thy mother
uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee, trample on
thy father’s lifeless body, trample on thy mother’s bosom, and,
with eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord, who calleth
thee.”
This detestable advice, unfortunately, did not flow
from Jerome’s natural moroseness ; it was the logical
result of his Savior’s command to the disciples to leave
all and follow him.J
*Vol. II., p. 34.
f Gibbon, chap. xv. See Tertullian’s “ De Spectaculis,” chap. xxx.
j “ If any man come unto me and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife', and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple ” (Luke xiv., 26).
�8
- Crimes of Christianity.
The scope of our work does not permit a larger array
of illustrations. We have, however, given enough to
show that the hateful spirit of bigotry’and persecution
animated the Christian Church from the beginning.
It gathered strength with the progress of time, and it
was sufficiently developed, when Constantine and
Theodosius sought the destruction of Paganism, to
assist and applaud them in executing their design.
Our contention in this respect is powerfully sup
ported by the following passage from Lecky :
“ All that fierce hatred which, during the Arian and Donatist
controversies, convulsed the Empire, and which in later times
has deluged the world with blood, may be traced in the Church
long before the conversion of Constantine. Already, in the
second century, it was the rule that the orthodox Christian should
hold no conversation, should interchange none of the ordinary
courtesies of life, with the excommunicated or the heretic.”*
Long before Constantine, the Christian Church had
employed all its resources against heretics. It possessed
no power of punishing them by fines, torture or death,
but it threatened them with hell in the next world and
excommunicated them in this. “ Heretics,” says Dr.
Gieseler,t “ were universally hated as men wholly cor
rupt and lost,” and the Church pronounced against
them her sharpest penalties. These were indeed merely
spiritual, but they were transformed into temporal
punishments as soon as Christianity was able to effect
the change. We shall have to treat this subject more
fully when we deal with the rise of the Papacy.
Before exhibiting to our readers the first capital
crime of Christianity, in establishing itself by the un
scrupulous use of force on the ruins of Paganism, we
think it necessary to refer to the Agapae or Love-feasts,
which appear to have disgraced the early Church. Even
in the time of Paul the celebration of the Eucharist
was the occasion of some scandal.$ We learn from
Justin Martyr, Minutius Felix and others, that the
Pagans accused the Christians of indulging in orgies of
* “History of European Morals,” vol. i., p. 451.
f Gieseler's “Ecclesiastical History,” sec. 74.
f 1 Cor. v., 1 ; xi., 21; Jude 12.
�Crimes of Christianity.
9
gross licentiousness in their secret festivals, which
were held at night. Justin Martyr, while repu
diating the charge on behalf of the orthodox, was care
ful to add of the heretics : “ Whether or not these people
commit those shameful and fabulous acts—the putting
out the lights, indulging in promiscuous intercourse,
and eating human flesh—I know not.”* Theodoret, in
his work on “ Heretic Fables,” charges them all with
lewdness,“such that even stage-players were too modest
to describe it, or to hear it described,” and he asserts
that they had exceeded and eclipsed the greatest
proficients in wickedness. Eusebius says of the Carpocratians, that they gave occasion of reproach to the
gospel, and that it was chiefly owing to them that
Christians were charged with promiscuous lewdness
and other crimes in their assemblies. Origen also puts
the crimes with which Christians were charged to the
account of the Ophites and Cainites. Yet the evidence
of Justin Martyr proves that such charges were brought
against the Christians before these sects existed. The
accusations were made by those who had been Chris
tians themselves, in places as far apart as Lyons, Rome,
and Asia Minor. Trials took place before competent
tribunals, and the Christians were punished. When we
know that the Agapse were prohibited by several Coun
cils on account of the scandals to which they gave rise,
it is difficult to exonerate the early Christians from
these grave charges. Much of the persecution to which
they are alleged to have been subject perhaps arose
from these secret midnight meetings.
The sensuality of the early Christians sometimes
mocked their ascetic doctrines. Gibbon remarks :
“ Since desire was imputed as a crime and marriage was tole
rated as a defect, it was consistent with the same principles to
consider a state of celibacy as the nearest approach to the divine
perfection. It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome
could support the institution of six vestals ; but the primitive
Church was filled with a greater number of persons of either sex
who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual
chastity. A few of these, among whom we may reckon the
* Justin Martyr, Apology i., 26.
�10
Crimes of Christianity.
learned Origen, judged it most prudent to disarm the tempter.
*
Some were insensible and some were invincible against the
assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an ignominious flight, the
virgins of the warm climate of Africa encountered the enemy in
the closest engagement; they permitted priests and deacons to
share their bed, and gloried amidst the flames of their unsullied
purity. But insulted nature sometimes vindicated her rights,
and this new species of martyrdom served only to introduce a
new scandal into the Church.”-}-
Following Gibbon, Mr. Lecky pens this delectable
passage, which may be commended to the attention of
the “ unco guid ” :
“ In the time of St. Cyprian, before the outbreak of the
Decian persecution, it had been common to find clergy pro
fessing celibacy, but keeping, under various pretexts, their
mistresses in their houses ; and after Constantine, the complaints
on this subject became loud and general. Evagrius describes
with much admiration how certain monks of Palestine, by ‘ a
life wholly excellent and divine, had so overcome their passions
that they were accustomed to bathe with women.’ Virgins and
monks often lived together in the same house, and, with a curious
audacity of hypocrisy, which is very frequently noticed, they
professed to have so overcome the passions of their nature that
they shared in chastity the same bed.” J
Dr. Todd, in his learned life of St. Patrick, quotes
from the “ Lives of the Irish Saints ” the legend of a
curious contest of chastity between St. Scathinus and
St. Brendan, in which the former eventually triumphed.
Jortin tells us of one Robert D’Arbrisselles, a wild
enthusiast and field preacher of the twelfth century,
who “drew after him a crowd of female saints with
whom he used to lie in bed, but never touch them, by
way of self-denial and mortification.Ӥ The learned
and sagacious Jortin remarks that “austerities of this
kind seem to suit the fanatical taste.” Modern history
furnishes us with many examples. During the Reforma
tion, for instance, the Anabaptists emulated the primi
tive costume of Adam and Eve.*
§
* Origen, although, fond of allegorising Scripture, followed literally
the hint in Matthew six., 12, and castrated himself to become a eunuch
for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.
f “ Decline and Fall,” chap. xv.
J Vol II., p. 159.
§ Jortin, “ Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,” vol. iii., p 218.
�Crimes of Christianity.
11
While Christianity was slowly propagating itself
among the Gentiles, after the fall of Jerusalem, the
Pagan world did not exhibit any striking need of its
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Chap. iii.
I
�10
Crimes of Christianity.
learned Origen, judged it most prudent to disarm the tempter.
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tive costume of Adam and Eve.
* Origen, although fond of allegorising Scripture, followed literally
the hint in Matthew xix., 12, and castrated himself to become a eunuch
for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.
f “ Decline and Fall,” chap. xv.
I Vol II., p. 159.
§ Jortin, “ Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,” vol. iii., p 218.
�Crimes of Christianity.
11
While Christianity was slowly propagating itself
among the Gentiles, after the fall of Jerusalem, the
Pagan world did not exhibit any striking need of its
salutary influence. Under a succession of wise rulers
the Roman Empire flourished in peace and splendor.
Gibbon justly remarks that:
“ If a man. were called to fix the period in the history of the
world during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would without hesitation name that
which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
Commodus.”*
Now Domitian died A.D. 96 and Commodus succeeded
to the purple in A.D. 180. It was during this very
period.that Christianity produced its Scriptures, and
made its first conquests. How utterly false and absurd,
then, is the orthodox pleathat Christianity, with all its
faults, came to redeem mankind from intellectual dark
ness and moral depravity!
Lecky observes that “from the death of Marcus
Aurelius [A.D 180], about which time Christianity
assumed an important influence in the Roman world,
the decadence of the Empire was rapid and almost
uninterrupted.” We should like to know how this
fact can be accounted for except on the theory that
Christianity helped to destroy the existing civilisation.
Metaphorically, if not literally, it made men eunuchs
for the kingdom of heaven ; and the energy. which
should have been devoted to repelling barbarism and
defending the Empire was wasted on frivolous theo
logical disputes or expended in the pursuit of priestly
ambition. Even at the time of Julian, vigorous and
systematic efforts might have still saved the Empire
from dissolution ; but the great “ Apostate’s ” glorious
career came to an untimely end, and the Persian spear
which drew his life-blood, ensured the triumph of the
pale Galilean and the ruin of Rome.
We now approach the most critical period of the
history of Christianity, when through the patronage
of Constantine it obtained the means of forcing itself
upon mankind. Christianity took three centuries to
convert a twentieth of the inhabitants of the Roman
Chap. iii.
�12
Crimes of Christianity.
Empire by the arts of persuasion ; but it convertel
the other nineteen-twentieths in les3 than a century
by the unscrupul >us use of bribery, imprisonment,
torture and massacre.
Hobbes summarises this change quaintly but con
cisely in a few pregnant lines :
“ When Constantine the Great, made so by the assistance and
valor of the Christian soldiers, had attained to be the only Roman
Emperor, he also himself became a Christian, and caused the
temples of the heathen gods to be demolished, and authorised
Christian religion only to be public.”*
Cardinal Newman expresses the Catholic view of this
momentous change with equal clearness and brevity.
“Constantine’s submission of his power to the Church,”
he says, “ has been a pattern for all Christian monarchs
since, and the commencement of her state establish
ment to this day.”t
Let the reader now follow us in investigating the
character of Constantine, his conversion to Christianity,
and the forcible imposition of his adopted creed upon
his Pagan subjects.
The real founder of Christianity has been the sub
ject of eulogy and reprobation, the former bestowed by
the Christians whom he protected and favored, and
the latter by the Pagans whom he deserted and op
pressed. Our object will be to relate the truth, without
extenuating his crimes or setting down aught in
malice.
Before appealing to Gibbon, Mosheim, Jortin,
Schlegel and other authorities, we may perhaps ven
ture to give a rapid summary of Constantine’s worst
characteristics by the master-hand of Voltaire :
“ He had a father-in-law, whom he impelled to hang himself;
he had a brother-in-law, whom he ordered to be strangled; he
had a nephew twelve or thirteen years old, whose throat he
ordered to be cut; he had an eldest son, whom he beheaded ; he
had a wife, whom he ordered to be suffocated in a bath. An old
Gallic author said that ‘ he loved to make a clear house.’
* Works, vol. iv., p. 391.
f J. H. Newman, “ Two Essays on Miracles,” p. 273.
+ Voltaire, “Philosophical Dictionary,” article Constantine.
�Crimes of Christianity.
13
These atrocious crimes, which cannot be disputed,
were perpetrated after Constantine became a Christian,
nr at least after he extended his patronage to the
Church. Before he embraced or patronised Christi
anity, his character was less sullied, and he appeared
incapable of such enormities. The following is Gib
bon’s description of Constantine at this period :
“ The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
enriched by nature with her choicest endowments. His stature
was lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful;
his strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise,
and, from his earliest youth to a very advanced season of life,
he preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence
to the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He de
lighted in the social intercourse of familiar conversation ; and
though he might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery
with less reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his
station, the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the
hearts of all who approached him. ... In the despatch of busi
ness his diligence was indefatigable. ... In the field he infused
his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he conducted with
the talents of a consummate general.”*
Let us now behold Gibbon’s picture of the heroin
his decline, after he had presided at Church councils
and worshipped the divinity of Christ :
“ In the life of Augustus we behold the tyrant of the republic
coverted almost by imperceptible degrees into the father of his
country and of human kind. In that of Constantine we may
contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired his subjects with
love and his enemies with terror, degenerating into a cruel and
dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or raised by con
quest above the necessity of dissimulation. The general peace
which he maintained during the last fourteen years of his reign
was a period of apparent splendor rather than of real prosperity ;
and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite
yet reconcileable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality. The
accumulated treasures found in the palaces of Alaxentius and
Licinius were lavishly consumed; the various innovations intro
duced by the. conqueror were attended with an increasing
^fcpense; the cost of his buildings, his court and his festivals
required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the oppression
of the people was the only fund which could support the
magnificence of the sovereign. His unworthy favorites, enriched
by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped with impunity
Chap, xviii.
�14
Crimes of Christianity.
the privilege of rapine and corruption. A secret but universal
decay was felt in every part of the public administration, and
the emperor himself, though he still retained the obedience,
gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The dress and manners
which, towards the decline of his life, he chose to affect, served
only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The Asiatic pomp
which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian assumed an
air of softness and effeminacy in the person of Constantine. He
is represented with false hair of various colors, laboriously
arranged by the skilful artists of the times ; a diadem of a new
and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems and pearls, of
collars and bracelets; and a variegated flowing robe of silk
most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In such
apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of
Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged
monarch and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. A mind thus
relaxed by prosperity and indulgence was incapable of rising to
that magnanimity which disdains suspicion and dares to forgive.
The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified
by the maxims of policy as they are taught in the schools of
tyrants ; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather
murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who
could sacmfice, without reluctance, the laws of justice and the
feelings of nature to the dictates either of his passions or of his
interest.” *
There can be no doubt that the character of Constantine
deteriorated rather than improved under the influence
of Christianity. Our greatest master of grave and
temperate irony says that
“ He pursued the great object of his ambition through the
dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory,
he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his
fortune. Instead of asserting his vast superiority above the
imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the
Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the reputa
tion which he had acquired in his youth. As he gradually ad
vanced in the knowledge of truth, he proportionally declined
in the practice of virtue ; and the same year of his reign in which
he convened the Council of Nice was polluted by the execution,
or rather murder, of his eldest son.’ f
This is Gibbon’s way of saying that as Constantine
became a better Christian he became a worse criminal.
The reader is probably anxious to be informed of
Chap, xviii.
f Gibbon, chap. xx.
�Crimes of Christianity.
15
the details of these crimes. The father-in-law that
Constantine strangled was the emperor Maximian,
whom, in February, A.D. 310, he defeated and captured
at Marseilles. The brother-in-law whom he punished
with the same fate was his rival Licinius, who fell into
his hands after the siege of Byzantium, in A.D. 324,
and who was secretly executed after being publicly
pardoned. The deaths of these relatives may be ex
plained by the rules of statecraft, but no such excuse
can be offered with respect to the other victims of
Constantine’s cruelty. In July, A.D. 325, he publicly
disgraced and privately murdered his eldest son
Crispus, for no other crime than his virtues and his
reputation. The Csesar Licinius, a nephew of Con
stantine, was involved in the ruin of Crispus and
shared his fate, notwithstanding his youth and amiable
manners, and the tears and entreaties of his mother.
The first Christian emperor soon afterwards com
pleted the list of his domestic murders by suffo
cating his wife Fausta in “ the steam of a bath, which,
for that purpose, had been heated to an extraordinary
degree.” This unfortunate lady was accused of
adultery, and “ her condemnation and punishment,”
says Gibbon, “were the instant consequences of the
charge.” After the commission of these atrocious
crimes, it is no wonder that the people were discon
tented, and that satirical verses were affixed to Con
stantine’s palace-gate comparing him with the bloody
and ferocious Nero.
If we have mainly relied on Gibbon for our portrait
of Constantine, it is only because that greatest of
historians was an artist as well as a scholar. Instead of
presenting a mass of confused details, he gives us a.
finished picture ; and his accuracy, no less than his
skill, is the wonder and admiration of succeedingwriters. Although he was himself a disbeliever in
Christianity, his treatment of Constantine is “ remark
ably just, and he is more generous to the first Christian
emperor than Niebuhr or Neander.”* A hasty glanceat the cruel and sanguinary laws which he introduced
J C. Morison, “ Gibbon” (English Men of Letters) p. 127.
�16
Crimes of Christianity.
into the Roman code will prove that, however zealous
for religion, the first Christian emperor showed a scan
dalous contempt for humanity.
Constantine made a law against the gladiatorial
shows, which however continued until Honorius sup
pressed them in A.D. 403. We may well suspect his
sincerity in enacting this law when we remember that
during his administration in Gaul, after a signal victory
over the Franks, he exposed several of their princes to
the wild beasts in the amphitheatre of Treves. He
also abolished tbe cruel punishment of breaking the
legs of criminals and branding their faces ; and he
prohibited crucifixions, probably out of deference to
the sentiment of his Christian subjects. But he
ordered delators’ tongues to be cut out, and molten
lead to be poured down the throats of those who
connived at the abduction of virgins, the principal
offenders being cast to the beasts or burnt alive. “ He
appointed this punishment,” says Jortin, “ for various
offences. To burn men alive became thenceforward a
very common punishment, to the disgrace of Christi
anity. At last it was thought too cruel for traitors,
murderers, poisoners, parricides, etc., and only fit for
*
heretics'
Never before had this devilish punishment been in
flicted judicially. Tradition or legend affirmed that
Phalaris roasted men in a brazen bull, but this was the
act of a ferocious tyrant, who tortured men for his sport.
It was reserved for the first Christian emperor to delibe
rately insert this cruelty in the Roman code. 1 he Church
in subsequent ages took ample advantage of the oppor
tunity which' Constantine created, and remorselessly
burnt heretics at the stake for the glory and honor of
God.
* Vol. II., p. 137.
Progressive Publishing C o l.pany, 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
part
n] GRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Peke 1d
CONSTANTINE TO JOVIAN.
CONSTANTINE’S conversion to Christianity has been
fixed at various dates. Cardinal Newman rashly asserts
that he was converted by his vision of the luminous
cross on his march to Rome to attack Maxentius in
A.D. 312, and his subsequent victory over the emperor
at the Milvian Bridge. But this famous “vision” is
merely a myth. It is derived from a doubtful work of
Eusebius. That inventive father, in his de Vita Con
stantan, alleges that the emperor, in a private conver
sation, related to him the following story of this won
derful apparition, which he confirmed with an oath :—
“ About the middle hours of the day, as the sun began to verge
towards its setting, he-.^v in the heavens, with his own eyes, the
sun surmounted with the trophy of the cross, which was composed
of light, and had a legend annexed, saying, By this conquer.
And amazement seized him and the whole army at the sight, and
the beholders wondered as they accompanied him in the march.
And he said he was at a loss what to make of this spectre, and as
he pondered and reflected upon it long, night came upon him by
surprise. After this, as he slept, the Christ of God appeared to
him, together wi h the sign before seen in the heavens, and bade
him make a representation of the sign that appeared in the
heavens, and to use that as a protection against the onsets of his
enemies. And as soon as it was day, he arose, related the wonder
to his friends ; and then assembling the workers in gold and
precious stones, he seated himself in the midst of them, and des
cribing the appearance of the sign, he bade them imitate it in
gold and precious stones. This we were once so fortunate as to
set our eyes upon.”*
'
?
Eusebius then gives a full description of this sacred
standard, called the Labarum. The shaft was a .long
spear, surmounted by a crown of gold, bearing. “ the
mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure
* Murdoch, footnote
Mosheim, Vol. I., p. 289-290.
B
�18
Crimes of Christianity.
of the cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ
and the silken veil, depending from a transverse beam,
“was curiously inwrought with the images of the
reigning monarch and his children.”
According to Voltaire, some authors pretend that
Constantine saw this vision at Besam^on, others at
Cologne, some at Treves, and others at Troyes. Car
dinal Newman is silent on the matter, but he allows
that there were disputes among early Christian writers
whether the apparition was that of the monogram
without the cross, or the cross without the monogram.
But more serious difficulties remain. Constantine’s
“ vision ” is not mentioned by a single Father of the
fourth and fifth centuries, none of whom appears to
have been acquainted with the work in which Eusebius
relates it. Eusebius himself says nothing about it in
his Ecclesiastical History, written twelve years after
the event. Why did Eusebius first hear of it in a
private conversation with Constantine twenty-five
years after it occurred, when it was seen by the whole
army as well as by the emperor. And what necessity
was there for Constantine to “ confirm with an oath ”
a fact of such publicity ?
Gibbon justly remarks that “ the nicest accuracy is
required in tracing the slow and almost imperceptible
gradations by which the monarch declared himself the
protector, and at length the proselyte of the church.”
It is certain that Constantine continued in the practice
of Paganism until his fortieth year. He celebrated his
victory over Maxentius at Rome according to the
ancient rites; and later still, as Gibbon ironically
observes, “ He artfully balanced the hopes and fears
of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two
edicts ; the first of which enjoined the solemn obser
vance of Sunday, and the second directed the regular
*
consultation of the Auruspices.”
Constantine and Licinius, in their edict of Milan
(A.D. 313), granted their subjects “the liberty of follow
* It is remarkable that Constantine calls the Lord’s Day dies solis.
He evidently wished to patronise Christianity as a powerful religion,
without offending the ears of his Pagan subjects, who, although less
admirably organised, were still more numerous.
�Crimes of Christianity.
19
ing whatever religion they please.” They expressly
included the Christians, but this was probably owing to
their having been so recently persecuted by Diocletian.
Relying on Eusebius’s questionable Life of Con
stantine, Gibbon says that after the defeat of Licinius
(A.D. 324) the conqueror “immediately, by circular
letters, exhorted all his subjects to imitate, without
delay, the example of their sovereign, and to embrace
the divine truth of Christianity.”
Constantine’s presiding at the Council of Nice (A.D.
325) does not prove that he was then a Christian.
Zosimus relates that he asked the Pagan priests to
absolve him from the guilt of murdering his son, his
nephew and his wife, and that on their refusal he
embraced the more accommodating creed of their
rivals, and cleansed himself in the expiatory blood of
Christ. Gibbon considers this an anachronism, but
Schlegel says “there is, perhaps, some degree of truth
in the story.” It is certain that Constantine had curious
notions of Christianity long after the Council of Nice,
and in one of his discourses, as Gibbon remarks, “ he
dwells with peculiar complacency on the Sybilline
verses and the fourth eclogue of Virgil.” It is still
more remarkable that the first Christian Emperor was
not really a member of the Church until a few days
before his death, when for the first time he received the
sacrament of baptism. Constantine may have hesitated
between Paganism and Christianity until then, or he
may have deferred his baptism till he had no more
occasion for sinning, in order to ensure a safe passage
to heaven.
The motives which induced Constantine to protect
the Christians, and afterwards to favor them, were such
as usually animate the rulers of mankind. He first
granted them toleration, as Schlegel remarks, “ not
from a sense of justice, or from magnaminity, and still
less from any attachment to the Christian religion, but
from principles of worldly prudence. He wished to
attach the Christians to his party.” The judicious
Mosheim conjectures that “the emperor had discern
ment to see that Christianity possessed great efficacy,
and idolatry none at all, to strengthen public authority
�20
Crimes of Christianity.
and to bind citizens to their duty.”* Gibbon expresses
the same opinion in his ironical manner. “ The throne
of the emperor,” he says, “ would be established on a
fixed and permanent basis if all their subjects, em
bracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer
and to obey.” Voltaire, in his most impious poem,
charges Constantine with making the altars of the
Church a convenient footstool to his throne. The
Christians, it is true, “ still bore a very inadequate pro
portion to the inhabitants of the empire ; but among a
degenerate people, who viewed the change of masters
with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of
a religious party might assist the popular leader, to
whose service, from a principle of conscience, they had
devoted their lives and fortunes.”t
Voltaire’s opinion is perhaps correct, that Constantine
“ put himself at the head of Christianity without being
a Christian.” He naturally patronised a religion which
inculcated passive obedience to princes, and maintained
his divine right to rule according to the principles of
despotism. Paganism never lent itself in this manner
to the ambition of tyrants ; its Olympus was a kind of
Republic, and it was always favorable to popular
liberty. The literature of Greece and Rome breathed
an unquenchable spirit of freedom, which ill suited
the policy of an absolute despot in an empire which
had lost every vestige of its ancient freedom. Con
stantine had the sagacity to perceive that Christianity
was more adapted to his purpose. He patronised it,
therefore, not as a philosopher, but as an emperor ; and
finding that it realised his most sanguine expectations,
he eventually decided to impose it upon all his subjects
and to extirpate every other faith.
It is a signal illustration of the persecuting spirit
which is inherent in all theologies, that the Christian
clergy, who had only a few years before bitterly com
plained of their proscription, joyously assisted Con
stantine in his suppression of Paganism. Their almost
incredible arrogance is proved by the fact that Pagan
ism was still the religion of the vast majority of their
Vol. I., p. 288.
f Gibbon, chap. xx.
�Crimes of Christianity.
21
fellow-subjects. Gibbon’s estimate of the number of
Christians at this time, although nibbled at by Milman,
has never been seriously impaired :
“According to the irreproachable testimony of Origen, the
proportion of the faithful was very inconsiderable, when com
pared vtith the multitude of an unbelieving world ; but, as we
are left without any distinct information, it is impossible to
determine, and it is difficult even to conjecture, the real numbers
of the primitive Christians. The most favorable calculation,
however, that can be deduced from the examples of Antioch and
of Rome will not permit us to imagine that more than a twentieth
part of the subjects of the empire had enlisted themselves under
the banner of the Cross before the important conversion of Con
*
stantine.
What an edifying spectacle to the philosopher ! Behold
the religion of the meek and lowly Jesus, whose yoke
was easy and his burden light, forced by its professors
down the throats of their Pagan neighbors, who out
numbered them by nearly twenty to one 1
Let us also reflect that Christianity introduced the
systematic persecution of heresy and unbelief. Such
a principle was entirely foreign to Paganism.
The
Roman law tolerated every form of religion and every
system of philosophy. Its impartiality was so absolute
that the Pantheon of the eternal city afforded niches to
all the gods of the empire ; yet when Tiberius was
asked to allow the prosecution of a Roman citizen for
blaspheming the gods he replied : “No, let the gods
defend their own honour.” We do not deny that the
Christians were persecuted, although we challenge their
exaggerated account of their sufferings. But their
partial and occasional persecutions were prompted by
political motives. They were regarded as members of
a secret society, at once offensive to their Pagan neigh
bors and dangerous to the State ; and although they
were sometimes punished, their doctrines were never
proscribed. The principle of persecution was first in
fused into the Roman law by Constantine. According
to Renan :
“We may search in vain the whole Roman la before Con
stantine for a single passage against freedom of thought, and the
Chap. xv.
�22
Crimes of Christianity.
history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a
prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine.” *
Christianity inaugurated a new era of mental slavery.
By forcibly suppressing dissent and establishing an
Inquisition for detecting heretics, she carried tyranny
into the secret recesses of the mind. “ She thus,” as
Draper says, “took a course which determined her
whole future career, and she became a stumbling-block
in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more
than a thousand years.”
Constantine’s policy manufactured Christians whole
sale, for the masses of such an age were easily seduced
or driven. The discreet Mosheim, while not attri
buting “ the extension of Christianity wholly to these
causes,” allows that “ both the fear of punishment and
the desire of pleasing the Roman emperors were cogent
reasons, in the view of whole nations as well as of
individuals, for embracing the Christian religion.”!
*
Jortin likewise remarks that “along with those who
were sincere in their profession, there came a multitude
of hypocrites and nominal Christians.Gibbon tells
us how the people were bribed :
“ The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor,
his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among
the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apart
ments of a palace. The cities which signalised a forward zeal
by the voluntary destruction of their temples were distinguished
by municipal privileges and rewarded with popular donatives ;
and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage
that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols.
As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the
conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of
power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes.
The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy
rate, if it be true that, in one year, twelve thousand men were
baptised at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and
children, and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold,
had been promised by the Emperor to every convert.Ӥ
Concurrently with, these bribes, Constantine devoted
much of his energy and wealth to increasing the power
and splendor of the Church. “ He gave to the clergy,”
* “ Les Apotres,” first edition, p. 315.
f Vol. I., p. 305
J Vol. IL, p. 25.
§ Chap. xx.
�Crimes of Christianity.
23
says Schlegel, “the former privileges of the Pagan
priests, and allowed legacies to be left to the churches,
which were everywhere erected and enlarged. He was
gratified with seeing the bisdops assume great state ;
for he thought the more respect the bishops commanded,
the more inclined the Pagans would be to embrace
Christianity.”* Jortin remarks that the Emperor was
possessed with the building siririt, and spent immense
sums on palaces and churches, which obliged him to
burden his people with taxes.f Gibbon satirically says
that “ Constantine too easily believed that he should
purchase the favor of Heaven if he maintained the idle
at the expense of the industrious, and distributed
among the saints the wealth of the republic.He
gave to the bishops the privilege of being tried by
their peers, and their episcopal brethren were their
judges, even when they were charged with a capital
crime. He originated the notion that clerical im
punity was better than a public scandal, and declared
that if he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery, he
should cast his imperial mantle over the holy sinner.
Montesquieu alleges that Constantine even ordained
that, in the legal courts the single testimony of a bishop
should suffice, without hearing other witnesses. §
Constantine’s penal laws in favor of Christianity were
still more influential. He condemned those who should
should speak evil of Christ to lose half their estate. His
laws against various heresies may be seen in the Jus
tinian code. So far did he advance in true godliness,
under the inspiration of the bishops and clergy, that he
issued a decree for the demolition of all heretical tem
ples in the following elegant strain :
“ Know ye, Moravians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulinians
and Cataphrygians, that your doctrine is both vain and false.
O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death, ye spread
abroad lies, oppress the innocent, and hide from the faithful the
light of truth. . . . That your pestilential errors may spread no
further, we enact by this law that none of you dare hereafter to
meet at your conventicles, nor keep any factious or superstitious
meetings, either in public buildings or in private houses, or in*
§
* Mosheim, Vol. I.,p. 291.
f Vol. II., p. 69.
J Chap xx.
§ “L'Esp’"*’ des Lois,-’ Book 29, chap. xvi.
�24
Crimes of Christianity.
secret places ; but if any of you have a care for the true religion,
let them return to the Catholic Church. . . . And that our
careful providence for curing these errors may be effectual, we
have commanded that all your superstitious places of meeting,
your heretical temples (if I may so call them), shall be, without
delay or contradiction, pulled down or confiscated to the
Catholic Church.”
Such is the language, and such are the acts, which made
Constantine “a pattern to all succeeding monarchs.”
The emperor’s reign was distracted by the famous
Arian controversy. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria,
and his presbyter Arius, had a fierce and bitter dis
pute about the Trinity, the former contending that the
Son was equal, and the latter that he was inferior, to the
Father. According to Jortin
“ Alexander wrote a circular letter to all bishops, in which he
represented Arius and his partisans as heretics, apostates, blas
phemers, enemies of God, full of impudence and impiety, fore
runners of Antichrist, imitators of Judas, and men whom it was
not lawful to salute, or bid God speed.”*
This is merely the language of bigotry, for Sozomen
acknowledges that these reprobates were learned, and
to all appearance good men. As the quarrel grew in
flamed, the soldiers and inhabitants joined in it, and
much blood was shed in and about the city. Constantine
wrote Alexander and Arius a long letter, bidding them
be more peaceable. But as the controversy spread
through the empire, he at length resolved (A.D. 325) to
summon a Council of the Church at Nice in Bythinia
to determine between them. After much wrangling,
which Constantine peremptorily ended, the bishops and
ecclesiastics discussed the subject of the Trinity. It
was finally resolved by a majority that the Father and
the Son were of the same substance, and not of like sub
stance. The famous Nicene Creed was drawn up for
subscription, with an addendum declaring that—
“ The Holy Catholic and Apostlic Church anathematises those
who say there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that
before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of
another substance or essence, and is created or changeable or
alterable.”!
Vol. II, p. 27.
f Jortin, Vol. II, p. G6.
�Crimes of Christianity.
25
The Council of Nice only envenomed the dispute,
for, as Gibbon observes, the emperor “extinguished
the hope of peace and toleration from the moment that
he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls
of the same palace.” Constantine ratified the Nicene
■Creed, and issued the following decree against the
minority :
“ Since Arius hath imitated wicked and ungodly men, it is
just that he should undergo the same infamy with them. As,
therefore, Porphyrius, an enemy of godliness, for his havingcomposed wicked books against Christianity, hath found a fit
ting recompense in being infamous and having all his impious
writings quite destroyed, so also it is now my pleasure that
Arius and those of his sentiments shall be called Porphyrians,
so that they may have the appellation of those whose manners
they have imitated. Moreover, if any book composed by Arius
•shall be found, it shall be delivered to the fire, that not only
his evil doctrine may be destroyed, but that there may not be
the least remembrance of it left. This also I enjoin, that if
anyone shall be found to have concealed any writing composed
by Arius, and shall not immediately bring it and consume it in
the fire, death shall be his punishment: for as soon as ever he is
taken in this crime, he shall suffer capital punishment. God
preserve you.”
God preserve you! is a fine piece of irony, coming
after a menace of death for reading an heretical book.
Let it also be noticed that the first great Council of the
Christian Church resulted in the first promulgation of
the death penalty against heretics.
Ten years afterwards Constantine veered round and
favored the Arians. He repeatedly commanded Atha
nasius, the Archbishop of Alexandria, to receive Ari us
into the Catholic communion, but that extraordinary
man refused to comply with the emperor’s will. At
the Council of Tyre (A.D. 335) an Arian majority con
demned Athanasius to degradation and exile for having,
as they alleged, whipped or imprisoned six bishops,
and murdered or mutilated a seventh ; and the great
Archbishop found shelter for nearly two years in the
court of Treves.
Meanwhile Arius came to an untimely end. Con
stantine ordered Alexander, the Athanasian bishop of
■the capital, to receive the heresiarch into communion
�26
Crimes of Christianity.
on the following Sunday. On the Saturday the bishopfasted and prayed, and in his church he besought God
to avert the evil, even by taking Arius away.
*
Thu
next day, as Arius was on his way to the church,
he entered a house to attend to a call of nature, where,
according to Athanasius, his bowels burst out. He was
at any rate found dead, and the Athanasians saw a
divine judgment in his sudden fate. “ But when
Alexander’s party,” says Draper, “ proclaimed that his
prayer had been answered, they forgot what that
prayer must have been, and that the difference is little
between praying for the death of a man and compassing
it.”f
Gibbon says that “ those who press the literal narra
tive of the death of Arius must make their option be
tween poison and miracle.'" He evidently inclines to
the former'choice, and he is followed in this by Draper.
Cardinal Newman regards the death of Arius as a
Church miracle. Jortin says, “ surely it is not im
possible that amongst his numerous enemies there
might be one who would not scruple to give him a dose,
and to send him out of the way.”J The cautious Mos
heim adopts the same view. “ When I consider,” he
says, “ all the circumstances of the case, I confess that
to me it appears most probable, the unhappy man lost
his life by the machinations of his enemies, being des
troyed by poison. An indiscreet and blind zeal in
religion has, in every age, led on to many crimes worse
than this.Ӥ
Constantine himself died in the following year
(May 22nd, A.D. 337) at Nicomedia. His body was
laid in state for several days, and finally interred with
gorgeous rites. According to Jortin, he had the honor
of being the first Christian who was buried in a church.
The true believers paid almost divine honor to his
name, his tomb, and his statue, and called him a saint
equal to the apostles. And as the clergy had bestowed
upon him, during his life, the most fulsome praise
* Newman, “ Two Essays on Miracles,” p. 328.
f Draper’s “ Intellectual Development of Europe,” Vol. I., p. 279.
J Vol. II., p. 63.
§ Vol. I., p. 396.
�Crimes of Christianity.
27
even when he was committing the most flagitious
crimes, so now, after his death, they had the effrontery
to declare that God had endued his urn and statue with
miraculous powers, and that whosoever touched them
were healed of all diseases and infirmities.
*
On the death of Constantine, Athanasius was restored
to his primacy by Constantine the younger. He imme
diately, says Moshiem, began to expel the Arians and
to restore the churches to the Catholic faith. Disturb
ances ensued, and Constantius (who, upon succeeding
to the throne in the East, proceeded to walk in his
father’s footsteps by slaughtering his relations), being
a semi-Arian, again expelled the primate of Alexandria.
Constans, Emperor of the West, “ who, in the indul
gence of unlawful pleasures, still professed a lively
regard for the orthodox faith,”t espoused his cause
and threatened war upon his brother Constantius if
Athanasius were not restored to his patriarchate.
Constantius yielded, but on the death of his brother,
two councils, at Arles (353) and Milan (355), confirmed
the expulsion of Athanasius, all the bishops who re
fused to subscribe to the sentence being suspended
from office and banished by the Emperor. Athanasius
refused to abdicate, and his church was entered by the
Duke of Egypt at the head of five thousand soldiers
(February 9, 363).
“ The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the impetuosity
of the atttack, which was accompanied with every horrid circum
stance of tumult and bloodshed ; but as the bodies of the slain
and the fragments of military weapons remained the next day
an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the Catholics,
the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a successful
irruption, rather than an absolute conquest. The other churches
of the city were profaned by similar outrages ; and, during at
least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the insults of a
licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of a hostile fac
tion. Many of the faithful were killed, who may deserve the
name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither provoked nor
revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with cruel
ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged
and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered;
and, under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice and private
Jortin, Vol. II., p. 71.
f Gibbon, chap. xxi.
�28
Crimes of Christianity.
resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with ap
plause.”*
i'
Athanasius escaped, but many of his adherents were
tortured and killed in the hope of finding him. Constantius offered a reward for Athanasius, dead or alive,
denouncing him as “ an impostor, a corruptor of men’s
souls, a disturber of the city, a pernicious fellow, one
convicted of the worst crimes, not to be expiated by
his suffering death ten times over.” Athanasius re
torted that the Emperor was an Arian idolator, a hang
man, and one capable of all kinds of rapine, violence
and murder.
Liberius, the Bishop of Rome, who had refused
to sanction the exile of Athanasius, was himself
banished, and Felix put in his place. The people,
however, demanded the return of Liberius, and, upon
making his submission to the Emperor, he was restored.
’Gibbon says:
“ After some ineffectual resistance, his rival was expelled from
• the city by the permission of the Emperor and the power of the
opposite faction. The adherents of Felix were inhumanly mur
dered in the streets, in the public places, in the baths, and even
in the churches; and the face of Rome, upon the return of a
Christian bishop, renewed the horrid image of the massacres of
Marius and the proscriptions of Sy 11a. ’f
In the archbishopric, of Alexandria was placed
George of Cappadocia, the person who, after an in
famous career, became the patron saint of England.
Emerson thus describes him :
“ George of Cappadocia, bom at Epiphany, in Cicilia, was a
low parasite, who got a lucrative contract to supply the army
with bacon. A rogue and informer, he got rich, and was forced
to run from justice. He saved his money, embraced Arianism,
collected a library, and got promoted by a faction to the epis
copal throne of Alexandria. When Julian came, A.D. 361,
George was dragged to prison; the prison was burst upon by
the mob, and George was lynched, as he deserved. And this
precious knave became, in good time, Saint George of England,
patron of chivalry, emblem of victory and civility, and the pride
•of the best blood of the modern world.”J
* Gibbon, chap. xxi.
f Chap. xxi.
J Emerson's “ English Traits,” Works, vol. iv., p. 123.
�Crimes of Christianity.
29-
Gibbon remarks :
“ In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the tyrant
George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice and of
humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which
had been exhibited in the capital were repeated in more than
ninety episcopal cities of Egypt.”*
This worthy, not satisfied with violence against the
clergy of the opposing faction, caused the widows of
the Athanasian party to be scourged on the soles of
their feet, the virgins to be stripped naked and then
flogged with the prickly branches of palm-trees, or to
be slowly scorched over fires till they abjured their
creed.+
Although St. Athanasius had reason to complain
of persecution, he evidently thought it an excellent
thing for others. In a letter to Epictetus, Bishop of
Corinth, he says : “ I wonder your piety suffers these
heresies, and that you did not immediately put those
heretics under restraint and propose the true faith tothem ; that if they would not forbear to contradict
they might be declared heretics ; for it is not to be
endured that these things should be either said or
heard amongst Christians.” And in another place he
says “ that they ought to be held in universal hatred
for opposing the truth ; ” and comforts himself that
the emperor, upon due information would put a stop
to their wickedness, and that they would not be long
lived.
In Constantinople the triumph of Christianity
ensured the same prevalence of fanaticism as at Rome
and Alexandria. After the death of Alexander, the
episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius.
In the space of fourteen years the former was five times
driven from the throne. He was cast into, prison, left
six days without food, and eventually strangled
.
*
The inauguration of Macedonius to the See of Con
stantinople was graced by the slaughter of about three
thousand persons. J So great was his zeal that he not
* Chap. xxi.
t St. Athanasius, “ Historical Treatises,’' Pusey’s Library of the
Fathers, pp. 192—284.
+ Milman’s “ History of Latin Christianity," vol. ii., p. 422
�• 30
Crimes of Christianity.
only compelled the reluctant to attend church but
gagged their mouths and compelled them to receive the
*
sacrament.
As the civil and military forces were at
the command of his cruelty it was under no restraint.
“ The delicacy of virgins, guilty of no crime but non■conformity, was not allowed to shield them from
violence ; they suffered for their obstinacy by having
their breasts squeezed between heavy and sharp pieces
of wood, or scorched by the application of heated irons
and roasted eggs.”t
Socrates, the Church historian, tells us that “ by the
intestine war among the Christians, Constantinople was
kept in a state of perpetual turbulence, and the most
atrocious outrages were perpetrated whereby many
lives were lost.”J
Africa was equally disturbed by the factions between
the rival bishops Caecilian and Donatus, whose followers
^afflicted its provinces above three hundred years, the
feud being only extinguished when Christianity was
•overcome by Mohammedanism. Excommunicated by
the Church of Rome, the Donatists boldly excommuni
cated all other churches than their own.
“ Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant
provinces of the east, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of
baptism and ordination ; as they rejected the validity of those
which he had already received from the hands of heretics or
schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were
subjected to the disgrace of a public penance before they could
be admitted to the communion of the Donatists. If they ob
tained possession of a church which had been used by their
Catholic adversaries, they purified the unhallowed building with
the same jealous care which a temple of idols might have re
quired. They washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt
the altar, which was commonly of wood, melted the conse
crated plate, and cast the holy Eucharist to the dogs, with every
circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate
the animosity of religious factions.Ӥ
Among the Donatists, the Circumcelliones for a time
abstained, in obedience to the evangelical command,
* Socrates, Ec. Hist. Book II., chap. xxx.
f Clarke, History of Intolerance, Vol. I., p. 303; 1820.
chap xxi.
J Hist. Ecclest., ii., 12
§ Gibbon, chap. xxi.
Gibbon,
�Crimes of Christianity.
31
from the use of the sword, beating to death those
who differed from their theological opinions with
massive clubs, to which they gave the significant
name of Israelites, and the well-known sound of
*
“ Praise be to God,” which they used as their war-cry,
diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of
Africa. Many of these fanatics were possessed with
the desire of martyrdom, which, in common with most
•of the early Christians, they deemed the sure passport
to eternal bliss. They would rudely disturb the
festivals and profane the temples of Paganism in order
to excite revenge. Gibbon rightly observes :
“ In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts, who were ad
mired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the
other as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may dis
cover the influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit,
which was originally derived from the character and principles
of the Jewish nation.”}
The contrast between the reign of this emperor and
that of his successor, the pagan J ulian, forcibly suggests
that Jesus indeed came to bring fire and sword. Julian
decreed universal tolerance, nor did he visit a single
Christian with punishment on account of his religion.
The only means he used to combat the growing super
stition was to write against it, and throughout his short
but beneficent reign he afforded convincing proof of
the superiority of his Paganism to the Christianity of
his predecessors. No sooner however w’as the Christian
Jovian on the throne than once more the spirit of
bigotry burst into open violence. In Rome the
rival bishops, Damasus and Ursinus, disputed by
force of arms. Damasus, marching at the head of his
own clergy and hired gladiators, prevailed, leaving one
hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies in the church.J
No wonder the famous Richard Baxter says, of the
bishops of this period :
“ Their feuds and inhuman contentions were so many and so
odious that it is a shame to read them Multitudes of cities had
bishops set up against bishops, and some cities more than two or
three, the people reviling and hating each other and sometimes
* Tillemont, Memoires d’Hist. Eccles. TomejVL, pp. 88—98
t Gibbon, ehap. xxi.
J Gibbon, chap. xxv.
�32
Crimes of Christianity.
fighting tumultously unto blood for their several prelates. The
Christian world was made as a cock-pit and the Christian
religion made a scorn by the contention of the bishops.”*
Jovian made a disgraceful treaty with Persia, and
retired to Antioch, where he indulged his disposition
for pleasure. The contending leaders of various sects
hastened to his court. Gibbon racily tells how
“ The highways of the East were crowded with Homoousian,
and Arian, and semi-Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled
to outstrip each other in the holy race ; the apartments of the
palace resounded with their clamors ; and the ears of their prince
were assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the singular mixture
of metaphysical argument and passionate invective.’ f
The emperor declared for the orthodox doctrines
established at the Council of Nice, and his decision
carried with it the conversion of many Arian bishops.
Although professing tolerance, he repealed the wise
edicts of Julian which ^moderated the power of
the clergy, and restored and enlarged their eccle
siastical immunities from the duties of, citizen
ship.
He re-established Athanasius on the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria. In return he was
promised by that prelate that his orthodox devo
tion would be rewarded with a long reign. The pro
phecy failed. Jovian died after reigning but seven
months. Yet the success of Christianity was assured,
and the emperors who • succeeded him all continued,
though with unequal zeal, the extirpation of Paganism.
Gibbon tells us that already, in many cities, the temples
were shut or deserted, and the philosophers who had
taught in the reign of Julian “ thought it prudent to
shave their beards and disguise their profession.” The
triumph of Christianity meant the fall of philosophy,
the decline of civic spirit, and the long succeeding
night of the Dark Ages.
* Treatise on Episcopacy, p. 24.
f Chap. xxv.
Progressive Publishing Company 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCF7™
CRIMES'OF CHRISTIANITY.
ATHANASIUS
TO
->
HYPATIA.
In the reign of Valens, the Trinitarian party set up
Evagrius as patriarch of Constantinople. The Arian
party elected Demophilus. A contest ensued in which
the Arians triumphed. Evagrius was driven out and
his adherents were subjected to a variety of outrage:;.
Eighty presbyters of the party went to carry a com
plaint to Valens, then in Nicomedia, but the ship they
embarked in was purposely set on fire and deserted,
and the whole company of ecclesiastics perished.
*
About the same time, Gregory Nazianzen complained
of being attacked by the Arians of Constantinople.
Ancient women, he says, worse than Jezebels, young
nuns, common beggars, and monks like old goats,
issuing out of their monasteries, armed with clubs
and stones, attacked him and his flock in their
church, and did much mischief. He Sid not scruple
to retaliate and advocate the persecution of the Arians,
^5 also incited Nectarius to persecute the Apollinarists,
which was done accordingly^^
. ,
Upon the ascension of ‘Theodosius (379), the ortho
dox party again triumphed, Demophilus, the Arian
patriarch of Constantinople, being then banished.
Theodosius convoked the Council of Constantinople,
which admitteJU^he Holy Ghost to all the honors of
the Trinity, and anathematised all heretics, denouncing
by namejfche Eunomians, the Anomians, the Arians,
the Semi-Arians, the Eudoxians, the Marcellians, the
Photinians, the Apollinarists, the Macedonians, the
Sabbatians, the Novatians, the Montanists, the Quartodecimani, the Tetratites, and the Sabellians.
* Socrates, Ec. Hist., Vol. IV., pp. 13—16; Milner’s “ History of the
Church of Christ,” Vol. I., p. 609.
t Jortin, Vol. IL, pp. 317—319.
. .
4
*
�34
Crimes of Christianity.
When the council was ended, the Emperor put forth
two edicts against heretics, the first prohibiting their
holding assemblies in public places or private houses,
the second forbidding them to meet in fields or villages,
and ordaining that the building or ground used for
that purpose should be confiscated. Gibbon tells us :
“ In the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at least fifteen
severe edicts against the heretics, more especially against those
who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity ; and to deprive them
of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted that if any laws or
rescripts should be alleged in their favor, the judges should con
sider them as the illegal productions either of fraud or forgery.”*
The penal statutes were directed both against here
tical ministers and their congregations ; the former
were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and con
fiscation if they presumed to preach the doctrines or to
practise the rites of their “ accursed ” sects, the latter
were disqualified from the possession of honorable or
lucrative employments. “Their religious meetings,
whether public or secret, by day or by night, in cities
or in the country, were equally proscribed by the
edicts of Theodosius ; and the building or ground
which had been used for that illegal purpose was
forfeited to the Imperial domain.”f
All who did not agree with Damasus, the Bishop of
Rome, and Peter the Bishop of Alexander, were
ordered to be driven into exile and deprived of civil
rights.
In Constantinople, where there were many Arians,
especially among the Goths, who had been converted
by the Arian Ulfilas,j: Gaina, one of the officers, peti
tioned for a church for his co-religionists. Saint
Chrysostom bitterly inveighed against the tolerance of
heresy, and urged the laws of Theodosius. The
saint carried his point, and the consequence was an
insurrection of the Goths in the city of Constanti* Chap, xxvii
+ Gibbon, chap, xxvii.
| Ulfilas, srirnamed by Constantius “ the Moses of the Goths,” made
for them a translation of the Scriptures from which he had the
prudence to exclude the bocxs of Samuel and Kings, lest their warlike
contents should be found to stimulate the ferocity of the barbarians.
�Crimes of Christianity.
35
nople, which nearly ended in the burning of the imperial
palace and the murder of the emperor, and actually
led to the cutting off of all the Gothic soldiers and the
burning of their church with great numbers of persons
in it who fled thither for safety and were locked in to
prevent their escape.
Similarly, at Milan, the empress Justina, a patroness
of Arianism, and a Jezebel, as St. Ambrose calls her,
interceded with her son, Valentinian II., to permit the
Arians to have one church for worship in that city.
St. Ambrose flatly refused, declaring that all the
churches belonged to the bishop ; and, as the Christian
populace threatened insurrection, the haughty prelate
prevailed.
St. Epiphanius boasted of having caused by his
information seventy women, some of high rank, to be
sent into exile for their Gnostic heresies, from which
he had himself recanted. He saved himself from the
fate of his co-religionists by turning evidence against
them on the outbreak of the persecution. When the
empress Eudoxia recommended to his prayers her son
Theodosius the younger, who was dangerously ill, this
fanatical saint sent her word that the child should re
cover if she would get the Origenists and the works of
Origen condemned.
*
St. Epiphanius pursued even
the orthodox Saint Chrysostom with his malice, and
piously wished that he might die in banishment, as
indeed he did. St. Chrysostom was not behind him in
Christian courtesy. “ I hope you will not live to re
turn to your own city,” he declared ; and the kindly
wish was equally fulfilled.
Theod osius ordered that the heretics called Encratites,
Saccophori and Hydroparastatae, should be punished
summo supplicio et inexpiabili poena. And for the de
tection of such persons he appointed Inquisitors, who
were thus instituted for the first time.f
The guilt of the Quartodecimani, who perpetrated the
atrocious crime of celebrating Easter on the day of the
Jewish Passover, and of the Manichaeans and Audians,
* Jortin, Vol. II., p. <326.
f Jortin, Vol, II., p. 320; Gibbon, chap, xxvii.
�36
rimes oj Christianity.
was esteemed of such magnitude that it could only be
expiated by the death of the offender.
In the West, after the Council of Saragosa (381), had
condemned the errors of Priscillian, Bishop of Avila,
in Spain, he and his followers were prosecuted, chiefly
at the instigation of Ithacius, Bishop of Sassuba, and
charged with magic and numerous impieties. Pris
cillian and his friends went to Rome to justify them
selves, but Damasus would not admit them even into
his presence. They then repaired to Milan to beg the
same favor of St. Ambrose. .He also refused to give
them a hearing. Ithacius, and other bishops of like
mind, managed so well with the western usurper,
Maximius, that he condemned Priscillian and his chief
followers to be tortured and executed. Among these
were Matronius (called Latronian by Sulpitius Severus
and Gibbon), a poet who is said to have rivalled the
fame of the ancients ; Felicissimus, Julianius and a
noble, learned lady, named Euchrotia. Others had
their goods confiscated and were banished to the
Scilly Islands.
*
From this treatment of heretics we may infer the
sentiments held towards Jews and Pagans.
St.
Ambrose, who by his zeal and inflexibility acquired
supremacy over the mind of Theodosius, induced that
monarch to abolish the altar of Victory which remained
the symbol of Paganism in the hall of the Roman
Senate.
Symmachus, the Pagan who opposed him, was dis
graced and banished. Theodosius then proposed to
the Senate, according to the forms of the republic, the
important question whether the worship of Jupiter or
that of Christ should be the religion of the Romans.
Gibbon says—
“ The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow, was de
stroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired; and
the arbitrary exile of Symmachus was a recent admonition that
it might be dangerous to oppose the wishes of the monarch. On
a regular division of the Senate, Jupiter was condemned and de• * Dupin, “Ecclesiastical Writers, Priscillian.” Neander, VoL IV.,
p. 505
�Crimes of Christianity.
37
graded by the sense of a very large majority ; and it is rather
surprising that any members should be found bold enough to
declare by their speeches and votes that they were still attached
to the interest of an abdicated deity.”*
The proof of the ascendancy of St. Ambrose over
Theodosius was seen not only in his making him do
penance for the wanton massacre of seven thousand
persons at Thessalonica, but in a matter much less to
the Father’s credit. The Governor of the East reported to
Theodosius that a synagogue of the Jews and a
church of the Valentinians had been burnt by the
Christian populace at the instigation of the bishop.
Theodosius gave orders that the synagogue should be
rebuilt at the bishop’s charge. Thereupon St. Ambrose
wrote to him a letter which is still extant,f declaring
that the order was not consistent with the emperor’s piety,
defending the action of the bishop and those who burnt
the synagogue and maintaining the unlawfulness of re
building it. He further declared that he would have
done the same thing at Milan if God had not antici
pated him by burning the Jewish synagogue himself,
and even threatened to deprive the emperor of com
munion if he did not recall the order. The pious
monarch complied with the will of the inflexible
ecclesiastic and excused the incendiaries from making
restitution.^: The same saint, in advocating the plun
der of the vestal virgins and the Pagan priests, main
tained the doctrine that it is criminal for a Christian
state to grant any endowment to the ministers of any
but the orthodox religion,§ and he expressly praised
and recommended the zeal of Josiah in the destruction
of idolatry.
Dean Milman, in his “ History of Latin Christianity,”
gives to St. Ambrose all the credit or discredit of
extinguishing Paganism. He says :
“ It was Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, who enforced the final
sentence of condemnation against Paganism ; asserted the sin, in
* Chap, xxviii.
f Epistle XL.
t Jortin, Vol. II., p. 226, and Dupin, “History of Ecclesiastical
Writers: Ambrose.”
§ Epistle XVIII.
�38
Crimes of Christianity
a Christian Emperor, of assuming any Imperial title connected
with Pagan worship ; and of permitting any portion of the public
revenue to be expended on the rites of idolatry. It was Ambrose
tv ho forbade the last marks of respect to the tutelar divinities of
Rome in the public ceremonies.”*
When Theodosius had become sole master of the
Roman empire, after the death of Valentinian II., he pro
ceeded with the utmost zeal to extirpate the Pagan
religion. At first the inspection of the entrails of
victims and magical rites had been made capital
offences, but now (in A.D. 391) he issued an edict for
bidding all sacrifices by the most severe punishment, and
even prohibiting the entering into the Temple. In
A.D. 392 all immolations were forbidden to any person
of whatever rank, under pain of death, and all other
acts of idolatry under forfeiture of the house or land
in which the offence was committed. Even the use of
harmless garlands, frankincense and libations of wine
was condemned. To hang up a simple chaplet was to
incur the forfeiture of an estate. Worse still, the Lares
and Penates, the household gods, around which clus
tered the tender ancestral associations of Paganism,
were included in these rigorous proscriptions, and
those who failed to reveal offenders and bring them to
punishment were threatened with penal ties, f Jortin
candidly remarks :
“ One would think that the Emperor intended to turn all his
Christian subjects into informers and pettifoggers, and to set
them, like so many spies and eavesdroppers, to peep into the
dwellings of the Pagans, and to see whether they paid any reli
gious honors to their household gods.”f
If the French Freethinkers were not only to close
the churches and proscribe the performance of mass
as a penal offence, but were also to punish the private
use - of rosaries and relics, and the hanging up of
religious pictures in the home, we should have a
parallel to the high-handed proceedings of Christians
* Vol. I., p. 101.
t Milman’s “ History of“Christianity,” Vol. III., 64.
xxviii.
t Vol. II., p. 339
Gibbon, chap,
�Crimes of Christianity.
89
towards their opponents as soon as ever they found
themselves invested with power.
Christians universally deemed it their duty to
suppress and destroy idolatry, and the sanguinary laws
of the Jews, and the example of their dealing with
idolators, were frequently held up as the models for
Christian conduct. Lecky, in his “ History of European
Morals,” observes that:
“A large portion of theological ethics was derived from
writings in which religious massacres, on the whole the most ruth
less and sanguinary upon record, were said to have been directly
enjoined by the deity, in which the duty of suppressing idolatry
by force was given a greater prominence than any article of the
moral code, and in which the spirit of intolerance has found its
most eloquent and most passionate expressions. Besides this
*
the destiny theologians represented as awaiting the misbeliever
was so ghastly and so apalling as to render it almost childish to
lay any stress upon the earthly suffering that might be inflicted
in the extirpation of error.”
“ The new religion, unlike that which was disappearing, claimed
to dictate the opinions as well as the actions of men, and its
teachers stigmatised as an atrocious crime the free expression of
every opinion on religious matters diverging from them.',-f-
In the reign of Valens laws had been published
ostensibly against sorcery, but really directed against
Pagan philosophy and learning. Dean Milman tells
us :—
“ So severe an inquisition was instituted into the possession of
magical books, that, in order to justify their sanguinary proceed
ings, vast heaps of manuscripts relating to law and general
literature were publicly burned, as if they contained unlawful
matter. Many men of letters throughout the East, in their
terror, destroyed their whole libraries, lest some innocent or
unsuspected work should be seized by the ignorant or malicious
informer, and bring them unknowingly within the relentless
penalties of the law.” J
Theodosius also decreed that “all writings whatever
which Porphyry or anyone else has written against
* “ Do not I hate them, 0 Lord, that hate thee ? yea, I hate them
with a perfect hatred.”
t Vol. I., pp 420, 454.
J “ History of Christianity,” Book III,, Vol. III., chap, vii., p. 43.
�40
Crimes of Christianity.
the Christian religion, in the possession of whomsoever
they shall be found, shall be committed to the fire.”
Thus were the evidences of Christianity effectually
established, and the opposition of learned and philo
sophical Pagans overcome. Draper says of the eccle
siastics of that time :
“ A burning zeal rather than the possession of profound learn
ing animated them. But, eminent position once attained, none
stood more in need of the appearance of wisdom. Under
such circumstances, they were tempted to set up their own
notions as final and unimpeachable truth, and to denounce as
magic, or the sinful pursuit of vain trifling, all the learning
that stood in the way. In this the hand of the civil power
assisted. It was intended to cut off every philosopher. Every
manuscript that could be seized was forthwith burned. Through
out the East, men in terror destroyed their libraries, for fear that
some unfortunate sentence contained in any of the books should
involve them and their families in destruction. The universal
opinion was that it was right to compel men to believe what the
majority of society had now accepted as the truth, and, if they
refused, it was right to punish them. No one was heard in the
dominating party to raise his voice on behalf of intellectual
liberty.”*
Draper also remarks : “ Impartial history is obliged
to impute the origin of these tyrannical and scandalous
acts of the civil power to the influence of the clergy,
and to hold them responsible for the crimes.”
St. Augustine was the most renowned theologian of
that age, and of him Mr. Lecky observes :
“ For a time he shrank from, and even condemned, persecu
tion ; but he soon perceived in it the necessary consequence of
his principles. He recanted his condemnation ; he flung his
whole genius into the cause ; he recurred to it again and again,
and he became the framer and the representative of the theology
of intolerance.
“ The arguments by which Augustine supported persecution
were, for the most part, those which I have already stated. Some
of them were drawn from the doctrine of exclusive salvation, and
others from the precedents of the Old Testament. It was
merciful, he contended, to punish heretics, even by death, if this
could save them or others from the eternal suffering that awaited
the unconverted. Heresy was described in Scripture as a kind'
of adultery ; it was the worst species of murder, being the murder
Vol. I., pp. 301, 302
�Crimes of Christianity.
41
of souls ; it was a form of blasphemy, and on all these grounds.
might justly be punished. If the New Testament contained no
examples of the apostles employing force, this was simply be
cause in their time no priest had embraced Christianity. But
had not Elijah slaughtered with his own hand the prophets of
Baal? Did not Hezekiah and Josiah, and the king of Nineveh,
and Nebuchadnezzar, after his conversion, destroy by force
idolatry within their dominions, and were they not expressly
commended for this piety ? St. Augustine also seems to have
originated the application of the words ‘ Compel them to come
in’ to religious persecution.”*
Of St. Jerome, Jortin remarks :
“ If we should say that Jerome was a persecutor, we should
do him no wrong ; we have it under his own hand.”f
With these views animating their ablest men, and
with a bigoted and priest-led emperor upon the
throne, the Christians felt themselves authorised to
avenge on the Pagan edifices any infraction of the
persecuting imperial edicts. Theodosius authorised
Cynegius, Prefect of the East, to shut the temples, to
seize or destroy the instruments of idolatry, to abolish
the privileges of the priests, and to confiscate the con
secrated property, for the benefit of the emperor, of the
Church and of the army. J He further decreed that, if any
of the Governors of Egypt so much as entered a temple,
he should be fined fifteen pounds of gold. The Chris
tians were not satisfied with this. As long as the
temples remained, the Pagan fondly cherished the
secret hope that an auspicious revolution, a second
Julian, might again restore the altars of the gods ; and
the earnestness with which they addressed their un
availing prayers to the throne increased the zeal of
Christians to extirpate without mercy the root of super
stition. Moreover, as Dean Milman observes :
“The Christians believed in the existence of the heathen
deities, with, perhaps, more undoubting faith than the heathens
themselves. The daemons who inhabited the temples were spirits
of malignant and pernicious power, which it was no less the in
* “ History of Rationalism in Europe,” Vol. II., p. 23—25.
f Vol. II., p. 324.
j Gibbon, chap, xxviii.; Etienne Chastel, “ Histoire de la Destruc
tion du Paganisme dans l’Empire du Orient. Ouvrage couronne par
l’Academie,” p. 190; Paris, 1856.
�42
Crimes oj Christianity.
terest than the duty of the Christian to expel from their proud
•and attractive mansions.”*
The canons of Gregory and Basil, as well as the
severe edicts of Theodosius against apostacy, by which
all who, having once become Christians, afterwards
returned to Paganism, were made outlaws, show that
Paganism was often secretly cherished by converts.!
Dean Milman proceeds to relate how,
“ Soon after the accession of Theodosius, the Pagans, particu
larly in the East, saw the storm gathering in the horizon. The
monks, with perfect impunity, traversed the rural districts, de
molishing all the unprotected edifices. In vain did the Pagans
•appeal to the episcopal authority ; the bishops declined to repress
the over-active, perhaps, but pious zeal of their adherents.
In Gaul, the celebrated St. Martin of Tours went
from place to place, with a band of faithful monks,
burning temples and destroying the sacred places.S
Tillemont tells us “ he was persuaded, as almost all the
saints were, that the end of the world was at hand.” ||
His life was speedily regarded as a model for the imita
tion of all devout Christians.^ In Syria the divine and
excellent Marcellus, as the Bishop of Apamea is styled
by the church historian, Theodoret, resolved to level with
the ground the Pagan temples within his diocese. He
himself set fire to one temple, but, while his followers
went to bum another, a band of rustics caught and
burnt him.
**
Gibbon tells us that “ the synod of the
province pronounced, without hesitation, that the holy
Marcellus had sacrificed his life in the cause of God.”
The stately temple at Edessa, one of the most magnifi
cent edifices in the world, was seized by a troop of
monks and soldiers and completely destroyed. The
Pagan orator, Libanius, who, as the minister of Julian*
**
§
* “ History of Christianity,” Book III., chap, viii., VoL III., p. 62,
f Fleury, “ Histoire du Christianisme,” Book XIX., chap, xxxiii.;
Chastel, p. 184.
J “ History of Christianity,” Vol. III., p. 65.
§ Gibbon, chap, xxviii.; Count A. A. Beugnot, “Histoire de la De
struction du Paganisme en Occident, VoL I., p. 299.
|| Chap, x., p. 340.
Beugnot, p. 363
** Et. Chastel, p. 200; Gibbon, chap, xxviii
�Crimes of Christianity
43
had exhibited a spirit of tolerance even more remark-able than that of his master, in a letter to the emperor,
pleaded the peasants’ cause with courage, dignity and
*
pathos.
He recalled the illustrious origin and asso
ciation of the temples which were, he said, to the pea
sants the symbol and manifestation of religion—the
solace of their troubles, the most sacred of their joys.
To destroy their temples was to annihilate their dearest
associations ; the tie that linked them to the dead would
be severed ; the poetry of life, the consolation of labor,
the source of faith, would be destroyed. Conversions,
as the result of such persecution, were but acts of hypo- crisy. Libanius even condescended to appeal to
motives of taste to- save the gorgeous and artistic
monuments of antiquity, and he suggested that, if
alienated from religious uses and let for profane pur
poses, they might be a productive source of revenue.
But the eloquence and arguments of the Pagan
orator were wasted on unheeding ears. Although the
emperor at first did not direct the destruction of the
temples, the monks were permitted to take the law in
their own hands with impunity.
Gibbon tells us :
“ In almost every province of the Roman world an army of
fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the
peaceful inhabitants ; and the ruin of the fairest structures of
antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians, who alone
had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.”
The Christian barbarians went to work in a spirit of
ferocity, regardless of all that had made Pagan
civilisation valuable. They denied not only liberty of
worship, but what they had been allowed to the full
by Paganism—liberty of thought and expression. They
have ever since denied it, and not even yet is the free
dom that was lost by the triumph of Christianity fully
recovered. To the true believer objects of art and cul
ture were but vanities, seducing from the claims of
another world. Eunapius informs us that the monks
led the Goths through Thermopylae into Greece, and
* Libanius pro Templis.
Europe,” ii., 20)
(See Leeky, “ History of Rationalism in
�44
Crimes of Christianity.
rejoiced in their devastation of the classic monuments
of Greek art.
*
‘‘After the edicts of Theodosius,” says Gibbon, “had
severely prohibited the sacrifices of the Pagans, they
were still tolerated in the city and temple of Serapis.”
The ruins of this noble edifice may still be distinguished
at Alexandria. It “rivalled the pride and magnifi
cence of the Capitol,” and “its stately halls and
exquisite statues displayed the triumph of the arts.”
The great Museum within its precincts became the
favored seat of science and learning, to which philo
sophers flocked from all parts of the world. Botanical
gardens, zoological menageries, anatomical and astro
nomical schools, and chemical laboratories, afforded
ample provision for study. There were also two
splendid libraries, containing over seven hundred
thousand volumes, which had been collected at im
mense labour and expense. The Alexandrine school
produced some of the most distinguished men in the
history of science ; such as Euclid the geometer,
Archimedes the mechanist, Eratosthenes the astro
nomer, Apollonius who is said to have invented the
first clock, Hero who seems to have invented the first
steam-engine, and Hippocrates the father of medicine.
But this great scientific school had expired before the
age of Theodosius, although Alexandria still sheltered
the relics of Greek philosophy, and the Serapion pre
served the learning of antiquity upon its shelves.
The Archbishop of Alexandria at this period was
Theophilus, who is described by Gibbon as “ the per
petual enemy of peace and virtue ; a bold, bad man,
whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and
with blood.”f Jortin says that “ he was a .man of parts,
and a consummate knave.” “ Socrates, Palladius, and
othei’ writers,” he adds, “agree in describing Theophi
lus as a prelate guilty of perjury, calumny, violence,
persecution, lying, cheating, robbing, bearing false
witness.”]: Jortin elsewhere describes him as a “ cove
tous and violent prelate,” who “ employed the basest
* Chastel, p. 215.
t Chap, xxviii.
J Vol. 111., pp. 48, CT
�Crimes of Christianity.
5
ingenuity and the most scandalous tricks to revenge
himself” on those who “could not approve his vile
behavior
and, indeed, “ there was nothing of which
he was not capable.” As a persecutor, he was ex
ceedingly active and unscrupulous. He assembled
a council at Alexandria in A.D. 399, and pro
cured the condemnation of the works of Origen.
He then ordered the excommunication of all who
approved them, and with an armed force drove the
monks from the mountains of Nitria. His malice was
*
also directed against Chrysostom. By the private in
vitation of the empress Eudoxia, whom the great
preacher had reviled as Jezebel, “ Theophilus landed
at Constantinople, with a stout body of Egyptian
mariners, to encountei’ the populace ; and a train of
dependent bishops, to secure, by their voices, the
majority of a synod.”f Chrysostom was summoned to
the Council of Chalcedon, but he “refused to trust
either his person, or his reputation, in the hands of his
implacable enemies.” He was therefore condemned
as contumacious and deposed from his archbishopric.
His arrest and banishment were the result of this
sentence. But he was soon recalled and avenged.
“ The first astonishment of his faithful people,” says
O-ibbon, “ had been mute and passive : they suddenly
rose with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus
escaped ; but the promiscuous crowd of monks and
Egyptian mariners were slaughtered without pity in
the streets of Constantinople.”^:
It was reserved for this fighting prelate to destroy
the Alexandrine library in the name of Christ. After
a bloody dispute between the Christians and the
Pagans, in which the latter defended their temple with
desperate courage, an imperial rescript of Theodosius
ordered the immediate destruction of the idols of
Alexandria. Headed by their archbishop, the Chris* Jortin Vol, III., p. 84 ; Mosheim, Vol. I., p. 368. The decision of
Theophilus was supported by the Catholic Church, and the writings
of Origen are still of disputed authority. According to Bayle, manj
Romish divines believe this Father is in hell, while others maintain
that he is in heaven.
+ Gibbon, chap, xxxii.
J Chap, xxxii.
�46
Crimes of Christianity.
tians began the holy enterprise. The great temple of
Serapis was reduced to a heap of rubbish, and the-,
battle-axe of a Christian soldier shattered the hugeidol, whose limbs were ignominiously dragged through
the streets.
*
Not content with this ravage, the arch
bishop turned his attention to the library, which “ was
pillaged or destroyed ; and nearly twenty years after
wards the appearance of the empty shelves excited the?
regret and indignation of every spectator whose mind
was not totally darkened by religious prejudice.”!
Dr. Smith seeks to exonerate Theophilus and his.
pious-rabble from this crime. “ It would appear,” he
says, “ that it was only the sanctuary of the god that,
was levelled with the ground, and that the library, the
halls, and other buildings in the consecrated ground,
remained standing long afterwards.” He “ concludes’*
that the library “ existed down to A.D. 638,” when, ac
cording to Amrou, it was burnt by the order of the
caliph Omar.j: But Gibbon easily disposes of this
fabulous story. The destruction of books is repugnant
to the spirit and the precepts of Mohammedanism, and
the early historians of the Saracenic capture of Alex
andria do not allude to such an incident.
Theophilus was succeeded in the see of Alexandria
by his nephew Cyril, who flourished from A.D. 412 to
A.D. 444. His first exploit was characteristic of his.
family and his profession. “ He immediately,” says
Socrates, “ shut up all the Novatian churches in Alex
andria, took away all their plate and furniture, and all
the goods and chattels of their bishop, Theopemptus.”^
He next attacked the Jews, who numbered forty
thousand.*
§
* Gibbon cites from Pliny a story which is too good to be missed..
“ Is it true" (said Augustus to a veteran of Italy, at whose house hesupped) “ that the man who gave the first blow to the golden statu&of Anaitis was instantly deprived of his eyes and his life
“ I was
that man ” (replied the clear-sighted veteran), and you now sup oie
one of the legs of the goddess.”
f Gibbon, chap, xxviii.
f Milman's “ Gibbon,” Dr. Smith’s edition: Editor's notes, Vol. Ill
p. 419, and Vol. VI., pp. 337—338.
§ Book VII., chap. vii.
�Crimes of Christianity.
47
“ Without any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the
patriarch, at the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to theattack of the synagogues. Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews,
were incapable of resistance; their houses of prayer were
levelled with the ground, and the episcopal warrior, after re
warding his troops with the plunder of their goods, expelled
from the city the remnant of the unbelieving nation.”*
Jortin alleges that the Jews began the quarrel, but hecensures, no less severely than Gibbon, the “ insolent
behavior ” of this soldier of the cross.
Orestes, the Roman governor, who protested against
Cyril’s usurpation of the secular power, was assaulted
in the streets by “ wild beasts of the desert ” in the
form of Christian monks. His face was wounded by
a stone, but the monk who cast it was seized and
executed. Cyril buried him with great honor,
preached his funeral sermon, changed his name from
Ammonius to Thaumasius, the ivonderful, and elevated
a rebel and an assassin into a martyr and a saint.
Cyril was by no means a man of genius. He held
that “ Christians ought to believe without inquiring toocuriously, and that a man must be a Jew to insist upon
reasons and to ask how on mysterious subjects, and
that the same how would bring him to the gallows.”f
According to Jortin, “ his writings overflow with
trash,” and “ his sermons are flat and tiresome to the
last degree.”^ Yet a comely person and a musical
voice acquired for him the fame of a popular preacher
and his reputation was heightened by a “ band of para
sites, who used to praise him and clap him when he
preached.Ӥ His pride was incensed, however, by thefame of a Pagan rival, whom he removed by the
method of assassination.
“ Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, wasinitiated in her father’s studies; her learned comments have
elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus, and she
publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom of beauty, and in the-*
§
* Gibbon, chap, xlvii.
f Bibliotheque Universelie,” vii., 54.
J Vol. III., p. 107.
§ Jortin, Vol. III., p. 107 ; Gibhon, chap, xlvii.
�48
Crimes of Christianity.
maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and
instructed her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their
rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher ;
and Cyril beheld, with jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses
and slaves who crowded the door of her academy. A rumou®
was spread among the Christians, that the daughter of Theon
was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the prefect and the
archbishop; • arid that obstacle was speedily removed. On a
fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her
chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly
butchered by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop of
savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her
bones with sharp oyster-shells, and her quivering limbs wer^
delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and'
punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts ; but the murder
pf Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and
religion of Cyril of Alexandria.
*
‘
Dr. Smith accuses Gibbon of exaggeration,. and says
that “ her throat was probably cut with an oyster
shell,” as though the supposition diminished the
heinousness of her murder. Jortin says that “ Cyril
was strongly suspected of being an instigator of this
iniquity,” and that “ neither Socrates nor Valesius has
dropped one word in his vindication,.” while Damascius
openly accuses him of the crime.f
So perished this young and beautiful woman, a vic
tim to the envy and bigotry of a Christian priest, who
was unworthy to touch the hem of her garment. ^She
typified in her own sweet person the witchery and the
magic of Greece. With Hypatia philosophy itself ex
pired in the intellectual metropolis of the world. There
was henceforth. no shelter for the lovers of wisdom ;
the world was prostrate at the feet of the Church ; and
the Dark Ages, swiftly approaching, buried almost
every memory of what was once noble and lovely in
the antiquity of thought.
. * Gibbon, chap, xlvii.
f Vol. III., p. 106, 107.
Progressive Publishing Company, 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
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Crimes of Christianity
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini) [1850-1898]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: iv, 5-48 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Newspaper cutting inserted at p.11: Letter to the editors of the National Reformer headed The story of the fall, by A. Pomeroy. Includes bibliographical references. In three parts (p. i-iv, 5-16; [17]-32; [33]-48). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Christianity
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Christianity
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Text
LIVE
TOPICS.
[The following is the report of an interview between
Mr George Macdonald, of the New York Truthseeker}
and Colonel Robert Ingersoll. The questions are, of
course, put by the former, and the answers given by
the latter.]
Q. Shall you attend the Albany Freethought
Convention ?
A. I have agreed not only to be present^ but to
address the Convention, on Sunday, the 13th. of
September. From all I hear, the Convention is going
to be a success. I am greatly gratified to know that
the interest in the question of intellectual liberty is
growing from year to year. Everywhere I go it
seems to be the topic of conversation. No matter
upon what subject people begin to talk, in a little
while the discussion takes a religious turn, and
people who a few moments before had not the slightest
thought of saying a word about the churches, or about
the Bible, are giving their opinions in full. I hear
discussions of this kind in all the public conveyances,
at the hotels, on the piazzas at the seaside—and
they are not discussions in which I take any part,
because I rarely say anything upon these questions
except in public, unless I am directly addressed.
There is a general feeling that the Church has
ruled this world long enough. People are beginning
to see that no amount of eloquence, or faith, or erudi
tion, or authority can make the records of barbarism
�satisfactory to the heart and brain of this century.
They have also found that a falsehood in Hebrew is
no more credible than in plain English. People at
last are beginning to be satisfied that cruel laws were
never good laws, no matter whether inspired or un
inspired. The Christian religion, like every other
religion depending upon inspired writings, is wrecked
upon the facts of Nature. So long as inspired writers
confined themselves to the supernatural world ; so
long as they talked about angels, and Gods, and
heavens, and hells ; so long as they described only
things that man has nevei* seen, and never will see,
they were safe, not from contradiction, but from
demonstration. But these writings had to have a
foundation, even for their falsehoods, and that founda
tion was in Nature. The foundation had to be some
thing about which, somebody knew something, or
supposed they knew something. They told some
thing about this world that agreed with the then
general opinion. Had these inspired writers told the
truth about Nature—had they said that the world re
volved on its axis, and made a circuit about the sun
—they could have gained no credence for their state
ments about other worlds. They were forced to agree
with their contemporaries about this world, and there
is where they made the fundamental mistake.
Having grown in knowledge, the world has dis
covered that these inspired men knew nothing about
this earth; that the inspired books are filled with
mistakes—not only mistakes that we can contradict,
but mistakes that we can demonstrate to be mistakes.
Had they told the truth in their day about this earth,
they would not have been believed about other worlds,
because their contemporaries would have used their
own knowledge about this world to test the knowledge
of these inspired men. We pursue the same course;
and what we know about this world we use as the
standard, and by that standard we have found that
the inspired men knew nothing about Nature as it is.
�t
Finding that they were mistaken about this world,
we have no confidence in what they have said about
another. Every religion has had its philosophy about
this world, and every one has been mistaken. As
education becomes general, as scientific modes are
adopted, this will become clearer and clearer, until
“ ignorant as inspiration ” will be a comparison.
Q. Have you seen the memorial to the New York
legislature, to be presented this winter, asking for
the repeal of such laws as practically unite Church
and State ?
A. I have seen a memorial asking that church pro
perty be taxed like other property; that no more
money should be appropriated from the public treasury
for the support of institutions managed by, and in the
interest of, sectarian denominations; for the repeal
of all laws compelling the observance of Sunday as a
religious day. Such memorials ought to be addressed
to the legislatures of all the states. The money of
the public should only be used for the benefit of the
public. Public money should not be used for what a
few gentlemen think is for the benefit of the public.
Personally, I think it would be for the benefit of the
public to have Infidel or scientific—which is the same
thing—lectures delivered in every town in every
state, on every Sunday; but knowing that a great
many men disagree with me on this point, I do not
claim that such lectures ought to be paid for with
public money. The Methodist church ought not to
be sustained by taxation, nor the Catholic, nor any
other church. To relieve their property from taxation
is to appropriate money, to the extent of that tax,
for the support of that church. Whenever a burden
is lifted from one piece of property, it is distributed
over the rest of the property of the state, and to
release one kind of property is to increase the tax on
all other kinds.
There was a time when people really supposed
that churches were saving souls from the eternal
�5
wrath of a God of infinite love. Being engage d in
such a philanthropic work, and at that time nob ody
having the courage to deny it—the church being allpowerful—all other property was taxed to supp ort
the church; but now the more civilised part of t he
community, being satisfied that a God of infinite lo ve
will not be eternally unjust, feel as though the
church should support herself. To exempt the
church from taxation is to pay a part of the priest
salary. The Catholic now objects to being taxed to
support a school in which his religion is not taught.
He is not satisfied with the school that says nothing
on the subject of religion. He insists that it is an
outrage to tax him to support a school where the
teacher simply teaches what he knows. And yet
this same Catholic wants his church exempted from
taxation, and the tax of an Atheist or of a Jew
increased, when he teaches in his untaxed church
that the Atheist and Jew will both be eternally
damned I Is it possible for impudence to go further ?
I insist that no religion should be taught in any
school supported by public money; and by religion
I mean superstition. Only that should be taught in
a school that somebody can learn and that somebody
can know. In my judgment, every church should
be taxed precisely the same as other property. The
church may claim that it is one of the instruments of
civilisation and therefore should be exempt. If you
exempt that which is useful, you exempt every trade
and every profession. In my judgment, theatres
have done more to civilise mankind than churches;
that is to say, theatres have done something to
civilise mankind—churches nothing. The effect
of all superstition has been to render man bar
barous. I do not believe in the civilising effects of
falsehood.
There was a time when ministers were supposed to
be in the employ of God, and it was thought that
God selected them with great care—that their pro
�6
fession had something sacred about it. These ideas
are no longer entertained by sensible people. Ministers
should be paid like other professional men, and those
who like their preach should pay for the preach.
They should depend, as actors do, upon their popu
larity—upon the amount of sense, or nonsense, that
they have for sale. They should depend upon the
market like other people, and if people do not want
to hear sermons badly enough to build churches and
pay for them, and pay the taxes on them, and hire
the preacher, let the money be diverted to some other
use. The pulpit should no longer be a pauper. I do
not believe in carrying on any business with the con
tribution box. All the sectarian institutions ought
to support themselves. There should be no Methodist,
or Catholic, or Presbyterian hospitals or orphan
asylums. All these should be supported by the State.
There is no such thing as Catholic charity or Metho
dist charity. Charity belongs to humanity, not to
any particular form of faith or religion. You will
find as charitable people who never heard of religion
as you can find in any church. The State should pro
vide for those who ought to be provided for. A few
Methodists beg of everybody they meet—send women
with subscription papers, getting money from all
classes of people, and nearly everybody gives some
thing for politeness or to keep from being annoyed;
and when the institution is finished, it is pointed at
as the result of Methodism ! Probably a majority of
the people in this country suppose that there was no
charity in the world until the Christian religion was
founded. Great men have repeated this falsehood
until ignorance and thoughtlessness believe it. There
were orphan asylums in China, in India and in Egypt,
thousands of years before Christ was born; and there
certainly never was a time in the history of the whole
world when there was less charity in Europe than
during the centuries when the Church of Christ had
absolute power. There were hundreds of Moham
�7
medan asylums before Christianity had built ten in
the entire world.
All institutions for the care of unfortunate people
should be secular—should be supported by the State.
The money for the purpose should be raised by tax
ation, to the end that the burden may be borne by
those able to bear it. As it is now, most of the
money is paid, not by the rich, but by the generous,
and those most able to help their needy fellow
citizens are the very ones who do nothing. If the
money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall
where it ought to fall, and these institutions will no
longer be supported by the generous and emotional,
and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to
evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.
Now, as to the Sunday laws, we know that they
are only spasmodically enforced. Now and then a
few people are arrested for selling papers or cigars.
Some unfortunate barber is grabbed by a policeman
because he has been caught shaving a Christian on
Sunday morning. Now and then some poor fellow
with a hack, trying to make a dollar or to feed his
horses, or to take care of his wife and children, is
arrested as though he were a murderer. But in a few
days the public are inconvenienced to that degree,
that the arrests stop and business goes on in its ac
customed channels, Sunday and all.
Now and then society becomes so pious, so virtuous,
that people are compelled to enter saloons by the
back door; others are compelled to drink beer with
the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that
goes down the thirsty throats is unbroken. The
ministers have done their best to prevent all recrea
tion on the Sabbath. They would like to stop all the
boats on the Hudson and on the sea—stop all the
excursion trains. * They would like to compel every
human being that lives in the city of New York to
remain within its limits twenty-four hours each Sun
day. They hate the parks; they hate music; they
�8
hate anything that keeps a man away from church.
Most of the churches are empty during the summer,
and now most of the ministers leave themselves, and
give over the entire city to the Devil and his emis
saries. And yet if the ministers had their way, there
would be no form of human enjoyment except prayer,
signing subscription papers, putting money in con
tribution boxes, listening to sermons, reading the
cheerful histories of the Old Testament, imagining
the joys of heaven and the torments of hell. The
church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy of the
opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards,
despises cards, opposes roller-skating, and even enter
tains a certain kind of prejudice against croquet.
Q. Do you think that the orthodox Church gets
its ideas of the Sabbath from the teachings of Christ ?
J. I do not hold Christ responsible for these
idiotic ideas concerning the Sabbath. He regarded
the Sabbath as something made for man—which was
a sensible view. The holiest day is the happiest day.
The most sacred day is the one in which have been
done the most good deeds. There are two reasons
given in the Bible for keeping the Sabbath. One is
that God made the world in six days, and rested on
the seventh. Now that all the ministers admit that
he did not make the world in six days, but that he
made it in six “ periods/"’ this reason is no longer
applicable. The other reason is that he brought the
Jews out of Egypt with a “ mighty hand."’"’ This
may be a very good reason still for the observance of
the Sabbath by the Jews, but the real Sabbath, that
is to say, the day to be commemorated, is our Satur
day, and why should we commemorate the wrong
day ? That disposes of the second reason.
Nothing can be more inconsistent than the theories
and practice of the churches about the Sabbath. The
cars run Sundays, and out of the profits hundreds of
ministers are supported. The great iron and steel
works fill with smoke and fire the Sabbath air, and
�9
the proprietors divide the profits with the churches.
The printers of the city are busy Sunday afternoons
and evenings, and the presses during the nights, so
that the sermons of Sunday can reach the heathen
on Monday. The servants of the rich are denied the
privileges of the sanctuary. The coachman sits on
the box out-doors, while his employer kneels in
church, preparing himself for the heavenly chariot.
The iceman goes about on the holy day, keeping
believers cool, they knowing at the same time that
he is making it hot for himself in the world to come.
Christians cross the Atlantic, knowing that the ship
will pursue its way on the Sabbath. They write
letters to their friends knowing that they will be
carried in violation of Jehovah's law, by wicked men.
Yet they hate to see a pale-faced sewing-girl enjoy
ing a few hours by the sea; a poor mechanic walking
in the fields ; or a tired mother watching her children
playing on the grass. Nothing ever was, nothing
ever will be, more utterly absurd and disgusting than
a Puritan Sunday. Nothing ever did make a home
more hateful than the strict observance of the
Sabbath. It fills the house with hypocrisy and the
meanest kind of petty tyranny. The parents look*
sour and stern, the children sad and sulky. They
are compelled to talk upon subjects about which they
feel no interest, or to read books that are thought
good only because they are stupid.
Q. What have you to say about the growth of
Catholicism, the activity of the Salvation Army, and
the success of revivalists like the Bev. Samuel Jones ?
Is Christianity really gaining a strong hold on the
masses ?
A. Catholicism is growing in this country, and it
is the only country on earth in which it is growing.
Its growth here depends entirely upon immigration,
not upon intellectual conquest. Catholic emigrants
who leave their homes in the Old World because they
have never had any liberty, and who are Catholics
�10
for the same reason, add to the number of Catholics
here, but their children’s children will not be
Catholics. Their children will not be very good
Catholics, and even these immigrants themselves, in
a few years, will not grovel quite so low in the pre
sence of a priest. The Catholic Church is gaining
no ground in Catholic countries.
The Salvation Army is the result of two things—
the general belief in what are known as the funda
mentals of Christianity and the heartlessness of the
Church. The Church in England—that is to say, the
Church of England—having succeeded—that is to say,
being supported by general taxation—that is to say,
being a successful, well-fed parasite—naturally neg
lected those who did not in any way contribute to
its support. It became aristocratic. Splendid
churches were built; younger sons with good voices
were putin the pulpits; the pulpit became the asylum
for aristocratic mediocrity, and in that way the
Church of England lost interest in the masses, and
the masses lost interest in the Church of England.
The neglected poor, who really had some belief in
religion, and who had not been absolutely petrified
by form and patronage, were ready for the Salvation
Army. They were not at home in the Church. They
could not pay. They preferred the freedom of the
street. They preferred to attend a church where
rags were no objection. Had the Church loved and
labored with the poor, the Salvation Army never
would have existed. These people are simply giving
their idea of Christianity, and in their way endeavor
ing to do what they consider good. I don’t suppose
the Salvation Army will accomplish much. To im
prove mankind you must change conditions. It is
not enough to work simply upon the emotional nature.
The surroundings must be such as naturally produce
virtuous actions. If we are to believe recent reports
from London, the Church of England, even with the
assistance of the Salvation Army, has accomplished
�11
but little. It would be hard to find any savage
country with less morality. You would search
long in the jungles of Africa to find greater de
pravity.
I account for revivalists like the Rev. Samuel Jones
in the same way. There is in every community an
ignorant class—what you might call a literal class—who believe in the real blood atonement., who believe
in heaven and hell, and harps, and gridirons—who
have never had their faith weakened by reading com
mentators or books harmonising science and religion.
They love to hear the good old doctrine; they want
hell described; they want it described so that they
can hear the moans and shrieks ; they want heaven
described ; they want to see God on a throne, and
they want to feel that they are finally to have the
pleasure of looking over the battlements of heaven
and seeing all their enemies among the damned.
The Rev. Mr. Munger has suddenly become a re
vivalist. According to the papers he is sought for
in every direction. His popularity seems to rest
upon the fact that he brutally beat a girl twelve
years old because she did not say her prayers to suit
him. Muscular Christianity is what the ignorant
people want. I regard all these efforts—including
those made by Mr. Moody and Mr. Hammond—as
evidence that Christianity, as an intellectual factor,
has almost spent its force. It no longer governs the
intellectual world.
Q. Are not the Catholics the least progressive ?
And are they not, in spite of their professons to the
contrary, enemies to republican liberty ?
A. Every church that has a standard higher than
human welfare is dangerous. A church that puts a
book above the laws and constitution of its country,
that puts a book above the welfare of mankind, is
dangerous to human liberty. Every church that puts
itself above the legally expressed will of the people
is dangerous. Every church that holds itself under
�12
greater obligation to a pope than to a people is dan
gerous to human liberty. Every church that puts
religion above humanity—above the well-being of
man in this world—is dangerous. The Catholic
Church may be more dangerous, not because its doc
trines are more dangerous, but because, on the aver
age, its members more sincerely believe its doctrines,
and because that Church can be hurled as a solid
body in any given direction. For these reasons it
is more dangerous than other churches; but its doc
trines are no more dangerous than those of the Pro
testant churches. The man who would sacrifice the
well-being of man to please an imaginary phantom
that he calls God, is also dangerous. The only safe
standard is the well-being of man in this world.
Whenever this world is sacrificed for the sake of
another, a mistake has been made. The only God
that man can know is the aggregate of all beings
capable of suffering and of joy within the reach of
his influence. To increase the happiness of such
beings is to worship the only God that man can
know.
Q. What have you to say to the assertion of Dr.
Deems that there were never so many Christians as
now ?
A. I suppose that the population of the earth is
greater now than at any other time within the his
toric period. This being so, there may be more
Christians, so-called, in the world than there were a
hundred years ago. Of course, the reverend doctor,
in making up his aggregate of Christians, counts all
kinds and sects—Unitarians, Universalists, and all
the other “ ans,” and “ ists,” and “ ics/; and “ ites,”
and “
But Dr, Deems must admit that only a
few years ago most of the persons he now calls
Christians would have been burnt as heretics and
infidels. Let us compare the average New York
Christian with the Christian of two hundred years
ago. It is probably safe to say that there is not now
�13
in the city of New York a genuine Presbyterian
outside of an insane asylum. Probably no one could
be found who will to-day admit that he believes
absolutely in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith.
There is probably not an Episcopalian who believes in
the Thirty-nine Articles. Probably there is not an in
telligent minister in the city of New York, outside of
the Catholic church, who believes that everything in
the Bible is true. Probably no clergyman, of any
standing, would be willing to take the ground that
everything in the Old Testament—leaving out the
question of . inspiration—is actually true. Very
few ministers now preach the doctrine of
eternal punishment.
Most of them would
be ashamed to utter that brutal falsehood.
A large majority of gentlemen who attend
church take the liberty of disagreeing with the
preacher. They would have been very poor Christians
two hundred years ago. A majority of the ministers
take the liberty of disagreeing, in many things, with
their Presbyteries and Synods. They would have been
very poor preachers two hundred years ago. Dr.
Deems forgets that most Christians are only nomi
nally so. Very few believe their creeds. Very few
even try to live in accordance with what they call
Christian doctrines. Nobody loves his enemies. No
Christian, when smitten on one cheek, turns the other.
Most Christians do take a little thought for the
morrow. They do not depend entirely upon the
providence of God. Most Christians now have greater
confidence in the average life insurance company
than in God—feel easier, when dying, to know that
they have a policy, through which they expect the
widow will receive ten thousand dollars, than when
thinking of all the Scripture promises. Even church
members do not trust in God to protect their own
property. They insult heaven by putting lightningrods on their temples. They insure the churches
against the act of God. The experience of man has
�14
shown the wisdom of relying on something that we
know something about, instead of upon the shadowy
supernatural. The poor wretches to-day in Spain,
depending upon their priests, die like poisoned flies
—die with prayers between their pallid lips—die in
their filth and faith.
Q. What have you to say on the Mormon question ?
A. The institution of polygamy is infamous and
disgusting beyond expression. It destroys what we
call, and what all civilised people call, “ the family.”
It pollutes the fireside, and, above all, as Burns
would say, “ petrifies the feeling.” It. is however,
one of the institutions of Jehovah. It is protected
by the Bible. It has inspiration on its side. Sinai,
with its barren, granite peaks is a perpetual witness
in its favor. The beloved of God practiced it, and,
according to the sacred word, the wisest man had,
I believe, about seven hundred wives. This man
received his wisdom directly from God. It is hard
for the average Bible-worshipper to attack this in
stitution without casting a certain stain upon his own
book.
Only a few years ago slavery was upheld by the
same Bible. Slavery having been abolished, the
passages in the inspired volume upholding it have
been mostly forgotten ; but polygamy lives, and the
polygamists, with great volubility, repeat the passages
in their favor. We send our missionaries to Utah,
with their Bibles, to convert the Mormons. The
Mormons show, by these very Bibles, that God is on
their side. Nothing remains now for the missionaries
except to get back their Bibles and come home. The
preachers do not appeal to the Bible for the purpose
of putting down Mormonism. They say : “ Send
the army.” If the people of this country could only
be honest, if they would only admit that the Old
Testament is but the record of a barbarous people,
if the Samson of the nineteenth century would not
allow its limbs to be bound by the Delilah of Super
�15
stition, it could with one blow destroy this monster.
What shall we say of the moral force of Christianity
when it utterly fails in the presence of Mormonism ?
What shall we say of a Bible that we dare not read
to a Mormon as an argument against legalised lust,
or as an argument against illegal lust ?
o I am opposed to polygamy. I want it extermi
nated by law; but I hate to see the exterminators
insist that God, only a few thousand years ago, was
as bad as the Mormons are to-day. In my judg
ment, such a God ought to be exterminated.
Q. What do you think of men like the Rev, Henry
Ward Beecher and the Rev. R. Heber Newton'? Do
they deserve any credit for the course they have
taken ?
A. Mr. Beecher is evidently endeavoring to shore
up the walls of the falling temple. He sees the
cracks; he knows that the building is out of plumb ;
he feels that the foundation is insecure. Lies can
take the place of stones only so long as they are
thoroughly believed. Mr. Beecher is trying to do
something to harmonise superstition and science.
He is reading between the lines. He has discovered
that Darwin is only a later Saint Paul, or that Saint
Paul was the original Darwin. He is endeavoring
to make the New Testament a scientific text-book.
Of course he will fail. But his intentions are good.
Thousands of people will read the New Testament
with more freedom than heretofore. They will look
for new meanings ; and he who ^ooks for new mean
ings will not be satisfied with the old ones. Mr.
Beecher, instead of strengthening the walls, will
make them weaker.
There is no harmony between religion and science.
When science was a child, religion sought to strangle
it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its
youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trem
bling, palsied wreck says to the athlete : “ Let us be
friends.” It reminds me of the bargain the cock
�wished to make with the horse: “ Let us agree not
to step on each other’s feet.” Mr. Beecher, having
done away with hell, substitutes annihilation. His
doctrine at present is that only a fortunate few are
immortal, and that the great mass return to dream
less dust. This, of course, is far better than hell,
and is a great improvement on the orthodox view.
Mr. Beecher cannot believe that. God would make
such a mistake as to mAvmen doomed to suffer
eternal pain. Why^ I asl^should God give life to
men whom he knows are unworthy of life ? Why
should he annihilate hisVnistakes ? Why should he
make -mistakes that needajfe.ihilation ?
It can hardly-be said that Mr.'Beecher’s idea is a
new one. It was taught, with an addition, thousands
of years ago, in India, and the addition almost
answers my objection. The old doctrine was that
only the soul that bears fruit, only the soul that
bursts into blossom, will, at the death of the body,
rejoin the infinite, and that all other souls—souls
not having blossomed—will go back into low forms,
and make the journey up to man once more, and
should they then blossom and bear fruit, will be held
worthy to join the infinite, but should they again
fail, they again go back; and this process is repeated
until they do blossom, and in this way all souls at
last become perfect. I suggest that Mr. Beechei’
make at least this addition to his doctrine.
But allow me to say that, in my judgment, Mr.
Beecher is*doing gi^at good. He may not convince
many people that he is right, but he will certainly
•convince a great many peopje that Christianity is
wrong.
, .< . .
.. . : i V a
.
.
, i ,Ji'
■
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.
Printed and. Published by GF. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Macdonald, George
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. : ill. (front port.) ; 19 cm.
Notes: Report of an interview between George Macdonald, of the New York Truthseeker, and Ingersoll. Portrait of Ingersoll on front cover. No. 49a in Stein checklist. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Christianity
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Text
GEOLOGY
AND
- THE BIBLE.
3 Scplu to
W«
Wm
Itainlmrt,
COLL I N S,
Price One Penny.*
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING
28 Stonecutter Street.
1885.
•
*
COMPANY,
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
A REPLY TO DR. LAMBART
W.
W.
COLLINS.
------- ♦------Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,—I feel
extremely sorry that Dr. Lambart should have faller;
ill at this season of the year ; and this feeling o |
sorrow is increased inasmuch as no one would hav 7
been more happy than myself to have him among nr \
audience this evening to listen to what I have to say a
and that I might be open to a full and fair criticism. \
Being, as I think I may claim to be, an earnest seeker \
after truth, and attacking as 1 do that which I believe )
to be untrue, I feel that truth has nothing what-l
ever to fear in its conflict with error. Let us state 1
our ideas fearlessly and openly, not stooping in debate 1
to attempt to gain a position for ourselves by un- *
generous attacks upon the character or the position of
those whom we may oppose. Such a position I would
wish to maintain during my lecture this evening, and
I would if I could in justice to myself and the cause I
represent dismiss at once from my mind everything
approaching a personal character, but I am bound to
say how absolutely I object to the style of debating
adopted by Dr. Lambart when replying to the lecture
of Mrs. Besant on “ The Flood ”—a reply, remember,
coming as this did two years after Mrs. Besant’s lecture,
when the facts and the arguments based upon them
would by many be quite forgotten. Under such
circumstances a man should be at least just to an
opponent. But perhaps it may be that two years ago
Dr. Lambart was unacquainted with geology and has
since then been studying the science ; if this be so
then there is some explanation for the extremely
illogical geology contained in his lectures—(loud
By
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
3
cheers)—errors into which surely no man would fall
who had more than a two years’ acquaintance with the
subject.
Of the many conflicting opinions held to-day all
cannot be true, and the truth can only be obtained by
bringing these conflicting opinions into contact with
each other. As Milton well said, we must “ Let truth
and error grapple. Who ever knew truth put to the
worse in a free and open encounter ?” All I want is
a fair field and no favor, for great is the truth and
truth must prevail. If Dr. Lambart intended to reply
to Mrs. Besant, why did he not only wait two years
after her lecture was delivered, but reply to her in her
absence ? Why did he not attack her when she
delivered her lecture, and not leave it to a time when
she should be unable to defend herself from his un
generous and undignified insinuations. Dr. Lambart
surely forgot that he was replying to a lady when in
this ungentlemanly manner he attacked her behind
her back, classing her among those shallow pates in
science who, unable to go to the roots of things, satisfy
themselves with mere “ surface skimming,” knowing
as he ought to have known, that in controversy Mrs.
Besant always took her own part with characteristic
honesty, while in the scientific examinations she had
passed she had succeeded in maintaining that high
reputation for ability—a reputation perhaps unequalled
by any other lady in the United Kingdom ; nay, in the
whole world. (Applause.) When a man strikes a man
behind his back he is a coward, when a man strikes a
woman he is worse than a coward, but when he strikes
a lady behind her back he is a blackguard. Now,
whether Dr. Lambart has done this you must judge,
and I shall perhaps be taunted with saying this behind
his back. Well I had rather he had been present, 1
should have said just what I have said, and I must
leave you to draw your own conclusions. (Cheers.)
Novr, friends, I want, as far as I am able, to place
before you as true a picture of geological science as it
is possible to do in the time at my command, and then
to ask you to place side by side scientific facts an<)
scriptural statements, and then ask yourselves which
�4
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
you ate going to believe. With me it is simply a
question of truth and error, and I want your con
clusions to be drawn entirely from their respective
merits. (Cheers.) If the Bible is true, if it is the
revealed word of God, it will be sure to stand in spite
of anything man can say or do. If the Bible is a human
production it may in the end be found to- be in error,
in which case it will not agree with the truths of
scientific teachers. The Bible commences with a very
off-handed—shall I say ?—account of the origin of
things. It carries us back to the beginning—whenever
that may have been—and of this beginning of things
it gives us two separate and contradictory accounts.
These two contradictory accounts are contained in the
first and second chapters of Genesis. Now, I will ask,
can any reasonable thinking man read these two
accounts and believe them both in spite of their con
tradictions ? Surely no unbiassed mind can conclude
that they are both true. You cannot believe two
statements to be true if they contradict each other.
We must go to the examination of these questions with
unbiassed minds. We must draw our own conclusions,
and not allow others to draw them for us. I want you
first to notice that when God in the beginning created
the heavens and the earth, that the earth is described
as being “ without form and void.” Now surely if any
thing were created at all it must have had some form
and must too have occupied some space. To speak of
something as neither occupying space nor having form,
is to deny its existence, and is utter nonsense. In the
first chapter of Genesis we are told that God divided
the light from the darkness, showing a total scientific
misconception, and ushered in the first day. On the
second day he divided the waters, showing that the
author of this story was under the impression that
light and darkness were entities which could be
operated upon just as the substance water could.
After this, God separated the water from the land,
ordered the earth to bring forth the grass, the
herb and the fruit-bearing trees — all this before
he made the sun, without whose light and heat these
living organisms could not exist. He made the sun
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
5
and moon and set them in the firmament.- On the
fifth day he made the waters to bring forth every
moving creature that hath life, fowls and great whales.
And the earth was made to bring forth all kinds of
cattle and creeping things. Then on the sixth day
God created man in his own image, together with
woman. In the language of the Bible, “ male and
female created he them, giving them dominion over
every other living thing. And on the seventh day
God rested.” The omnipotent was tired, the eternal
wanted repose. In the second chapter of Genesis we
find quite a different story. Though we read in the
first chapter that the earth brought forth plants of
every kind before the creation of man, yet in the
second chapter we are informed that plants and herbs
did not grow because there was no man to till the soil.
In the first chapter the animals are created before
man, in the second afterwards. In the first chapter
man and woman are created together, in the second
enough time elapses after the creation of Adam for the
creating by God of all the beasts, and for the naming
of them by Adam, after which Eve is created to be a
helpmate for Adam, the all-knowing and all-wise
having found out that it “ was not good for man to be
alone.” (Cheers.)
Now,'friends, both these stories cannot be true. They
not only differ from each other, but they differ from
the fifth chapter of Genesis, where we are told that
God made man in his own likeness, male and female
created he them and called their name Adam—I sup
pose Mr. and Mrs. Adam—(laughter)—but if they did
not thus contradict each other they are so crude, so
childish, so stupid, that we cannot but regard them as
the work of illiterate and pseudo-scientific men. So
intense does the stupidity of these stories appear in
the light of modern science, that that any should be
found believing them seem beyond comprehension.
Besides this account of the origin of the world,
together with its living forms, both animal and vegetal,
as presented in the Bible, we have another account
written not by man but by—shall I say—the world
itself. Our geologists have laid before us page after
�6
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
page, as it were, of the history of this world, a history
indelibly written by the finger of nature on the rocks
themselves. This is the greatest, the grandest history
that could possibly be produced, for the rocks cannot
lie, cannot be accused of wishing to deceive. A book,
on the contrary, may lie, and may have been written
by fallible men who erred in their statements
or who had some advantage to gain by wilfully
deceiving. Read this history of the world, written by
the world itself, and compare it with the history written,
or claiming to be written, with the aid of “ divine
revelation.” Then if you can make these two accounts
agree, if you can reconcile the one with the other, then
all I can say is that your power of reconcilement, like
the wisdom of Almighty God, surpasseth all comprehen
sion. Now all I ask is that you shall read these histories
carefully, read them without bias, and decide for your
selves which is to be believed, for I am sure you cannot
accept both. The six days’ creation story, the chrono
logical order of the creation of animal and vegetal
forms, including man, find no counterpart in the
geologic records, and no amount of intellectual leger
demain can convert the biblical story into a scientific
account. Not only is the time altogether inadequate,
but the manner and order of their appearance is, as I
shall show, absolutely contradicted by modern science.
The difficulty as to time has been recognised at last,
even by our opponents. No thanks, however, are due
to them for the admission. As long as they could they
held tenaciously to the Bible account, and not until
compelled by scientific progress did they venture
to pull up their courage and modify the crude ideas
they had so long held. For centuries science was prac
tically prohibited and its advancement made next to an
impossibility; discoverers and teachers were prosecuted
and persecuted even to death itself ; while even of late
years no epithet has been deemed too vile to hurl at
the devoted scientist who has had the courage to give
to the world the result of his own researches. And
yet, forsooth, we are blandly asked to believe that
science and the Bible are perfectly at one if we read
both aright—and with faith ! To make the Bible and
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
7
science agree, we must make science absolutely un
scientific, and the Bible must be construed so as to
advance ideas which are at once seen to be entirely
opposed to the ideas evidently held by its unknown
authors.
The “ six days ” of creation we are now meekly told
really signify “ six epochs.” Yes, six indefinite epochs
of unknown duration, for “ a day with the Lord is as a
thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.”
Geology, however, knows nothing of these “ six
epochs ”—they are altogether inadequate to account for
geologic phenomena. Besides, is, it not most palpably
evident that the “ six days ” of the Bible were really
six days of ordinary duration ? The days of the author
of the first chapter were undoubtedly six ordinary
days ; the story itself forbids any other interpretation.
Again, do we not get a further confirmation of this
view when we read the commandment as given in the
20th chapter of Exodus, “ in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the
seventh day, and hallowed it ” ? Here the Bible distinctly
reaffirms the “ six-days ” story, and it is idle to pretend
that six epochs were meant. Nay, we know that these
ideas would never have been advanced had it not been
that something must be done, done quickly, however
desperate, to bridge the gap which geology had created.
With the internal peculiarities of the Bible stories I
have nothing to do at present, though the picture of
omnipotence resting must have been a scene worthy
the Gods themselves. We will proceed at once to
unroll the earth’s historic scroll, and decipher the
characters legibly written on those most lasting tablets,
the rocks themselves.
When we come to deal with the subject of geology,
we are at once brought face to face, as it were, with
those mighty changes which in their totality consti
tute nature’s operations—changes vast of past epochs,
changes equally taking place at the present time, changes
periodical, and continuous ; for nature knows no rest
not even one day, much less one epoch in seven.
Now these changes, gradual, almost imperceptible, as
�s
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
they are, and which never strike us as producing any
great modification in the configuration of the earth,
are the very changes which have produced all the phe
nomena of past geologic epochs. As we go back through
the world’s history we discover evidences of changes
vast, stupendous ; but these changes, great as they ap
pear, are simply the result of what I would describe as
accumulations of infinitesimal changes, changes similar
to those taking place all around us. Though everything
appears fixed, nothing is still : the “ everlasting rocks ”
and “ changeless seas ” are ever exchanging places.
There is nothing like idleness in nature. Every breath
of air, every beam of light, every tiny rain-drop, effec
tually does its work. And what is this work ? It is
the great work of disintegration. Just as when a build
ing is in course of erection the stone of which it is being
constructed has to be obtained from a distance, thus
giving employment to those who quarry and to those
who convey the stone, so in nature there are agents
ever at work, removing these rocks from one situation
to another. There are atmospheric agents ; there are
chemical agents ; there are mechanical and marine
agents, all doing their work, trying, as it were, to con
tinually lower the surface of the land. Under the
influences of frost, rain, river and sea-waves, the land
is constantly wearing away. Everywhere the work of
these agencies may be seen, though of course the effects
produced will be much greater in some places than in
others, owing to the position and nature of the sub
stances acted upon. The waves may beat against the
granitic rocks of Orme’s Head for centuries and pro
duce but little result—the work is so slow. The lime
stone rocks of the Durham coast and the sand-stones
of Devonshire are, however, rapidly succumbing to the
constant action of the waves of the German Ocean and
the English Channel respectively.
Taking our own country, if you travel along the East
coast the encroachment of the sea upon the land is seen
to be taking place at a very rapid rate—so much so,
that we are apt to doubt whether it be true that “Bri
tannia rules the waves.” From Bridlington to Spurn
on the Yorkshire Coast, the waves erode something like
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
9
two and a half yards annually, and the sea has en
croached more than three miles since the time of the
Romans. Many villages have entirely gone, and over
where they once stood the waves now roll majestically.
The church tower at Eccles may still be seen peeping
above the sand on the sea-shore, for the waves are per
fectly impartial in their action : they are no respecters
of churches. What is now the small village of Dunwich
on the Suffolk coast was once a seaport, but the sea
has here encroached several miles within historic times.
Where are now the Goodwin Sands was once the main
land, so that at least on the East coast “ wave action ”
is at once apparent. To make up for the advance upon
the East coast the sea appears to be slowly retiring from
the West, as witness the great stretches of sand at Rhyl,
Southport, Lytham and other places. In some districts
green fielcls now, flourish where at one time the largest
of ships might have floated ; and from these facts we
learn to understand that great geological induction that
the relative positions of land and water are constantly
changing.
But besides wave agency we must note briefly the
amount of work done by streams and rivers. The
waves may modify the coast, but the streams and rivers
modify the land far inwards and equally assist in
bringing about the relative changes of place of land
and water. The river Ganges, in India, is, perhaps,
the swiftest river that flows ; and it has been computed
that the amount of mud which is carried down by this
one river and deposited in the Indian Ocean could not
be carried by less than 2,000 ships sailing every day,
each ship carrying 1,100 tons of mud. Thus you see
this river tearing down the land and gradually filling
up the ocean—land and watei’ changing places. In
the Mediterranean Sea an immense delta has been
formed from the mud brought down by the river Nile,
and this low, flat land is gradually increasing both in
elevation and extent at the same slow rate at which it
has always advanced. Probably the amount of eleva
tion does not amount to more than five or six inches
per century, and since, in some places these mud
deposits are known to be more than 60 feet in depth,
�10
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
I must leave you to judge how vast a period of time
must be required for their deposition at the rate of only
five inches per century. From remains of pottery, human
bones, and burnt bricks, dug up from considerable
depths of this “ Nile mud,” it is evident that human
beings inhabited this part of the world at least thirty
centuries ago. The whole of Lower Egypt owes its
origin to this one river. Dr. Draper, the author of the
“ Conflict between Religion and Science,” tells us that
the coast line near the mouth of the Mississippi river,
in America, has been well known for the last 300 years,
and during that time it has made no perceptible
advancement upon the Gulf of Mexico, but there was a
time when the delta was at St. Louis, which is now
more than 700 miles from the river’s mouth. How
long, I would ask, must we allow for the deposition of
this 700 miles of land, seeing that the encroachment
is of so slow a nature that 300 years does not suffice to
alter the measurement ? Just think of these vast
changes, of the slow, gradual manner in which they
have taken place, of the mighty results they have
achieved, and then try to crowd all this into 6,000 years,
which is about the age of this earth if the Mosaic
account of things be true. But it cannot be true—the
facts of nature are against it. We are now told that
the Bible was never intended for a scientific book.
Some get, or try to get over the difficulty by asserting
that the Bible account is simply poetry, and that poetic
license must be allowed for. Others again tell us that
underneath the story there is a hidden spiritual sig
nificance, only revealed to those who read in faith;
but the student of to-day asks which of these theories
is the true one. For years, hundreds and thousands
of men have been hounded down, persecuted to death,
tortured on the rack, imprisoned in the dungeon and
burned at the stake, for doubting a story of the true
meaning of which none are agreed at the present time.
Why did they torture first and find out their mistake
afterwards ? Why did they burn Bruno first and then
discover that the Bible is only poetry and was never
intended to be used as a scientific book ? Such, friends,
is the consistency of the human mind when warped
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
11
and distorted by the withering influences of super
natural religion.
I must now ask you to consider briefly the nature
and order of those rocks which to the geologist form so
important a feature of the earth’s surface—the strati
fied rocks. These rocks have all been produced by
the agency of water acting in the manner I have de
scribed. These stratified rocks occur, as the word strata ”
(from the Latin stratum, a bed) would suggest, in regular
layers, and could they be piled up bed upon bed in the
regular order of their depositions, they would form a
mass of stratified matter of from eighteen to twenty
miles in thickness. These rocks are divided into three
great classes—viz., the Palaeozoic, the Mesozoic and the
Cainozoic. These words simply denote ancient, middle
and recent organic forms, and so to avoid the difficulties
of geologic nomenclature, we will use the simple names
of primary, secondary and tertiary rocks. Now each of
these three classes is made up of various groups of
strata, these groups being related to each other, gene
rally speaking, both as to their lithological character
and their fossil contents. Altogether there are some
thing like twelve of these groups, to which the follow
ing names have been given :—(1) the Laurentian.
Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and
Permian. (2) Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. (3)
Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene. Now all of these strata
beds, from the oldest to the most recent, contain
remains imbedded within them of those creatures
which inhabited the earth during the time of their
deposition in river, lake or ocean. These remains are
called fossils, and they reveal to us the true history of
the animal and the vegetal forms which have through
bygone milleniums inhabited this world. In the
oldest rocks these remains are of so indefinite a nature
that for a long time our ablest geologists were really
puzzled as to theirtrue character. The most ancient of all
fossils occurs, of course, in the Laurentian rocks, and
*
to this fossil Dr. Dawson gave the name of Eozoon
* For a full exposition of the fossil contents of the strata groups,
from the Laurentian upwards, see articles in Progress, January and
February numbers, 1885, by W. W. C.
�12
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
Canadense. This creature is a Foraminifer, and belongs
to the lowest sub-kingdom of animals, the Protozoa.
From the Laurentian rocks upwards the fossils increase
in number and develop in form and complexity, until
at last, in the most recent deposits, they culminate by
revealing to. us the highest of all animal forms—man
himself.
In the Bible stories we are told that ont the fifth day
of creation God made the fowls that fly above the
earth, together with great whales and every living
thing that mov.eth in the waters. And on the sixth
day he created all creeping things and all beasts of the
field, and concluded the day’s work with making man
in his owfi image. Now, not only is it absolutely
impossible to reconcile this story with the one con
tained in Genesis the second, but both are entirely at
variance with the geologic record. From the rocks we
learn the true life-history of the world’s fauna and
flora. Species have evolved slowly, imperceptibly ;
the gradual changes in the inorganic world have pro
duced corresponding changes in the world organic.
Sudden changes, cataclysmic changes, kill; slow,
gradual changes modify. The geologic order of animal
appearance is just what the evolutionist would expect
to find it. The first fossil remains are those of in
vertebrate creatures. After a vast lapse of time the
fishes, the lowest of the vertebrates (back-boned)
appear, these anon being followed by reptiles, birds,
beasts, and finally man.
When we note the great thickness of the rock masses,
some of them such as the Laurentian, being more than
30,000 feet in thickness, we naturally ask ourselves what
vast seons of time must have been required for their depo
sition and for their solidification ; and again, what un
told millions of ages must be required to account for
the British strata alone, which, if superposed in chro
nological order, would reach an aggregate thickness of
nearly twenty miles. How altogether inadequate the
Bible theory is, in the face of these facts, becomes
painfully apparent. Let us be honest to the truth—the
wTorld itself cannot lie ; a book may.
The finding of marine shells inland, together with
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
IS
occurence, of sand, gravel and mud accumulation,
sometimes at high elevations, was for some consider
able time thought to bear witness to the Noachian
deluge. Indeed, Dr. Lambart has himself advanced
similar ideas in two of his lectures, and they form his
only attempt at scientific argument. Dr. Lambart is
the only man I know of who, pretending to a know
ledge of geology, would attempt to account for these
things in this manner, who would try to show that
they have been brought about by the agency of a deluge.
Science shows us that many thousands of years ago,
not only this country, but the whole continent of
Europe, was covered by ice and snow. This is known
as the glacial period. At this time the climate of
England was similar to that which now obtains within
the arctic circle, and it is probable that the arctic
circles are really remnants of this glacial age. An
examination of the boulder stones, the drifts, sands,
clays and gravels of this period, proves at once the
nature of the agencies which have been at work.
Whenever the drift rests on hard rock (say granite) its
surface is smoothed and striated. In the Snowdon
valleys, where several of these drifts occur, the rocks
are all smoothed, polished, rounded and striated. The
scratches always run parallel to the direction of the
valley, and have undoubtedly been caused by the
action of some hard substance which at some time or
other filled the valley, dragging forcibly through it,
scratching, grinding and polishing in its passage. Are
these things the effect of a flood ? No ! the explana
tion is altogether inadequate. The boulder stones,
which are found in various parts of the country,
fragments as they are of rocks hundreds of miles away
from where they now lie—are these the work of a flood ?
The fossil remains of species similar to those now
existing only in the ice-bound regions of the far North
—Can these be attributed to the deluge ? No; everything
bespeaks an arctic climate, arctic inhabitants, arctic
causes and effects ; and here we get an explanation of
the phenomena attributed to the flood.
We know that high up in the mountains of arctic
climes, glaciers are formed. These rivers of ice,
�14
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
moving slowly at the rate of not more than 400 feet
a year, gradually descend into the valley. The valley
becomes filled with this frozen mass. As it slowly moves
along, it scrapes the mountain sides, smoothing and
polishing the rocks : it gathers on its edges loose stones,
earth and blocks, which fall from the cliffs above ; the
gathered load is carried until under the genial influences
of the sun’s warmth the glacier melts and the burden
is deposited many miles from its original position.
Glacial action in frozen regions is still doing exactly
the same work, thus witnessing to the truth of
the inductions of geology.
Geology has not a single evidence to put forward in
favor of the Bible story. That districts have been in the
past, as they are to-day, subject to inundation, no one
doubts; but these are insignificant in result and compara
tively of little importance so far as geology is concerned.
Besides, why should we try to reconcile our science
with a story so absurd ?—a story of no credit to the
man who wrote it, and dishonoring to the God whom
it makes the chief actor in a play repulsive to the best
instincts of our common humanity ? The story of the
flood, of Noah and his ark, is a childish fable unworthy
the acceptance of thinking people. There is no
necessity for science to disprove this fable, for its
absurdity is carried to so great a pitch as to literally
o’er-reach itself, and the whole story falls from its own
inherent stupidity. In this story we are told that God
commanded Noah to take into the ark of clean beasts
by sevens, male and female, and of beasts unclean by
twos, in order to keep their kind alive upon the earth.
Noah, however, chose to disobey God’s orders, for in
two distinct places we are informed that he took with
him into the ark two and two of all flesh wherein is
the breath of life. Now when Noah was released from
the ark, we are told that he took of every clean fowl,
and of every clean beast, and sacrificed upon the altar
unto the Lord. If, now, only two of each kind were
taken into the ark, how on earth were the species after
wards perpetuated, seeing that one of each clean kind
was thus sacrificed ,- or what was the use of thus miracu
lously preserving them if only to kill them afterwards ?
�GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
15
Again, what contemptible ideas of God these people
must have had who make him, like an hungry man,
delighted to smell the “ sweet savor,” and like an
impetuous, thoughtless savage, destroying everything
at a moment, and the next promising “ neither will I
again smite any more everything living as I have done.”
Truly, we who try to save God from these vile imputa
tions must ever feel that, like an injured man, his
continuous cry must be, “0 save me from my friends.”
The collection of all the animals into the ark and
their storage, then, is a feat that has never yet been
explained and never will. Not only must the polar
bear and the kangaroo have been fetched from their
respective habitats, but they must have been trans
ported thither again after the flood, for the kangaroo
still occupies that portion of the earth which geology
assigns to him millions of years ago.
Dr. Colenso tells us that when translating the story
of the flood a simple-minded native asked him, “ Is all
that true ? Do you really believe all that happened ?
that all the beasts, the birds, the creeping things from
hot countries and from cold, came by pairs, and were
thus saved in the ark ? Where did Noah gather food
for them all, including the beasts of prey, and where
did he store it when gathered ?” And his heart answered,
“ Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord ?” He
dared not do so.
Dr. Lambart did not tell his audience where the water
came from which covered the earth, nor where the water
went to after it had accomplished its work. The water
now upon the earth is, as to quantity, about the same
as it has ever been, and I leave you to judge the possi
bility of its bathing the earth in a universal deluge.
The opening of the “ windows of heaven ” for the water
supply again exhibits the gross ignorance of the “ in
spired writer.” Every drop of water that falls upon
this world is a drop that has previously been taken up
from river, ocean or lake by the evaporating power of
the sun’s heat. In the air this evaporised water remains
until condensation takes place, when it is precipitated
on to the earth in the form of rain, which supplies the
springs, rivers, lakes and oceans—a constant cycle, a
�16
GEOLOGY AND- THE BIBLE.
perfect picture of nature, ever changing without'in-,
creasing or diminishing ; no creation, no destruction
—nothing except change.
My time has now expired. I have placed before you
the two theories—the geological One and the biblical;
one—and I, must again ask jmu to' draw your own con-;
elusions. Ii'et your one idea, however, be to find out'
what is true ; be deterred by no craven fear, for only ’
that which is true can be of lasting benefit to mankind.1 .
Instead of trying to believe stories which dishonor the
God they pretend to reveal, turn your attention to the! »'
teachings of those mdn, our scientific leaders, ^ho are'
ever placing before us the truths nature has revealed
to them. , These are the world’s true pathfinders, the:
bearers of the torchlight of knowledge' into the dark- .
realms 'of ignorance! and mystery. Search for the;
truth, and the truth shall make you fr.ee, for great;
is the truth and truth shall, prevail.
.... ,
•,
Rise sun of truth, arise, in glbry sliin6
Scatter the mists of night with light divine ;
Pierce through dark error’s clouds, and,let thy ray
.Reveal to toiling man glad freedom's day.
Printed and Published by Eamsey and Foote, at 28 Stonecutter St., London.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Geology and the Bible : a reply to Dr Lambart
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Collins, W.W.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. "Printed and published by Ramsey and Foote."-p.16. Text of a lecture. Reply to Dr Lambart (unidentified), in which he replied to a lecture by Annie Besant "The Flood." Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Progressive Publishing Company
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1885
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N172
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Bible
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Geology and the Bible : a reply to Dr Lambart), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Bible and Geology
Bible. O.T. Genesis-Criticism
Geology
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national secular society
THE
JEWISH LIFE OF CHRIST
BEING THE
SEPIIER TOLDOTH JESHU.
nnSin iso
OB
BOOK
of
GENERATION
the
of
JESUS.
Translated from the Hebrew.
EDITED
Preface and Voluminous Notes)
(With an Historical
BY
G. W. FOOTE
&
J. M. WHEELER.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE
PUBLISHING
28 Stonecutter Street
1885
COMPANY,
�LONDON
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 14 CLERKENWELL GREEN, E.V.
�PREFACE.
WHEN we first announced our intention of publishing a trans
lation of this work, we were unaware that it had ever
appeared in English before it was inserted in the New York
Truthseeker by “ Scholasticus.” This able and learned writer,
who has since published his translation, with other highly in
teresting matter, under the title of “ Revelations of Antichrist
concerning Christ and Christianity,”* supposed that he was the
first who introduced it to the English-speaking world. He
was, however, mistaken. We have quite recently lighted on
a translation published by Richard Carlile in 1823. It was
done by a Jew, who stated that it had “ never before been
wholly translated into any modern language.” He appears to
have been right in this statement, as the earliest continental
translation we can trace is in German, and was published at
Stuttgart in 1850, in a volume together with the Apocrypha}
Gospels, by Dr. R. Clemens. No copy of the Richard Carlilb
edition (the Hebrew translator does not give his name) is to
be found in the British Museum. It is a sixteen-page octavo
pamphlet, with an Editor’s Preface, probably by Carlile him
self, and a Dedication by the translator “ To the Clergy of the
Church of England.” His English text is substantially the
same as that now published. Some of its phrases are rough
• Boston: J. P. Mendum.—New York: D. M. Bennett; 1879
�iv
Preface.
and racy, possibly owing to his strict adherence to the
original; and instead of veiling in Latin the amours of Pandera
and Miriam, he relates them in plain English, with Biblical
naivety.
The Sepher Toldoth Jeshu was first published in Latin, with
the Hebrew text in parallel columns, by J. C. Wagenseil in
his “ Tela Ignea Satanee,” a collection of Jewish An$l
Christian tracts, all translated into Latin, with attempted
refutations. To collect these valuable tracts, Wagenseil
travelled widely through Spain and into Africa, where the
chief centres of Jewish learning then existed. His work was
published at Altdorf in 1681.
A later and widely different version, the Sepher Toldoth
Jeshu ha Nozri (History of Jesus of Nazareth), was published
by J. J. Huldrich at Leyden in 1705. It is certainly a more
modern version of the Jeshu story. Interpolations are found
referring to Worms and the people of Germany, and the
narrative abounds with capricious phantasies that belong to
the superstition of a later age.
A- shorter and earlier version of the Jeshu story was
probably used by Luther and condensed in his Schein Ham ■
phoras, although Mr. Gould considers that “ the only Toldoth
*
Jeshu he was acquainted with was that afterwards published
by Wagenseil.” Luther was stung by it into a characteristic fit
of vituperation, as the following passage will show:
“ The haughty evil spirit jests in the book with a threefold
mockery. First, he mocks God, creator of heaven and earth, with
his son, Jesus Christ, as you may see for yourself if you believe, as
a Christian, that Christ is the son of God. Secondly, he mocks all
Christendom, because we believe in such a son of God. Thirdly,
he mocks his own Jews by giving them such a scandalous, foolish,
doltish thing about brazen dogs and cabbage-stalks, etc., which
would make all dogs bark to death, if they could understand it, at
Buch raving, ranting, senseless, foaming mad fools. Is not this a
master of mocking, who can effect three such great mockeries ? The
* The Lost and Hostile Gospels. By Rev. S. Baring Gould, M.A.; 1874
�Preface.
v.
fourth mockery is that herewith he has mocked himself, as we shall
one day to our joy see, thank God! ”—Werke, Wittemberg, 1566,
vol. v., p. 515.
Long before the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu was published, in our
modern sense, it was known to the learned. The work came
to light in the dawning after the Dark Ages, but, says
Mr. Gould, “it was kept secret, lest the sight of it should
excite tumults, spoliation and massacre.” Those who know
how flamingly the evidences of Christianity have been written
on the tear-washed and blood-stained pages of Jewish history
will appreciate this cautious reserve.
It was doubtless the Jeshu story which was denounced and
prohibited by Pope Valentine in his Bull of May 11, 1514,
under the title of Mar Mar Jesu
*
Dr. G. B. de Rossi, in his
Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei, catalogues a book en
titled
which he considers the same as the
Toldoth Jeshu, and which may also be the same as the pro
scribed work.
In the thirteenth century, Raymond Martini, a Dominican
friar, composed a work against the Jews and Mahommedans,
with the suggestive title of Pugione Fidei, the Dagger of
Faith. Without naming the Toldoth Jeshu, he gave long
extracts from it, or at least a good summary. A Latin ren
dering of Martini’s Jeshu story appears in a folio volume by
Porcheti de Salvaticis, published at Paris in 1520, and entitled
Porcheti victoria adversus impios Hebreos—Porcheti’s victory
over the impious Hebrews. As the Inquisition took part
with Porcheti, the impious Hebrews did not venture to dis
pute the victory.
The author of “Revelations of Antichrist” gives a com
plete translation of Porcheti’s Latin narrative. It is substan
tially the same as the one now published, although much
shorter. It ends with the hanging of Jeshu, and makes no
allusion to any of the matters in our fourth chapter.
Rodriguez de Castro,
Espana, tom i., p. 223
�ti.
Preface.
The learned Rossi, in his work already cited, after referring
X) Wagenseil and Huldrich, says that besides their editions
Several manuscript copies are to be found in various libraries.
Some, he says, bear the different title of Maasi Jesu, or that
of Storia di Gesu o del Crocifisso—The History of Jesus the
Crucified. Rossi goes on to say that the most pronounced
Deists, who have drawn from the Hebrew writings, and from
the Chissuk Emuna of Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham, arguments
against Christianity and its founder, agree that this book is a
mass of Rabbinical sophisms and revolting false inventions;
the celebrated Mendelssohn, whom he places among these
Deists, protesting that it is one of those books'which no
sensible Hebrew reads or knows. It may be remarked, how
ever, in opposition to Rossi, that the anonymous Jew who
translated Carlile’s edition of our work says “ it is considered
of authority by the wise men of our nation.” Even Mr. Gould
throws no doubt upon its having been widely and honestly
accepted by the chosen race.
Perhaps the Deist whom Rossi had principally in his mind
was Voltaire. The Heresiarch of Ferney, in his Lettres sur
les Juifs, says that “ Le Toledos Jesu est le plus ancien ecrit
Juif qui nous ait ete transmis contre notre religion. C’est une
vie de Jesus-Christ, toute contraire a nos Saints Evangiles: elle
parait etre du premier siecle, et meme ecrite avant les <5vangiles.”—“ The Toldoth Jeshu is the most ancient Jewish
writing that has descended to us against our religion. It
is a life of Jesus Christ, altogether different from our Holy
Gospels. It appears to be of the first century, and even to
have been written before the Gospels.” Voltaire’s error seems
to have arisen from his supposing that Celsus “cited” the
work, whereas he merely cites the story of Pandera, which
forms its nucleus. In his “ Philosophical Dictionary,” article
Messiah, Voltaire writes on the Toldoth Jeshu in a delicious
vein of grave irony, which appears to have deceived “Anti-
�Preface.
vil
*
christ ’ himself, who is certainly no fool, nor devoid of
humor.
Mr. Gould devotes a chapter to “ The Jew of Celsus.”
Celsus wrote, about A.D. 170, a work called “ The True Word
(Logos),” of which, as well as of the author, Mr. J. A. Froude
gives a very interesting account in his fourth volume of
Short Studies on Great Subjects.” The writings of this
early opponent of Christianity, like those of others, such as
Porphyry, who would not bow to the Nazarene, were ruth
lessly suppressed, so that nothing remains of them except the
extracts given by Origen in his refutation. In a passage
which will be found among our foot-notes, Celsus describes
Jesus as a bastard, born of a Jewish countrywoman and a
soldier named Panthera. The genealogy of Jesus, given by
St. Epiphanius, induces Mr. Gould to say that “ it shows that
in the fourth century the Jewish stories of Panthera had
made such an impression on the Christians that his name was
forced into the pedigree of Jesus.” Basnage, in his “ History
of the Jews” (Taylor’s translation) has an extremely inte
resting passage on this subject:
. “ .Celsus is excusable in having upbraided Christians with the
virgin being forced by a soldier called Pandera, but how can St.
Epiphanius [a.d. 367] be excused, who assures us that Jesus was
the son of Jacob surnamed Panthera? Or how can John of Da
mascus [a.d. 760] be justified, who is indeed of another opinion,
but for all that makes him come into the genealogy of J. Christ ?
for he maintains that Panthera was great-grandfather to Mary, and
Barpanther her grandfather. Raban Maur [a.d. 874] doth also
speak of these two men; and the learned Grotius [a.d. 1640] made
an advantage of this tradition, as if it had been well grounded, that
so the romance invented about the virgin might appear more prob
able. And indeed the name given here to the soldier, Panther, is a
Greek one ; how then can it be introduced into the genealogy of
J. Christ as the surname of a family? There is good reason to
believe that it was invented only to make the birth of the Messiah
more odious. The panther, or male of the panther, is a savage and
cruel beast that couples with a lioness, and from thence proceeds
the leopard. . . . The manuscript of a Rabbi is also quoted, wherein
it is said that as the leopard is produced by the mixture of different
�viix.
Preface.
species, so J. Christ sprung from a Greek soldier and a Jewish
woman. Those who reckon Panthera among Christ’s ancestors, fall
into the snare which the most inveterate enemies of the Christian
religion have laid for them. Emanuel de Tesauro is one of these,
for he blesses the fate of Marham and Panther because Jesus Christ
came from them.” (B. iv., ch. 27).
The learned Basnage rather hobbles than walks out of the
difficulty. We leave it to the Christians to explain satis
factorily why Panthera crept into the ancestry of their
Savior.
Mr. Gould’s treatment of Celsus we should be obliged to
consider disingenuous if we did not think it confused. Mr.
Gould, in fact, is far from being an accurate writer. He
sometimes forgets on one page what he has written on
another; his chronology is often full of gross and obvious
blunders; and his proofs have been read with remarkable
carelessness. For instance, through thirty-six successive
headlines he has allowed “ Jewish Ante-Gospels” to stand for
Anti-Gospels, which is exactly what he is laboring to disprove.
In short, with a great appearance of scholarship, Mr. Gould
is a very untrustworthy guide.
With respect to Celsus, Mr. Gould says it is “remarkable”
that “ living in the middle of the second century and able to
make inquries of aged Jews, whose lives had extended to the
first century, he should have been able to find out next to
nothing about Jesus and his disciples except what he read in
the Gospels.” Now there is no proof that Celsus ever saw
our Gospels, and his account of Jesus is very unlike theirs.
And is the story of Christ’s birth, which involves the centra!
doctrine of the Incarnation, “ next to nothing ?” Besides^
Mr. Gould had staring him in the face the declaration of Celsus,
as quoted by Origen, thathe “ could relate many things more con
cerning Jesus, all which are true, but which have quite a different
character from what his disciples relate touching him.” To
this Origen replies, in short, You cannot. But as Celsus had
�Preface.
ix
no opportunity of rejoining1, having- incontinently died a cen
tury before his opponent took the field, it is hardly fair to
assume that he was lying-.
Celsus’s contemporary, Justin Martyr, one of the early
Fathers, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, bitterly com
plains that the Jews had sent persons into all parts of the
world to publish blasphemies against Jesus. Of what
value, then, is Origen’s denial of these things a century later ?
In the Babylonian Gemara of the Talmud, which, although
not completed until about A.D. 500, represents the authorita
tive traditions of the Jews, the name of Pandera is given to
the father of Jeshu; and the same parentage is given in the
Jerusalem Gemara, which was compiled independently a cen
tury earlier. Amidst a great deal of confusion, by Mr. Gould
worse confounded, this one fact shines out incontestible and
unquestioned.
Mr. Gould’s theory of the origin and development of the
Jeshu story supposes on the part of the Jews a flagrant
ignorance of their own language, traditions and history; and
what, except the necessity of supporting a theory, could lead
him to state that “The Jew of Celsus had already fused
■Jesus of Nazareth with the other two Jehoshuas” of the
Talmud ? The Jew of Celsus relates nothing of Jesus at
all resembling the later Talmudic confusions of the two
Jehoshuas ; and those confusions probably arose through the
■discordant opinions of different rabbis of various ages being
■cited indifferently. In his anxiety to prove that the Sepher
Toldoth Jeshu is entirely a production of the Middle Ages,
Mr. Gould maintains that “ the Jews in A.D. 500, when the
Babylonian Gemara was completed, had no traditions what■ever concerning Jesus of Nazareth.” But his contention may
be-opposed by the weightier opinion of Gardner and Light
foot, that the Talmudic references to Jeshu clearly point to
Jesus Christ.
�X.
Preface.
In discussing the date of the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu, Mrr
Gould says (p. 69) that neither Wagenseil’s nor Huldrich’s
version “ can boast of a greater antiquity than, at the outside,
the twelfth century. It is difficult to say with certainty which
is the earlier of the two. Probably both came into use about
the same time.” But with his usual laxity he advances a very
different opinion later on (p. 115), where he says “ That this
second version of the Life of Jeshu is later than the first one,
I think there can be little doubt.” He even goes to the
length of suggesting that the Huldrich version may have
“ been composed after the Reformation.”
The centre of Mr. Gould’s theory, around which his orbit is
extremely eccentric, may be found in the following passage
“ The persecution to which the Jews were subjected in the
Middle Ages from the bigotry of the rabble or the cupidity of
princes, fanned their dislike fo? Christianity into a flame of intense
mortal abhorrence of the Founder of that religion whose votaries
Were their deadliest foes. The Toledoth Jeschu is the utterance of'
this deep-seated hatred,—the voice of an oppressed people exe
crating him who had sprung from the holy race, and whose blood
was weighing on their heads.”
In our opinion the
it
narrates everything with an air of candor; and we confi
dently leave the reader to judge for himself. We perceive
in this work many marks of antiquity, and evidences of a far
closer acquaintance with the manners, customs and opinions
of the Jews in Palestine than is betrayed in our Greek
gospels.
This appears to us a very lame theory.
Sepher Toldoth Jeshu betrays no vehement malignity;
If we except the fourth chapter, which forms no part of
the Life of Jeshu, but is related to it very much as the Actsof the Apostles is related to the Gospels, the only indication
of a late authorship is the reference to the Talmud. But that
may have been originally a marginal gloss, afterwards incor
porated with the text, like so many “interpolations” in ths
*
�Preface.
New Testament. Even, however, if the date of the work
was slightly subsequent to the compilation of the Talmud,,
we are still within measurable distance of the earliest Chris
tian manuscripts.
If, as Mr. Gould maintains, the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu is a
* Counter-Gospel,” written to asperse the character of JesusChrist, it is a singular thing that the authors did not keep
eloser to the gospel story ? How, for instance, came they to
place the birth of Jeshu in the reign of Janneus, at least ninety
years before the alleged birth of Christ ? How came they to
make him contemporary with Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach, whoflourished about 90 B.O. ? Satire is futile unless it adheres to
familiar features, and we can scarcely imagine sane men so
stupid as the satirists of the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu must havebeen if Mr. Gould’s theory be true.
The reader perhaps may say “ But, if Jesus Christ was born inthe first year of our era, and Jeshu was born ninety years before,
how can they have been one and the same person ?” To which
we reply, that there is no proof of Jesus Christ having been born
in the first year of our era, and many indications to the contrary.
Christian chronology has been arbitrarily established. There was
great uncertainty among the early Christians, who reckoned
like all Roman subjects from the reign of the Caesars, not
only as to the birth, but also as to the age of their Savior.
Irenaeus, the first Christian Father who mentions the four
gospels, maintains that Jesus was fifty years old at hisdeath, and the chronology of Luke is absolutely inconsistent
with Roman history, as well as being at variance with that
of Matthew. It might likewise be effectively argued from,
the only chronological reference in Paul’s Epistles (ii. Cor.,
xi., 32) that the Great Apostle himself flourished at least
sixty-two years before our era. According to his own state
ment, he escaped arrest at Damascus while the city was
“ under Aretas the King,” who must have ruled there before-
�<iL
Preface.
the city was captured by Pompey (B.C. 62) and made a part
•of the Roman empire.
We would not dogmatise, but we venture to think that the
Christian legend of Jesus may have originated in the Jewish
story of Jeshu. This theory at any rate accounts for the
hero’s introduction to the world. The two Hebrew versions
of a career similar to that of Jesus, as well as the Talmud,
agree in making Jeshu the illegitimate son of Pandera and a
• Jewish maiden; and Celsus flung the same charge at the
Christians before our present Gospels can be proved to have
■existed. That both the Jewish and the Christian story are
largely fabulous, we cheerfully concede, but no advantage
•can be derived to either from that fact. We now leave the
question with the reader. It is for him to decide whether it
■is more probable that the father of Jesus was a human being
«or the intangible third person of a hypothetical Trinity.
G. W. Foote.
March. 1885,
J M. Wheeler
�THE JEWISH LIFE OF CHRIST
OHAPTEB I.
In the year 671, of the fourth
millenary1*[of the world], in the
days of janneus, the king, a great
misfortune happened to the ene
mies of Israel.
2. There was a certain idle and
worthless debauchee named Jo
seph Pandera2, of the fallen tribe
of Judah.
8. He was a man of fine figure
and rare beauty, but spent his
time in robbery and licentious
1 “ In the year 671 of the fourth
millenary.” The Rev. S. Baring
Gould translates it “in the year
4,671,” which, he says, would be
910 b.c. We cannot understand
this computation; it agrees with
no chronology known to us, neither
the _ Samaritan, the Septuagint,
Josephus nor Usher. According
to the established Jewish chrono
logy the world was 3,761 years old
at the beginning of our era. The
year 3,671 would therefore be
90 b.c. This fairly harmonises
with what Gibbon says of “ the
anachronism of the Jews, who
place the birth of Christ near a
century sooner.” It also agrees
with the date of Janneus, the
Sadducee king of Judsea, who
reigned from 106 b.c. to 79 B.c.
If we suppose, with the author of
“ Revelations of Antichrist,” that
the Olympiad of Iphitus is meant
in the text, the year 671 of that
era, which began 884 b.c., would
be 1.06 b.c. This brings the birth
of Jeshu barely within the reign
of Janneus. On the whole we
prefer to regard the Jewish
chronology as the one the writer
employed. He wrote for Jews and
would naturally use it.
2 Pandera, according to the
Jewish Gemara (compiled between
the fourth and sixth centuries of
our era, but containing ancient tra
ditions orally transmitted), was the
paramour of a wanton who went
astray from her husband. The Tal
mudic references to Miriam and Pan
dera may be found fully cited in the
works of Lightfoot and Lardner.
These scattered accounts of Jesus,
when brought together, give us the
following Inthe time of Janneus
the Sadducee, one Mary, a plaiter
of woman’s hair, was false to her
husband, and had, by a person
named Pandera, a son called Jesus
This son was taken in tutorship
by Rabbi Joshua ben Perachia
President of the Sanhedrim, and,at
the time when the rabbis were
persecuted by Janneus, accom
panied him to Alexandria in Egypt,
where he learnt how to charm
diseases, and other magic arts.
On his return with his master they
fell out because Jesus praised a
woman’s beauty. Jesus © then
taught new doctrines, defamed the
�14
The Jewish Life of Christ.
ness. He lived at Bethlehem of
Judea.11
4. Near bythere lived a widow,
who had a daughter named Miri
am*, of whom mention is several
4
3
times made in the Talmud as a
dresser of women’s hair.
5. This daughter was betrothed
by her mother to a very chaste,
gentle, and pious youth named
Jochanan.
6. Now it happened that Jo
seph occasionally passed by Miri
am’s door and saw her. Then he
*began to have an unholy affection
for her.
7. So he went to and fro about
the place, and at length the mo-
ther said to him, What maketh
thee so thin ? He replied, I am
madly in love with Miriam.
8. Then, said the mother, I
would not deny thee the favor;
see if she is willing, and do with
her as thou pleasest.
9. Obeying her counsel, Jo
seph Pandera went frequently
by the house, but did not find a
suitable time until one Sabbath
evening, when he happened to
find her sitting before the door.
10. Then he went into the
house with her, and both sat
down in a dormitory near the
door, for she thought he was her
betrothed, Jochanan.
rabbis and gave himself up to
■magical practices. He had five
chief disciples, Mathai, (Mat
thew ?), Nezer, Boni and Thodah
(Thaddeus ?). They were put to
death, and Jesus himself was
stoned at Lud or Lydda, twentytwo miles north-west of Jerusalem,
-and then hanged on the evening
■before the passover.
Celsus, writing in the second
century, as quoted by Origen who
“ refuted ” him a hundred years
later, says that Jesus was born of
a countrywoman, and that “ when
she was pregnant she was turned
out of doors by the carpenter to
whom she had been betrothed, as
having been guilty of adultery, and
that she bore a child to a certain
soldier named Panthera ” (“ Origen
against Celsus,” book 1, ch. xxxii.,
p. 431.—“ Ante-Nicene Christian
Library ”).
This calumny the
Christian Father easily confuted
by such powerful arguments as
that God would not make a teacher
of a bastard, and that some animals
—for instance vultures—conceived
without any connection with a
male.
Celsus, speaking on behalf of the
Jews, further says, as reported by
his opponent, “that he (Jesus)
having been brought up as an
illegitimate child, and having
served for hire in Egypt, and then
coming to the knowledge of certain
miraculous powers, returned from
thence to his own country, and by
means of those powers proclaimed
himself to be God ” (book 1,
ch. xxxviii., p. 488).
3 Pandera’s living at Bethlehem
might account for the gospel tradi
tion of Jesus being born there.
According to the Apocryphal Gos
pel of Mary, she lived at Jerusalem
before Joseph married her, and
Bethlehem is not far from the h«ly
city. Actually, it is more probable
that Jesus was born at Nazareth,
where Joseph lived. The Rabbini
cal writers refer to him as Ha
Notzri, a native of Nazareth ; his
disciples were called Nazarenes
before they received the name of
Christians ; and a Nazarene is still
the designation for a Christian
throughout the East.
4 Miriam is the Hebrew word
for Mary, and signifies lritternes*.
�The Jewish Life of Christ
15
11. 4* ,mtzi ea homine ait: Ne me
7
attingio; in menstruis sum. Sed
is morem illi non gerebat, cumque
circa earn voluntati suse obsequutus
fuisset, in domum suam obit.
12. Circa medium noctis iterum
in eo exardescere desiderium ma
lum. Ergo somno levatus ad do
mum Miriamis viam affectans, ad
cellarn se confert, factumque repetit.
13. Valde autem exhorruit pu■ella, et quid hoc, ait, tibi vult,
Domine, quod eadem nocte bis me
convenisti? idque non passa sum
ab eo inde tempore quo sponsam
me tibi elegisti.
14. Verum in silens repetit, nec
verbum ullum proloquitur. Ergo
Miriam queri: Quousque tu peccato scelus addis? annon pridem
tibi dixi esse me menstruatam ?
15. Verum ille non attendebat
ad ejus verba, sed desiderio satisfaciebat, ac tumpostea iter pergehat suum.
16. After three months, Jochanan was told that his betrothed
was with child.
17. In great agitation, he went
to his preceptor, Simon Ben
Shetach6, and, telling him about
the matter, asked him what he
ought to do.
18. The preceptor inquired,
Dost thou suspect anyone ? Jochanan said, Nobody, except Jo
seph Pandera, who is a great
debauchee, and Hveth near her
house.
19. The preceptor said, My
son, take my advice, and keep
silent; for if he hath been there
he will surely go there again.
Therefore be wise, and get a
witness, so that thou mayest
bring him before the great
Sanhedrim.
20. The young man went homo
and was sorely troubled during
the night. He thought to him
self, When this thing becometh
known the people will say it was
my doing.
21. Therefore, to avoid the
shame and disgrace, he ran away
to Babylon7 and there took up his
abode.
Lardner says, “ In several other
places of these Talmudical writers,
Mary is called a ‘ plaiter of woman’s
hair ’; as may he seen in Lightfoot
p. 270. And from some things alleged
just now it seems that thereby
they denote a transgressor 'of the
laws of purity. And we are led
to think that by this description
they intended to represent not her
outward condition, but her moral
character ” (“Jewish Testimonies.”
Works, vol. vi., p. 524; 1838).
* We are obliged to keep these
passages veiled in Latin. There
are worse things in the Bible, but
we do not feel at liberty to emulate
the indecency of the inspired
writers. A reference to Leviti
cus xx., 18, will give a fair idea of
the meaning of Miriam’s exclama
tion in the first sentence.
• This rabbi is undoubtedly an
historical character He flourished
about 90 B.c., and is mentioned in
the Talmud. It was customary
for rabbis,
like the Greek
sophists, to take pupils, who gene
rally became their disciples. Paul
tell us (Acts xxii., 3), that he was
“brought up at the feet of
Gamaliel.”
7 Ever since the captivity there
had been an extensive Jewish
colony at Babylon, where the chief
part of the Gemara was compiled,
and whither many Hebrews re
paired after the fall of Jerusalem.
I This reference to Babylon seems an
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The, Jewish Life of Christ.
22. In due time Miriam
brought forth a son and named
him Jehoshua, after her mother’s
brother.
23. She sent the boy to a
teacher named Elchanan, with
whom he made progress in
learning, for his mind was very
bright8.
24. And it came to pass byand-bye that he met the senators
of the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem.
25. It was then the custom
that whoever met those senators
should cover his head and bow
down.
26. But this boy as he walked
past them bared his head, and
touching his forehead saluted the
principal only.
27. Then all began to say,
What impudence 1 probably he
is a bastard. And one of themsaid, Indeed he is a bastard, and
the son of an adulteress9*
.
28. Presently Simeon Ben
Shetach said, I remember now
that not many years ago my
pupil Jochanan came to me and!
said,
29. Alas! what a shame and!
disgrace has happened to me 1
for Miriam my betrothed is with
child, not by me, but by some
one else. This is the son of that
Miriam.
30. And when I inquired if lie
suspected anyone, he said, Jo
seph Pandera1, who was a near
neighbor of hers.
31. And soon afterwards Jo
chanan went in shame to Baby
lon, where he dwelleth even now.
32. Then they all said, If these
unmistakeable touch of authentic
history.
8 The apocryphal Gospel of the
Infancy and the History of Joseph
both give Jesus a schoolmaster,
and both praise his bright parts.
Luke (ii., 40) also says that “ the
child grew, and waxed strong in
spirit, filled with wisdom.” The
only indication, however, that Jesus
could write is furnished by John
(viii., 8). But this story of his
writing on the ground is wanting
in the earliest manuscripts.
9 Verses 24-27.—Jesus in our
Gospels argues with the rabbis,
and bestows all his impertinence on
his mother; but Jeshu offers it
all to the doctors.—The same story
is thus told in the Talmud:—
“ As once the elders sat at the gate
there passed two boys before them.
One uncovered his head, the other
did not. Then said Rabbi Elieser,
The latter is certainly a bastard;
but Rabbi Jehoshua said, He is a
son of an adulteress. Akiba said,
He is both a bastard and a son of
an adulteress. They said to him,.
How canst thou oppose the opinion
of thy companions ? He answered*
I will prove what I have said.
Then he went to the boy’s mother,
who was sitting in the market
selling fruit, and said to her, My
daughter, if you will tell me the
truth I will promise you eternal
life. She said to him, Swear to me.
And he swore with his lips, but in
his heart he did not ratify the
oath.” Gardner notes that** though
no person is here named, there
can be no doubt who is intended.”
1 “ Joseph Pandera.” R. von der
Alm conjectures that the Christian
story kept the first name of Pan
dera—Joseph—as that of the father
of Jesus. According to Luke iv., 22,
the Jews inquired of Jesus “Is not
this Joseph’s son?” They obviously
knew or suspected nothing of his
divine parentage. The passage jn
brackets in Luke’s genealogy, iii,
23, representing Jesus as the “ sup-
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17
things are so, this boy is indeed
a bastard and the son of an adul
teress*
2.
33. Then they published him
as such by the blowing of three
hundred trumpets3, declaring
him not fit to come into the
congregation, and called his
name Jeshu, signifying that his
name and memory deserved to
perish4*
.
34. When it became known
that he was declared unworthy
to he admitted into the congre
gation, Jeshu with a sad heart
fled to upper Galilee, where he
dwelt many years56
.
*
35. In those days there was a
stone in the Temple on which
was inscribed the inexpressible
name of God8.
36. For when David laid the
posed” son of Joseph is the lan
guage of the evangelist himself,
who was not a contemporary. The
friends and countrymen of Jesus
allude to him as a man, a carpenter,
and the son of a carpenter. See
Mark vi., 3; Matthew xiii., 55. In
the face of these texts, it is aston
ishing that Origen, in reply to
Celsus, should assert that “ in none
of the gospels current in the
churches is Jesus himself ever
described as being a carpenter.”
This sweeping denial can only be
explained on one of three hypo
theses : Origen’s unscrupulous au
dacity, his ignoranofeof our gospels,
or the subsequent interpolation of
the passage he contradicts.
2 Bastard is a strong word, but
it is accurate of Jesus as well as of
Jeshu. There was a Jewish law
against bastards entering the con
gregation until the tenth generation
(Deuteronomy xxiii., 2).
salvation.” Rabbi Abraham Farrissol, in his DmiN 3^ (Megan
Abraham) Ch. 59, says “His name
was Jeshua, but as Rabbi Moses
Maimonides has written it, and as
we find it throughout the Talmud,
it is written Jeshu. They have
carefully left out the ain, because
he was not able to save himself.”
So Elias in Tishbi, under the word
Jeshu, says “ Because the Jews
will not acknowledge him (Jesus)
to be the savior, they do not call
him Jeshua, but reject the am
and call him Jeshu.” By omitting
this letter a peculiar significance
was given to the name. In the
curtailed form it is composed of
the letters jod, shin, van, which are
taken to stand for;
— “ his name and remem
brance shall be extinguished,” the
meaning which is given in the text.
5 Jesus also returned from Jeru
salem and dwelt in Galileo, from
which district all his disciples were
chosen. It was just the place for
prophets and demagogues. Renan
remarks very justly that “Palestine
was one of the countries most in
arrear in the science of the day;
the Galileans were the most ig
norant of all the inhabitants of
Palestine, and the dfeci^les of
Jesus might be reckoned among
the most stupid Galileans.”
6 This was the Shem Haw
B
3 Proclamations among
the
Jews were made by the sound of
trumpets. See many places in the
Old Testament. The same cere
mony has been performed in more
modern times. The blowing of
rams’ horns was a conspicuous
feature in the excommunication of
Spinoza.
4 Jehoshua, which we shorten
into Joshua, is a common Jewish
name, of which Jesus is the Greek j
m. It means “ Jehovah is his
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The Jewish Life of Christ.
foundation* he found a certain
7
1
stone at the mouth of an abyss
on which the name was engraved,
and taking it up he deposited it
in the Holy of Holies.
37. But when the wise men
feared that perchance studious
youths might learn this name
and bring destruction upon the
world (which calamity may God
forbid), they made by magic two
brazen lions8, and placed them
at the entrance of the Holy of
Holies, one on the right and the
other on the left.
38. If, therefore, anyone drew
near and learned the hidden
name, as he went away the lions
■Would roar, so that in his fright
he would forget the name for
ever.
39. Now when the report that
Jeshu was a bastard had spread
abroad, he left upper Galilee
and, coming secretly to Jerusa
lem, he went into the Temple
and there learned the sacred
letters.
40. And when he had written
the hidden name on a piece of
parchment, and spoken it, that
he might feel no pain, he cut
open his flesh and enclosed there
in the mysterious parchment.
Then, having again pronounced
the name, he closed up the flesh9.
41. But to enter the Temple
it was necessary to use magic
and incantations; otherwise how
could the most holy priests, the
descendants of Aaron, have al
lowed him to go therein.
phoras —
the
Sacred Ineffable Name, by which ex
pression the Jews name Jehovah
.r Jahveh, the correct pronunciation
f which is lost, the word Adonai
'Lord') being substituted. The rab
bis affirm that the decadence of Is
rael is due to the loss of this sacred
name, and that, if any one were able
to pronounce it, he might thereby
create or destroy worlds. Nume
rous wonders are ascribed to it.
By its aid Moses slew the Egyptian,
and it was engraved on Solomon’s
seal. The great prophet must,
however, have forgotten it during
his residence with Jethro; for
according to the Kabbalists he
spent forty days on Mount Sinai,
learning it afresh from the angel
Sax a el.
7 Mr. Gould considers that
this verse shows the writer’s
“ amazing ignorance ” of Jewish
history,which represents Solomonas
the builder of the Templo. Bu^ the
remark rather shows Mr. Gould’s
amazing ignorance; for, according
to Rabbinical tradition, although
Solomon erected the Temple, its
foundation was laid by David ; and
this tradition is corroborated by
1 Chronicles xxii., 1—4.
Tha
foundation stone of the Temple is
said to have been the same block
that Jacob reposed on (Genesis
xxviii., 22), and which he pro
phesied “ shall be God’s house.”
8 The Talmud calls them “ braaen dogs,” and Luther appears
to have thought them of this
species. Alm refers to Ezekiel i.,
containing a description of the
Cherubim, Jehovah’s four-faced
body-guard, one aspect being leo
nine. Madame Blavatsky thinks
the text refers unmistakeably to
these Hebrew chimeras, or, to use
her own phrase, “ symbolical mon
strosities ” (“ Isis Unveiled,” vol. it,
p. 201; 1877).
9 The Talmud refers to *
similar performance in the query
“Did not Ben Stada bring en
chantment out of Egypt in the
cutting which was in his flesh?”
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19
42. Therefore it is manifest
that Jeshu did all this by the art
of magic and the power of an im
pure name1.
43. As he was coming out of
the door the lions roared and he
forgot the name.
44. So he went outside the
city, and, having reopened his
flesh, drew forth the writing, ex
amined well the characters, and
got full retention of the name.
45. Then he went to the place
of his nativity, and with loud
voice cried out,
46. Who are these bad men
who report me to be a bastard
and of impure birth ?
They
are themselves bastards and im
pure.
47. Did not a virgin bear me ?
Did not my mother conceive me
in the top of her head**
2?
48. Indeed I am the Son of
God, and concerning me the
prophet Esaias spoke, saying,
Behold, a virgin8 shall conceive,
etc.
Ben Stada (the son of Stada) of
course is Jesus, who according to
our Gospels went into Egypt. It
is curious that Revelation (xix.,
12,16) ascribes to Jesus “ a name
written, that no man knew but he
himself;” and this, or an equiva
lent name, was “ on his thigh;” but
whether tattooed or sewn in we are
not informed.
1 According to several pas
sages in our Gospels, the Pharisees
charged Jesus with casting out
devils through Beelzebub, the
prince of devils. There are many
illustrations in the Bible of the
superstition of using the divine
name as a spell. When Jacob
wrestled with the angel he de
manded his name (Genesis xxii.,
29).
Manoah made the same
request to the angel who predicted
the birth of Samson (Judges xiii.,
18).
The third commandment
prohibits the taking of God’s
name in vain (see also Lev xxiv.,
16). Jesus (Mark xvi., 17) says
of his disciples “ in my name
they shall cast out devils.” Ac
cording to Acts iii., 16. his
name made a lame man strong;
and Peter in answer to the
question “ By what power or by
what name have ye done this ? ”
replies (Acts iv„ 12) that there
is non* other name under heaven
given whereby we must be saved.”
Paul also (Phillipians ii, 9) say*
“ Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him, and given him 3
name which is above every other
name: That at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth.”
2 Jeshu boasts of his virgin
mother; the Christians claim the
same glory for Jesus, and probably
with equal truth. Mary did not,
however, conceive at the top of
her head, although according to
St. Ambrose she was impregna
ted through the ear—Maria per
aurem impregnata est. Dr. Clemens
mentions an early Christian belief
that Jesus was bora from his
mother’s head. Both these notions
are plagiarisms from the Greek
mythology,
which represents
Minerva as springing full-armed
from the brain of Jove. Justin
Martyr, indeed, in his First
Apology (Ch. 21) places the
miraculous births of Jesus and the
offspring of Jove in the same cate
gory. In the legends of the birth
of Buddha, the Indian savior is
born from the side of his mother
Maya.
* The claims of J*shu and
49. Did I not form myself, and
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The Jeivish Life of Christ.
the heaven, earth, sea, and all
things contained therein ?
50. Then they all answered
and said, Make known by some
sign, and show by a miracle that
thou art God.
51. He, answering, said, Bring
hither to me a dead man, and I
will restore him to life.
52. The people made haste,
and having dug into a certain
sepulchre, found there nothing
but dry bones.
53. And when they told him
that they had found only bones,
he said, Bring them hither.
54. And when they were
brought, he put all the bones
together and covered them with
skin, flesh, and nerves, so he
that had been a dead man stood
up on his feet alive.
55. The people seeing this>
marvelled. .Then he said, Do
ye wonder at this ? Bring hither
a leper and I will cure him4.
56. And when they had
brought a leper he restored him
to health in like manner through
the Shem Hamphoras.
57. When the people saw
this, they fell down and wor
shipped him, saying. Verily thou
art the Son of God5.
58. And it came to pass, after
the fifth day, that the dismal tid-
ings were brought to Jerusalem,
the most holy city, and there all
the things were told which J eshu
had done.
59. Then the profligates re
joiced greatly ; but the old men,
the devout, and the wise wept
bitterly; and in the greater and
the lesser Sanhedrim there was
sore lamentation.
60. At length they all resolved
to send messengers to Jeshu, say
ing among themselves, It may
be that by the help of the Lord
we shall capture him, bring him,
to judgment, and condemn him
to death.
61. Therefore they stfnt Ana
nias and Achasias, most honor
able men of the lesser Sanhedrim,
who went and fell down before
Jeshu in adoration, thereby aug
menting his wickedness.
62. Therefore, thinking that
they were sincere, he received
them with a smiling face and
appointed them leaders of his
wicked flock.
63. Then they thus began to
appeal to him: Lo, the leading
citizens of Jerusalen have sent
us ambassadors to thee, praying
that thou wouldst deign to come
to them, for they have heard that
thou art the Son of God.
64. Then said Jeshu, What
they have heard is true, and lo,
Jesus are equally founded on a
false interpretation of Isaiah. The
World almah (vii., 14) means any
young woman, whether single or
wedded. Besides, Isaiah took care
to fulfil his own prediction by the
aid of a female colleague, leaving
nothing to be added by the labor
of his successors (viii., 3).
4 Jeshu’s readiness to wofi4 a
miracle is in striking contrast to
the reluctance of Jesus. Instead oi
calling people evil, wicked and
adulterous, for seeking a sign, he
promptly acquiesces in their re ■
quest, and at once calls for a good
subject.
5 Matthew puts a similar ex
clamation into the mouth of th*
centurion at the Crucifixion.
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21
I will do all that ye ask, but to Jerusalem, reported all that
upon this condition :
65. That all the senators of
the greater and lesser Sanhe
drim, and those also who have
defamed my nativity, shall come
forth and worship me, receiving
me even as servants receive their
lords.
66. The messengers, returning
had been said.
67. The elde»s and devout men
answered, We will do all that he
asketh.
68. Therefore the men went
again to Jeshu and declared that
they would do whatever he de
sired. Then Jeshu said, I will go
with you at once.
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The Jewish Life of Chritt.
CHAPTER H.
And it came to pass that when rending of garments, and the
Jeshu came to Nob1, which is
near Jerusalem, he said to them
Have ye here a good and comely
ass?
2. And when they replied that
one was at hand, he said, Bring
him hither.
3. And a beautiful ass being
brought, he mounted upon him
and went to Jerusalem.
4. As he entered the city all
the people sallied out to meet
him.
5. And raising his voice he
said to them, Concerning me the
prophet Zacharias testified, say
ing, Behold thy king cometh to
thee, just and having salvation,
lowly and sitting upon an ass,
and a colt the foal of an ass1
2.
6. These things being known,
there was great weeping and
devout men went and complained
to the Queen.
7. (Bhe was Queen Helena,
the wife of King Janneus men
tioned above ; she reigned after
the death of husband. She is
otherwise called Oleina, and
had a son Nunbasus, the king,
otherwise called Hyrcanus, who
was slain by his subordinate
Herod)3.
8. The devout men said to the
Queen, This fellow deserveth the
worst punishment, for he is a se
ducer of the people. Prithee,
grand us the power, and we will
take him by subtlety.
9. The Queen answering, said,
Call him hither that I may under
stand the accusation.
10. But she thought to save
him from their hands, because
1 The story here is marvel
lously like that of Matthew (xxi.,
9). No one has been able to de
termine the position of Bethphage,
where Jesus obtained his asses;
but the situation of Nob is well
known. It lies near Jerusalem,
and is mentioned in the Old Testa
ment and in Josephus.
2 Zechariah’s prophecy (ix., 9)
is understood hy this writer, but
misunderstood by Matthew, who
was evidently unacquainted with
Jewish idioms. Hebrew authors
often gained emphasis by iteration;
witness especially the song of
Deborah on Jael and Sisera.
Zechariah, therefore, intended only
one donkey; but Matthew stu
pidly puts him on two. Jeshu’s
biography, with better Hebrew
and better taste, puts him on one.
* This parenthesis is probably
an interpolation. The widow of
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23
she was related to him by
blood.
11. Now the wise men per
ceiving her design, said to her,
Do not, O royal mistresss, under
take to do this lest thou shouldest become his abettor; for by
his sorceries he leadeth men into
error and crime.
12. At the same time they ex
plained to her the whole matter
®f the Shem Hamplioras, and then
added, It is for thee to impose
punishment, for he deserveth the
worst.
18. Then they narrated the his
tory of Joseph Pandera.
14. Wherefore the Queen said,
X have heard you and will con*nt to this : Bring him to me and
let me hear what he saith, and see
what he doeth ; for everybody
telleth me of the great miracles
he performeth.
.15. The wise men replied, We
will do as thou sayest.
16. Therefore they sent for Je
shu, and placed him before the
Queen.
17. Then thus the Queen
spoke : I have heard that thou
performest
many wonderful
miracles: now do one in my
presence.
18. Jeshu replied, Whatever
thou commandest, I will do.
Meanwhile I pray this one thing:
that thou wilt not give me into
the hands of these wicked men
who have pronounced me a bas
tard.
19. The Queen replied, Fear
nothing.
20. Then Jeshu said, Bring
hither a leper and I will heal him.
21. And when a leper was
brought he laid his hand upon
him, and invoking the Almighty
name restored him to health, so
that the flesh of his face became
like that of a boy4.
22. Furthermore Jeshu said,
Bring hither a dead body.
23. And a dead body being
brought, he straightway put hie
hand upon it, and pronounced
the name, and it revived and
stood upon its feet.
Alexander Janneus is called Alex
andra by Josephus (Antiq., bk.
xiii., ch. 1G).
She reigned nine
years after the death of her hus
band, leaving two sons, Hyrcanus
and Aristobulus, both of whom
reigned after her. Hyrcanus was
killed by Herod (Antiq., xv., 2).
The interpolator has possibly con
founded Queen Alexandra with
Helena, Queen of Adiabene, noted
among the Jews as a Gentile pro
selyte who visited Jerusalem
(Antiq., xx., 2). Mr. Gould thinks
that the Helena referred to in the
text “ is probably the mother of
Constantine, who went to Jerusa
lem in a.d. 326 to see the holy sites,
and, according to an early legend,
discovered the three crosses on
Calvary,” This supposition, how
ever, is gratuitous and absurd.
Constantine’s mother was a pro
selyte to Christianity. It was the
more ancient queen Helena, who
was a famous proselyte to Juda
ism, that a Hebrew writer would
probably bear in mind.
4 Jesus healed lepers as well as
Jeshu; see Luke vii., 22, and
many other passages.
Leprosy
appears to have been a prevalent
disease among the chosen people,,
and Jehovah spent a great deal of
his time in legislating for its treat
ment. Compare 2 Kings v., 14,
where Naaman’s flesh “ became
again like unto the flesh of a little
cmld.”
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The Jewish Life of Christ.
24. Then said Jeshu, Esaias56
prophesied concerning me, Then
shall the lame man leap as a hart,
etc.
25. Then the Queen turning to
the wise men said, How can ye
affirm that this man is a sorcer
er ? Have I not seen him with
mine own eyes performing mir
acles as if he were the Son of
God ?
26. But the wise men answer
ing, said, Let not the Queen
speak thus, for most certainly
this man is a sorcerer.
27. But the Queen said, Get
ye hence from my sight, and
never again bring a like accusa
tion before me®.
28. Therefore the wise men
left the presence of the Queen,
sad at heart, and conferring one
with another they said, Let us
>how ourselves crafty, so that
this fellow may fall into our
hands7*
.
29. Moreover a certain one of
them said, If it seemeth good to
you, let one of us also learn the
name, as he did, and perform the
miracles, and perchance we may
take him.
30. The wise men approved of
this device, and said, Whoever
shall learn the name and shall
secure this fellow, to him shall
be given a double reward in the
world to come.
31. Forthwith a certain one of
the wise men named Judas’ arose
and said, If ye will answer for
the blame of the offence by which
T shall speak the Almighty name,
1 will learn it.
32. And peradventure God in
his mercy and great goodness
will bless me, and bring into
my hands this bastard and son
of an adulteress.
33. Then all with one voice
cried out, On us be the guilt8:
do as thou hast proposed, and
may thy work prosper.
34. Therefore he also went in
to the Holy of Holies, and did the
same that Jeshu had done.
35. Then going through the
city he cried out, Where are they
who report that this bastard is
the Son of God ? Am not I, who
am only flesh and blood, able to
do the things which Jeshu hath
done ?
36. The Queen and her minis
ters having heard of this, Judas
was brought before her, accom
a See Isaiah xxxv., 6.
6 Queen Helena’s reluctance to
meddle with Jeshu is very similar
to the legend of Pilate’s wife in
Matthew. “ Have thou nothing to
Jo with that just man,” says the
wife of the Roman governor. See
xxvii., 19.
7 Compare Matthew xxvi„ 3-4—
“ Then assembled together the
chief priests. . . . and consulted
♦hat they might take Jesus by
subtlety and kill him.” It may be
remarked that while our narrative
allows ample time for the capture
of Jeshu, the Gospel narratives
huddle up that of Jesus in the
crudest manner; the plot, the be
trayal, the seizure all happening in
one evening, or in an incredibly
short space of time.
8 Judas is here one of the “ wise
men ” or rabbis. It is remarkable
that the opponent of Jeshu and the
betrayer of Jesus bore the same
name, and the presumption is
that both characters are founded
on a common legend.
8 Compare Matthew xxvii., 25—
“ Then answered all the people
�The Jewish Life of Christ.
panied by the elders and wise
men of Jerusalem.
37. But the Queen summoned
Jeshu and said to him, Show us
what thou hast lately done. And
he began to perform his miracles
before the people.
38. Then Judas spoke these
words to the Queen and all the
people : Nothing that this fellow
doeth is wonderful to us. Let
him nestle among the stars and
I will hurl him down1.
39. Then Jeshu thus addressed
the whole people: Have ye not
been from the beginning, from
the time when I first knew you,
a stiff-necked people* ?
2
1
40. Judas answered, Is it not
true that thou dost practise
wickedness, thou bastard and son
of an adulteress ?
41. Did-not our master Moses
say concerning thee, If thy bro
ther, the son of thy mother, en
tice thee, saying, Let us, etc.,
thou shalt bring the man out,
and stone him with stones that
he die3* etc.?
,
and said, His blood be on us, and
on our children.”
1 This phrase, like many in our
Gospels, is misappropriated and
spoiled from the Old Testament.
Obadiah 4, says “ though thou
exalt thyself as the eagle, and
though thou set thy nest among
the stars, thence will I bring thee
down, saith the Lord.” The author,
like our Gospel writers, could mis
quote the Old Testament and blas
pheme at the same time.
2 Compare.. Matthew xiii., 15.
See also Exodus xxxii., 9.
3 See Deuteronomy xiii., 6-10,
containing the malignant law of
heresy, with which the Jews justify
the death of Jesus. If the hero of
©ur Gospels was indeed the son of
25
42. But the bastard answering,
said, Did not Esaias prophesy
concerning me ?
43. And are not these the
words of my great forefather
[David] concerning me: The
Lord said unto me, Thou art my
son; this day have I begotten
thee4 ?
44. And in like manner in an
other place he said, The Lord
said unto my lord, sit thou at
my right hand56
.
45. And now I will ascend to
my heavenly father and will sit
at his right hand, and ye shall
behold it with your eyes®. But
thou, Judas, shall not attain to
this.
46. And,now Jeshu uttered the
Almighty name, and there came
a wind and lifted him up be
tween heaven and earth. ■_
47. Forthwith Judas invoked
the same name, and the wind
also suspended him between
heaven and earth ; and thus both
soared round about through the
air7._______________________
Jehovah, his fate was a remarkable
instance of poetical justice.
4 Psalms ii., 7.—“My beloved
son ” was said of Jesus by the holy
dove at his baptism, and “ this day
have I begotten thee ” is added in
the ancient gospel according to the
Hebrews. This
latter clause
would of course be inconsistent
with the story of Matthew, who
represents Jesus as having been
miraculously conceived thirty yean
earlier.
5 Psalms ex., 1. It is likewise
quoted by Jesus. See Matthew
xxii., 44.
6 Compare John xx., 17, and
especially Mark xiv., 62, and xvi., 19.
7 The “ Acts of the Holy
Apostles Peter and Paul ” narrate*
�26
The Jewish Life of Christ.
48. At the sightof these things
all were astonished. But Judas
again recited the name, and seiz
ing the wretch sought to hurl
him down to the earth.
49. Then Jeshu also invoked
the name for the purpose of
bringing Judas down, and thus
they wrestled together.
50. But Judas seeing that his
strength was not equal to that of
Jeshu, moistened him with the
sweat of his body.
51. Wherefore being rendered
impure, they were both deprived
of the use of the Shem Hamphoras until they were washed8.
52. Then a death sentence was
brought against Jeshu, and they
said to him, If thou wouldst be
free, do the things which thou
hast been wont to do hitherto®.
53. But Jeshu, when he found
himself unable to do them
raised his voice in lamentation
saying,
54. David, my forefather, pro
phesied concerning me, saying,
Yea, for thy sake we are killed
all the day long1, etc.
55. When his disciples and the'
wicked crowd that adhered to
him saw these things, being ex
posed to the danger of death,
they fought with the elders and
the wise men of Jerusalem, and
enabled Jeshu to escape from the
city9.
56. So Jeshu went speedily to
Jordan* ; and when he had
3
2
1
washed and purified himself, he
declared again the name and re
peated his former miracles.
57. Moreover, he went and
took two millstones, and made
them float upon the water, and
seating himself on them he
caught fishes4 before the multi-
a similar contest between Peter and
Simon Magus, under which desig
nation Paul is clearly aimed at in
the Clementine Recognitions. Simon
Magus, by the power of sorcery,
flew through the air, and seemed
to be going to heaven ; and straight
way Peter (of course not by sorcery)
invoked the name of Jesus Christ,
when down fell Simon in quarters
(Ante Nicene Christian Library
vol. xvi., p. 273). Mr. Gould, after
a slight reference to this legend,
adds that “it reminds one of the
contest in the Arabian nights
between the Queen of Beauty and
the Djin in the story of the Second
Calender.”
• The sacred name could only
be pronounced in a state of perfect
purity, which may account for its
being lost among the Jews.
9 Compare Matthew xxvii., 40,
where Jesus is invited to work a
miracle in his own favor by de
scending from the cross; but'
Jesus, like Jeshu, was unable torespond.
1 Psalms xliv., 23. Quoted also
in Romans viii., 36.
2 Jeshu’s disciples stick by him,
and he escapes. The disciples of'
Jesus “ all forsook him and fled.”
Jeshu appears to have made a
better selection.
3 The Jordan where Jesus was
baptised, was a sacred river,
a miniature Ganges.
Naaman
washed in it to remove his leprosy,
and Jeshu purifies himself in its
waters.
4 Readers will remember the
miraculous draught of fishes in
our Gospels, and the walking on
water, which may be considered
equivalent to floating the mill
stones.
In miraculously feeding
the multitude, Jeshu took the
precaution to furnish himself with '
fish.
�The Jewish Life of Chrtsr.
sude, whicn they then did
eat.
58. When the report of this
thing reached Jerusalem, all the
wise and devout men began to
w< ep, uid to say,
59. Who will dare to risk death
by going and taking away from
this bastard the Almighty name ?
2?
Lo, we pledge ourselves that
he shall enjoy eternal happi
ness.
60. Then Judas offered him
self to go; to whom the wise
men said, Go in peace.
61. Therefore Judas went in
disguise, and mingled among the
wicked fellows.
�The Jewish Life of Christ,
CHAPTER III.
About the middle of the night
'God put the bastard into a deep
sleep, and Judas enchanted him
■in his sleep.
2. Then Judas entered into
Jeshu’s tent, and with a knife cut
his flesh and took out therefrom
the sacred parchment.
3 Jeshu awoke out of sleep
affrighted by a great and horrid
demon.
4. Wherefore he said to his
■disciples, Ye shall know now
that my heavenly Father hath
commanded me to come to him ;
I go because he seeth that I have
-no honor among men1.
5. Then his disciples said,
What is to become of us ?
6. He answered, O blessed
•ones, great will be your reward
if ye keep my words, for ye shall
■sit at my right hand with my
•heavenly Father1
2.
7. Then they all lifted up their
voices and wept.
8. But Jeshu said, Do not
'weep, for a great reward is in
store for your piety; only beware
lest ye transgress my words.
9. To which all responded,
Whatsoever thou coinmandest
we will do, and whosoever proveth disobedient to thy commands,
let him die.
10. Then said Jeshu, If ye lis
ten to my words and obey my
commands ye will treat me with
favor and justice. As ye go to
fight for me at Jerusalem I will
hide myself by mingling with you
so that the citizens of Jerusalem
may not know me3.
11. These things Jeshu spoke
deceitfully, that he might go to
Jerusalem and enter the Temple
and again obtain the knowledge
of the name.
12. Not in the least suspecting
his evil intent, they all respon
ded, All things that thou comman dest we will do, nor will we
depart therefrom a finger’s
breadth, either to the right or to
the left.
13. Again he said, Make oath
1 Compare John v., 41.
2 Jesus equals and exceeds this
(presumption. See Matt he w xix., 28.
A remarkably similar passage
occurs in John vii., 8-10. Acording to this Gospel, although it is
■not mentioned by either of the
others, Jesus sends his brethren
up to Jerusalem, and remains
behind in Galilee himself, because
his “ time was not yet come.”
But as soon as they are gone, he
follows them “ not openly, but, M
it were, in secret ”
�The Jewish Life oj Christ.
2ft-
to me. So they all from the
least to the greatest, bound
themselves by an oath.
14. And they did not know
that Judas was among them, be
cause he was not recognised.
15. Afterwards Judas said to
the attendants, Let us provide for
ourselves uniform garments, so
that no one maybe able to know
our master.
16. This device pleased them,
and they carried it out.
17. Then they journeyed to
Jerusalem, there to celebrate the
feast of unleavened bread .
18. Now when the devout men
saw Judas they rejoiced with
great joy, and said to him, Point
out to us we pray thee, what remaineth to be done.
19. (For he had secretly with
drawn himself and come to the
elders and wise men of the city).
20. Then Judas related all that
had happened, and how he had
obtained the name from the bas
tard.
21. Wherefore they rejoiced,
and Judas said to them, If ye
will obey my orders, to-morrow
I will deliver this fellow into
your hands.
22. Then said the wise men,
Hast thou enough knowledge of
his going and coming?
23. Judas replied, Everything
is known to me. Lo, he goeth
to the temple to attend the sao-ifice of the Paschal victim, but I
have sworn to him by the ten
commandments not to deliver
him into your hands.
24. And he hath with him twotbousand men5* Be ye prepared
.
therefore to-morrow, and know
that the man before whom I bow
down in adoration, he is the bas
tard. Act bravely, attack his fol
lowers, and seize him.
25. Simeon Ben Shetach and
all the rest of the wise men,
danced for joy, and they pro
mised Judas to obey his orders.
26. The next day came Jeshu
with all his crowd, but Judas
went out to meet him, and falling
down before him he worshipped
him.
27. Then all the citizens of
Jerusalem, being well armed and
mailed, captured Jeshu.
28. And when his disciples
saw him held captive, and that
it was vain to fight, they took to
their legs8 hither and thither,
and gave themselves up to bitter
weeping.
29. Meanwhile the citizens of
Jerusalem, waxing stronger, con
quered the bastard and his
crowd, killing many of them,
while the rest fled to the moun
tains.
30. Then the elders of Jerusalem brought Jeshu into the city,
and bound him to a marble pillar,
and scourged him, saying, Where
now are all the miracles thou hast
wrought ?
4 See Luk® xxii., 1. “ Now the
feast of unleavened bread drew
nigh, which is called the Passover.”
5 Jesus also must have had a
large following, probably consist
ing for the most part of fanatical
Galileans. They doubtless assisted
him in clearing the precincts of the
Temple, and they were dreaded by
the high priests who seized him
suddenly by night, “ for they feared
the people.”
8 Jeshu's disciples only leavo
him when they see that further re
sistance to the authorities is useless
�so
The Jewish Life of Christ.
31. Then they took thorn the grave, nor wilt thou at last
branches, and weaving a crown convert gall into good fruit.
out of them, put it on his
37. But Jesus weeping bitter
head.
ly, said, My God, my God, why
32. Then the bastard becoming
thirsty, said, Give me some water
to drink.
33. So they offered him vine
gar. Having tasted it, he cried
out with a loud voice,
34. My forefather David pro
phesied concerning me, saying,
And they gave me gall- for meat,
and in my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink.
35. They answering, said, If
thou art God, why didst thou not
■make known before thou didst
drink that vinegar was offered to
thee ?
36. Then they added, Thou
dost stand now upon the verge of
hast thou forsaken me7 ?
38. Then the elders said, If
thou art the son of God, why
dost thou not deliver thyself out
of our hands?
39. Jeshu replied, My blood is
shed for mortals, for thus Esaias
prophesied, And from his wounds
we are healed8*
.
40. Afterwards they brought
Jeshu before the greater and
lesser Sanhedrim, where sentence
was pronounced that he should
be stoned and hanged
.
*
41. The same day was the
preparation for the Sabbath and
also the preparation for the Passover1.
7 The scourging, the crown of
thorns, the mocking, and the
vinegar for drink, are such familiar
features of our Gospel story that it
is unnecessary to cite particular
texts.
Jeshu’s exclamation is
also exactly the same as that of
Jesus. It is the first verse of the
twenty-second Psalm—Eloi, Etoi,
lama sabacthani—“ My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me ?”
8 Isaiah liii., 5. This misinter
preted prophecy of the suffering
Messiah has largely contributed to
the Christian doctrine of the atone
ment. Matthew (xxvi., 28) makes
Jesus say at the last supper, “ this
is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the re
mission of sins.”
* Jeshu’s trial and sentence are
strictly according to Jewish law
and practice, while that of Jesus
outrages it in every particular.
Rabbi Wise, in his “ Martyrdom of
Jesus of Nazareth ” (p. G6), has the
following trenchant remarks on this
subject: “ The whole trial, from
the beginning to the end, is con
trary to Jewish law and custom as
in force at the time of Jesus. No
court of justice with jurisdiction
in penal cases could or ever did
hold its session in the place of the
high priest. There were three legal
bodies in Jerusalem to decide penal
cases: the great Sanhedrim of
•eventy-one members, and the two
minor Sanhedrim, each of twentythree members. The court of priests
had no penal jurisdiction except in
the affairs of the temple service,
and then over priests and Levites
only.”
1 This agrees with John, but not
with Matthew, Mark and Luke,
who all represent Jesus as having
already eaten of the Passover. The
fourth Gospel is a later production,
and its author had an opportunity
to correct silently some of his pre
decessors’ mistakes. Rabbi Wise,
in his “ Origin of Christianity ”
(p. 30), writes : “ In the first place
�The Jewish Life- of Christ.
31
42. Thence, taking him out to
the place of punishment they
etoned him to death'-. .
43. Then the wise men com
manded him to be hanged on a
tree, but no tree was found that
would support him for all being
frail were broken.
44. Ilis disciples seeing this,
vailed and cried out, Behold the
goodness of our ma ter Jeshu,
whom no tree will sustain.
45. But they knew not that
he had enchanted all wood when
he was in possession of the name3.
46. But he knew that he would
surely suffer the penalty of hang
ing, as it is written, When any
man shall be judged to death for
an offence and shall be put to
the Jews did no public business on
that day; had no court sessions,
no trials, and certainly no execu
tions on any Sabbath or feast day.
And in tho second place, the first
day of the Passover never was on
a Friday, and novel' can bo, accord
ing to the established principles of
tho Jewish calendar.”
These
statements, which could be amply
justified by Biblical and Talmudic
references, put Matthew, Mark and
Luke out of court; for they clearly
assert that Jesus was crucified on
the first day of the Passover.
Rabbi Wise sensibly concludes that
they “ adopted the first day of the
Passover because they taught the
dogma that Jesus died to redeem
all sinners. Tho fact concerning
the day was shaped to suit the
dogma. Israel was redeemed from
Egyptian bondage on the day cele
brated ever after that event as tho
feast of the Passover; therefore
tho death of Jesus, the second re
demption, must have taken place
on the self-same day. . . . But
this is impossible."
* The punishment for blasphemy
is prescribed in Leviticus xxiv.,16,
and that for perverting to the wor
ship of false gods in Deuteronomy
xiii., 10. Stoning was the method
of execution in both cases. Jeshu
therefore died according to the
Jewish law. The subsequent hang
ing was perhaps equivalent to the
exposure of traitors’ heads on
Temple Bar. Jesus, according to
our Gospels, was crucified; but
there was a diversity of opinion on
this point among tho early Chrijt
tians. Paul preached “ Christ an$
him crucified,” but his great riwd
Peter, in Acts v., 30, speaks &
“ Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged
on a tree,” and again in Acts x.,33
“ whom they slew and hanged on a
tree,” Peter further says (xii., 29)
“ they took him down from the
tree, and laid him in a sepulchre
and again in bis first Epistle, “ Who
his own self bare our sins in his
own body on the tree.” When Peter
and Paul differ as to the execution
of Jesus, it is not difficult to decide
which should bo believed. Peter
had, as Paid had not, the advant age
of being present. Peter does, in
deed, refer twice in Acts ii. to Jesus
as “ crucified,” but it is in a long
speech which was probably com
posed for him by the author. In
any case, these references do not
destroy the force of his froquont
allusions to “ hanging.” Paul him
self, too, in Galatians iii., 13, ap
pears to side for once with Peter.
Christ,” he says, “ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being
made a curso for us: for it is
written, Cursed is every one that
hangeth on a tree.” On the whole
it is not improbable that Jeshu and
Jesus died the same death.
s Deut. xxi., 22-8. Jeshu’s en
chantment of the wood appears a
masterly stroke of anticipation.
�32
The Jewish Life of Christ.
death, then thou shak hang him
etc.
47. Then Judas, when he saw,
that no wood would hold him up,
said to the wise men. Behold the
subtlety of this fellow, for he hath
enchanted the wood that it might
not sustain him.
48. But there is in my garden
a great stem of a cabbage4* I will
;
go and bring it hither; perhaps
it will hold the body,
49. To whom the wise men
said, Go and do so. So Judas
went at once and brought the
stalk, and on it Jeshu was
hanged.
50. Toward night the wise
men said, It is not lawful for us
to break one letter of the divine
law in regard to this fellow; we
must do to him what the law de
mands, even though he did se
duce men.
51. Therefore they buried him
where he was stoned.
52. Now about the middle of
the night his disciples came and
sat down by the grave and wept
and mourned for him.
53. Judas seeing this, took
away the body and hid it in his
garden under a brook. Diverting
the water elsewhere, he buried
the body in the channel and then
brought the water back.
54. On the morrow, when the
disciples came again and sat
down to weep, Judas said to
them, Why do ye weep ? Look
and see if the buried man is
there.
55. And when they looked and
found he was not there, the mis
erable crowd cried out, He is not
in the grave but hath ascended
to heaven5.
56. For he foretold this him
self when alive, and as if con
cerning himself the saying -was
interpreted, [But God will re
deem my soul from the power of
the grave] ; for he shall receive
me; Selah.
57. Meanwhile the Queen
finding out what had been done,
commanded the wise men of
Israel to appear; and when they
came she said to them,
58. What have ye done with
this man whom ye have accused
of being a sorcerer and a seducer
of men ?
59. They answered, We have
buried him according to the re
quirement of our law.
60. Then she said, Bring him
hither to me.
61. And they went and sought
for him in the grave, but did not
find him.
62. Then returning to the
Queen, they said, We know not
who hath taken him from the
grave.
63. The Queen answered and
said, lie is the Son of God and
hath ascended to his Father in
heaven ; for thus it is prophesied
of him, For he shall receive me ;
Selah.
64. Then the wise men said,
Do not allow these thoughts to
come into thy mind, for verily he
was a sorcerer; and they gave
proof by their own testimony
4 It must have been an immense Toldoth Jeshu for Richard Carlile,
cabbage. Perhaps it was a Jeru says the plant was a small specie®
salem artichoke. The anonymous of palm tree.
Jew. who translated the Sepher
5 Compare Ma*thew xxviii.. 6.
�33
The Jewish Life of Christ.
that he was a bastard and the son grave, and none of us know who
of an adulteress.
65. The Queen replied, Why
do I exchange words with you
in vain? For if ye bring him
hither, ye shall be found inno
cent, but if not, none of you
shall survive.
66. They all responded in these
words : Give us time that we may
discover the upshot of this affair.
Peradventure we may find him
there, but if we do not succeed,
do unto us whatever pleaseth thee.
67. She allowed them three
days’ time, and they departed
grieved at heart, lamenting, and
not knowing what to do.
68. Therefore they ordered a
fast, and when the appointed
time came and they had not
found the body, many left Jeru
salem to escape the sight of the
Queen.
69. Among the rest went a
certain old man named Rabbi
Tanchuma. He in great sorrow
wandering through the fields,
saw Judas sitting in his own
garden, eating.
70. Coming up to him, Rabbi
Tanchuma said, How is this?
Why dost thou take food when
all the Jews fast and are in sore
distress ?
71. Judas, greatly astonished,
inquired wherefore they fasted.
72. Rabbi Tanchuma replied,
It is because of this bastard who
hath been hanged and buried
near the place of stoning; he
nath been taken away from the
8 An analogous story is found in
Matthew xxviii., 11-15 But M atthew’s story is incredibly absur 1.
7 This is perhaps a later a Idition. It is no part of the st >ry,
but merely a speculation of the
hath taken him.
73. But his worthless disciples
declare that he hath gone up to
heaven, and the Queen threateneth all of us Israelites with
death unless we find him.
74. Then Judas asked, If this
fellow shall be found, will it
bring safety to the Israelites ?
75. Rabbi Tanchuma said, In
deed it will.
76. Then said Judas, Come,
and I will show thee the man,
for I took him away from the
grave because I feared less per
chance his impious followers
might steal him from the tomb8,
and I hid him in my garden,
andmade the brook run over him.
77. Then RabbiTanchuma
hastened to the wise men of
Israel and related the matter.
78. Therefore they all assem
bled, and tying the body to a
horse’s tail, brought it and threw
it down before the Queen, say
ing, Behold the man of whom
thou hast said, He hath gone up
to heaven.
79. When the Queen saw him,
she was overwhelmed with shame
and unable to speak.
80. Moreover, while the body
was thus dragged about forsome
time, the hair of the head was
pulled out.
81. And this is the reason why
now the hair of a monk is shaved
off in the middle of the head ; it
is done in remembrance of what
happened to Jeshu*
7.
author. As a matter of fact, he
was mistaken; for the tonsure was
inuse among Buddhistmonks before
the Christian era; Guatama him
self being represented as perform
ing the ceremony on his son Rahula.
0
�The Jewish Life of Christ
CHAPTER IV.
After these things the strife
between the Nazarenes and
Judeans grew so great that it
caused a division between them,
and a Nazarene meeting a Ju
dean would kill him1.
2. The trouble increased more
and more for thirty years, when
the Nazarenes, having increased
to thousands and myriads, pro
hibited the Israelites from com
ing to the greater festivals in
Jerusalem1*
2.
3. Then there was great dis
tress among the Israelites, like
what it was in the day when the
{golden] calf was forged, so that
no one knew what to do.
4. ’The pernicious faith in
creased and spread abroad, and
there came forth twelve men3
(bad offspring of foul ravens),
who wandered through twelve
kingdoms and spread false doc
trines among mankind.
5. Some of the Israelites fol
lowed them, and these being of
high authority, strengthened tho
Jeshuitic faith; and because
they gave themselves out to be
Apostles of him who was hanged,
the great body of the Israelites
followed them.
6. The wise men seeing this
desperate state of things were
sorely distressed, for wicked
ness abounded among the
Israelites.
7. Therefore everyone turning
to his companion said, Woe unto
us; what sins have we committed
that in our time so shameful a
thing should happen in Israel,
such as neither we nor our an
cestors ever before heard of ?.
8. Therefore with great sad
ness and weeping they sat down,
and with their eyes turned to
wards heaven said:
9. We pray thee, O Lord, God
1 The later, and more volumi
nous Sepher Toldoth Jeshu, edited
by Huldrich, makes Joseph Pandera a Nazarene, and represents
him as settling at Nazareth with
Miriam and Jeshu after their return
from Egypt, whither they had gone
on account of a famine in Palestine.
2 Probably an anachronism. It
perhaps alludes to an actual occur’tt>»ce in the early part of the second
century of our era. Archdeacon
Farrar says that “in a.d. 120.
TElia Capitolina was built by
Hadrian on the ruins of Jerusalem,
and Christians were allowed free
access to it, while no Jew was
suffered to approach it ” (“ Early
Days of Christianity,” p. 491).
3 Christian legends likewise re
present the twelve apostles as going
to various countries.
�The Jewish Life of Christ.
35
of heaven, to give us counsel
what to do, for we are entirely
ignorant as to what ought to be
done. We lift our eyes to thee.
10. In the midst of the people
of Israel innocent blood is shed
on account of this bastard and
son of an adulteress.
11. Wherefore are we stret
ched on tenter-hooks while the
hand of the Nazarene prevaileth
against us and great numbers of
us are killed4 ?
12. But few of us are left, and
on account of sins in which the
house of Israel is implicated
these things have happened.
13. Do thou indeed for thy
name’s sake give us counsel
what to do that we may be de
livered from the wicked crowd
of N azarenes.
14. When they had thus
prayed, a certain aged man from
among the elders, whose name
was Simeon Kepha [Simon Ce
phas]5 who frequented the Holy
of Holies, said to the rest,
15. My brethren and people,
hear me : If ye approve my
counsel I will root out these
wicked men from the society of
Israel, and they shall have no
more any part or heritage with
the Israelites.
16. But is it necessary that ye
shall take upon you the guilt of
an offence.
17. All responded saying, The
sin be upon us; carry out thy
purpose.
18. Therefore Simeon Ben
Kepha went into the sanctuary
and wrote out the Almighty
name, and cut his flesh with a
knife and placed it therein.
19. Then going from the Tem
ple he drew forth the writing,
and when he had learned the
name he went away to the chief
city of the Nazarenes.
20. And raising his voice he
cried out, Whosoever believeth
in Jeshu let him come unto me,
for I am sent by him.
21. Soon a great multitude
drew near to him, as many as
the sands of the sea, and said
4 Another anachronism, pro
bably referring to the same period
as verse 2. The Christians enjoyed
immunity from persecution, but
there is no doubt that the Jews
suffered dreadfully from Pagan and
Christian after the fall of Jerusalem.
5 The whole of this chapter,
which is no part of the life of Jeshu
but merely an addendum, is terribly
confused; and Mr. Gould’s at
tempted elucidations only leave it
in greater obscurity. He seeks to
explain it by events that occured
many centuries later. But a more
obvious and satisfactory explana
tion may be given. Simeon Kepha
is probably Peter, whose Judaising
proclivities are well known; and
Elias (verse 46) is perhaps^ Paul,
who withstood him, and preacned
the gospel to the Gentiles. Chris
tianity was originally nothing but a
Jewish sect, and there were greater
differences between the Sadducees
and the Pharisees than between
the Pharisees and the Christians.
The Book of Revelation shows
how intensely Jewish was the spirit
of the early Church, and at the
same time it indicates the intrusion
of foreign elements. Peter and
Paul represented respectively these
opposing tendencies. It may be
added that the miracles hew
ascribed to Simeon Kepha are
somewhat similar to those recoil
**
of Peter in the Acta
�Sv
The Jewish Life of Christ,
to him, Show us something to
confirm to us that thou art sent
by him.
22. And when he asked what
sign they required of him, they
replied, The miracles which
Jeshu when alive performed do
thou also exhibit to us.
23. Therefore he commanded
them to bring hither a leper;
and when they had brought him,
he laid his hand upon him and
he was healed
24. Again he asked them to
bring to him a dead man, and
when one was brought he laid
his hand upon him and he re
vived and stood upon his feet.
25. The wicked men seeing
this fell down to the ground,
before him, saying, Without
doubt thou art sent by Jeshu,
for when he was alive he did
these things for us.
26. Simeon Kepha then said,
I am sent by Jeshu, and he hath
commanded me to come to you.
Give me an oath that ye will do
all things that I command.
27. So at once they all ex
claimed, We will do all that
thou commandest.
28. Then Simeon Kepha said,
Know ye that he who was
hanged was the enemy of the
Israelites and their law, because
of the prophecy of Esaias, say
ing, Your new moons and
appointed holidays my soul
nateth.
29. Moreover, be it known to
you, that he did not delight in
the Israelites, even as Hosea
prophesied, Ye are not my
people,
• Compare Matthew xix., 28.
* Verses 36-37. The Christian
30. And although it be in his
power to sweep them from the
earth in one moment, never
theless he did not wish to utterly
destroy them, but desired that
there should ever be in your
midst witnesses of his hanging
and stoning.
31. Moreover, he underwent
those great sufferings and sor
rows that he might redeem us
from hell.
32. And now he exhorteth
and commandeth you no longer
to ill-treat any of the Judeans;
but if a Judean saith to a Naza
rene, Go with me one mile, let
him go with him two miles.
33. And if a Judean striketh
a Nazarene on his left cheek,
let him turn to him the right
also; that in this world they
may have their reward, but in
the world to come may be pun
ished in hell.
34. If ye do these things, ye
shall be worthy to sit with him
in his seats8.
35. Lo this also he require th
of you, that ye do not celebrate
the feast of the Passover, but
that ye hold sacred the day on
which he died.
36. And that instead of the
feast of Pentecost ye keep holy
the fortieth day after the ston
ing, in which he ascended to
heaven.
37. Instead of the feast of
tabernacles let the day of the
nativity be made holy; and on
the eighth day afterwards ob
serve the memory of his cir
cumcision7.
38. All responded to these
festivals of Good Friday, Ascension
Day, Christmas, and the Circum-
�The Jewish Life of Christ.
words, Whatsoever thou sayest
we will do ; remain with us
now.
39. To which he said, I will
abide with you if ye will allow
me to abstain from all food ac
cording to his precept, and only
eat the bread of misery and
drink the water of sorrow.
40. But ye must build me a
tower in the midst of the city
on which I may sit even till the
day of my death.
41. The people answered, We
will do as th ou sayest.
42. Therefore they built a
tower and put him thereon ; and
every day they brought him his
allowance of miserable bread
and scanty water, even up to
the hour of his death, he staying
there all the time.
43. For truly he served the
God of our fathers Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, and composed
many beautiful hymns, which he
published through all the region
of Israel, that they might be a
perpetual monument to him;
and he repeated all the hymns
to his masters.
44. 'This Simeon lived on
that tower six years, and when
he came to die he commanded
that he should be buried within
it; and that request they
obeyed.
45. Afterwards they devised
a most abominable fraud, and at
this very time that tower is to
be seen at Rome, and they call
it Peter—that is, the name of a
stone, because he sat on a stone
even to the day of his death.
46. After the death of Rabbi
Simeon Kepha there arose a man
named Elias8, a wise man but of
corrupt mind, who went to
Rome and publicly said: •
47. Know ye that Simeon
Kepha hath deceived you, for
your Jeshu gave to me his com
mands, saying, Go and tell
them.
48. Let no one believe that I
despise the law; for whoever
wishes to be initiated by cir
cumcision I will allow him.
49. But he who refuses to
observe this, let him be plunged
in foul water ; nor indeed if he
abstains from this shall he incur
danger.
•
50. This also he requireth:
that not on the seventh day but
the first on which the heavens
and the earth were created ye
shall worship.
51. And he added many other
bad instructions.
eision, are here plainly described.
Peter was “ of the circumcision,”
and it is natural to represent Simeon
Sepha as enjoining its observance
on the Nazarenes. The inclusion
of the festival of the Circumcision
in this list also points to the anti
quity of the text; for it was com
memorated in the early Church
until its suppression by Pope
Gelasius (a.d. 492-496).
Christianity”) considers Paul to
be the Acher (Alias) of the Talmud,
who was also called Elisha ben
Abuah. He was an apostate
disciple of Gamaliel, and was
alleged to have visited Paradise,
as Paul was lifted into “the seventh
heaven.” The views of Elias on
the unimportance of ceremonies
*
agree with those expressed by Paul
in his Epistles; and Paul, like Elias
is supposed to have met a violent
death at Rome
Rabbi
Wise
(“ Origin
of
�38
The Jewish Life of Christ.
52. But the people said, Con
firm to us by a miracle that
Jeshu hath sent thee.
53. And he said, What miracle
do ye expect ?
54. Scarcely had he spoken
when a stone fell from a huere
wall and crushed his head.
55. So perish all thine ene
mies, O Lord ; but let those who
love thee be even as t’>e sun
when it shineth in its strength
Selah, selah, selah.
�APPENDIX..
JESUS IN THE
TALMUD.
The references to Jesus in the Talmud being binding on
every orthodox Jew, we think it well to transcribe from
Lightfoot’s “ Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations ” (Ox
ford, 1859), the following passages upon Matt, ii., 14 :
“ There are some footsteps in the Talmudists of this
journey of our Savior into Egypt, but so corrupted with
venomous malice and blasphemy (as all their writings are),
that they seem only to have confessed the truth, that they
might have matter the more liberally to reproach him; for
as they speak: ‘ When Jannia [Bab. Sanedr., fol. 107, 2],
the King, slew the Rabbins, R. Joses ben Perachiah and Jesus
went away into Alexandria, in Egypt. Simeon ben Shetah
sent thither, speaking thus: “ From me, Jerusalem, the holy
city, to thee, 0 Alexandria in Egypt, my sister, health. My
husband dwells with thee, while I, in the meantime, sit alone.”
Therefore he rose up and went.’ And, a little after, ‘ He
brought forth four hundred trumpets, and anathematised’
(Jesus). And, a little before that, ‘ Elisaaus turned away
Gehazi with both his hands.’ ‘ And R. Joshua Ben Perachiah
thrust away Jesus with both his hands.’ ”
“Did [Schabb., fol. 164, 2] not Ben Stada bring enchant
ments out of Egypt in the cutting which was in his flesh ? ”
Under the name of Ben Stacla they wound our Jesus with
their reproaches, although the Glosser upon the place, from
the authority of R. Tam, denies it: for thus he, R. Tam saith,
�40
Appendix.
This was not Jesus of Nazareth, because they say here, Ben
Stada was in the days of Paphus, the son of Judah, who was
in the days of R. Akiba : but Jesus was in the days of R.
Josua, the sou of Perachiah, etc.
Wagenseil continues the story from the Gemara. While
Jesus and Joshua Ben Perachiah were at Alexandria,
they were hospitably treated by a rich and learned lady,
who, in Madame Blavatsky’s opinion, personifies Egypt.
Joshua praised her hospitality, and Jesus found her beautiful,
notwithstanding a “defect in her eyes.” Upon declaring so
to his master, Joshua cursed and drove him away, it being
forbidden by the Rabbis to look with admiration on female
beauty.
Lightfoot, upon Matt, xxvii., 31, says: “These things
are delivered in Sanhedrim (cap. vi., hal. 4) of one that is
guilty of stoning. If there be no defence found for him, they
led him out to be stoned, and a crier went before, saying
aloud thus : ‘ N., the son of N., comes out to be stoned, be
cause he hath done so and so. The witnesses against him
are N. and N.; whosoever can bring anything in his de
fence, let him come forth and produce it.’ On which
the Gemara of Babylon: “The tradition is, that on the
evening of the Passover Jesus was hanged, and that a
crier went before him for forty days, making this proclamat ion : ‘ This man comes forth to be stoned, because he
dealt in sorceries, and persuaded and seduced Israel; whoso
ever knows of any defence for him, let him come forth and
produce it.’ But no defence could be found, therefore they
hanged him on the evening of the Passover. Ulla saith, ‘ His
case seemed not to admit of any defence, since he was a
seducer, and of such God hath said, Thou shalt not spare him,
neither shalt thou conceal him ’ (Deut. xiii., 8).”
On v. 56, which speaks of Mary Magdalene and Mary the
nother of James and Joses, Lightfoot notes that the name
Magdalene, which is several times applied in the
Talmud to Miriam, the mother of Jeshu, means a plaiting or
curling of the hair, a profession which it appears was resorted
to by harlots, so that the word, like Stada, was used as an euphem
ism fora coarser term. Bab. Sandhr., fol. 67, 1 : ‘ They stoned
the son of Stada in Lydda, and they hanged him up on the
evening of the Passover. Now this son of Stada was son of
�41
Appendix.
Pandira.’
“ As they say in Pombedetha, she departed
from her husband.”
In the Jerusalem Talmud the following occurs: “ A child of
a son of Rabbi Joses, son of Levi, swallowed something
poisonous. There came a man who pronounced some words
to him in the name of Jesus, son of Pandera, and he was
healed. When he was going away Rabbi Joses said to him :
‘ What word did you use ?’ He answered, such a word. Rabbi
Joses said to him : ‘Better had it been for him to die, than
to hear such a word.’ And so it happened that he instantly
died.” Upon which Lardner remarks : “ Another proof this
of the power of miracles inherent in the disciples of Jesus,
and at the same time a mark of the malignity of the Jewish
rabbins.”
In another place the Jerusalem Gemara Avoda Sara, fol. 27,
says: “A son of Dama was bitten by a serpent. There came
to him James of Sechania to cure him in the name of Jesus,
son of Pandera, but the Rabbi Ismael would not suffer it.”
The Gemara Tract, Sanhedrm, fol. 43, mentions that Jeshu
had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Nezer, Boni, and Thoda.
Mr. Gould remarks, “ That there really lived such a person
■as Jeschu Ben-Pandira. and that he was a disciple of the Rabbi
Jehoshua Ben-Perachia, I see no reason to doubt. That he
escaped from Alexander Jannaeus with his master into Egypt,
and there studied magical arts; that he returned after awhile to
Judaea, and practised his necromantic arts in his own country,
is also not improbable.
Somewhat later the Jews were
famous, or infamous, throughout the Roman world as con
jurors and exorcists. Egypt was the head-quarters of magical
studies. That Jeschu, son of Pandira, was stoned to death
in accordance with the law, for having practised magic, is
.also probable. The passages quoted are unanimous in stating
that he was stoned for this offence. The law decreed this
as the death sorcerers were to undergo.”
WAS
JESUS
HANGED?
Lightfoot and Lardner, our two great English authorities,
translating from the Talmud, say that Jeshu was hanged We
�42
Appendix.
have ourselves, in a footnote, shown that stoning was the
Jewish method of execution, and that numerous passages in
the New Testament refer to Jesus as having been hung on a
tree, and therefore accursed. Mr. Gould arbitrarily changes
“hung” into “ crucified,” in order to bolster up his theory
that the Jews confused their Jeshu with the Christian Jesus.
Far more probable theories of the origin of the Crucifixion
legend may be ventured. Rabbi Wise considers that it may
have arisen from the story of Antigonus. He writes :—“ Dion
Cassius says ‘ Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain
Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and
scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by
the Romans, he put him to death.’ The sympathies of the
masses for the crucified King of Judaea, the heroic son of so
many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of
this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which
Paul and the Evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified King
of Judaea.” (History of the Hebrew’s Second Commonwealth,
p. 206 ; Cincinnatti, 1880.)
The Roman cross was not, as Christian painters have uni
versally represented it, shaped thus | . Its real form was a-
T, the upright portion being a fixture in the place of execution,
and the cross-piece, or patibulum, being carried from the court
or prison by the culprit, less as a burden than as a mark of
ignominy. The true Cross was an ancient phallic symbol,,
and it was used in Egyptian hieroglyphics as the sign of life..
Derived from immemorial ages before Christianity, its exten
sive use in religious symbolism would naturally prompt the
founders and propagators of new creeds and sects to adopt
it in their systems. The early Christians, beginning with'
Paul, deserted the story of Jesus being hung, and transferred
the rope to Judas. Then by developing the story of the
Crucifixion, and slightly varying the form of the Roman'
Cross, they elevated their Savior to a position whence he
radiated the mysticism of all religions.
LARDNER ON THE TOLDOTH JESUIT.
Dr. Lardner, in his “ Jewish Testimonies ” (chap, vii., p. 558,
Works, vol. vi.; 1838) after citing from the Talmud, says in »
�Appendix.
‘l.'T
note, “ Some learned men have of late appealed to a work
entitled Toldoth Jeschu. I am of opinion that Christianity
does not need such a testimony nor witnesses. I have looked
over it several times, with an intention to give some account
of it ; but, after all, I could not persuade myself to attempt
it; for it is a modern work, written in the fourteenth or
fifteenth century, and is throughout, from the beginning to the
end burlesque and falsehood; nor does the shameless writer
acknowledge anything that has so much as a resemblance
to the truth, except in the way of ridicule.”
We have shown in our Preface that the Jeshu story is very
ancient, and in substance was quoted by a Christian author in
the thirteenth century, and even then without being referred
to as a recent composition. As for “ridicule,” the miracles
of the New Testament are fully as absurd as those of the
Sepher Toldoth Jeshu, only we are accustomed to them, and
this is one of those instances in which familiarity does not
breed contempt. How Dr. Lardner would have laughed at
finding in the Jeshu story a lively narrative of devils’ adven
tures in men and pigs, or of the hero’s being lugged through
the air by the Devil and perched on a pinnacle. Such fables
are “ burlesque,” “ false” and “shameless ” to every man who
finds them in another’s faith.
CELSUS
We have already in our Preface referred to Mr. Froude’s
essay on Celsus. The famous “infidel’s” reflections on the
birth of Jesus have also been dealt with in one of our foot
notes. The title of his work was Logos Alethes, which Dr.
Donaldson translates as “The True Discourse” and Mr.
Froude as the “ True Account.” “ The book is now lost to
us,” says Professor Luthardt, “ having been destroyed by the
Christian zeal of the following centuries.” Mr. Froude says
of it: “ The book was powerful and popular, and it proved a
real obstacle to the spread of Christianity among the edu
cated classes. Origen’s answer decided the controversy in
the Church’s favor; but in the reconsideration of the theo
logical position which has been forced upon the modern world,
�44
Appcndix.
what Celsus had to say has become of peculiar interest to us,
and I have endeavored to reconstruct, in outline, his principal
positions. His arguments lie under every disadvantage ; the
order is disarranged, the objections are presented sometimes
in his own words, sometimes in paraphrases and epitomes,
and are brought forward in the attitude in which they could
be most easily overthrown. Often we are left to discover
what he must have said from details of the rejoinder.”
Mr. Froude likewise gives a summary of the charge
against Jesus which Celsus puts into the mouth of a Jewish
adversary of Christianity. Apostrophising Jesus, he says:
“ You were born in a small Jewish village. Your mother
was a poor woman who earned her bread by spinning.
Her husband divorced her for adultery. You were born
in secret, and were afterwards carried to Egypt, and were
bred up among Egyptian conjurors. The arts which you
there learnt you practised when you returned to your own
people, and you thus persuaded them that you were God.
It was given out that you were born of a virgin. Your real
father was a soldier, named Panther.”
It may be added that from his reference to St. Epiphanius,
John of Damascus, and the Talmud, Mr. Froude appears to
attach some weight to these taunts of Celsus.
Celsus was a man of learning, acuteness and wit, and
writing in the second century, he was in a much better posi
tion than any modern apologist of Christianity to judge of
its originality and its miraculous pretensions. He knew that
it was primarily an offshoot of Judaism, afterwards strength
ened and improved by large derivations from Greek theo
sophy ; and he pointed out what the early Fathers never
denied, that the Christian miracles were intellectually on a
level with the prodigies of Paganism, the only dispute being
as to the character of the supernatural power they manifested.
Unfortunately, nothing of this great sceptic’s work survives,
■except the extracts preserved in Origen’s refutation; and
however honest this celebrated Father may have been, it is
impossible, especially in view of Mr. Froude’s objections, to
take his reply as a complete statement of his opponent’s
positions.
Mr. Gould starts an original argument on this subject
“ Had,” he says, “ any of the stories found in the Toldoth
Jeschu existed in the second century, we should certainly
�Appendix.
45
nave found them in the book of Celsus.” Our answer to this
is threefold. First, Christian bigotry has left us no copy of
“ the book of Celsus,” which is therefore an unappealable
authority. Second, Celsus does twit the Christians with wor
shipping as God a bastard Jew, born of Pandera and a
Jewish woman, and who worked miracles by magic, which is
the very nucleus of the Jeshu story. Third, where the
Christian Father distinctly challenges another “calumny” as
to Jesus being a carpenter, Celsus is right and Origen
clearly wrong. Had the Sceptic himself been able to perusethe Father’s answer, it is probable that, instead of being
converted, he would have found fresh food for mirth, and
been convinced of the hopelessness of attempting to turn
Christians from their favorite superstition.
JESUS AND MAGIC.
Strange as the charge of magic may sound to us, it was
common to both sides in the early controversy between
Christianity and its opponents. That was not an age in
which miracles were denied. The modern habit of criticism,
resulting from long acquaintance with the methods of
physical science, scarcely existed then. Miraculous stories
were not investigated, but accepted or rejected as they
favored or opposed existing beliefs.
Gibbon satirically
remarks than an Athanasian is obdurate to the force of an
Arian miracle ; and neither the Christians, the Jews, nor the
Pagans could succeed in convincing each other by the
greatest display of miraculous power. When Tertullian, in
the name of the Trinity, challenged the deities of Paganism
to a public contest, ’-e was only attesting the universal belief
in magic. Jesus himself, as we read in the gospels, was
accused by the Jews of casting out devils by the power of
Beelzebub ; and in reply, he simply retorted the charge on
his adversaries.
From this time until the Christianity was victorious and
Paganism finally suppressed, the charge of magic was con
stantly preferred against Jesus. According to the Apocry
�46
Appendix,
phal gospel of Nicodemus, the Jews “said to Pilate, Did
we not say unto thee, Fie is a conjuror?” Justin Martyr,
in the middle of the second century, says the Jews of his
time still asserted that the miracles of Jesus were performed
by magical arts. This charge he also, like his master,
retorted on his opponents. lie even appeals to “ necro
mancy . divination by immaculate children, dream-senders
and assistant spirits ” in proof of another life. We may
safely assert that all the Christian Fathers, as well as Justin
Martyr, believed in magic and necromancy. The Clementine
Recognitions allude to the same charge against Jesus ; and
Arnobiys, writing at the end of the third century or the
beginning of the fourth, says : “ My opponents will perhaps
meet me with many other slanderous and childish charges
which are commonly urged.
Jesus was a magician
(sorcerer) ; he effected all these things by secret arts. From
the shrines of the Egyptians he stole names of angels of
might, and the religious system of a remote century.”*
JESHU’S CONTEMPORARIES.
King Janneus, in whose reign Jeshu is placed, was a
Sadducee. He persecuted the Rabbis, and Joshua ben Pera-chiah, the President of the Sanhedrim, fled to Egypt, leaving
Simeon ben Shetach as his deputy. With respect to this per
secution, Rabbi Wise writes:—“ The Pharisees being perse•cuted in the days of Alexander Jannai, the number of
Nazarites increased. Three hundred of them came at one
time to Jerusalem to fulfil their vows. Simon [ben Shetach]
was enabled so to construe the law that it was unnecessary
for one half of them to make the prescribed sacrifices.”
Can these Nazarites have been the Nazarenes referred to
in the Jeshu story ? Such a confusion of names is more than
possible, for the author of our first Gospel has actually per
petrated it. He sends Jesus home to Nazareth to fulfil the
prophecy “ He shall be called a Nazarene.” But the only
* Ante-Niceno Christian Library, Vol xix., p. 34.
�Appendix.
47
prophecy of that kind in the Old Testament is in the angel’s
prediction of the birth of Samson, who was neither to shave
nor to drink strong drink, but to be “ a Nazarite from the
womb.” The Nazarite was an ancient teetotaller, and had
no connexion whatever with Nazareth.
On the death of Janneus, his wife succeeded him on the
throne. Josephus gives her name as Alexandra. She may,
however, have had the second name of Helena. She was
perhaps the Queen Helena of the Jeshu story; for the Martini
version represents this personage as “ governing all Israel,”
a function which was never performed by Helena of Adiabene
nor by Helena the mother of Constantine. It is, however,
quite possible, as we have said in a footnote, that the tradi
tion confused her name with that of the celebrated proselyte.
Simeon ben She tach was of great repute among the Jews,
being called a second Ezra. He restored the traditional law,
and made attendance at public schools compulsory. He is
said to have refused to save his own son, condemned on the
testimony of false witnesses, because it had been done
according to the letter of the law.
��
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Jewish life of Christ : being the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu or Book of the generation of Jesus, edited (with an historical preface and voluminous notes) by G.W. Foote & J.M. Wheeler
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915] (ed)
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini) [1850-1898] (ed)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: xii, [13]-47 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Translated from the Hebrew. Preface discusses earlier translations: "We ...recently lighted on a translation published by Richard Carlile in 1823." (p. [Iiii]). Printed in double columns, with the Appendix in a single column.||(WIT) Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end. Includes Appendix on Jesus in the Talmud, Was Jesus hanged?, Lardner on the Toldoth Jeshu, Celsus, Jesus and magic, and Jeshu's contemporaries. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Progressive Publishing Company
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1885
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N247
N248
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Jewish life of Christ : being the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu or Book of the generation of Jesus, edited (with an historical preface and voluminous notes) by G.W. Foote & J.M. Wheeler), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Jesus Christ-Biography
NSS
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215241710e3c97bca3620495c3cb3060
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
of
BY
Robert G. Ingersoll.
THE DESTROYER OE WEEDS, THISTLES AND THORNS, IS A BENEFACTOR
WHETHER HE SOWETH GRAIN OR NOT
----------- 4----------The only Complete Edition published in England.
Reprinted Verbatim from Colonel Ingersoll's authorised American edition
WITH
AN
INTRODUCTION
By G. W. FOOTE.
---------4--------
LONDON:
THE PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY
28 Stonecutter Street.
1885.
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY RAilSEY AND FOOTE,
AT STONECUTTER STREET, E.O.
�CONTENTS.
CHAPTER.
I. Some Mistakes of Moses
...
...
•••
t
II. Free Schools ...
...
...
•••
••
III. The Politicians.............................................................
IV. Man and Woman
...
...
•••
•••
V. The Pentateuch...
...
...
...
•••
VI. Monday............................................................
VII. Tuesday........................................................................
VIII. Wednesday
...
...
•••
•••
•••
•••
IX. Thursday
.............................................................
X. “ He made the Stars also ”
XI. Friday.........................................................................
XII. Saturday
...
...
•••
•••
•••
XIII. “ Let Us Make Man ”................................................ ••
XIV. Sunday.........................................................................
XV. The Necessity for a Good Memory ...
...
••
XVI. The Garden
...........................................................
XVII. The Fall
............................................................
XVIII. Dampness
...
...
...
•••
•••
•••
XIX. Bacchus andBabel ...
...
•••
•••
•••
XX. Faith in Filth.............................................................
XXI. The Hebrews.............................................................
XXII. The Plagues .............................................................
XXIII. The Flight
.............................................................
XXIV. Confess and Avoid
...
...
• ••
XXV. “ Inspired ” Slavery ..............
•••
•••
••
XXVI. “Inspired’’Marriage.................................................
XXVII. “ Inspired ” War
..................................................
XXVIII. “ Inspired ” Religious Liberty
...........................
XXIX Conclusion
...........................
PAGE.
9
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18
20
25
30
34
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43
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48
52
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I32
�EDITOR’S PREFACE.
This edition of Ingersoll’s “ Mistakes of Moses ” is the only
complete one published on this side of the Atlantic. It is
reprinted verbatim from the author’s American edition.
The Bijou edition, published by Mr. Larner Sugden, at
Leek, avowedly omits large portions of the work, which the
editor considered uninteresting or unnecessary, or which,
perhaps, he found too much for the size of his volume.
Ingersoll’s admirers can hardly consider this amputation
just. If his work is published at all it should be published
as he wrote it; and this is what is now done.
There is also a lecture on the “ Mistakes of Moses ” pub
lished in England. It is, however, very different from the
present work, and less than a quarter of the size.
An addendum to the author’s edition of this work contains
the beautiful and touching speech he delivered at his
brother’s grave. This has been omitted. It has no con
nexion with the “ Mistakes of Moses,” and it has already
been published in England.
This being a reprint of the author’s volume, and not
a reproduction from the newspapers, the publishers will
remit Colonel Ingersoll a fair share of any profits;
although they are not strictly obliged to do so, as
the gallant author belongs to a nation which resolutely
declines to enact an international copyright with England.
Colonel Ingersoll is less a writer than an orator. The
methods of the platform and of the press are diverse, and
few men employ both with equal brilliancy. Yet the
“ Mistakes of Moses ” would attract and deserve attention
though its author were not a great popular speaker, and its
�Editor s Preface.
V.
merits would excite more admiration if they were not over
shadowed by his eloquence. This volume contains some
searching analysis of the science of the Pentateuch, if we
may dignify its blunders with such a name ; plenty of witty
banter of its absurdities ; and a powerful impeachment of
its barbarous ethics. The last portion is particularly good.
Humorous as Colonel Ingersoll is, he is never more admirable
and effective than when he is arraigning the brutalities of
religion at the bar of Humanity.
The author of “ Mistakes of Moses ” is not a scholar.
But he is more; he is a man of feeling, and a man of ideas.
His play of mind is stimulating, and his geniality is like a
breath of sea-air in summer. - He does not dwell among
books like a bug or a beetle, or devour them like a worm ;
but he visits them for nourishment, and his lusty nature, in
the liberal air of the world, turns it into healthy blood, with
which he thinks, feels and acts like an heroic man. The
touchstone of such a nature, so fortified, is better than all
the tests of scholarship. It is a vital criterion, like that
applied to substances by the roots and leaves of plants and
the stomach and lungs of animals. Ingersoll’s method is
not the archgeologist’s, the antiquary’s, or the professor’s;
it is that recommended by Walt Whitman in one of the
finest passages of his introduction to the Leaves of Grass—
“ dismiss whatever insults your own soul.” Those who
follow that rule are the salt of the earth ; and Ingersoll not
only follows it, but flames it over a continent.
July, 1885.
G. W. Foote.
�PREFA CE.
For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply
as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found
a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many
absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas incon
sistent with known and demonstrated facts. To me it
seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was
written by inspired men ; that slavery, polygamy, wars
of conquest and extermination were right, and that
there was a time when men could win the approbation
of infinite Intelligence, Justice and Mercy, by violating
maidens and by butchering babes. To me it seemed
more reasonable that savage men had made these laws ;
and I endeavored in a lecture, entitled, “ Some Mis
takes of Moses,” to point out some of the errors, con
tradictions, and impossibilities contained in the Penta
teuch. The lecture was never written, and consequently
never delivered twice the same. On several occasions
it was reported and published without consent, and
without revision. All these publications were grossly
and glaringly incorrect. As published, they have been
answered several hundred times, and many of the
clergy are still engaged in the great work. To keep
these reverend gentlemen from wasting their talents
on the mistakes of reporters and printers, I concluded
to publish the principal points in all my lectures on
this subject. And here it may be proper for me to say
that arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse ;
that there is no logic in slander, and that falsehood, in
the long run, defeats itself. People who love their
enemies should, at least, tell the truth about their
friends. Should it turn out that I am the worst man
in the whole world, the story of the flood will remain
�Preface.
vii.-
just as improbable as before, and the contradictions of
the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation.
There was a time when a falsehood, fulminated from
the pulpit, smote like a sword ; but, the supply having
greatly exceeded the demand, clerical misrepresentation
has at last become almost an innocent amusement.
Remembering that only a few years ago men, women,
and even children were imprisoned, tortured and
burned for having expressed, in an exceedingly mild
and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, I congra
tulate myself that calumny is now the pulpit’s last re
sort. The old instruments of torture are kept only to
gratify curiosity ; the chains are rusting away, and the
demolition of time has allowed even the dungeons of
the Inquisition to be visited by light. The Church,
impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the
loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what
she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear. Chris
tianity cannot live in peace with any other form of
faith. If that religion be true, there is but one savior,
one inspired book, and but one little narrow grassgrown path that leads to heaven. Such a religion is
necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive
and insolent. Christianity has held all other creeds
and forms in infinite contempt, divided the world into
enemies and friends, and verified the awful declara
tion of its founder—a declaration that wet with blood
the sword he came to bring, and made the horizon of a
thousand years lurid with the fagots’ flames.
Too great praise challenges attention, and often
brings to light a thousand faults that otherwise the
general eye would never see. Were we allowed to read
the Bible as we do all other books, we would admire
its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account
for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying
that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. But we
are told that it was written by inspired men ; that it
contains the will of God ; that it is perfect, pure and
true in all its parts ; the source and standard of all
moral and religious truth ; that it is the star and an
chor of all human hope ; the only guide for man, the
only torch in Nature’s night. These claims are so at
�viii.
Preface.
variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably
absurd, that every free, unbiased soul is forced to raise
the standard of revolt.
We read the Pagan sacred books with profit and de
light. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and
find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful,
poetic and absurd. We find, in all these records of the
past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with
tears of great and tender souls, who tried to pierce the
mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal ques
tions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought
to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that
would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of
Nature’s perfect self.
These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and
tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored
by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn
of birth and death’s sad night. They clothed even the
stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and
frailties of the sons of men. In them the winds and
waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and
springs, the mountains, woods and perfumed dells
were haunted by a thousand fairy forms.
They
thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire ;
made tawny Summer’s billowed breast the throne and
home of love ; filled Autumn’s arms with sun-kissed
grapes, and gathered sheaves ; and pictured Winter as
a weak old king, who felt, like Lear upon his withered
face, Cordelia’s tears. These myths, though false, are
beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless
ways enriched the heart and kindled the thought. But
if the world were taught that all these things are true
and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment
will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the
sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its
beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to
every brave and thoughtful man.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Washington, D.C., Oct. 7 th, 1879.
�Some Mistakes
of
Moses.
HE WHO ENDEAVORS TO CONTROL THE MIND BY EORCE
IS A TYRANT, AND HE WHO SUBMITS IS A SLAVE.
I.
I WANT to do what little I can to make my country truly
free, to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people, to
destroy the prejudices born of ignorance and fear, to do
away with the blind worship of the ignoble past, with the
idea that all the great and good are dead, that the living
are totally depraved, that all pleasures are sins, that sighs
and groans are alone pleasing to God, that thought is dan
gerous, that intellectual courage is a crime, that cowardice
is a virtue, that a certain belief is necessary to secure
salvation, that to carry a cross in this world will give us a
palm in the next, and that we must allow some priest to
be the pilot of our souls.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every
book and creed and dogma for itself, the world cannot be
free.
Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental
grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought
and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can upon
all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other’s hands
as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of
opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty
about should make us hate, persecute, and despise each
B
�10
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination or
the Trinity should make people imprison and burn each
other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet, in all
countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed
each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should
a believer in God hate an Atheist ? Surely the Atheist has
not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and
pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not
be far better to treat this Atheist, at least, as well as he
treats us ?
Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet
all I ask is—not that they love their enemies, not that they
love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ
from them with simple fairness. We do not wish to be for
given, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not
have to forgive them.
If all will admit that all have an equal right to think,
then the question is for ever solved; but as long as
organised and powerful churches, pretending to hold the
keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an out
cast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their
authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffer
ing. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum
of all the creeds.
That which has happened in most countries has hap
pened in ours. When a religion is founded, the educated,
the powerful—that is to say, the priests and nobles, tell the
ignorant and superstitious—that is to say, the people—that
the religion of their country was given to their fathers
by God himself; that it is the only true religion; that all
others were conceived in falsehood and brought forth in
fraud, and that all who believe in the true religion will
be happy for ever, while all others will burn in hell. For
the purpose of governing the people—that is to say, for
the purpose of being supported by the people—the priests
and nobles declare this religion to be sacred, and that who
ever adds to or takes from it will be burned here by man
and hereafter by God. The result of this is that the priests
and nobles will not allow the people to change ; and when,
after a time, the priests, having intellectually advanced,
wish to take a step in the direction of progress, the people
will not allow them to change. At first the rabble are
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
11
enslaved by the priests, and afterwards the rabble become
the masters.
One of the first things I wish to do is to free the
orthodox clergy. I am a great friend of theirs, and, in
spite of all they may say against me, I am going to do
them a great and lasting service. Upon their necks are
visible the marks of the collar, and upon their backs those
of the lash. They are not allowed to read and think for
themselves. They are taught like parrots, and the best are
those who repeat, with the fewest mistakes, the sentences
they have been taught. They sit like owls upon some
dead limb of the tree of knowledge, and hoot the same old
hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years.
Their congregations are not grand enough nor sufficiently
civilised to be willing that the poor preachers shall think for
themselves. They are not employed for that purpose. In
vestigation is regarded as a dangerous experiment, and the
ministers are warned that none of that kind of work will be
tolerated. They are notified to stand by the old creed, and
to avoid all original thought as a mortal pestilence. Every
minister is employed like an attorney—either for plaintiff
or defendant—and he is expected to be true to his client.
If he changes his mind he is regarded as a deserter,
and denounced, hated and slandered accordingly. Every
orthodox clergyman agrees not to change. He contracts
not to find new facts, and makes a bargain that he will
deny them if he does. Such is the position of a Protestant
minister in this nineteenth century. His condition excites
my pity; and to better it, I am going to do what little
I can.
Some of the clergy have the independence to break away
and the intellect to maintain themselves as free men ; but the
most are compelled to submit to the dictation of the orthodox
and the dead. They are not employed to give their thoughts,
but simply to repeat the ideas of others. They are not expected
to give even the doubts that may suggest themselves, but
are required to walk in the narrow, verdureless path trodden
by the ignorance of the past. The forests and fields on
either side are nothing to them. They must not even look
at the purple hills, nor pause to hear the babble of the
brooks. They must remain in the dusty roads where the
guide-boards are. They must confine themselves to the
�12
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
“ fall of man,” the expulsion from the garden, the “scheme
of salvation,” the “second birth,” the atonement, the happi
ness of the redeemed, and the misery of the lost. They
must be careful not to express any new ideas upon these
great questions. It is much safer for them to quote from
the works of the dead. The more vividly they describe the
sufferings of the unregenerate, of those who attended
theatres and balls, and drank wine in summer gardens on
the sabbath-day, and laughed at priests, the better ministers
they are supposed to be. They must show that misery fits
the good for heaven, while happiness prepares the bad for
hell ; that the wicked get all their good things in this life,
and the good all their evil; that in this world God punishes
the people he loves, and in the next the ones he hates ;
that happiness makes us bad here, but not in heaven ; that
pain makes us good here, but not in hell. No matter
how absurd these things may appear to the carnal mind,
they must be preached and they must be believed. If they
were reasonable, there would be no virtue in believing.
Even the publicans and sinners believe reasonable things.
To believe without evidence, or in spite of it, is accounted
as righteousness to the sincere and humble Christian.
The ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intel
lectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to
God as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic
worms ; that we never should have been born ; that we ought
to be damned without the least delay; that we are so in
famous that we like to enjoy ourselves; that we love our
wives and children better than our God; that we are
generous only because we are vile ; that we are honest
from the meanest motives, and that sometimes we have
fallen so low that we have had doubts about the inspiration
of the Jewish scriptures. In short, they are expected to
denounce all pleasant paths and rustling trees, to curse the
grass and flowers, and glorify the dust and weeds. They
are expected to malign the wicked people in the green and
happy fields, who sit and laugh beside the gurgling springs
or climb the hills and wander as they will. They are ex
pected to point out the dangers of freedom, the safety of
implicit obedience, and to show the wickedness of philo
sophy, the goodness of faith, the immorality of science and
the purity of ignorance.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
13
Now and then a few pious people discover some young
man of a religious turn of mind and a consumptive habit of
body, not quite sickly enough to die, nor healthy enough to
be wicked. The idea occurs to them that he would make a
good orthodox minister. They take up a contribution, and
send the young man to some theological school where he
can be taught to repeat a creed and despise reason. Should
it turn out that the young man had some mind of his own,
and, after graduating, should change his opinions and preach
a different doctrine from that taught in the school, every
man who contributed a dollar towards his education would
feel that he had been robbed, and would denounce him as a
dishonest and ungrateful wretch.
The pulpit should not be a pillory. Congregations should
allow the minister a little liberty. They should, at least,
permit him to tell the truth.
They have, in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover,
a kind of minister factory, where each professor takes an
oath once in five years—that time being considered the life
of an oath—that he has not, during the last five years, and
will not, during the next five years, intellectually advance.
There is probably no oath they could easier keep. Probably,
since the foundation-stone of that institution was laid there
has not been a single case of perjury. The old creed is
Still taught. They still insist that God is infinitely wise,
powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved.
They insist that the best man God ever made deserved to
be damned the moment he was finished. Andover puts its
brand upon every minister it turns out, the same as Sheffield
and Birmingham brand their wares, and all who see the
brand know exactly what the minister believes, the books
he has read, the arguments he relies on, and just what he
intellectually is. They know just what he can be depended
On to preach, and that he will continue to shrink and shrivel,
and grow solemnly stupid day by day until he reaches the
Andover of the grave and becomes truly orthodox for ever.
I have not singled out the Andover factory because it is
worse than the others. They are all about the same. The
professors, for the most part, are ministers who failed in the
pulpit and were retired to the seminary on account of their
deficiency in reason and their excess of faith. As a rule,
they know nothing of this world, and far less of the next;
�14
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
but they have the power of stating- the most absurd propo
sitions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear.
Something- should be done for the liberation of these men.
They should be allowed to grow—to have sunlight and air.
They should no longer be chained and tied to confessions of
faith, to mouldy books and musty creeds. Thousands of
ministers are anxious to give their honest thoughts. The
hands of wives and babes now stop their mouths. They
must have bread, and so the husbands and fathers are forced
to preach a doctrine that they hold in scorn. For the sake
of shelter, food and clothes, they are obliged to defend the
childish miracles of the past, and denounce the sublime dis
coveries of to-day. They are compelled to attack all modern
thought, to point out the dangers of science, the wickedness
of investigation and the corrupting influence of logic. It
is for them to show that virtue rests upon ignorance and
faith, while vice impudently feeds and fattens upon fact and
demonstration. It is a part of their business to malign and
vilify the Voltaires, Humes, Paines, Humboldts, Tyndalls,
Hmckels, Darwins, Spencers and Drapers, and to bow with
uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers and per
secutors of the world. They are, for the most part, engaged
in poisoning- the minds of the young, prejudicing children
against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the
Bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of
reason.
These orthodox ministers do not add to the sum of know
ledge. They produce nothing. They live upon alms. They
hate laughter and joy. They officiate at weddings, sprinkle
water upon babes, and utter meaningless words and barren
promises above the dead. They laugh at the agony of un
believers, mock at their tears, and of their sorrows make a
jest.. There are some noble exceptions. Now and then a
pulpit holds a brave and honest man. Their congregations
are willing that they should think—willing that their ministers
should have a little freedom.
As we become civilised, more and more liberty will be
accorded to these men, until finally ministers will give their
best and highest thoughts. The congregations will finally
get tired of hearing about the patriarchs and saints, the
miracles and wonders, and will insist upon knowing- some
thing about the men and women of our day, and the accom-
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
15
plishments and discoveries of our time. They will finally
insist upon knowing how to escape the evils of this world
instead of the next. They will ask light upon the enigmas
of this life. They will wish to know what we shall do with
our criminals instead of what God will do with his, how we
shall do away with beggary and want, with, crime and
misery, with prostitution, disease and famine, with tyranny
in all its cruel forms, with prisons and scaffolds, and how
we shall reward the honest workers and fill the world with
happy homes I These are the problems for the pulpits and
congregations of an enlightened future. If Science cannot
finally answer these questions, it is a vain and worthless
thing.
The clergy, however, will continue to answer them in
the old way, until their congregations are good enough to
set them free. They will still talk about believing in the
Lord Jesus Christ, as though that were the only remedy for
all human ills. They will still teach that retrogression is
the only path that leads to light—that we must go back;
that faith is the only sure guide, and that reason is a delu
sive glare, lighting only the road to eternal pain.
Until the clergy are free they cannot be intellectually
honest. We can never tell what they really believe until
they know that they can safely speak. They console them
selves now by a secret resolution to be as liberal as they
dare, with the hope that they can finally educate their con
gregations to the point of allowing them to think a little
for themselves. They hardly know what they ought to do.
The best part of their lives has been wasted in studyingsubjects of no possible value. Most of them are married,
have families and know but one way of making their living.
Some of them say that if they do not preach these foolish
dogmas, others will, and that they may through fear, after
all, restrain mankind. Besides, they hate publicly to admit
that they are mistaken, that the whole thing is a delusion,
that the “ scheme of salvation” is absurd, and that the
Bible is no better than some other books, and worse than
most.
You can hardly expect a bishop to leave his palace, or
the Pope to vacate the Vatican. As long as people want
Popes, plenty of hypocrites will be found to take the place.
And as long as labor fatigues, there will be found a
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
good many men willing to preach once a week, if other
folks will work and give them bread. In other words,
while the demand lasts, the supply will never fail.
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would
flourish ; if a little more enlightened, religion would perish!
II—FREE SCHOOLS.
It is also my desire to free the schools. When a pro
fessor in a college finds a fact, he should make it known,
even if it is inconsistent with something Moses said. Public
opinion must not compel the professor to hide a fact, and,
‘‘like the base Indian, throw the pearl away.” With the
single exception of Cornell, there is not a college in the
United States where truth has ever been a welcome g’uest.
The moment one of the teachers denies the inspiration of the
Bible, he is discharged. If he discovers a fact inconsistent
with that book, so much the worse for the fact, and especially
for the discoverer of the fact. He must not corrupt the minds
of his pupils by demonstrations. He must beware of every
truth that cannot in some way be made to harmonise with the
superstitions of the Jews. Science has nothing in common
with religion. Facts and miracles never did, and never
will, agree. They are not in the least related. They are
deadly foes. What has religion to do with facts ? Nothing.
Can there be Methodist mathematics, Catholic astronomy,
Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or Episcopal botany?
Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? Only that
which somebody knows should be taught in our schools.
We should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing.
The common school is the bread of life for the people, and
it. should not be touched by the withering hand of super
stition.
Our country will never be filled with great institutions of
learning until there is an absolute divorce between Church
and School. As long as the mutilated records of a bar
barous people are placed by priests and professors above
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
17
the reason of mankind, we shall reap but little benefit from
church or school.
Instead of dismissing- professors for finding something
out, let us rather discharge those who do not. Let each
teacher understand that investigation is not dangerous for
him ; that his bread is safe, no matter how much truth he
may discover, and that his salary will not be reduced simply
because he finds that the ancient Jews did not know the
entire history of the world.
Besides, it is not fair to make the Catholic support the
Protestant school, nor is it just to collect taxes from infidels
and Atheists to support schools in which any system of
religion is taught.
The sciences are not sectarian. People do not persecute
each other on account of disagreements in mathematics.
Families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does
not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. It
is what people do not know that they persecute each other
about. Science will bring, not a sword, but peace.
Just as long as religion has control of the schools,
science will be an outcast. Let us free our institutions of
learning. Let us dedicate them to the science of eternal
truth. Let us tell every teacher to ascertain all the facts
he can—to give us light, to follow Nature, no matter where
she leads ; to be infinitely true to himself and us ; to feel
that he is without a chain, except the obligation to be
honest; that he is bound by no books, by no creed, neither
by the sayings of the dead nor of the living ; that he is
asked to look with his own eyes, to reason for himself with
out fear, to investigate in every possible direction, and to
bring us the fruit of all his work.
At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pur
suits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition
among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations
among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures
upon the “ Harmony of Genesis and Geology.” Like all
hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree,
and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed
only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like them
selves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as
generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.
Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world
�18
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds
and miraculous mistakes.
The time must come when
churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of
man; when? minister and priest will deem the discoveries of
the living of more importance than the errors of the dead;
when the truths of Nature will outrank the “ sacred ” false
hoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all
the miracles of Holy Writ.
Who can over-estimate the progress of the world if all
the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten,
elevate and civilise mankind ?
When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a
university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers
brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the
dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become
a real and blessed truth.
III.—THE POLITICIANS.
I WOULD like also to liberate the politician. At present the
successful office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the
earth he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything
else to him. There are so many societies, so many churches,
so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent
man to succeed in a political career. Candidates are forced
to pretend that they are Catholics with Protestant procli
vities, or Christians with Liberal tendencies, or temperance
men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that
although not members of any church their wives are, and
that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all this is
that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute
of real principle; and this will never change until the people
become grand enough to allow each other to do their own
thinking.
Our Government should be entirely and purely secular.
The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely
out oi sight. He should not be compelled to give his
opinion as to the inspiration of the Bible, the propriety of
infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. All these
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
19
thing’s are private and personal. He should be allowed to
settle such things for himself, and should he decide contrary
to the law and will of God, let him settle the matter with
God. The people ought to be wise enough to select as their
officers men who know something of political affairs, who
comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the
future grandeur of our country. If we were in a storm at
sea, with deck wave-washed and masts strained and bent
with storm, and it was necessary to reef the topsail, we cer
tainly would not ask the brave sailor who volunteered to go
aloft, what his opinion was on the five points of Calvinism.
Our Government has nothing to do with religion. It is
neither Christian nor pagan—it is secular. But as long as
the people persist in voting for or against men on account of
their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold
place and power. Just so long will the candidates crawl
in the dust—hide their opinions, flatter those with whom
they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they de
spise ; and just so long will honest men be trampled under
foot. Churches are becoming political organisations.
Nearly every Catholic is a Democrat; nearly every Metho
dist in the north is a Republican.
It probably will not be long until the churches will
divide as sharply upon political as upon theological ques
tions ; and when that day comes, if there are not Liberals
enough to hold the balance of power this government will
be destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the
hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are
in partnership man is a slave.
All laws for the purpose of making man worship God
are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the
*
auto-da-ft and lovingly built the dungeons of the
Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy—
making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the
Bible or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or
to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion
of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be
at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to
* Act of faith. A judicial act of the Inquisition, or the judgment it
gave in order to condemn those whom it thought worthy of punish
ment for having infringed religious laws.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
be able to protect himself, without going1 in partnership
with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act
that laws become necessary to keep him from being
laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare
from ridicule by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It
strikes me that God might write a book that would not
necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact I
think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce
a work that would excite the admiration of mankind.
Surely politicians could be better employed than in passing
laws to protect the literary reputation of the Jewish God.
IV.—MAN AND WOMAN.
Let us forget that we are Baptists, Methodists, Catholics,
Presbyterians, or Freethinkers, and remember only that we
are men and women. After all man and woman are the
highest possible titles. All other names belittle us, and
show that we have, to a certain extent, given up our
individuality, and have consented to wear the collar of
authority—that we are followers. Throwing away these
names, let us examine these questions not as partisans, but
as human beings with hopes and fears in common.
We know that our opinions depend to a great degree
upon our surrounding—upon race, country and education.
We are all the result of numberless conditions and inherit
vices _ and virtues, truths and prejudices. If we had been
born in England, surrounded by wealth and clothed with
power, most of us would have been Episcopalians and
believed in Church and State. We should have in
sisted that the people needed a religion, and that not
having intellect enough to provide one for themselves
it was our duty to make one for them, and then compel
them to support it. We should have believed it in
decent to officiate in a pulpit without wearing a gown,
and that prayers should be read from a book. Had we
belonged to the lower classes we might have been Dis
senters and protested against the mummeries of the High
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
21
Church. Had we been born in Turkey, most of us would
have been Mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of
the Koran. We should have believed that Mohammed
actually visited heaven and became acquainted with an
angel by the name of Gabriel, who was so broad between
the eyes that it required three hundred days for a very
smart camel to travel the distance. If some man had
denied this story we should probably have denounced him
as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to under
mine the foundations of society, and to destroy all dis
tinction between virtue and vice. We should have said to
him, “ What do you propose to give us in place of that
angel ? We cannot afford to give up an angel of that
size for nothing.” We would have insisted that the best
and wisest men believed the Koran. We would have
quoted from the works and letters of philosophers, generals
and sultans to show that the Koran was the best of books,
and that Turkey was indebted to that book and to that
alone for its greatness and prosperity. We would have
asked that man whether he knew more than all the great
minds of his country, whether he was so much wiser than
his fathers ? We would have pointed out to him the fact
that thousands had been consoled in the hour of death by
passages from the Koran; that they had died with glazed
eyes brightened by visions of the heavenly harem, and
gladly left this world of grief and tears. We would have
regarded Christians as the vilest of men, and on all
occasions would have repeated “ There is but one God, and
Mohammed is his prophet1”
So, if we had been born in India, we should in all
probability have believed in the religion of that country.
We should have regarded the old records as true and
sacred, and looked upon a wandering priest as better than
the men from whom he begged and by whose labor he
lived.
We should have believed in a god with three
heads instead of three gods with one head, as we do now.
Now and then some one says that the religion of his
father and mother is good enough for him, and wonders why
anybody should desire a better. Surely we are. not bound
to follow our parents in religion any more than in politics,
science or art. China has been petrified by the worship
of ancestors. If our parents had been satisfied with the
�22
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
religion of theirs, we would be still less advanced than we
are. If we are in any way bound by the belief of our
fathers the doctrine will hold good back to the first people
who had a religion ; and if this doctrine is true, we ought
now to be believers in that first religion. In other words,
we would all be barbarians. You cannot show real respect
to your parents by perpetuating their errors. Good fathers
and mothers wish their children to advance, to overcome
obstacles which baffled them, and to correct the errors of
theh? education. If you wish to reflect credit upon your
parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems
that they could not understand, and build better than they
knew. To sacrifice your manhood upon the grave of your
father is an honor to neither. Why should a son who has
examined a subject throw away his reason and adopt the
views of his mother ? Is not such a course dishonorable to
both ?
We must remember that this £< ancestor” argument is
as old at least as the second generation of men, that it has
served no purpose except to enslave mankind, and results
mostly from the fact that acquiesceence is easier than inves
tigation. This argument pushed to its logical conclusion
would prevent the advance of all people whose parents were
not Freethinkers.
It is hard for many people to give up the religion in
which they were born ; to admit that their fathers were
utterly mistaken, and the sacred records of their country
are but collections of myths and fables.
But when we look for a moment at the world we find
that each nation has its ‘ ‘ sacred records ”—its religion and
its ideas of worship. Certainly all cannot be right; and as
it would require a life time to investigate the claims of these
various systems, it is hardly fair to damn a man for ever
simply because he happens to believe the wrong one. All
these religions were produced by barbarians.
Civilised
nations have contented themselves with changing the
religions of their barbaric ancestors, but they have made none.
Nearly all these religions are intensely selfish.
Each
one was made by some contemptible little nation that
regarded itself as of almost infinite importance, and looked
upon the other nations as beneath the notice of their god.
In all these countries it was a crime to deny the sacred
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
23
records, to laugh at the priests, to speak disrespectfully of
the gods, to fail to divide your substance with the lazy
hypocrites who managed your affairs in the next world
upon condition that you would support them in this. In
the olden time these theological people who quartered them
selves upon the honest and industrious, were called sooth
sayers, seers, charmers, prophets, enchanters, sorcerers,
wizards, astrologers and impostors, but now they are known
as clergymen.
We are no exception to the general rule, and conse
quently have our sacred books as well as the rest. Of
course it is claimed by many of our people that our books
are the only true ones, the only ones that the real God ever
wrote, or had anything whatever to do with. They insist
that all other sacred books were written by hypocrites and
impostors; that the Jews were the only people that God
ever had any personal intercourse with, and that all other
prophets and seers were inspired only by impudence and
mendacity. True, it seems somewhat strange that God
should have chosen a barbarous and unknown people who
had little or nothing to do with the other nations of the
earth as his messengers to the rest of mankind.
It is not easy to account for an infinite God making
people so low in the scale of intellect as to require a revela
tion. Neither is it easy to perceive why, if a revelation was
necessary for all, it was made only to a few. Of course I
know that it is extremely wicked to suggest these thoughts,
and that ignorance is the only armor that can effectually
protect you from the wrath of God. I am aware that in
vestigators, with all their genius, never find the road to
heaven; that those who look where they are going are sure
to miss it, and that only those who voluntarily put out their
eyes and implicitly depend upon blindness can surely keep
the narrow path.
Whoever reads our sacred book is compelled to believe it
or suffer for ever the torments of the lost. We are told
that we have the privilege of examining it for ourselves;
but this privilege is only extended to us on the condition
that we believe it whether it appears reasonable or not. We
may disagree with others as much as we please upon the
meaning of all passages in the Bible, but we must not deny
the truth of a single word. We must believe that the book
�24
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
is inspired. If we obey its every precept without believing
in its inspiration, we will be damned just as certainly as
though we disobeyed its every word. We have no right
to weigh it in the scales of reason—to test it by the laws of
nature, or the facts of observation and experience. To do
this, we are told, is to put ourselves above the word of God,
and sit in judgment on the works of our creator.
For my part, I cannot admit that belief is a voluntary
thing. It seems to me that evidence, even in spite of our
selves, will have its weight, and that whatever our wish
may be, we are compelled to stand with fairness by the
scales, and give the exact result. It will not do to say that
we reject the Bible because we are wicked. Our wicked
ness must be ascertained, not from our belief, but from our
acts.
I am told by the clergy that I ought not to attack the
Bible; that I am leading thousands to perdition and render
ing certain the damnation of my own soul. They have had
the kindness to advise me that, if my object is to make con
verts, I am pursuing the wrong course. They tell me to
use gentler expressions and more cunning words. Do they
really wish me to make more converts ? If their advice is
honest, they are traitors to their trust. If their advice is
not honest, then they are unfair with me. Certainly they
should wish me to pursue the course that will make the
fewest converts, and yet they pretend to tell me how rny
influence could be increased. It may be that upon this
principle John Bright advises America to adopt Free Trade,
so that our country can become a successful rival of Great
Britain. Sometimes I think that even ministers are not
entirely candid.
Notwithstanding the advice of the clergy, I have con
cluded to pursue my own course, to tell my honest thoughts
and to have my freedom in this world whatever my fate
may be in the next.
The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people
is the Bible. That book is the chain that binds, the dun
geon that holds the clergy. That book spreads the pall of
superstition over the colleges and schools. That book puts
out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a
crime. That book unmans the politician and degrades the
people. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy
�25
SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
and fear.
It plays the same part in our country that has
been played by “ sacred records” in all the nations of the
world.
A little while ago I saw one of the Bibles of the Middle
Ages. It was about two feet in length, and one and a half
in width. It had immense oaken covers with hasps and
clasps and hinges large enough almost for the doors of a
penitentiary. It was covered with pictures of winged
angels and aureoled saints. In my imagination I saw this
book carried to the cathedral altar in solemn pomp—heard
the chant of robed and kneeling priests, felt the strange
tremor of the organ’s peal; saw the colored light stream
ing through windows stained and touched by blood and
flame—the swinging censer with its perfumed incense
rising to the mighty roof, dim with height and rich with
legend carved in stone, while on the walls was hung, written
in light and shade, and all the colors that can tell of joy
and tears, the pictured history of the martyred Christ.
The people fell upon their knees. The book was opened,
and the priest read the messages from God to man. To
the multitude the book itself was evidence enough that it
was not the work of human hands. How could those
little marks and lines and dots contain, like tombs, the
thoughts of men, and how could they, touched by a ray of
light from human eyes, give up their dead ? How could
these characters span the vast chasm dividing the present
from the past, and make it possible for the living still to
hear the voices of the dead ?
V.—THE PENTATEUCH.
The first five books in our Bible are known as the Penta
teuch. For a long time it was supposed that Moses was
the author, and among the ignorant the supposition still
prevails. As a matter of fact, it seems to be well settled
that Moses had nothing to do with these books, and that
they were not written until he had been dust and ashes for
hundreds of years. But, as all the churches still insist that
c
�26
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
he was the author, that he wrote even an account of his
own death and burial, let us speak of him as though these
books were in fact written by him. As the Christians
maintain that God was the real author, it makes but little
difference whom he employed as his pen or clerk.
Nearly all authors of sacred books have given an account
of the creation of the universe, the origin of matter, and
the destiny of the human race. Nearly all have pointed
out the obligation that man is under to his Creator for
having placed him upon the earth, and allowed him to
live and suffer, and have taught that nothing short of the
most abject worship could possibly compensate God for his
trouble and labor suffered and done for the good of man.
They have nearly all insisted that we should thank God for
all that is good in life; but they have not all informed us
as to whom we should hold responsible for the evils we
endure.
Moses differed from most of the makers of sacred books
by his failure to say anything of a future life, by failing to
promise heaven and to threaten hell. Upon the subject of
a future state, there is not one word in the Pentateuch. Pro
bably at that early day God did not deem it important to make
a revelation as to the eternal destiny of man. He seems to
have thought that he could control the Jews, at least, by
rewards and punishments in this world, and so he kept the
frightful realities of eternal joy and torment a profound
secret from the people of his choice. ITe thought it far
more important to tell the Jews their origin than to en
lighten them as to their destiny.
We must remember that every tribe and nation has some
way in which the more striking phenomena of nature are
accounted for. These accounts are handed down by tra
dition, changed by numberless narrators as intelligence
increases, or to account for newly-discovered facts, or for
the purpose of satisfying the appetite for the marvellous.
The way in which a tribe or nation accounts for day and
night, the change of seasons, the fall of snow and rain, the
flight of birds, the origin of the rainbow, the peculiarities
of animals, the dreams of sleep, the visions of the insane,
the existence of earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, lightning
and the thousand things that attract the attention and
excite the wonder, fear or admiration of mankind, may be
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
27
called the philosophy of that tribe or nation. And as all
phenomena are, by savage and barbaric man accounted for
as the action of intelligent beings for the accomplishment
of certain objects and as these beings were supposed to
have the power to assist or injure man, certain thing’s were
supposed necessary for man to do in order to gain the
assistance and avoid the anger of these gods. Out of
this belief grew certain ceremonies, and these ceremonies
united with the belief formed religion ; and consequently
every religion has for its foundation a misconception of the
cause of phenomena.
All worship is necessarily based upon the belief that some
being exists who can, if he will, change the natural order
of events. The savage prays to a stone that he calls a
god, while the Christian prays to a god that he calls a
spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful. The
savage and the Christian put behind the universe an intelli
gent cause, and this cause, whether represented by one god
or many, has been in all ages the object of all worship. To
carry a fetish, or utter a prayer, to count beads, to abstain
from food, to sacrifice a lamb, a child or an enemy, are
simply different ways by which the accomplishment of the
same object is sought, and are all the offspring of the same
error.
Many systems of religion must have existed many ages
before the art of writing was discovered, and must have
passed through many changes before the stories, miracles,
histories, prophecies and mistakes became fixed and pet rifled
in written words. After that, change was possible only by
giving new meanings to old words, a process rendered
necessary by the continual acquisition of facts somewhat
inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the “sacred
records.” In this way an honest faith often prolongs its
life by dishonest methods ; and in this way the Christians
of to-day are trying to harmonise the Mosaic account of
creation with the theories and discoveries of modern
science.
Admitting that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch,
or that he gave to the Jews a religion, the question arises
as to where he obtained his information. We are told by
the theologians that he received his knowledge from God,
and that every word he wrote was and is the exact truth.
�28
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
It is admitted at the same time that he was an adopted son
of Pharaoh’s daughter, and enjoyed the rank and privilege
of a prince. Under such circumstances, he must have been
well acquainted with the literature, philosophy and religion
of the Egyptians, and must have known what they believed
and taught as to the creation of the world.
Now, if the account of the origin of this earth as given
by Moses is substantially like that given by the Egyptians,
then we must conclude that he learned it from them,
Should we imagine that he was divinely inspired because
he gave to the Jews what the Egyptians had given him?
The Egyptian priests taught, first, that a god created
the original matter, leaving it in a state of chaos ; second,
that a god moulded it into form ; third, that the breath of
a god moved upon the face of the deep; fourth, that a god
created simply by saying “ Let it befifth, that a god
created light before the sun existed.
Nothing can be clearer than that Moses received from
the Egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, making
such changes and additions as were necessary to satisfy
the peculiar superstitions of his own people.
If some man at the present day should assert that he
had received from God the theories of evolution, the sur
vival of the fittest, and the law of heredity, and we should
afterwards find that he was not only an Englishman, but
had lived in the family of Charles Darwin, we certainly
should account for his having these theories in a natural
way. So if Darwin himself should pretend that he was
inspired, and had obtained his peculiar theories from God,
we should probably reply that his grandfather suggested
the same ideas, and that Lamarck published substantially
the same theories the same year that Mr. Darwin was
born.
Now, if we have sufficient courage, we will, by the
same course of reasoning, account for the story of creation
found in the Bible. We will say that it contains the belief
of Moses, and that he received his information from the
Egyptians, and not from God. If we take the account as
the absolute truth and use it for the purpose of determining
the value of modern thought, scientific advancement
becomes impossible.
And even if the account of the
creation as given by Moses should turn out to be true and
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
29
should be so admitted by all the scientific world, the claim
that he was inspired would still be without the least
particle of truth. We would be forced to admit that he
knew more than we had supposed. It certainly is no proof
that a man is inspired simply because he is right.
No one pretends that Shakespeare was inspired, and yet
all the writers of the books of the Old Testament put
together could not have produced “ Hamlet.”
Why should we, looking upon some rough and awkward
thing, or god in stone, say that it must have been produced
by some inspired sculptor, and with the same breath pro
nounce the Venus de Milo to be the work of man ? Why
should we, looking at some ancient daub of angel, saint or
virgin, say its painter must have been assisted by a god ?
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know.
If there are things for which we cannot account, let us
wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural
agencies is, in fact, to say that we do not know. Theo
logy is not what we know about God, but what we do
not know about Nature. In order to increase our respect
for the Bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt
and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and
belitttle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power
of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to
destroy the confidence of man in himself—to induce him
to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he
was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and
that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. The
Church has said, “ Believe and obey ! If you reason, you
will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost.
If you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and
curiosity, and will, like Adam and Eve, be thrust from
paradise for ever 1”
For my part, I care nothing for what the Church says,
except in so far as it accords with my reason; and the
Bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with what
I think or know.
All books should be examined in the same spirit, and
truth should be welcomed and falsehood exposed, no matter
in what volume they may be found.
Let us in this spirit examine the Pentateuch, and if any
thing appears unreasonable, contradictory or absurd, let us
�30
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
have the honesty and courage to admit it. Certainly no
good can result either from deceiving ourselves or others.
Many millions have implicitly believed this book, and have
just as implicitly believed that polygamy was sanctioned by
God. Millions have regarded this book as the foundation
of all human progress, and at the same time looked upon
slavery as a divine institution. Millions have declared this
book to have been infinitely holy, and, to prove that they
were right, have imprisoned, robbed and burned their
fellow men. The inspiration of this book has been esta
blished by famine, sword and fire, by dungeon, chain and
whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud,
and generations have been bribed by threats of hell and
promises of heaven.
Let us examine a portion of this book, not in the darkness
of our fear, but in the light of reason.
And, first, let us examine the account given of the crea
tion of this world, commenced, according to the Bible, on
Monday morning, about five thousand eight hundred and
eighty-three years ago.
VI.—MONDAY.
Moses commences his story by telling us that in the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
If this means anything, it means that God produced,
caused to exist, called into being, the heaven and the earth.
It will not do to say that he formed the heaven and the
earth of previously existing matter. Moses conveys, and
intended to convey, the idea that the matter of which the
heaven and the earth are composed was created.
It is impossible for me to conceive of something being
created from nothing. Nothing, regarded in the light of a
raw material, is a decided failure. I cannot conceive of
matter apart from force. Neither is it possible to think of
force disconnected with matter. You cannot imagine
matter going back to absolute nothing. Neither can you
imagine nothing being changed into something. You may
be eternally damned if you do not say that you can con-
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
31
eeive these things, but you cannot conceive them. Such is
the constitution of the human mind that it cannot even
think of a commencement or an end of matter or force.
If God created the universe, there was a time when he
commenced to create. Back of that commencement there
must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was
this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was
nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing
had ever happened. What did he do ? Gan you imagine
anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite
nothing wasting an eternity ?
I do not pretend to tell how all these things really are ;
but I do insist that a statement that cannot possibly be
comprehended by any human being, and that appears utterly
impossible, repugnant to every fact of experience, and
contrary to everything that we .really know, must be
rejected by every honest man.
We can conceive of eternity, because we cannot conceive
of a cessation of time. We can conceive of infinite space
because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our
imagination will not stand upon the farthest star, and see
infinite space beyond. In other words, we cannot conceive
of a cessation of time ; therefore eternity is a necessity of
the mind. Eternity sustains the same relation to time that
space does to matter.
In the time of Moses it was perfectly safe for him to
write an account of the creation of the world. lie had
simply to put in form the crude notions of the people. At
that time no other Jew could have written a better account.
Upon that subject he felt at liberty to give his imagination
full play. There was no one who could authoritatively
contradict anything he might say. It was substantially the
same story that had been imprinted in curious characters
upon the clay records of Babylon, the gigantic monuments
of Egypt, and the gloomy temples of India. In those days
there was an almost infinite difference between the educated
and ignorant. The people were controlled almost entirely
by signs and wonders. By the lever of fear priests moved
the world. The sacred records were made and kept and
altered by them. The people could not read, and looked
upon one who could as almost a god. In our day it is
hard to conceive of the influence of an educated class in
�32
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
a barbarous age. It was only necessary to produce the
“sacred record,” and ignorance fell upon its face. The
people were taught that the record was inspired, and there
fore true.. They were not taught that it was true and
therefore inspired.
After all, the real question is not whether the Bible is
inspired, but whether it is true. If it is true, it does not
need to be inspired. If it is true, it makes no difference
whether it was written by a man or a god. The multipli
cation-table is just as useful, just as true, as though God
had arranged the figures himself. If the Bible is really
true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged ; and if it
is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. As a
matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired.
Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake.
Where truth ends, where probability stops, inspiration
begins. A fact never went into partnership with a miracle.
Truth does not need the assistance of miracle. A fact will
fit every other fact in the universe, because it is the pro
duct of all other facts. A lie will fit nothing except another
lie made for the express purpose of fitting it. After a while
the man gets tired of lying, and then the last lie will not
fit the next fact, and then there is an opportunity to use a
miracle. Just at that point it is necessary to have a little
inspiration.
It seems to me that reason is the hig’hest attribute of
man, and that if there can be any communication from God
to man, it must be addressed to his reason. It does not
seem possible that in order to understand a message from
God it is absolutely essential to throw our reason away.
How could God make known his will to any being destitute
of reason ? How can any man accept as a revelation from
God that which is unreasonable to him ? God cannot make
a revelation to another man for me. He must make it to
me, and until he convinces my reason that it is true, I can
not receive it.
The statement that in the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth I cannot accept. It is contrary to
my reason, and I cannot believe it. It appears reasonable
to me that force has existed from eternity. Force cannot,
as it appears to me, exist apart from matter. Force, in
its nature, is for ever active, and without matter it could
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
33
not act; and so I think matter must have existed for
ever. To conceive of matter without force, or of force
without matter, or of a time when neither existed, or of a
being* who existed for an eternity without either, and who
out of nothing' created both, is to me utterly impossible.
I may be damned on this account, but I cannot help it. In
my judgment, Moses was mistaken.
It will not do to say that Moses merely intended to tell
what God did in making the heavens and the earth out
of matter then in existence.
He distinctly says that in
the beginning God created them. If this account i» true,
we must believe that God, existing in infinite space sur
rounded by eternal nothing, naught and void, created, pro
duced, called into being, willed into existence, this universe
of countless stars.
The next thing we are told by this inspired gentleman is
that God created light, and proceeded to divide it from the
dairkuGSS
Certainly the person who wrote this believed that dark
ness was a thing-, an entity, a material that could get mixed
and tangled up with light, and that these entities, light and
darkness, had to be separated. In his imagination he pro
bably saw God throwing pieces and chunks of darkness
on one side, and rays and beams of light on the other.
It is hard for a man who has been born but once to
understand these things. For my part I cannot understand
how light can be separated from darkness. I had always
supposed that darkness was simply the absence of light, and
that under no circumstances could it be necessary to take
the darkness away from the light. It is certain, however,
that Moses believed darkness to be a form of matter, be
cause I find that in another place he speaks of a dark
ness that could be felt. They used to have on exhibition
at Rome a bottle of the darkness that overspread Egypt.
You cannot divide light from darkness any more than
you can divide heat from cold. Cold is an absence of heat,
and darkness is an absence of light. I suppose that we
have no conception of absolute cold. We know only
degrees of heat. Twenty degrees below zero is just twenty
degrees warmer than forty degrees below zero. Neither
cold nor darkness are entities, and these words express
simply either the absolute or partial absence of heat or
�34
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
light. I cannot conceive how light can be divided from
darkness, but I can conceive how a barbarian several thou
sand years ago, writing upon a subject about which he
knew nothing, could make a mistake. The Creator of light
could not have written in this way. If such a being exists,
he must have known the nature of that “ mode of motion”
that paints the earth on every eye, and clothes in garments
seven-hued this universe of worlds.
VII.—TUESDAY.
We are next informed by Moses that “ God said, Let there
be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters;” and that “God made the
firmament, and divided the waters which were under the
firmament fiom the waters which were above the firma
ment.”
What did the writer mean by the word “firmament?”
Theologians now tell us that he meant an “ expanse.” This
will not do. How could an expanse divide the waters from
the waters, so that the waters above the expanse would not
fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse ?
The truth is that Moses regarded the firmament as a solid
affair. It was where God lived, and where water was kept.
It was for this reason that they used to pray for rain. They
supposed that some angel could with a lever raise a gate
and let out the quantity of moisture desired. It was with
the water from this firmament that the world was drowned
when the windows of heaven were opened. It was in this
firmament that the sons of God lived—the sons who “saw
the daughters of men that they were fair and took them
wives of all which they chose?’ The issue of such mar
riages were giants, and “ the same became mighty men
which were of old, men of renown.”
Nothing is clearer than that Moses reg’arded the firma
ment as a vast material division that separated the waters
of the world, and upon whose floor God lived, surrounded
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
35
by his sons. In no other way could he account . for ram.
Where did the water come from ? He knew nothing about
the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the sun
wooed with amorous kisses the waves of the sea, and that
they, clad in glorified mist rising to meet their lover, were,
by disappointment, changed to tears and fell as rain.
The idea that the firmament was the abode of the Deity
must have been in the mind of Moses when he related the
dream of Jacob. “ And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder
set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven .
and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on
it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the
Lord God.”
.
So, when the people were building the tower of Babel
“ the Lord came down to see the city and the towei, which
the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold,
the people is one, and they have all one language ; and this
they begin to do ; and now nothing will be restrained from
them which they imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and
there confound their language, that they may not under
stand one another’s speech.”
The man who wrote that absurd account must have
believed that God lived above the earth, in the firmament.
The same idea was in the mind of the Psalmist when he said
that God “ bowed the heavens and came down.”
Of course, God could easily remove any person bodily to
heaven, as it was but a little way above the earth.
Enoch
walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”
The accounts in the Bible of the ascension of Elijah, Christ
and St. Paul, were born of the belief that the firmament
was the dwelling-place of God. It probably never occurred
to these writers that if the firmament was seventy or eighty
miles away, Enoch and the rest would have been frozen
perfectly stiff long before the journey could have been
completed. Possibly Elijah might have made the voyage,
as he was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire “ by a whirl
wind.”
The truth is that Moses was mistaken, and upon that
mistake the Christians located their heaven and their hell.
The telescope destroyed the firmament, did away with the
heaven of the New Testament, rendered the ascension of
our Lord and the assumption of his mother infinitely absurd,
�36
SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the New
Jerusalem, and in their places gave to man a wilderness of
worlds.
VIII.—WEDNESDAY.
We are next informed by the historian of creation that
after God had finished making the firmament and had
succeeded in dividing the waters by means of an “ expanse,”
he proceeded to gather the waters on the earth together
in seas so that the dry land might appear.
Certainly the writer of this did not have any concep
tion of the real form of the earth. He could not have
known anything of the attraction of gravitation. He must
have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that it
required considerable force and power to induce the water
to leave the mountains and collect in the valleys. Just as
soon as the water was forced to run down hill the dry land
appeared, and the grass began to grow and the mantles
of green were thrown over the shoulders of the hills, and
the trees laug’hed into bud and blossom and the branches
were laden with fruit.
And all this happened before a
ray had left the quiver of the sun, before a glittering
beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower, and before the
dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains
of the east and welcomed to her arms the eager god of
Day.
It does not seem to me that grass and trees could grow
and ripen into seed and fruit without the sun. According
to the account this all happened on the third day. Now, if
as the Christians say, Moses did not mean by the word “ day”
a period of twenty-four hours, but an immense and almost
measureless space of time, and as God did not, according to
this view make any animals until the fifth day, that is, not
for millions of years after he made the grass and trees, for
what purpose did he cause the trees to bear fruit ?
Moses says that God said on the third day, “ Let the
earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the
fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
itself upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
87
brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind,
and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after
his kind ; and God saw that it was good, and the evening
and the morning were the third day. .
There was nothing to eat this fruit; not an insect with
painted wings sought the honey of the flowers; not a
single living, breathing thing upon the earth, llenty
of grass, a great variety of herbs, an abundance of fruit>
but not a mouth in all the world. If Moses is right, this
state of things lasted only two days; but if the modern
theologians are correct, it continued for millions of ages.
u It is now well known that the organic history of the
earth can be properly divided into five epochs—-the Prim
ordial, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary.
Each of these epochs is characterised by animal and vege
table life peculiar to itself. In the FIRST will be found
Algie and Skull-less Vertebrates ; in the SECOND, Ferns
and Fishes; in the Third, Pine Forests and Reptiles ; m
the FOURTH, Foliaceous Forests and Mammals; and in the
Fifth, Man.”
,. . ,
.
How much more reasonable this is than the idea tnat
the earth was covered with grass and herbs and trees
loaded with fruit for millions of years before an animal
existed.
There is, in Nature, an even balance for ever kept
between the total amounts of animal and vegetable life.
44 In her wonderful economy she must form and bountifully
nourish her vegetable progeny—twin-brother life to her
with that of animals. The perfect balance between plant
existences and animal existences must always be maintained
while matter courses through the eternal circle, becoming
each in turn. If an animal be resolved into its ultimate
constituents in a period according to the surrounding
circumstances, say, of four hours, of four months, of four
years, or even of four thousand years—for it is impossible to
deny that there may be instances of all these periods during
which the process has continued—those elements which
assume the gaseous form mingle at once with the atmosphere
and are taken up from it without delay by the ever-open
mouths of vegetable life. By a thousand pores in every
leaf the carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit
for animal life is absorbed, the carbon being separated and
�38
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
assimilated to form the vegetable fibre which, as wood,
makes and furnishes our houses and ships, is burned for our
warmth, or is stored up under pressure for coal. All this
carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time, as
animal existences from monad up to man. Our mahogany
of to-day has been many negroes in its turn, and before the
African existed, was integral portions of many a generation
■of extinct species.”
It seems reasonable to suppose that certain kinds of
vegetation and certain kinds of animals should exist
together, and that as the character of the vegetation
changed, a corresponding change would take place in the
animal world. It may be that I am led to these conclusions
by “ total depravity,” or that I lack the necessary humility
of spirit to satisfactorily harmonise Hseckel and Moses;
or that, I am carried away by pride, blinded by reason’
given over to hardness of heart that I might be damned,
but I never can believe that the earth was covered with
leaves, and buds, and flowers and fruits before the sun with
glittering spear had driven back the hosts of Night.
IX.—THURSDAY.
After the world was covered with vegetation it occurred
to Moses that it was about time to make a sun and moon;
and so we are told that on the fourth day God said, “ Let
there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day
from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons,
and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth ; and
it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night;
he made the stars also.”
Can we believe that, the inspired writer had anv idea of
the size.of the sun ? Draw a circle five inches in diameter,
and by its side thrust a pin through the paper. The whole
made by the pin will sustain about the same relation to the
circle that the earth does to the sun. Did he know that
the sun was eight hundred and sixty thousand miles in
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
39
diameter; that it was enveloped in an ocean of fire thou
sands of miles in depth, hotter even than the Christian’s
hell, over which sweep tempests of flame moving’ at the
rate of one hundred miles a second, compared with which
the wildest storm that ever wrecked the forests of this
world was but a calm ? Did he know that the sun, every
mom ent, of time, throws out as much heat as could be gene
rated by the combustion of eleven thousand millions of tons
of coal ? Did he know that the volume of the earth is less
than one-millionth of that of the sun ? Did he know of the
one hundred and four planets belonging to our solar system,
all children of the sun ? Did he know of Jupiter, eightyfive thousand miles in diameter, hundreds of times as large
as our earth, turning on his axis at the rate of twenty-five
thousand miles an hour, accompanied by four moons, making
the tour of his orbit in fifty years, a distance of three thou
sand million miles ? Did he know anything about Saturn,
his rings and his eight moons ? Did he have the faintest
idea that all these planets were once a part of the sun;
that the vast luminary was once thousands of millions of
miles in diameter ; that Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter
and Mars were all born before our earth, and that by no
posssibility could this world have existed three days, nor
three periods, nor three “ good whiles” before its source,
the sun ?
Moses supposed the sun to be about three or four feet in
diameter, and the moon about half that size. Compared
with the earth, they were but simple specks. This idea
seems to have been shared by all the “inspired ” men. We
find in the book of Joshua that the sun stood still, and the
moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon
their enemies. “ So the sun stood still in the midst of
heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.’
We are told that the sacred writer wrote in common
speech, as we do when we talk about the rising and setting
of the sun, and that all he intended to say was that
the earth ceased to turn on its axis “ for about a whole
day.”
My own opinion is that General Joshua knew no more
about the motions of the earth than he did about mercy and
justice. If he had known that the earth turned upon its
axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and swept in
�40
SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
its course about the sun at the rate of sixty-eight thousand
miles an hour, he would have doubled the hailstones, spoken
of in the same chapter, that the Lord cast down from
heaven, and allowed the sun and moon to rise and set in
the usual way.
It is impossible to conceive of a more absurd story than
this about the stopping of the sun and moon, and yet
nothing so excites the malice of the orthodox preacher as to
call its truth in question. Some endeavor to account for
the phenomenon by natural causes, while others attempt to
show that God could by the refraction of light have made
the sun visible although actually shining on the opposite
side of the earth. The last hypothesis has been seriously
urged by ministers within the last few months. The Rev.
Henry M. Morey of South Bend, Indiana, says “ that the
phenomenon was simply optical. The rotary motion of the
earth was not disturbed, but the light of the sun was pro
longed by the same laws of refraction and reflection by
which the sun now appears to be above the horizon when it
is really below.
The medium through which the sun’s
rays passed may have been miraculously influenced so asto have caused the sun to linger above the horizon long
after its usual time for disappearance.”
This is the latest and ripest product of Christian scholar
ship upon this question no doubt, but still it is not entirely
satisfactory to me. According to the sacred account the
sun did not linger merely above the horizon, but stood still
in the midst of heaven for about a whole day,” that is to
say for about twelve hours. If the air was miraculously
changed so that it would refract the rays of the sun while
the earth turned over as usual for “about a whole day,”
then at the end of that time the sun must have been visible
in the east, that is, it must by that time have been the next
morning. According to this, that most wonderful day
must have been at least thirty-six hours in length. We
have first, the twelve hours of natural light, then twelve
hours of “refracted and reflected” light. By that time it
would again be morning, and the sun would shine for
twelve hours more in the natural way, making thirty-six
hours in all.
If the Rev. Morey would depend a little less on “ re
fraction ” and a little more on “ reflection,” he would con-
�41
SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
elude that the whole story is simply a barbaric myth and
fable.
It hardly seems reasonable that God, if there is one,
would either stop the globe, change the constitution of the
atmosphere or the nature of light simply to afford Joshua
an opportunity to kill people on that day, when he could
just as easily have waited until the next morning.
It
certainly cannot be very gratifying to God for us to believe
such childish things.
It has been demonstrated that force is eternal; that it is
for ever active, and eludes destruction by change of form.
Motion is a form of force, and all arrested motion changes
instantly to heat. The earth turns upon its axis at about
one thousand miles an hour. Let it be stopped, and a
force beyond our imagination is changed to heat. It has
been calculated that to stop the world would produce as
much heat as the burning of a solid piece of coal three
times the size of the earth.
And yet we are asked to
believe that this was done in order that one barbarian
might defeat another.
Such stories never would have
been written, had not the belief been general that the
heavenly bodies were as nothing compared with the earth.
The view of Moses was acquiesced in by the Jewish
people and by the Christian world for thousands of years.
It is supposed that Moses lived about fifteen hundred
years before Christ, and although he was “ inspired,” and
obtained his information directly from God, he did not know
as much about our solar system as the Chinese did a thou
sand years before he was born. “ The Emperor Chwenhio adopted as an epoch a conjunction of the planets
Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which has been shown
by M. Bailly to have occurred no less than 2,449 years
before Christ.” The ancient Chinese knew not only the
motions of the planets, but they could calculate eclipses.
“In the reign of the Emperor Chow-Kang, the chief astro
nomers, Ho and Hi were condemned to death for neglecting
to announce a solar eclipse which took place 2,169 B.O., a
clear proof that the prediction of eclipses was a part of the
duty of the imperial astronomers.”
Is it not strange that a Chinaman should find out by his
own exertions more about the material universe than Moses
could when assisted by its creator ?
u
�42
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
About eight hundred years after God gave Moses the
principal facts about the creation of the “ heaven and the
earth ” he performed another miracle far more wonderful
than stopping the world. On this occasion he not only
stopped the earth, but actually caused it to turn the other
way. A Jewish king was sick, and God, in order to con
vince him that he would ultimately recover, offered to make
the shadow on the dial go forward or backward ten degrees.
The king thought it was too easy a thing to make the shadow
go forward, and asked that it be turned back. Thereupon,
“ Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord, and he brought
the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone
down in-the dial of Ahaz.” I hardly see how this miracle
could be accounted for even by “ refraction ” and “ reflec
tion.”
It seems, from the account, that this stupendous miracle
was performed after the king' had been cured. The account
of the shadow going backward is given in the eleventh
verse of the twentieth chapter of Second Kings, while the
cure is given in the seventh verse of the same chapter.
“ And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took
and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.”
Stopping the world and causing it to turn back ten
degrees after that, seems to have been, as the boil was
already cured by the figs, a useless display of power.
The easiest way to account for all these wonders is to
say that the “ inspired ” writers were mistaken. In this
way a fearful burden is lifted from the credulity of man,
and he is left free to believe the evidences of his own
senses and the demonstrations of science. In this way he
can emancipate himself from the slavery of superstition,
the control of the barbaric dead, and the despotism of the
Church.
Only about a hundred years ago, Buffon, the naturalist,
was compelled by the faculty of theology at Paris to
publicly renounce fourteen “errors” in his work on Natural
History because they were at variance with the Mosaic
account of creation. The Pentateuch is still the scientific
standard of the Church, and ig-norant priests, armed with
that, pronounce sentence upon the vast accomplishments of
modern thought.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
43
X.—“TIE MADE THE STARS ALSO.”
Moses came very near forgetting about the stars, and only
gave five words to all the hosts of heaven. Gan it be possible
that he knew anything about the stars beyond the mere fact
that he saw them shining above him ?
Did he know that the nearest star, the one we ought to
be the best acquainted with, is twenty-one billion of miles
away, and that it is a sun shining by its own light ? Did he
know of the next, that is thirty-seven billion miles distant ?
Is it possible that he was acquainted with Sirius, a sun two
thousand six hundred and eighty-eight times larger than
our own, surrounded by a system of heavenly bodies, several
of which are already known, and distant from us eighty-two
billion miles ? Did he know that the Polar star that tells the
mariner his course and guided slaves to liberty and joy, is
distant from this little world two hundred and ninety-two
billion miles, and that Capella wheels and shines one hundred
and thirty-three billion miles beyond? Did he know that it
would require about seventy-two years for light to reach us
from this star ? Did he know that light travels one hundred
and eighty-five thousand miles a second ? Did he know that
some stars are so far away in the infinite abysses that five
millions of years are required for their light to reach this
globe ?
If this is true, and if, as the Bible tells us, the stars were
made after the earth, then this world has been wheeling in
its orbit for at least five million years.
It may be replied that it was not the intention of God to
teach geology and astronomy. Then why did he say any
thing upon these subjects ? and if he did say anything,
why did he not give the facts ?
According to the sacred records, God created, on the first
day, the heaven and the earth, “ moved upon the face of
the waters,” and made the light. On the second day he
made the firmament or the “ expanse ” and divided the
waters. On the third day he gathered the waters into
seas, let the dry land appear, and caused the earth to bring
forth grass, herbs and fruit trees, and on the fourth day he
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made the sun, moon and stars, and set them in the firma
ment of heaven to give light upon the earth. This division
of labor is very striking. The work of the other days is
as nothing when compared with that of the fourth. Is it
possible that it required the same time and labor to make
the grass, herbs and fruit trees, that it did to fill with count
less constellations the infinite expanse of space ?
XI.—FRIDAY.
We are then told that on the next day “ God said, Let the
waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that
hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and
every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl
after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God
blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the
waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”
Is it true that while the dry land was covered with grass,
and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, the ocean was absolutely
devoid of life, and so remained for millions of years ?
If Moses meant twenty-four hours by the word day, then
it would make but little difference on which of the six days
animals were made ; but if the word day was used to express
millions of ages, during which life was slowly evolved from
monad up to man, then the account becomes infinitely absurd,
puerile and foolish. There is not a scientist of hig'h standing
who will say that in his judgment the earth was covered
with fruit-bearing trees before the monera, the ancestor it
may be of the human race, felt in Laurentian seas the first
faint throb of life. Nor is there one who will declare that
there was a single spire of grass before the sun had poured
upon the world his flood of gold.
Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonise
the contradictions that exist between Nature and a book ?
Why should philosophers be denounced for placing more
reliance upon what they know than upon what they have
been told ? If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
45
he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is
the author of the Bible. Why then should we not place
greater confidence in Nature than in a book ? And even if
this God made not only the world but the book besides, it
does not follow that the book is the best part of creation,
and the only part that we shall be eternally punished for
denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to
know something of the solar system, something of the
physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adven
tures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. For my part, I
would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific
investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing
the Bible to be true, why is it any worse or more wicked
for Freethinkers to deny it than for priests to deny the
doctrine of Evolution or the dynamic theory of heat ? Why
should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes,
while others, holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter con
tempt, go straight to heaven ? It seems to me that a belief
in the great truths of science is fully as essential to salva
tion as the creed of any Church. We are taught that a
man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies
the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three
laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the
attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a
man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for
failing to believe in the “ scheme of salvation,” be eternally
lost.
XII.—SATURDAY.
On this, the last day of creation, God said:—“ Let the earth
bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and
creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : and it
was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,
and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth
upon the earth after his kind; and God saw that it was
good.”
Now, is it true that the seas were filled with fish, the sky
with fowls, and the earth covered with grass, and herbs,
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
and fruit-bearing trees, millions of ages before there was a
creeping thing in existence ? Must we admit that plants and
animals were the result of the fiat of some incomprehensible
intelligence independent of the operation of what are known
as natural causes ? Why is a miracle any more necessary to
account for yesterday than for to-day or for to-morrow ?
If there is an infinite Power, nothing can be more certain
than that this Power works in accordance with what we call
law, that is, by and through natural causes. If anything
can be found without a pedigree of natural antecedents, it
will then be time enough to talk about the fiat of creation.
There must have been a time when plants and animals did
not exist upon this globe. The question, and the only
question is, whether they were naturally produced. If the
account given by Moses is true, then the vegetable and
animal existences are the result of certain special fiats of
creation entirely independent of the operation of natural
causes. This is so grossly improbable, so at variance with
the experience and observation of mankind, that it cannot
be adopted without abandoning forever the basis of scientific
thought and action.
It may be urged that we do not understand the sacred
record correctly. To this it may be replied that for thou
sands of years the account of the creation has, by the
J ewish and Christian world, been regarded as literally true.
If it was inspired, of course God must have known just
how it would be understood, and consequently must have
intended that it should be understood just as he knew it
would be. One man writing to another may mean one
thing, and yet be understood as meaning something else.
Now, if the writer knew that he would be misunderstood,
and also knew that he could use other words that would
convey his real meaning, but did not, we would say that
he used words on purpose to mislead, and was not an honest
man.
If a being of infinite wisdom wrote the Bible, or caused
it to be written, he must have known exactly how his
words would be interpreted by all the world, and he must
have intended to convey the very meaning that was con
veyed. He must have known that by reading that book
man would form erroneous views as to the shape, antiquity
and size of this world ; that he would be misled as to the
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
47
time and oi’der of creation; that he would have the most
childish and contemptible views of the Creator ; that the
“sacred word” would be used to support slavery and
polygamy; that it would build dungeons for the good and
light fagots to consume the brave, and therefore he must
have intended that these results should follow. He also
must have known that thousands and millions of men and
women never could believe his Bible, and that the number
of unbelievers would increase in the exact ratio of civilisa
tion, and therefore he must have intended that result.
Let us understand this. An honest finite being uses the
best words, in his judgment, to convey his meaning. This
is the best he can do, because he cannot certainly know the
exact effect of his words on others. But an infinite being
must know not only the real meaning of the words, but
the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and
hearer. He must know every meaning that they are capable
of conveying to every mind. He must also know what
explanations must be made to prevent misconception. If
an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use
such words that every person to whom revelation is essential
will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a
revelation from God through the instrumentality of lan
guage is impossible, or it is not essential that all should
understand it correctly. It may be urged that millions
have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although
expressed in the plainest words. To this it seems a sufficient
reply to ask why a being of infinite power should create
men so devoid of intelligence that he cannot by any means
make known to them his will ? We are told that it is ex
ceedingly plain, and that a wayfaring man, though a fool,
need not err therein. This statement is refuted by the
religious history of the Christian world. Every sect is a
certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man.
To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
About the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there
have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame.
If written by an infinite God, he must have known that these
results mustfollow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible
for all.
Is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book
the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth and
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error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too faithfully
perhaps, the “ very form and pressure ” of its time ?
If there are mistakes in the Bible, certainly they were
made by man. If there is anything contrary to nature, it
was written by man. If there is anything immoral, cruel,
heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a
being worthy of the adoration of mankind.
XIII.—LET US MAKE MAN.
We are next informed by the author of the Pentateuch
that God said “ Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness,” and that “ God created man in his own
image, in the image'of God created he him; male and
female created he them.”
If this account means anything, it means that man was
created in the physical image and likeness of God. Moses,
while he speaks of man as having been made in the image
of God, never speaks of God except as having the form of
a man. He speaks of God as “ walking in the garden in
the cool of the dayand says that Adam and Eve “ heard his
voice.” He is constantly telling what God said, and in a
thousand passages he refers to him as not only having the
human form, but as performing actions such as man per
forms. The God of Moses was a God with hands, with
feet, with the organs of speech—a God of passion, of
hatred, of revenge, of affection, of repentance—a God who
made mistakes—in other words, an immense and powerful
man.
It will not do to say that Moses meant to convey the
idea that God made man in his mental or moral image.
Some have insisted that man was made in the moral image
of God because he was made pure. Purity cannot be manu
factured. A moral character cannot be made for man by a
god. Every man must make his own moral character.
Consequently, if God is infinitely pure, Adam and Eve were
not made in his image in that respect. Others say that
Adam and Eve were made in the mental image of God. If
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
49
it is meant by that, that they were created with reasoning
powers like, but not to the extent of, those possessed by a
god, then this may be admitted. But certainly this idea
was not in the mind of Moses. He regarded the human
form as being in the image of God, and for that reason
always spoke of God as having that form. No one can read
the Pentateuch without coming to the conclusion that the
author supposed that man was created in the physical likeness
of Deity. God said “ Go to, let us godown.” God “ smelled
asweetsavor
God “ repented ” him that he had made man;
“and God said,” and “walked,” and “ talked,” and “rested.”
All these expressions are inconsistent with any other idea
than that the person using them regarded God as having
the form of man.
As a matter of fact, it is impossible for a man to conceive
of a personal God, other than as a being having the human
form. No one can think of an infinite being having the
form of a horse, or of a bird, or of any animal beneath man.
It is one of the necessities of the mind to associate forms
with intellectual capacities. The highest form of which we
have any conception is man’s, and consequently, his is the
only form that we can find in imagination to give to a
personal God, because all other forms are, in our minds,
connected with lower intelligences.
It is impossible to think of a personal God as a spirit
without form. We can use these words, but they do not
convey to the mind any real and tangible meaning. Every
one who thinks of a personal God at all, thinks of him as
having the human form. Take from God the idea of form ;
speak of him simply as an all-pervading spirit—-which means
an all-pervading something about which we know nothing
—and Pantheism is the result.
We are told that God made man ; and the question
naturally arises, How was this done? Was it by a process
of “ evolution,” “ development,” the “ transmission of
acquired habits,” the “ survival of the fittest,” or was the
necessary amount of clay kneaded to the proper consis
tency, and then by the hands of God moulded into form ?
Modern science tells us that man has been evolved, through
countless epochs, from the lowest forms ; that he is the
result of almost an infinite number of actions, reactions,
experiences, states, forms, wants and adaptations. Did
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
Moses intend to convey such a meaning, or did he believe
that God took a sufficient amount of dust, made it the
proper shape, and breathed into it the breath of life ? Can
any believer in the Bible give any reasonable account of
this process of creation ? Is it possible to imagine what
was really done ? Is there any theologian who will contend
that man was created directly from the earth ? Will he say
that man was made substantially as he now is, with all his
muscles properly developed for walking and speaking, and
performing every variety of human action—that all his
bones were formed as they now are, and all the relations of
nerve, ligament, brain and motion as they are to-day ?
Looking back over the history of animal life from the
lowest to the highest forms, we find that there has been a
slow and gradual development; a certain but constant
relation between want and production; between use and
form. The monera is said to be the simplest form of animal
life that has yet been found. It has been described as “an
organism without organs.” It is a kind of structureless
structure; a little mass of transparent jelly that can
flatten itself out, and can expand and contract around its
food. It can feed without a mouth, digest without a
stomach, walk without feet, and reproduce itself by simple
division. By taking this monera as the commencement of
animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to follow
the development of the organic structure through all the
forms of life to man himself. In this way finally every
muscle, bone and joint, every organ, form and function
may be accounted for. In this way, and in this way only, *
can the existence of rudimentary organs be explained.
Blot from the human mind the ideas of evolution, heredity,
adaptation, and “the survival of the fittest,” with which it
has been enriched by Lamarck, Goethe, Darwin, II seek el
and Spencer, and all the facts in the history of animal life
become utterly disconnected and meaningless. Shall we
throw away all that has been discovered with regard to
organic life, and in its place take the statements of one who
lived in the rude morning of a barbaric day ? Will any
body now contend that man was a direct and independent
creation, and sustains and bears no relation to the animals
below him ? Belief upon this subject must be governed
at last by evidence. Man cannot believe as he pleases.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
51
He can control his speech, and can say that he believes or
disbelieves; but after all, his will cannot depress or raise
the scales with which his reason finds the worth and weight
of facts. If this is not so, investigation, evidence, judgment
and reason are but empty words.
I ask again, how were Adam and Eve created ? In one
account they are created male and female, and apparently
at the same time. In the next account, Adam is made first,
and Eve a long time afterwards, and from a part of the man.
Did God simply by his creative fiat cause a rib slowly to
expand, grow and divide into nerve, ligament, cartilage and
flesh ? How was the woman created from a rib ? How
was man created simply from dust? For my part, I can
not believe this statement. I may suffer for this in the world
to come ; and may, millions of years hence, sincerely wish
that I had never investigated the subject but had been
content to take the ideas of the dead. I do not believe
that any Deity works in that way. So far as my experience
goes, there is an unbroken procession of cause and effect.
Each thing is a necessary link in an infinite chain; and I
cannot conceive of this chain being broken even for one
instant. Back of the simplest monera there is a cause, and
back of that another, and so on, it seems to me, forever.
In my philosophy I postulate neither beginning nor ending.
If the Mosaic account is true, we know how long man
has been upon this earth. If that account can be relied on,
the first man was made about five thousand eight hundred
and eighty-three years ago. Sixteen hundred and fiftysix years after the making of the first man, the inhabitants
of the world, with the exception of eight people, were des
troyed by a flood. This flood occurred only about four
thousand two hundred and twenty-seven years ago. If
this account is correct, at that time only one kind of men
existed. Noah and his family were certainly of the same
blood. It therefore follows that all the differences we see
between the various races of men have been caused in about
four thousand years. If the account of the deluge is true,
then since that event all the ancient kingdoms of the earth
were founded, and their inhabitants passed through all the
stages of savage, nomadic, barbaric and semi-civilised life ;
through the epochs of Stone, Bronze and Iron; established
commerce, cultivated the arts, built cities, filled them with
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
palaces and temples, invented writing, produced a literature,
and slowly fell to shapeless ruin. We must believe that all
this has happened within a period of four thousand years.
From representations found upon Egptian granite made
more than three thousand years ago, we know that the
negro was as black, his lips as full, and his hair as closely
curled then as now. If we know anything, we know that
there was at that time substantially the same difference
between the Egyptian and the Negro as now. If we know
anything, we know that magnificent statues were made in
Egypt four thousand years before our era—that is to say,
about six thousand years ago. There was at the World’s
Exposition, in the Egyptian department, a statue of King
Cephren, known to have been chiselled more than six thousand
years ago. In other words, if the Mosaic account must be
believed, this statue was made before the world. We also
know,.if we know anything, that men lived in Europe with
the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the
hyena. Among the bones of these animals have been found
the stone hatchets and flint arrows of our ancestors. In the
caves where they lived have been discovered the remains
of these animals that had been conquered, killed and de
voured as food, hundreds of thousands of years ago.
If these facts are true, Moses was mistaken. For my
part, I have infinitely more confidence in the discoveries of
to-day, than in the records of a barbarous people. It will
not now do to say that man has existed upon this earth for
only about six thousand years. One can hardly compute
in his imagination the time necessary for man to emerge
from the barbarous state, naked and helpless, surrounded
by animals far more powerful than he, to progress and
finally create the civilisations of India, Egypt and Athens.
The distance from savagery to Shakespeare must be
measured not by hundreds, but by millions of years.
XIV.—SUNDAY.
££ And on the seventh day God ended his work which he
had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
53
sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his
work which God created and made.”
The great work had been accomplished, the world, the
sun, and moon, and all the hosts of heaven were finished;
the earth was clothed in green, the seas were filled with
life, the cattle wandered by the brooks, insects with painted
wings were in the happy air, Adam and Eve were making
each other’s acquaintance, and God was resting from his work.
He was contemplating the achievements of a week.
Because he rested on that day he sanctified it, and for
that reason and for that alone, it was by the Jews con
sidered a holy day. If he only rested on that day, there
ought to be some account of what he did the following
Monday. Did he rest on that day ? What did he do after
he got rested ? Has he done anything in the way of creation
since Saturday evening of the first week ?
It is now claimed by the “scientific ” Christians that the
“ days ” of creation were not ordinary days of twenty-four
hours each, but immensely long periods of time. If they
are right, then how long was the seventh day ? Was that,
too, a geologic period covering thousands of ages ? That
cannot be, because Adam and Eve were created the Saturday
evening before, and according to the Bible that was about
five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago.
I cannot state the time exactly, because there have been as
many as one hundred and forty different opinions given by
learned biblical students as to the time between the creation
of the world and the birth of Christ. We are quite certain,
however, that according to the Bible, it is not more than
six thousand years since the creation of Adam. From this
it would appear that the seventh day was not a geologic
epoch, but was in fact a period of less than six thousand
years, and probably of only twenty-four hours.
The theologians who “ answer ” these things may take
their choice. If they take the ground that the “ days ” were
periods of twenty-four hours, then geology will force them
to throw away the whole account. If, on the other hand,
they admit that the days were vast “periods,” then the
sacredness of the Sabbath must be given up. •
There is found in the Bible no intimation that there was
the least difference in the days. They are all spoken of in
the same way. It may be replied that our translation is
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
incorrect. If this is so, then only those who understand
Hebrew have had a revelation from God, and all the rest
have been deceived.
How is it possible to sanctify a space of time ? Is rest
holier than labor ? If there is any difference between days,
ought not that to be considered best in which the most use
ful labor has been performed ?
Of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about
the “ sacred Sabbath ” is the most absurd. The idea of
feeling it a duty to be solemn and sad one-seventh of the
time! To think that we can please an infinite being- by
staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking
in the perfumed fields! Why should God hate to see a
man happy ? Why should it excite his wrath to see a
family in the woods, by some babbling stream, talking,
laughing and loving? Nature works on that “sacred”
day. The earth turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, the
buds burst into flower, and birds fill the air with song.
Why should we look sad, and think about death, and hear
about hell ? Why should that day be filled with gloom
instead of joy ?
A poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise,
needs a day of rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood,
a day to live with wife and child; a day in which to
laugh at care, and g’ather hope and strength for toils to
come. And his weary wife needs a breath of sunny air,
away from street and wall, amid the hill, or by the margin
of the sea, where she can sit and prattle with her babe, and
fill with happy dreams the long, glad day.
The “ Sabbath ” was born of asceticism, hatred of human
joy, fanaticism, ignorance, egotism of priests and the
cowardice of the people. This day, for thousands of years,
has been dedicated to superstition, to the dissemination of
mistakes, and the establishment of falsehoods. Every Free
thinker, as a matter of duty, should violate this day. He
should assert his independence, and do all within his power
to wrest the Sabbath from the gloomy church and give it
back to liberty and joy. Freethinkers should make the
Sabbath a day of mirth and music—a day to spend with
wife and child—a day of games, and books, and dreams—a
day to put fresh flowers above our sleeping dead, a day of
memory and hope, of love and rest.
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55
Why should we in this age of the world be dominated by
the dead? Why should barbarian Jews, who went down
to death and dust three thousand years ago, control the
living world ? Why should we care for the superstition of
men who began the Sabbath by paring their nails, “ begin
ning at the fourth finger, then going to the second, then to
the fifth, then to the third, and ending with the thumb ?”
How pleasing to God this must have been. The Jews were
very careful of these nail parings. They who threw them
upon the ground were wicked, because Satan used them to
work evil upon the earth. They believed that upon the
Sabbath, souls were allowed to leave purgatory and cool
their burning souls in water. Fires were neither allowed
to be kindled nor extinguished, and upon that day it was a
sin to bind up wounds. “ The lame might use a staff, but
the blind could not.” So strict was the Sabbath kept, that
at one time “ if a Jew on a journey was overtaken by the
‘ sacred day ’ in a wood, or on the highway, no matter
where, nor under what circumstances, he must sit down,”
and there remain until the day was gone, ‘‘ If he fell down
in the dirt, there he was compelled to stay until the day was
done.” For violating the Sabbath, the punishment was
death, for nothing short of the offender’s blood could satisfy
the wrath of God. There are, in the Old Testament, two
reasons given for abstaining from labor on the Sabbath—
the resting of God, and the redemption of the Jews from
the bondage of Egypt.
Since the establishment of the Christian religion, the day
has been changed, and Christians do not regard the day as
holy upon which God actually rested, and which he
sanctified. The Christian Sabbath, or the “ Lord’s day,”
was legally established by the murderer Constantine,
because upon that day Christ was supposed to have risen
from the dead.
It is not easy to see where Christians got the right to
disregard the direct command of God, to labor on the day
he sanctified, and keep as sacred a day upon which he com
manded men to labor. The Sabbath of God is Saturday,
and if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not
the Sunday of the Christian.
Let us throw away these superstitions and take the
higher, nobler ground, that every day should be rendered
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
sacred by some loving act, by increasing the happiness of
man, giving birth to noble thoughts, putting in the path of
toil some flower of joy, helping the unfortunate, lifting the
fallen, dispelling gloom, destroying prejudice, defending
the helpless and filling homes with light and love.
XV.—THE NECESSITY FOR A GOOD MEMORY.
It must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the
creation in Genesis. The first acccount stops with the
third verse of the second chapter. The chapters have been
improperly divided. In the original Hebrew the Pentateuch
was neither divided into chapters nor verses. There was
not even any system of punctuation. It was written
wholly with consonants, without vowels, and without any
marks, dots, or lines to indicate them.
These accounts are materially different, and both cannot
be true. Let us see wherein they differ.
The second account of the creation begins with the fourth
verse of the second chapter, and is as follows.
“ These are the generations of the heavens and of the
earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God
made the earth and the heavens,
“ And every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord
God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was
not a man to till the ground.
“ But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered
the whole face of the ground.
“ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul.
“ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ;
and there he put the man whom he had formed.
“ And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;
the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree
of knowledge of good and evil.
�SOME MISTAKES OK MOSES.
57
li And a river went out of Eden to water the garden;
and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
“ The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold:
11 And the gold of that land is good : there is bdellium
and the onyx stone.
“ And the name of the second river is Gihon : the same
is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
“ And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it
which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth
river is Euphrates.
“ And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the
garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
“ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
“ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.
“ And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man
should be alone ; I will make him an help meet for him.
“ And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast
of the field, and every fowl of the air ; and brought them
unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatso
ever Adam called every living creature, that was the name
thereof.
“ And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of
the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there
was not found an help meet for him.
“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon
Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed
up the flesh instead thereof ;
“ And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man,
made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
“ And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and
flesh of my flesh : she shall be called Woman, because she
was taken out of man.
“ Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife : and they shall be one flesh. ’
“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and
were not ashamed.”
ORDER OF CREATION IN THE FIRST ACCOUNT :
1. The heaven and the earth, and light were made.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
2. The firmament was constructed and the waters divided.
3. The waters were gathered into seas—and then came
dry land, grass, herbs and fruit trees.
4. The sun and the moon. He made the stars also.
5. Fishes, fowls, and great whales.
6. Beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman.
ORDER OF CREATION IN THE SECOND ACCOUNT :
1. The heavens and the earth.
2. A mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole
face of the ground.
3. Created a man out of dust, by the name of Adam.
4. Planted a garden eastward in Eden, and put the man
in it.
5. Created the beasts and fowls.
6. Created a woman out of one of the man’s ribs.
In the second account, man was made before the beasts
and fowls. If this is true, the first account is false. And
if the theologians of our time are correct in their view that
the Mosaic day means thousands of ages, then, according to
the second account, Adam existed millions of years before
Eve was formed. lie must have lived one Mosaic day
before there were any trees, and another Mosaic day before
the beasts and fowls were created. Will some kind clergy
man tell us upon what kind of food Adam subsisted during
these immense periods ?
In the second account a man is made, and the fact that
he was without a helpmeet did not occur to the Lord God
until a couple of a vast periods ” afterwards. The Lord God
suddenly coming to an appreciation of the situation said,
“ It is not good that the man should be alone ; I will make
him an help meet for him.”
Now, after concluding to make “ an help meet ” for Adam,
what did the Lord God do ? Did he at once proceed to make
a woman ? No. What did he do ? He made the beasts,
and tried to induce Adam to take one of them for “ an help
meet.” If I am incorrect, read the following account, and
tell me what it means :
“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man
should be alone ; I will make him an help meet for him.
“ And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
59
■ them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof.
“ And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of
the air, and to every beast of the field ; but for Adam there
was not found an help meet for him.”
Unless the Lord God was looking for an helpmeet for
Adam, why did he cause the animals to pass before him ?
And why did he, after the menagerie had passed by,
pathetically exclaim, “ But for Adam there was not found
an help meet for him ?”
It seems that Adam saw nothing that struck his fancy.
The fairest ape, the sprightliest chimpanzee, the loveliest
baboon, the most bewitching orang-outang, the most fascin
ating gorilla failed to touch with love’s sweet pain, poor
Adam’s lonely heart. Let us rejoice that this was so. Had
he fallen in love then, there never would have been a Free
thinker in this world.
Dr. Adam Clarke, speaking of this remarkable proceeding
says :—“ God caused the animals to pass before Adam to
show him that no creature yet formed could make him a
suitable companion; that Adam was convinced that none
of these animals could be a suitable companion for him, and
that therefore he must continue in a state that was not
good (celibacy) unless he became a further debtor to the
bounty of his maker, for among all the animals which he
had formed, there was not a helpmeet for Adam.”
Upon this same subject. Dr. Scott informs us “that-it
was not conducive to the happiness of the man to remain
without the consoling society and endearment of tender
friendship, nor consistent with the end of his creation to be
without marriage by which the earth might be replenished
and worshippers and servants raised up to render him praise
and glory. Adam seems to have been vastly better
acquainted by intuition or revelation with the distinct pro
perties of every creature than the most sagacious observer
since the fall of man.
“ Upon this review of the animals, not one was found in
outward form his counterpart, nor one suited to engage his
affections, participate in his enjoyments, or associate with
him in the worship of God.”
Dr. Matthew Henry admits that God brought all the
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animals together to see if there was a suitable match for
Adam in any of the numerous families of the inferior creatures,
but there was none. They were all looked over, but Adam
could not be matched among them all. Therefore God
created a new thing to be a helpmeet for him.”
Failing to satisfy Adam with any of the inferior animals,
the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and
while in this sleep took out one of Adam’s ribs and “ closed
up the flesh instead thereof.” And out of this rib the Lord
Grod made a woman, and brought her to the man.
Was the Lord God compelled to take a part of the man
because he had used up all the original “ nothing ” out of
which the universe was made ? Is it possible for any sane
and intelligent man to believe this story ? Must a man be
born a second time before this account seems reasonable ?
Imagine the Lord God with a bone in his hand with which
to start a woman, trying to make up his mind whether to
make a blonde or a brunette !
Just at this point it may be proper for me to warn all
persons from laug’hing at, or making light of, any stories
found in the “ Holy Bible.” When you come to die, every
laugh will be a thorn in your pillow. At that solemn
moment, as you look back upon the records of your life, no
matter how many men you may have wrecked and ruined;
no matter how many women you have deceived and de
serted, all that can be forgiven ; but if you remember then
that you have laughed at even one story in God’s “ sacred
book,” you will see through the gathering shadows of death
the forked tongues of devils and the leering eyes of fiends.
These stories must be believed, or the work of regenera
tion can never be commenced. No matter how well you
act your part—live as honestly as you may, clothe the
naked, feed the hungry, divide your last farthing with the
poor—and you are simply travelling the broad road that
leads inevitably to eternal death, unless at the same time
you implicitly believe the Bible to be the inspired word of
God.
Let me show you the result of unbelief. Let us suppose,
for a moment, that we are at the Day of Judgment, listen
ing to the trial of souls as they arrive. The Recording
Secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, says to a
soul:
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
61
Where are you from ?—I am from the Earth.
What kind of a man were, you ?—Well, I don’t like to
talk about myself. I suppose you can tell by looking at
your books.
No sir. You must tell what kind of a man you were.—
Well, I was what you might call a first-rate fellow. I
loved my wife and children. My home was my heaven.
My fireside was a paradise to me. To sit there and see
the lights and shadows fall upon the faces of those I loved,
was to me a perfect joy.
How did you treat your family ?—I never said an unkind
word. I never caused my wife, nor one of my children, a
moment’s pain.
Did you pay your debts ?—I did not owe a dollar when I
died, and left enough to pay my funeral expenses, and to
keep the fierce wolf of want from the door of those I loved.
Did you belong to any church ?—No, sir. They were
too narrow, pinched and bigoted for me; I never thought
that I could be very happy if other folks were damned.
Did you believe in eternal punishment?—Well, no. I
always thought that God could get his revenge in far less
time.
Did you believe the rib story ?—Do you mean the Adam
and Eve business ?
Yes. Did you believe that?—To tell you the God’s
truth, that was just a little more than I could swallow.
Away with him to hell 1 Next.
Where are you from ?—I am from the world too.
Did you belong to any church?—Yes, sir, and to the Young
Men’s Christian Association besides.
What was your business ?—Cashier in a Savings Bank.
Did you ever run away with any money ?—Where I came
from, a witness could not be compelled to criminate him
self.
The law is different here. Answer the question. Did
you run away with any money ?—Yes, sir.
How much ?—One hundred thousand dollars.
Did you take anything else with you ?—Yes, sir.
W ell, what else ?—I took my neighbor’s wife—we sang
together in the choir.
Did you have a wife and children of your own ?—Yes,
sir.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
And you deserted them ?—Yes, sir ; but such was my
confidence in God, that I believed he would take care of
them.
Have you heard of them since ?—No, sir.
Did you believe in the rib story ?—Bless your soul, of
course I did. A thousand times I regretted that there were
no harder stories in the Bible, so that I could have shown
my wealth of faith.
Do you believe the rib story yet ?—Yes, with all my
heart.
Give him a harp.
Well, as I was saying, God made a woman from Adam’s
rib. Of course, I do not know exactly how this was done,
but when he got the woman finished, he presented her to
Adam. He liked her, and they commenced house-keeping
in the celebrated Garden of Eden.
Must we, in order to be good, gentle and loving in our
lives, believe that the creation of woman was a second
thought ? That Jehovah really endeavored to induce Adam
to take one of the lower animals as an helpmeet for him ?
After all, is it not possible to live honest and courageous
lives without believing these fables ? It is said that from
Mount Sinai God gave, amid thunderings and lightnings,
ten commandments for the guidance of mankind; and yet
among them is not found—“ Thou shalt believe the Bible.”
XVI.—THE GARDEN.
In the first account we are told that God made man, male
and female, and said to them, “ Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”
In the second account only the man is made, and he is
put in a garden “ to dress it and to keep it.” He is not
told to subdue the earth, but to dress and keep a garden.
In the first account man is given every herb bearing seed
upon the face of the earth and the fruit of every tree for
food, and in the second, he is given only the fruit of all the
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63
trees in the garden with the exception “ of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil,” which was a deadly poison.
There was issuing from this garden a river that was ,
parted into four heads. The first of these, Pison, compassed
the whole land of Haviiah; the second, Gihon, compassed
the whole land of Ethiopia ; the third, Hiddekel, flowed
toward the east of Assyria, and the fourth was the Euphrates.
Where are these four rivers now ? The brave prow of dis
covery has visited every sea; the traveller has pressed with
weary feet the soil of every clime ; and yet there has been
found no place from which four rivers sprang. The Eu
phrates still journeys to the gulf, but where are Pison,
Gihon and the mighty Hiddekel ? Surely by going to the
source of the Euphrates we ought to find either these three
rivers or their ancient beds. Will some minister, when he
answers the “ Mistakes of Moses,” tell us where these rivers
are or were ? The maps of the world are incomplete without
these mighty streams. We have discovered the sources
of the Nile; the North Pole will soon be touched by an
American; but these three rivers still rise in unknown
hills, still flow through unknown lands, and empty still in
unknown seas.
The account of these four rivers is what the Rev. David
Swing would call “ a geographical poem.” The orthodox
clergy cover the whole affair with the blanket of allegory,
while the “ scientific” Christian folks talk about cataclysms,
upheavals, earthquakes, and vast displacements of the
earth’s crust.
The question then arises, whether within the last six
thousand years there have been such upheavals and dis
placements? Talk as you will about the vast “ creative
periods ” that preceded the appearance of man; it is, accord
ing to the Bible, only about six thousand years since man
was created. Moses gives us the generations of men from
Adam until his day, and his account cannot be explained
away by calling centuries days.
According to the second account of creation, these four
rivers were made after the creation of man, and conse
quently they must have been obliterated by convulsions of
Nature within six thousand years.
Can we not account for these contradictions, absurdities
and falsehoods by simply saying that although the writer
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
may have clone his level best, he failed because he was
limited in knowledge, led away by tradition, and depended
too implicitly upon the correctness of his imagination ? Is
not such a course far more reasonable than to insist that.
all these things are true, and must stand though every
science shall fall to mental dust ?
Can any reason be given for not allowing man to eat of
the fruit of the tree of knowledge ?■ What kind of tree
was that ? If it is all an allegory, what truth is sought to
be conveyed ? Why should God object to that fruit being
eaten by man ? Why did he put it in the midst of the
garden ? There was certainly plenty of room outside. If
he wished to keep man and this tree apart, why did he put
them together ? And why, after he had eaten, was he
thrust out ? The only answer that we have a right to give
is the one given in the Bible. “ And the Lord God said, Be
hold, the man is become as one of us. to know good and
evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of
the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever : Therefore the
Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till
the ground from whence he was taken.”
Will some minister, some graduate of Andover, tell us
what this means ? Are we bound to believe it without
knowing what the meaning is ? If ibis' a revelation, what
does it reveal? Did God object to education then, and
does that account for the hostile attitude still assumed by
theologians towards all scientific truth ? Was there in the
garden a tree of life, the eating of which would have ren-clered Adam and Eve immortal ? Is it true, that after the
Lord God drove them from the garden that he placed upon
its Eastern side “ Cherubinis, and a flaming sword which
turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life ?”
Are the Cherubinis and the flaming sword guarding that
tree yet, or was it destroyed, or did its rotting trunk, as
the Rev. Robert Collyer suggests, “ nourish a bank of
violets ?”
What objection could God have had to the immortality
of man ? You see that after all this sacred record, instead
of assuring us of immortality, shows us only how we lost
it. In this there is assuredly but little consolation.
According to this story we have lost one Eden, but no
where in the Mosaic books are we told how we may gain
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
65
■another. I know that the Christians tell us there is another,
in which all true believers will finally be gathered, and
enjoy the unspeakable happiness of seeing- the unbelievers
in hell; but they do not tell us where it is.
Some commentators say that the Garden of Eden was in
the third heaven, some in the fourth, others have located
it in the moon, some in the air beyond the attraction of the
earth, some on the earth, some under the earth, some inside
the earth, some at the North Pole, others at the South, some
in Tartary, some in China, some on the borders of the Ganges
some in the island of Ceylon, some in Armenia, some in
Africa, some under the equator, others in Mesopotamia, in
Syria, Persia, Arabia, Babylon, Assyria, Palestine and
Europe. Others have contended that it was invisible, that
it was an allegory, and must be spiritually understood.
But whether you understand these things or not, you
must believe them. You may be laughed at in this world
for insisting that God put Adam into a deep sleep and made
a woman out of one of his ribs, but you will be crowned
and glorified in the next. You will also have the pleasure
of hearing the gentlemen howl there who laughed at you
here. While you will not be permitted to take any revenge,
you will be allowed to smilingly express your entire acqui
escence in the will of God. But where is the new Eden ?
No one knows. The one was lost, and the other has not
been found.
Is it true that man was once perfectly pure and innocent,
and that he became degenerate by disobedience ? No. The
real truth is, and the history of man shows, that he has ad
vanced. Events, like the pendulum of a clock, have swung
forward and backward, but after all, man, like the hands,
has gone steadily on. Man is growing grander. He is not
degenerating. Nations and individuals fail and die, and
make room for higher forms. The intellectual horizon of
the world widens as the centuries pass. Ideals grow
grander and purer; the difference between justice and
mercy becomes less and less ; liberty enlarges, and love in
tensifies as the years sweep on. The ages of force and
fear, of cruelty and wrong, are behind us, and the real Eden
is beyond. It is said that a desire for knowledge lost us
the Eden of the past; but whether that is true or not, it
will certainly give us the Eden of the future.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
XVII.—THE FALL.
WE are told that the serpent was more subtle than any
beast of the Held ; that he had a conversation with Eve, in
which he gave his opinion about the effect of eating certain
fruit; that he assured her it was good to eat, that it
was pleasant to the eve, that it would make her wise ; that
she was induced to take some ; that she persuaded her
husband to try it; that God found it out, that he then
cursed the snake ; condemning it to crawl and eat the dust;
that he multiplied the sorrows of Eve, cursed the ground
for Adam’s sake, started thistles and thorns, condemned
man to eat the herb of the field in the sweat of his face,
pronounced the curse of death, “ Dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return,” made coats of skins for Adam and
Eve, and drove them out of Eden.
Who and what was this serpent ? Dr. Adam Clark says :
“ The serpent must have walked erect, for this is necessarily
implied in his punishment. That he was endued with the
gift of speech, also with reason. That these things were
given to this creature. The woman no doubt having often
seen him walking erect, and talking and reasoning, there
fore she testifies no sort of surprise when he accosts her in
' the language related in the text. It therefore appears to
me that a creature of the ape or orang-outang kind is
here intended, and that Satan made use of this creature as
the most proper instrument for the accomplishment of his
murderous purposes against the life of the soul of man.
Under this creature he lay hid, and by this creature he
seduced our first parents. Such a creature answers to
every part of the description in the text. It is evident
from the structure of its limbs and its muscles that it might
have been originally designed to walk erect, and that nothing
else than the sovereign controlling power could induce it to
put down hands—in every respect formed like those of man
—and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed parts
prove them to have been designed to walk on all fours.
The stealthy cunning- and endless variety of the pranks and
tricks of these creatures, show them even now to be wiser
and more intelligent than any other creature, man alone ex-
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
67
cepted. Being obliged to walk on all fours and gather
their food from the ground, they are literally obliged to eat
the dust; and though exceeding cunning, and careful in a
variety of instances to separate that part which is whole
some and proper for food from that which is not so, in the
article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety.
Add to this their utter aversion to walk upright. It requires
the utmost discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely any
thing offends or irritates them more than to be obliged to
do it. Long observation of these animals enables me to>
state these facts. For earnest, attentive watching, and for
chattering and babbling, they (the apes) have no fellows in the
animal world. Indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter is
all they have left of their original gift of speech, of which
they appear to have been deprived at the fall as a part of
their punishment.”
Here then is the “ connecting link ” between man and
the lower creation. The serpent was simply an orangoutangthat spoke Hebrew with the greatest ease, and had the
outward appearance of a perfect gentleman, seductive in
manner, plausible, polite, and most admirably calculated to
deceive. It never did seem reasonable to me that a long,
cold and disgusting snake, with an apple in his mouth,
could deceive anybody; and I am glad, even at this late
date, to know that the something that persuaded Eve to
taste the forbidden fruit was, at least, in the shape of a
man.
Dr. Henry does not agree with the zoological explanation
of Mr. Clark, but insists that “ it is certain that the Devil
that beg’uiled Eve is the old serpent, a malignant by creation,
an angel of light, an immediate attendant upon God’s throne,
but. by sin an apostate from his first state, and a rebel
against God’s crown and dignity. He who attacked our
first parents was surely the prince of devils, the ring leader
in rebellion. The Devil chose to act his part in a serpent,
because it is a specious creature, has a spotted, dappled
skin and then went erect. Perhaps it was a flying serpent
which seemed to come from on high, as a messenger from
the upper world, one of the seraphim ; because the serpent
is a subtile creature. What Eve thought of this serpent
speaking to her, we are not likely to tell, and, I believe,
she herself did not know what to think of it. At first, per-
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
haps, she supposed it might be a good angel, and yet after
warcis might suspect something amiss. The person tempted
was a woman, now alone, and at a distance from her husband,
but near the forbidden tree. It was the Devil’s subtlety to
assault the weaker vessel with his temptations, as we may
suppose her inferior to Adam in knowledge, strength and
presence of mind. Some think that Eve received the com
mand not immediately from God, but at second hand from
her husband, and might, therefore, be the more easily
pursuaded to discredit it. It was the policy of the Devil to
■enter into discussion with her when she was alone. He
took advantage by finding her near the forbidden tree.
God permitted Satan to prevail over Eve, for wise and
holy ends. Satan teaches men first to doubt, and then to
deny. He makes sceptics first, and by degrees makes them
Atheists.”
We are compelled to admit that nothing could be more
attractive to a woman than a snake walking erect, with a
“ spotted, dappled skin,” unless it were a serpent with
wings. Is it not humiliating to know that our ancestors
believed these things ? Why should we object to the
Darwinian doctrine of descent after this ?
Our fathers thought it their duty to believe, thought it a
sin to entertain the slightest doubt, and really supposed
that their credulity was exceedingly gratifying to God. To
them the story was entirely real. They could see the
.garden, hear the babble of waters, smell the perfume of
flowers. They believed there was a tree where knowledge
grew like plums or pears ; and they could plainly see the
serpent coiled amid its rustling leaves, coaxing Eve to
violate the laws of God.
Where did the serpent come from? On which of the
six days was he created ? Who made him ? Is it possible
that God would make a successful rival ? He must have
known that Adam and Eve would fall He knew what a
snake with a “spotted, dappled skin” could do with an
inexperienced woman. Why did he not defend his chil
dren ? He knew that if the serpent got into the garden,
Adam and Eve would sin, that he would have to drive them
■out, that afterwards the world would be destroyed, and
that he himself would die upon the cross.
Again, I ask what and who was this serpent ? lie was
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
69
not a man, for only one man had been made. He was not
a woman. He was not a beast of the field, because “ he
was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord
God had made.” He was neither fish nor fowl, nor snake,,
because he had the power of speech, and did not crawl
upon his belly until after he was cursed. Where did this
serpent come from ? Why was he not kept out of the
garden ? Why did not the Lord God take him by the tail
and snap his head off ? Why did he not put Adam and
Eve on their guard about this serpent ? They, of course,
were not acquainted in the neighborhood, and knew nothing
. about, the serpent’s reputation for truth and veracity among
his neighbors. Probably Adam saw him when he was
looking for “ an helpmeet,” and gave him a name, but Eve
had never met him before. She was not surprised to hear
a serpent talk, as that was the first one she had ever met..
Everything being new to her, and her husband not being
with her just at that moment, it need hardly excite our
wonder that she tasted the fruit by way of experiment.
Neither should we be surprised that when she saw it wasgood and pleasant to the eye, and a fruit to be desired to
make one wise, she had the generosity to divide with her
husband.
Theologians have filled thousands of volumes with abuse
of this serpent, but it seems that he told the exact truth.
We are told that this serpent was, in fact, Satan, the great
est enemy of mankind, and that he entered the serpent,
appearing to our first parents in its body. If this is so, why
should the serpent have been cursed ? Why should God
curse the serpent for what had really been done by the
Devil ? Did Satan remain in the body of the serpent, and
in some mysterious manner share his punishment ? Is it
true that when we kill a snake we also destroy an evil
spirit, or is there but one Devil, and did he perish at the
death of the first serpent ? Is it on account of that trans
action in the garden of Eden, that all the descendants of
Adam and Eve known as Jews and Christians hate
serpents ?
Do you account for the snake-worship in Mexico, Africa
and India in the same way ?
What was the form of the serpent when he entered the
garden, and in what way did he move from place to place ?
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
Did lie walk or fly? Certainly he did not crawl, because
that mode of locomotion was pronounced upon him as a
■curse. Upon what food did he subsist before his conversa
tion with Eve ? We know that after that he lived upon dust,
but what did he eat before ? It may be that this is all
poetic; and the truest poetry is, according to Touchstone,
“the most feigning.”
In this same chapter we are informed that “ unto Adam
also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins
and clothed them.” Where did the Lord God get those
.skins ? He must have taken them from the animals ; he
was a butcher. Then he had to prepare them ; he was a
tanner. Then he made them into coats; he was a tailor.
How did it happen that they needed coats of skins, when
they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition ?
Did the “fall” produce a change in the climate ?
Is it really necessary to believe this account in order to
be happy here, or hereafter ? Does it tend to the elevation
•of the human race to speak of “ God” as a butcher, tanner
and tailor ?
And here, let me say once for all, that when I speak of
God, I mean the being described by Moses: the Jehovah
of the Jews. There may be for aught I know, somewhere
in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams
are constellations and within whose thought the infinite
exists. About this being, if such an one exists, I have
nothing to say. He has written no books, inspired no
barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no hell
in which to burn the honest seeker after truth.
When I speak of God, I mean that God who prevented
man from putting forth his hand and taking also of the fruit
of the tree of life that he might live for ever ; of that god
who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased the weary
toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world—of that God
whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered
babes, violated maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth
with cruelty and crime; of that God who made heaven for
the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat for ever and
ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
71
XVIII. —DAMPNESS.
4£ And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
“ That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that
they were fair ; and they took them wives of all which they
chose.
£< And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive
with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an
hundred and twenty years.
“ There were giants in the earth in those days ; and also
after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters
of men, and they bare children to them, the same became
mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
“ And God saw that the wickedness of man was great m
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the
earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
“ And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have
■created from the face of the earth ; both man, and beast
and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air ; for it
repenteth me that I have made them.”
from this account it seems that driving Adam and Eve
out of Eden did not have the effect of improving them or their
children. On the contrary, the world grew "worse and
worse. They were under the immediate control and gov
ernment of God, and he from time to time made known his
will ; but in spite of this, man continued to increase in
■crime.
Nothing in particular seems to have been done. Not a
school was established. There was no written language.
There was not a bible in the world. The “ scheme ^of
salvation ” was kept a profound secret. The five points of Cal
vinism had not been taught. Sunday schools had not been
opened. In short, nothing had been done for the- reformation
•of the world. God did not even keep his own sons at home,
but allowed them to leave their abode in the firmament, and
make love to the daughters of men. As a result of’ this
the world was filled with wickedness and giants to such an
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
extent that God regretted “ that he had made man on theearth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
Of course God knew when he made man, that he would
afterwards regret it. Ide knew that the people would grow
worse and worse until destruction would be the only remedy.
He knew that he would have to kill all except Noah and
his family, and it is hard to see why he did not make Noah
and his family in the first place, and leave Adam and Eve
in the original dust. He knew that they would be tempted,
that he would have to drive them out of the garden to keep
them from eating of the tree of life; that the whole thing
would be a failure; that Satan would defeat his plan ; that
he could not reform the people; that his own sons would
corrupt them, and that at last he would have to drown them
all except Noah and his family. Why was the garden of
Eden planted? Why was the experiment made? Why
were Adam and Eve exposed to the seductive arts of the
serpent ? Why did God wait until the cool of the day
before looking after his children? Why was he not on
hand in the morning ? Why did he fill the world with his
own children, knowing- that he would have to destroy
them ? And why does this same God tell me how to raise
my children when he had to drown his. .
It is a little curious that when God wished to reform the
antediluvian world he said nothing about hell; that he
had no revivals, no camp-meetings, no tracts, no outpourings
of the Holy Ghost, no baptisms, no noon prayer meetings,
and never mentioned the great doctrine of salvation by
faith. If the orthodox creeds of the world are true, all
those people went to hell without ever having heard that
such a place existed. If eternal torment is a fact, surely
these miserable wretches ought to have been warned.
They were threatened only with water when they were in
fact doomed to eternal fire I
Is it not strange that God said nothing to Adam and Eve
about a future life ; that he should have kept these “
verities ” to himself and allowed millions to live and die
without the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell ?
It may be that hell was not made at that time. In the
six days of creation nothing is said about the construction
of a bottomless pit, and the serpent himself did not make
his appearance until after the creation of man and woman.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
Perhaps he was made on the first Sunday, and from that
fact came, it may be, the old couplet,
“ And Satan still some mischief finds
For idle hands to do.” .
The sacred historian failed also to tell us when tl e
cherubim and the flaming’ swcrd were made, and said
nothing- about two of the-persons composing- the trinity.
It certainly would have been an easy thing- to enlighten
Noah and his immediate descendants. The world was then
only about fifteen hundred and thirty-six years old, and
only about three or four generations of men had lived.
Adam had been dead only about six hundred and six years,
and some of his grandchildren must, at that time, have
been alive and well.
It is hard to see why God did not civilise these people..
He certainly had the power to use, and the wisdom to
devise the proper means. What right has a god to fill a
world with fiends ? Can there be goodness in this ? Why
should he make experiments that he knows must fail ? Is
there wisdom in this ? And what right has a man to charge
an infinite being with wickedness and folly ?
According to Moses, God made up his mind not only to
destroy the people, but the beasts and the creeping things.,
and the fowls of the air. What had the beasts, and the
creeping things, and the birds done to excite the anger of
God ? Why did he repent having made them ? Will some
Christian give us an explanation of this matter ? No good
man will inflict unnecessary pain upon a beast; how, then,
can we worship a god who cares nothing for the agonies
of the dumb creatures that he made ?
Why did he make animals that he knew he would des
troy ? Dees God delight in causing pain ? He had the
power to make the beasts, and fowls, and creeping things
in his own good time and way, and it is to be presumed
that he made them according to his wish. Why should he
destroy them ? They had committed no sin. They had
eaten no forbidden fruit, made no aprons, nor tried to reach
the tree of life. Yet this God, in blind unreasoning wrath
destroyed “ all flesh wherein was the breath of life, and
every living thing beneath the sky, and every substance
wherein was life that he had made.”
F
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
Jehovah, having made up his mind to drown the world,
told Noah to make an Ark of gopher wood three hundred
cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. A
cubit is twenty-two inches; so that the ark was five hundred
and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet and eight inches wide and
fifty-five feet high. This ark was divided into three stories,
and had, on top, one window twenty-two inches square,
Ventilation must have been one of Jehovah’s hobbies. Think
of a ship larger than the Great Eastern with only one
window, and that but twenty-two inches square !
The ark also had one door set in the side thereof that
shut from the outside. As soon as this ship was finished,
and properly victualed, Noah received seven days’ notice to
get the animals in the ark.
It is claimed by some of the scientific theologians that
the flood was partial, that the waters covered only a small
portion of the world, and that consequently only a few
animals were in the ark. It is impossible to conceive of
language that can more clearly convey the idea of a uni
versal flood than that found in the inspired account. If the
flood was only partial, why did God say he would
“ destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under
heaven, and that every thing that is in the earth shall die ?”
Why did he say, “ I w'ill destroy man whom I have created
from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the
creeping thing and the fowls of the air ?” Why did he say,
“ And every living substance that I have made will I de
stroy from off the face of the earth?” Would a partial,
local flood have fulfilled these threats ?
Nothing can be clearer than that the writer of this account
intended to convey, and did convey the idea that the flood
was universal. Why should Christians try to deprive God
of the glory of having wrought the most stupendous of
miracles ? Is it possible that the infinite could not over
whelm with waves this atom called the earth ? Do you
doubt his power, his wisdom, or his justice ?
Believers in miracles should not endeavor to explain them.
There is but one way to explain anything, and that is to
account for it by natural agencies. The moment you ex
plain a miracle, it disappears. You should depend not upon
explanation, but assertion. You should not be driven from
the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
75
You should reply that all miracles are unreasonable. Neither
should you be in the least disheartened if it is shown to be
impossible. The possible is not miraculous. You should
take the ground that if miracles were reasonable and pos
sible, there would be no reward paid for believing them.
The Christian has the goodness to believe, while the sinner
asks for evidence. It is enough for God to work miracles
without being called upon to substantiate them for the bene
fit of unbelievers.
Only a few years ago the Christians believed implicitly
in the literal truth of every miracle recorded in the Bible.
Whoever tried to explain them in some natural way, was
looked upon as an infidel in disguise, but now he is regarded
as a benefactor. The credulity of the Church is decreasing,
and the most marvellous miracles are now either “explained,”
or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the trans
lators, or hide in the drapery of allegory.
In the sixth chapter (v. 19), Noah is ordered to take “ of
•every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort ” into the
ark—“ male and female.” In the seventh chapter (v. 2) the
order is changed, and Noah is commanded, according to the
Protestant Bible, as follows: “ Of every clean beast thou shalt
take to thee by sevens, the male and his female : and of
beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female.”
According to the Catholic Bible, Noah was commanded—
“ Of all clean beasts take seven and seven, the male and the
female. But of the beasts that are unclean two and two,
the male and the female. Of the fowls also of the air seven
and seven, the male and the female.”
For the purpose of belittling this miracle, many commen
tators have taken the ground that Noah was not ordered to
take seven males and seven females of each kind of clean
beasts, but seven in all. Many Christians contend that
only seven clean beasts of each kind were taken into the
ark—three and a half of each sex.
If the account in the seventh chapter means anything, it
means first, that of each kind of clean beasts, fourteen were
to be taken, seven males and seven females; second, that of
unclean beasts should be taken two of each kind, one of
each sex ; and third, that he should take of every kind of
fowls, seven of each sex.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
It is equally clear that the command in the 19th and 20th
verses of the 6th chapter is to take two of each sort, one
male and one female. And this agrees exactly with the
account in the Sth, 9th, 14th, loth and 16th verses of
the seventh chapter.
The next question is, How many beasts, fowls and creeping
things did Noah take into the ark ?
There are now known and classified at least twelve thou
sand five hundred species of birds. There are still vast
territories in China, South America, and Africa unknown to
the ornithologist.
Of the birds, Noah took fourteen of each species, accord
ing to the third verse of the seventh chapter, “ Of fowls
also of the air by sevens, the male and the female,” making
a total of 175,000 birds.
And right here allow me to ask a question. If the flood
was simply a partial flood, why were the birds taken into
the ark ? It seems to me that most birds, attending strictly
to business, might avoid a partial flood.
There are at least sixteen hundred and fifty-eight kinds
of beasts. Let us suppose that twenty-five of these are
clean. Of the clean, fourteen of each kind—seven of each
sex_ were taken. These amount to 350. Of the unclean,
two of each kind, amounting to 3,266. There are some six
hundred and fifty species of reptiles. Two of each kind
amount to 1,300. And lastly, there are of insects, including
the creeping things, at least one million species, so that
Noah and his folks had to get of these into the ark about
2,000,000.
Animalculm have not been taken into consideration.
There are probably many hundreds of thousands of species,
many of them invisible, and yet Noah had to pick them out
by pairs. Very few people have any just conception of the
trouble Noah had.
We know that there are many animals on this continent
not found in the Old World. These must have been carried
from here to the ark, and then brought back afterwards.
Were the peccary, armadillo, ant-eater, sloth, agouti,
vampire-bat, marmoset, howling and prehensile-tailed
monkey, the racoon and musk-rat carried by the angels
from America to Asia ? How did they get there ? Did the
polar bear leave his field of ice and journey toward the
�SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
77
tropics ? How did he know where the ark was ? Did the
kangaroo swim or jump from Australia to Asia ? Did the
giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope and orang-outang journey
from Africa in search of the ark ? Can absurdities go
farther than this ?
What had these animals to eat while on the journey ?
What did they eat while in the ark ? What did they drink ?
When the rain came, of course the rivers ran to the seas,
and these seas rose and finally covered the world. The
waters of the seas, mingled with those of the flood, would
make all salt. It has been calculated that it required, to
drown the world, about eight times as much water as was
in all the seas. To find how salt the waters of the flood
must have been, take eight quarts of fresh water, and
add one quart from the sea. Such water would create
instead of allaying thirst. Noah had to take in his ark
fresh water for all his beasts, birds and living things. He
had to take the proper food for all. How long was he in
the ark ? Three hundred and seventy-seven days 1 Think
of the food necessary for the monsters of the antediluvian
world !
Eight persons did all the work. They attended to the
wants of 175,000 birds, 3,616 beasts, 1,300 reptiles, and
2,000,000 insects, saying nothing of countless animalculm.
Well, after they all got in, Noah pulled down the window,
God shut the door, and the rain commenced.
How long did it rain ?—Forty days.
How deep did the water get ?—About five miles and a
half.
How much did it rain a day ?—Enough to cover the
whole world to a depth of about seven hundred and fortytwo feet.
Some Christians say that the fountains of the great deep
were broken up. Will they be kind enough to tell us what
the fountains of the great deep are ? Others say that God
had vast stores of water in the centre of the earth that he
used on that occasion. How did these waters happen to
run up hill ?
Gentlemen, allow me to tell you once more that you must
not try to explain these things. Your efforts in that direc
tion do no good, because your explanations are harder to
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
believe than the miracle itself. Take my advice—stick to
assertion, and let explanation alone.
Then, as now, Dhawalagiri lifted its crown of snow
twenty-nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and
on the cloudless cliffs of Chimborazo then, as now, sat the
condor; and yet the waters, rising seven hundred and
twenty-six feet a day—thirty feet an hour, six inches a
minute—rose over the hills, over the volcanoes, filled the
vast craters, extinguished all the fires, rose above every
mountain peak until the vast world was but one shoreless
sea covered with the innumerable dead.
Was this the work of the most merciful God, the father
of us all ? If there is a God, can there be the slightest
danger of incurring his displeasure by doubting even in a
reverential way, the truth of such a cruel lie ? If we think
that God is kinder than he really is, will our poor souls be
burned for that ?
How many trees can live under miles of water for a year ?
What became of the soil washed, scattered, dissolved, and
covered with the debris of a world ? How were the tender
plants and herbs preserved ? How were the animals pre
served after leaving the ark ? There was no grass except
such as had been submerged for a year. There were no
animals to be devoured by the carnivorous beasts. What
became of the birds that fed on worms and insects ? What
became of the birds that devoured other birds ?
It must be remembered that the pressure of the water
when at the highest point—say twenty-nine thousand feet
—would have been about eight hundred tons on each square
foot. Such a pressure certainly would have destroyed
nearly every vestige of vegetable life, so that when the
animals came out of the ark there was not a mouthful of
food in the wide world. How were they supported until
the world was again clothed with grass ? How were those
animals taken care of that subsisted on others ? Where did
the bees get honey, and the ants seed ? There was not a
creeping thing upon the whole earth; not a breathing
creature beneath the whole heavens ; not a living substance.
Where did the tenants of the ark get food ?
There is but one answer, if the story is true. The food
necessary not only during the year of the flood, but suffi-
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
79
cient for many months afterwards, must have been stored
in the ark.
There is probably not an animal in the world that will
not, in a year, eat and drink ten times its weight. Noah
must have provided food and water for a year while in the
ark, and food for at least six months after they got ashore.
It must have required for a pair of elephants, about one
hundred and fifty tons of food and water. A couple of
mammoths would have required about twice that amount.
Of course there were other monsters that lived on trees
and in a year would have devoured quite a forest.
How could eight persons have distributed this food, even
if the ark had been large enough to hold it ? How was the
ark kept clean? We know how it was ventilated; but
what was done with the filth ? How were the animals
watered ? How were some portions of the ark heated for
animals from the tropics, and others kept cool for the polar
bears ? How did the animals get back to their respective
countries ? Some had to creep back about six thousand
miles, and they could only go a few feet a day. Some of
the creeping things must have started for the ark just as
soon as they were made, and kept up a steady jog for sixteen
hundred years. Think of a couple of the slowest snails
leaving a point opposite the ark and starting for the plains
of Shinar, a distance of twelve thousand miles. Going at
the rate of a mile a month, it would take them a thousand
years. How did they get there ? Polar bears must have
gone several thousand miles, and so sudden a change in
climate must have been exceedingly trying upon their
health. How did they know the way to go ? Of course,
all the polar bears did not go. Only two were required.
Who selected these ?
Two sloths had to make the journey from South America.
These creatures cannot travel to exceed three rods a day. At
this rate they would make a mile in about a hundred days.
They must have gone about six thousand five hundred
miles to reach the ark. Supposing them to have travelled
by a reasonably direct route, in order to complete the jour
ney before Noah hauled in the plank, they must have started
several years before the world was created. We must also
consider that these sloths had to board themselves on the
way, and that most of their time had to he taken up getting
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
food and water.
It is exceedingly doubtful whether a
sloth could travel six thousand miles and board himself in
less than three thousand years.
Volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of
this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables con
tained in that repository of the impossible, called the Bible.
To me it is a matter of amazement that it ever was for a
moment believed by any intelligent human being.
Dr. Adam Clark says that “ the animals were brought to
the ark by the power of God, and their enmities were so
removed or suspended, that the lion could dwell peaceably
with the lamb, and the wolf sleep happily by the side of the
kid. There is no positive evidence that animal food was
ever used before the flood. Noah had the first grant of
this kind.”
Dr. Scott remarks : “There seems to have been a very
extraordinary miracle, perhaps by the ministration of angels,
in bringing two of every species to Noah, and rendering
them submissive and peaceful with each other. Yet it
seems not to have made any impression upon the hardened
spectators. The suspension of the ferocity of the savage
beasts during their continuance in the ark is generally con
sidered as an apt figure of the change that takes place in
the disposition of sinners when they enter the true church
of Christ.”
He believed the deluge to have been universal. In his
day science had not demonstrated the absurdity of this
belief, and he was not compelled to resort to some theory
not found in the Bible. He insisted that “by some vast
convulsion, the very bowels of the earth were forced up
wards, and rain poured down in cataracts and water-spouts,
with no intermission for forty days and nights, and until
in every place a universal deluge was effected.
“ The presence of God was the only comfort of Noah in his
dreary confinement, and in witnessing the dire devastation of the
earth and its inhabitants, and especially of the human species
—of his companions, his neighbors, his relatives—all those
to whom he had preached, for whom he had prayed, and
over whom he had wept, and even of many who had helped
to build the ark.
“ It seems that, by a peculiar providential interposition,
no animal of any sort died, although they had been shut
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
81
up in the ark above a year ; and it does not appear that
there had been any increase of them during- that time.
“ The ark was flat-bottomed—square at each end—roofed
like a house, so that it terminated at the top in the breadth
of a cubit. It was divided into many little cabins for its
intended inhabitants. Pitched within and without to keep
it tight and sweet, and lighted from the upper part. But
it must, at first sight, be evident that so large a vessel, thus
constructed, with so few persons on board, was utterly un
fitted to weather out the deluge, except it was under the
immediate guidance and protection of the Almighty.”
Dr. Henry furnished the Christian world with the fol
lowing :—
“ As our bodies have in them the humors which, when
God pleases, becomes the springs and seeds of mortal dis
ease, so that the earth had, in its bowels, those waters
which, at God’s command, sprung up and flooded it.
“ God made the world in six days, but he was forty days
in destroying it, because he is slow to anger.
“ The hostilities between the animals in the ark ceased,
and ravenous creatures became mild and manageable, so
that the wolf lay down with the lamb, and the lion ate straw
like an ox.
“ God shut the door of the ark to secure Noah and to
keep him safe, and because it was necessary that the door
should be shut very close lest the water should break in
and sink the ark, and very fast lest others might break it
down.
“ The waters rose so high that not only the low, flat
countries were deluged, but to make sure work, and that
none might escape, the tops of the highest mountains were
overflowed fifteen cubits. That is, seven and a half yards,
so that salvation was not hoped for from hills or moun
tains.
“ Perhaps some of the people got to the top of the ark,
and hoped to shift for themselves there. But either they
perished there for want of food, or the dashing rain washed
them off the top. Others, it may be, hoped to prevail with
Noah for admission into the ark, and plead old acquain
tance.
“ ‘ Have we not eaten and drank in thy presence ? Hast
thou not preached in our streets?’ ‘Yea,’ said Noah,
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
many a time, but to little purpose. I called but ye refused;
and now it is not in my power to help you. God has
shut the door and I cannot open it.’
“We may suppose that some of those who perished in
the deluge had themselves assisted Noah, or were employed
by him in building the ark.
“ Hitherto, man had been confined to feed only upon the
products of the earth. Fruits, herbs and roots, and all
sorts of greens, and milk, which was the first grant; but
the flood having perhaps washed away much of the fruits
of the earth, and rendered them much less pleasant and
nourishing, God enlarged the grant and allowed him to eat
flesh, which perhaps man never thought of until now that
God directed him to it. Nor had he any more desire to it
than the sheep has to suck blood like the wolf. But now
man is allowed to feed upon flesh as freely and safely as
upon the green herb.”
Such was the debasing influence of a belief in the literal
truth of the Bible upon these men, that their commentaries
are filled with passages utterly devoid of common sense.
Dr. Clark, speaking of the mammoth, says :
“ This animal, an astonishing proof of God’s power, he
seems to have produced merely to show what he could do.
And after suffering a few of them to propagate, he extin
guished the race by a merciful providence, that they might
not destroy both man and beast.
“We are told that it would have been much easier for
God to destroy all the people and make new ones, but he
would not want to waste anything, and no power or skill
should be lavished where no necessity exists.
“ The animals were brought to the ark by the power of
God.”
Again, gentlemen, let me warn you of the danger of
trying to explain a miracle. Let it alone. Say that you
do not understand it, and do not expect to until taught in
the schools of the New Jerusalem. The more reasons you
give, the more unreasonable the miracle will appear.
Through what you say in defence people are led to think,
and as soon as they really think, the miracle is thrown
away.
Among the most ignorant nations you will find the most
wonders, among the most enlightened, the least. It is with
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
83.
individuals the same as with nations. Ignorance believes,.
Intelligence examines and explains.
For about seven months the ark, with its cargo of men,
animals and insects, tossed and wandered without rudder
or sail upon a boundless sea. At last it grounded on the
mountains of Ararat; and about three months afterwards
the tops of the mountains became visible. It must not be
forgotten that the mountain where the ark is supposed tohave first touched bottom, was about seventeen thousand
feet high. Flow were the animals from the tropics kept
warm ? When the waters were abated it would be in
tensely cold at a point seventeen thousand feet above the
level of the sea. May be there were stoves, furnaces, fire
places and steam coils in the ark ; but they are not men
tioned in the inspired narrative. How wore the animals
kept from freezing ? It will not do to say that Ararat wasnot very high after all.
If you will read the fourth and fifth verses of the eight
chapter you will see that although “ the ark rested in the
seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon
the mountains of Ararat,” it was not until the first day of'
the tenth month that “ the tops of the mountains ” could be
seen. From this it would seem that the ark must have
rested upon about the highest peak in that country. Noah
waited forty days more, and then for the first time opened
the window and took a breath of fresh air.
He then
sent out a raven that did not return, then a dove that
returned.
He then waited seven days and sent forth a
dove that returned not. From this he knew that the waters
were abated.
Is it possible that he could not see whether
the waters had gone ? Is it possible to conceive of a more
perfectly childish way of ascertaining whether the earth
was dry ?
At last Noah “ removed the covering of the ark, and looked,
and, behold, the face of the ground was dry,” and thereupon
God told him to disembark. In his gratitude Noah built
an altar and took of every clean beast and of every clean
fowl, and offered burnt offerings. And the Lord smelled a
sweet savor and said in his heart that he would not any
more curse the ground for man’s sake. For saying this in
his heart the Lord gives as a reason, not that man is, or
will be good, but because “ the imagination of man’s heart
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
is evil from his youth.” God destroyed man because “ the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and because every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con
tinually.” And he promised for the same reason not to
destroy him again. Will some gentleman skilled in theology
give us an explanation ?
After God had smelled the sweet savor of sacrifice, he
seems to have changed his idea as to the proper diet
for man. When Adam and Eve were created they were
allowed to eat herbs bearing seed, and the fruit of
trees. When they were turned out of Eden, God said to
them “Thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” In the first
chapter of Genesis the “ green herb ” was given for food to
the beasts, fowls and creeping things. Upon being expelled
from the garden, Adam and Eve, as to their food, were
put upon an equality with the lower animals. According
to this, the antediluvians were vegetarians. This may
account for their wickedness and longevity.
After Noah sacrificed, and God smelled the sweet savor,
he said—“ Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat
for you ; even as the green herb have I given you all things.”
Afterwards this same God changed his mind again, and
divided the beasts and birds into clean and unclean, and
made it a crime for man to eat the unclean. Probably food
was so scarce when Noah was let out of the ark that
Jehovah generously allowed him to eat anything and every
thing he could find.
According to the account, God then made a covenant
with Noah to the effect that he would not again destroy
the world with a flood, and, as the attesting- witness of this
■contract, a rainbow was set in the cloud. This bow was
placed in the sky so that it might perpetually remind God
of his promise and covenant. Without this visible witness
and reminder, it would seem that Jehovah was liable to for
get the contract, and drown the world again. Did the
rainbow originate in this way ?
Did God put it in the
cloud simply to keep his agreement in his memory ?
For me it is impossible to believe the story of the deluge.
It seems so cruel, so barbaric, so crude in detail, so absurd
in all its parts, and so contrary to all we know of law, that
■even credulity itself is shocked.
Many nations have preserved accounts of a deluge in
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
85
which all people, except a family or two, were destroyed.
Babylon was certainly a city before Jerusalem was.
founded. Egypt was in the height of her power when
there were only seventy Jews in the world, and India had
a literature before the name of Jehovah had passed the
lips of superstition. An account of a general deluge “was
discovered by George Smith, translated from another
account that was written about two thousand years before
Christ.” Of course it is impossible to tell how long the
story had lived in the memory of tradition before it was
reduced to writing by the Babylonians. According to this
account, which is, without doubt, much older than the one
given by Moses, Tamzi built a ship at the command of the
god Hea, and put in it his family and the beasts of the field.
He pitched the ship inside and outside with bitumen, and
as soon as it was finished, there came a flood of rain and
“ destroyed all life from the face of the whole earth. On
the seventh day there was a calm, and the ship stranded on
the mountain Nizir.” Tamzi waited for seven days more, and
then let out a dove. Afterwards, he let out a swallow, and
that, as well as the dove, returned. Then he let out a
raven, and as that did not return, he concluded that the
water had dried away, and thereupon left the ship. Then
he made an offering to God, or the gods, and “ Hea inter
ceded with Bel,” so that the earth might never again be
drowned.
This is the Babylonian story, told without the contra
dictions of the original. For in that it seems, there are two
accounts, as well as in the Bible. Is it not a strange
coincidence that there should be contradictory accounts
mingled in both the Babylonian and Jewish stories ?
In the Bible there are two accounts. In one account,
Noah was to take two of all beasts, birds and creeping
things into the ark, while in the other, he was commanded
to take of clean beasts and all birds by sevens of each kind.
According to one account, the flood only lasted one hundred
and fifty days—as related in the third verse of the eight
chapter ; while the other account fixes the time at three
hundred and seventy-seven days. Both of these accounts
cannot be true. Yet in order to be saved, it is not suffi
cient to believe one of them—you must believe both.
Among the Egyptians there was a story to the effect
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
that the great god Ra became utterly maddened with the
people, and deliberately made up his mind that he would
exterminate mankind. Thereupon he began to destroy,
and continued in the terrible work until blood flowed in
streams, when suddenly he ceased, and took an oath that
he would not again destroy the human race. This myth
was probably thousands of years old when Moses was
born.
So, in India, there was a fable about the flood. A fish
warned Manu that a flood was coming. Manu built a
“ box,” and the fish towed it to a mountain and saved all
hands.
Stories of the same kind were told in Greece, and among
•our own Indian tribes. At one time the Christian pointed
to the fact that many nations told of a flood, as evidence of
the truth of the Mosaic account; but now, it having been
shown that other accounts are much older, and equally
reasonable, that argument has ceased to be of any great
value.
It is probable that all these accounts had a common
•origin. They were likely born of something in nature
visible to all nations. The idea of a universal flood, pro
duced by a God to drown the world on account of the sins
•of the people, is infinitely absurd. The solution of all these
stories has been supposed to be, the existence of partial
floods in most countries ; and for a long time this solution
was satisfactory. But the fact that these stories are greatly
.alike, that only one man is warned, that only one family is
saved, that a boat is built, that birds are sent out to find if
the water had abated, tend to show that they had a common
origin. Admitting that there were severe floods in all
countries ; it certainly cannot follow that in each instance
only one family would be saved, or that the same story
would in each instance be told. It may be urged that the
natural tendency of man to exaggerate calamities, might
account for this agreement in all the accounts, and it must
be admitted that there is some force in the suggestion. I
believe, though, that the real origin of all these myths is
the same, and that it was originally an effort to account for
the sun, moon and stars. The sun and moon were the man
and wife, or the god and goddess, and the stars were their
children. From a celestial myth, it became a terrestial
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
87
one; the air, or ether-ocean became a flood, produced by
rain, and the sun, moon and stars became man, women and
children.
In the original story, the mountain was the place where
in the far east the sky was supposed to touch the earth, and
it was there that the ship containing the celestial passengers
finally rested from its voyage. But whatever may be the
origin of the stories of the flood, whether told first by Hindu,
Babylonian or Hebrew, we may rest perfectly assured that
they are all equally false.
XIX.—BACCHUS AND BABEL.
As soon as Noah had disembarked, he proceeded to plant
a vineyard, and began to be a husbandman ; and when the
grapes were ripe he made wine and drank of it to excess ;
cursed his grandson, blessed Shem and Japheth, and after
that lived for three hundred and fifty years. What he did
■during these three hundred and fifty years, we are not
told. We never hear of him again. For three hundred
and fifty years he lived among his sons, and daughters, and
their descendants. He must have been a venerable man.
He was the man to whom Cod had made known his intention
of drowning the world. By his efforts, the human race
had been saved. He must have been acquainted with
Methuselah for six hundred years, and Methuselah was
about two hundred and forty years old when Adam died.
Noah must himself have known the history of mankind,
and must have been an object of almost infinite interest;
and yet for three hundred and fifty years he is neither
directly or indirectly mentioned. When Noah died, Abraham
must have been more than fifty years old; and Shem the
son of Noah, lived for several hundred years after the death
of Abraham; and yet he is never mentioned. Noah when
he died, was the oldest man in the whole world by about
five hundred years ; and everybody living at the time of his
death knew that they were indebted to him, and yet no
account is given of his burial. No monument was raised
to mark the spot. This, however, is no more wonderful
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
than the fact that no account is given of the death of Adam
or of Eve, nor of the place of their burial. This may all beaccounted for by the fact that the language of man was
confounded at the building of the Tower of Babel, whereby
all tradition may have been lost, so that even the sons of
Noah could not give an account of their voyage in the
ark; and consequently some one had to be directly inspired
to tell the story, after new languages had been formed.
It has always been a mystery to me how Adam, Eve, and
the serpent were taught the same language. Where did
they get it ? We know now, that it requires a great number
of years to form a language ; that it is of excedingly slow
growth. We also know that by language, man conveys to
his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he
sees, hears, smells and touches. We know that the language
of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of express
ing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love,
desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt.
Many
centuries are required to produce a language capable
of expressing complex ideas. It does not seem to me that
ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in the brain
of man. These ideas must be the result of observation and
experience.
Does anybody believe that God directly taught a
language to Adam and Eve, or that he so made them that
they by intuition spoke Hebrew, or some language capable
of conveying to each other their thoughts ? How did the
.serpent learn the same language ? Did God teach it to him,
or did he happen to overhear God, when he was teaching
Adam and Eve? We are told in the second chapter of
Genesis that God caused all the animals to pass before Adam
to see what he would call them. We cannot infer from
this that God named the animals and informed Adam what
to call them. Adam named them himself. Where did he
get his words ? We cannot imagine a man just made out of
dust, without the experience of a moment, having the power
to put his thoughts in language. In the first place, we
cannot conceive of his having any thoughts until he has
combined, through experience and observation, the im
pressions that nature had made upon him through the
medium of his senses. We cannot imagine of his knowing
anything, in the first iistance, about different degrees of
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
heat, nor about darkness, if he was made in the day-time,
nor about light, if created at night, until the next morning.
Before a man can have what we call thoughts, he must have
had a little experience. Something must have happened
to him before he can have a thought, and before he can
express himself in language. Language is a growth, not a
gift. We account now for the diversity of language by
the fact that tribes and nations have had different experiences
different wants, different surroundings, and, one result of
all these differences is, among other things, a difference in
language. Nothing can be more absurd than to account
for the different languages of the world by saying that the
original language was confounded at the Tower of Babel.
According to the Bible, up to the time of the building of
that tower, the whole earth was of one language and of one
speech, and would have so remained until the present time
had not an effort been made to build a tower whose top
should reach into heaven. Can anyone imagine what
objection God would have to the building of such a tower ?
And how could the confusion of tongues prevent its con
struction ? How could language be confounded ? It could
be confounded only by the destruction of memory. Did
God destroy the memory of mankind at that time, and if so,
how ? Did he paralyze that portion of the brain presiding
over the organs of articulation, so that they could not speak
the words, although they remembered them clearly, or did
he so touch the brain that they could not hear ? Will some
theologian, versed in the machinery of the miraculous, tell
us in what way God confounded the language of mankind ?
Why should the confounding of the language make them
separate ? Why should they not stay together until they
could understand each other ? People will not separate
from weakness. When in trouble they come together and
desire the assistance of each other. Why, in this instance,
did they separate ? What particular ones would naturally
come together if nobody understood the language of any
other person ? Would it not have been just as hard to
agree when and where to go, without any language to
express the agreement, as to go on with the building of the
tower ?
Is it possible that any one now believes that the whole
world would have been of one speech had the language not
G
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
been confounded at Babel ? Do we not know that every
word was suggested in some way by the experience of men?
Do we not know that words are continually dying, and
continually being born; that every language has its cradle
and its cemetery—its buds, its blossoms, its fruits and its
withered leaves ? Man has loved, enjoyed, hated, suffered
and hoped, and all words have been born of these
experiences.
Why did “ the Lord come down to see the city and the
tower ?” Could he not see them from where he lived or
from where he was? Where did he come down from?
Did he come in the day-time, or in the night? We are
taught now that God is everywhere; that he inhabits im
mensity ; that he is in every atom, and in every star. If
this is true, why did he “ come down to see the city and
the tower ?” Will some theologian explain this ?
After all, is it not much easier and altogether more
reasonable to say that Moses was mistaken, that he knew
little of the science of language, and that he guessed a
great deal more than he investigated ?
XX.—FAITH IN FILTH.
No light whatever is shed upon what passed in the world
after the confounding of language at Babel, until the birth
of Abraham. But, before speaking of the history of the
Jewish people, it may be proper for me to say that
many things are recounted in Genesis, and other books
attributed to Moses, of which I do not wish to speak.
There are many pages of these books unfit to read, many
stories not calculated, in my judgment, to improve the
morals of mankind. I do not wish even to call the attention
of my readers to these thing's, except in a general way. It
is to be hoped that the time will come when such chapters
and passages as cannot be read without leaving the blush
of shame upon the cheek of modesty, will be left out, and
not published as a part of the Bible. If there is a God, it
certainly is blasphemous to attribute to him the authorship
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
91
of pages too obscene, beastly and vulgar to be read in the
presence of men and women.
The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation
of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of
the world; and yet few books have been published con
taining more moral filth than this inspired word of God
These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or
humor. They never rise above the dull details of stupid
vice. For one, I cannot afford to soil my pages with
extracts from them ; and all such portions of the Scriptures
I leave to be examined, written upon and explained by the
clergy. Clergymen may know some way by which they
can extract honey from these flowers. Until these passages
are expunged from the Old Testament, it is not a fit book
to be read by either old or young. It contains pages that
no minister in the United States would read to his congre
gation for any reward whatever. There are chapters that
no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. There
are chapters that no father would read to his child. There
are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will
come when mankind will wonder that such a book was
ever called inspired.
I know that in many books besides the Bible there are
immodest lines. Some of the greatest writers have soiled
their pages with indecent words. We account for this by
saying that the authors were human; that they catered to
the taste and spirit of their times. We make excuses, but
at the same time regret that in their works they left an
impure word. But what shall we say of God ? Is it
possible that a being of infinite purity—the author of
modesty—would smirch the pages of his book with stories
lewd, licentious and obscene ? If God is the author of the
Bible, it is, of course, the standard by which all other books
can and should be measured. If the Bible is not obscene,
what book is ? Why should men be imprisoned simply for
imitating God ? The Christian world should never say
another word against immoral books until it makes the
inspired volume clean. These vile and filthy things were
not written for the purpose of conveying and enforcing
moral truth, but seem to have been written because the
author loved an unclean thing. There is no moral depth
below that occupied by the writer or publisher of obscene
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
books, that stain with lust the loving heart of youth. Such
men should be imprisoned and their books destroyed. The
literature of the world should be rendered decent, and no
book should be published that cannot be read by and in the
hearing of the best and purest people. But as long as the
Bible is considered as the Word of God, it will be hard to
make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long
as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. The
literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until
the Bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god.
We are continually told that the Bible is the very foun
dation of modesty and morality ; while many of its pages
are so immodest and immoral that a minister, for reading
them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as an un
clean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and
if the men stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising
the minister.
Is there any saving grace in hypocrisy ? Will men be
come clean in speech by believing that God is unclean ?
Would it not be far better to admit that the Bible was
written by barbarians in a barbarous, course and vulgar
age ? Would it not be safer to charge Moses with vul
garity instead of God ? Is it not altogether more probable
that some ignorant Hebrew would write the vulgar words ?
The Christians tell me that God is the author of these vile
and stupid things. I have examined the question to the
best of my ability, and as to God my verdict is—Not
Guilty. Faith should not rest in filth.
Every foolish and immodest thing should be expunged
from the Bible. Let us keep the good. Let us preserve
every great and splendid thought, every wise and prudent
maxim, every just law, every elevated idea, and every word
calculated to make man nobler and purer, and let us. have
the courage to throw the rest away. The souls of children
should not be stained and soiled. The charming instincts
of youth should not he corrupted and defiled. The girls
and boys should not be taught that unclean words were
uttered by “ inspired ” lips. Teach them that these words
were born of savagery and lust. Teach them that the un
clean is the unholy, and that only the pure is sacred.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
..
XXI.-THE
03
HEBREWS.
After language had been confounded and the people
scattered, there appeared. in the land of Canaan a tribe of
Hebrews ruled by a chief or sheik called Abraham. They
had a few cattle, lived in tents, practised polygamy,
wandered from place to place, and were the only folks in
the whole world to whom God paid the slightest attention.
At this time there were hundreds of cities in India filled
with temples and palaces. Millions of Egyptians wor
shipped Isis and Osiris, and had covered their land with
marvellous monuments of industry, power and skill. But
these civilisations were entirely neglected by the deity, his
whole attention being taken up with Abraham and his
family.
It seems, from the account, that God and Abraham were
intimately acquainted, and conversed frequently upon a
great variety of subjects. By the twelfth chapter of
Genesis it appears that he made the following promises to
Abraham : “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will
bless thee, and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a
blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse
him that curseth thee.”
After receiving this communication from the Almighty,
Abraham went into the land of Canaan, and again God
appeared to him and told him to take a heifer three years
old, a g’oat of the same age, a sheep of equal antiquity, a
turtle dove and a young’ pigeon. Whereupon Abraham
killed the animals “ and divided them in the midst, and laid
each piece one against another.” And it came to pass that
when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking
furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the raw
and bleeding meat. The killing of these animals was a
preparation for receiving a visit from God. Should an
American missionary in Central Africa find a negro chief
surrounded by a butchered heifer, a goat and a sheep, with
which to receive a communication from the infinite God, my
opinion is that the missionary would regard the proceedings
as the direct result of savagery. And if the chief insisted
that he had seen a smoking furnace and a burning lamp
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
going up and down between the pieces of meat, the mis
sionary would certainly conclude that the chief was not
altogether right in his mind.
If the Bible is true, this same God told Abraham to take
and sacrifice his only son, or rather the only son of his wife,
and a murder would have been committed had not God,
just at the right moment, directed him to stay his hand and
take a sheep instead.
God made a great number of promises to Abraham, but
few of them were ever kept. He agreed to make him the
father of a great nation, but he did not. He solemnly
promised to give him a great country, including all the
land between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates, but he
did not.
In due time Abraham passed away, and his son Isaac
took his place at the head of the tribe. Then came Jacob,
who “ watered stock ” and enriched himself with the spoil
of Laban. Joseph was sold into Egypt by his jealous
brethren, where he became one of the chief men of the
kingdom, and in a few years his father and brothers left
their own country and settled in Egypt. At this time there
were seventy Hebrews in the world, counting Joseph and
his children. They remained in Egypt two hundred and
fifteen years. It is claimed by some that they were in that
coitntry for four hundred and thirty years. This is a mis
take. Josephus says they were in Egypt two hundred and
fifteen years, and this statement is sustained by the best
biblical scholars of all denominations. According to Gal.
iii., 17, it was four hundred and thirty years from the time
the promise was made to Abraham to the giving of the law,
and as the Hebrews did not go to Egypt for two hundred
and fifteen years after the making of the promise to Abra
ham, they could in no event have been in Egypt more than
two hundred and fifteen years. In our Bible Exodus xii., 40
is as follows:—“ Now the sojourning of the children of
Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty
years.”
This passage does not say that the sojourning was all
done in Egypt; neither does it say that the children of
Israel dwelt in Egypt four hundred and thirty years ; but
it does say that the sojourning of the children of Israel who
dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. The
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
93
Vatican copy of the Septuagint renders the same passage as
follows :—“ The sojourning of the children of Israel, which
they sojourned in Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was
four hundred and thirty years.”
The Alexandrian Version says : “ The sojourning of the
children of Israel, which they and their fathers sojourned
in Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and
thirty years.”
And in the Samaritan Bible we have : “ The sojourning
of the children of Israel and of their fathers, which they
sojourned in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt,
was four hundred and thirty years.”
There were seventy souls when they went down into
Egypt, and they remained two hundred and fifteen years,
and at the end of that time they had increased to about
three million. How do we know that there were three
million at the end of two hundred and fifteen years ? We
know it because we are informed by Moses that “ there
were six hundred thousand men of war.” Now, to each
man of war, there must have been at least five other people.
In every State in this Union there will be to each voter five
other persons at least, and we all know that there are always
more voters than' men of war. If there were six hundred
thousand men of war, there must have been a population of
at least three million. Is it possible that seventy people
could increase to that extent in two hundred and fifteen
years ? You may say that it was a miracle; but what need
was there of working a miracle ? Why should God mira
culously increase the number of slaves ?
If he wished
miraculously to increase the population, why did he not
wait until the people were free ?
In 1776, we had in the American Colonies about three
million of people. In one hundred years we doubled four
times: that is to say, six, twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight
million—our present population.
We must not forget that during all these years there has
been pouring into our country a vast stream of emigration,
and that this, taken in connection with the fact that our
country is productive beyond all others, gave us only four
doubles in one hundred years. Admitting that the Hebrews
increased as rapidly without emigration as we in this
country have with it, we will give to them four doubles
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
each century, commencing with seventy people, and they
would have, at the end of two hundred years, a population
of seventeen thousand nine hundred and twenty. Giving
them another double for the odd fifteen years and there
would be, provided no deaths had occurred, thirty-five
thousand eight hundred and forty people. And yet we are
told that instead of having this number, they had increased
to such an extent that they had six hundred thousand men
of war—that is to say, a population of more than three
million I
Every sensible man knows that this account is not and
cannot be true. We know that seventy people could not
increase to three million in two hundred and fifteen years.
About this time the Hebrews took a census and found
that there were twenty-two thousand, two hundred-and
seventy-three first-born males. It is reasonable to suppose
that there were about as many first-born females. This
would make forty-four thousand, five hundred and fortysix first-born children. Now, there must have been about
as many mothers as there were first-born children.
If
there were only about forty-five thousand mothers and three
million of people, the mothers must have had on an average
about sixty-six children apiece.
At this time the Hebrews were slaves, and had been for
two hundred and fifteen years. A little while before, an
order had been made by the Egyptians that all the male
children of the Hebrews should be killed. One, contrary
to this order, was saved in an ark made of bulrushes
daubed with slime. This child was found by the daughter
of Pharaoh, and was adopted, it seems, as her own, and,
maybe, was. He grew to be a man, sided with the Hebrews,
killed an Egyptian that was smiting a slave, hid the body
in the sand, and fled from Egypt to the land of Midian, be
came acquainted with a priest who had seven daughters,
took the side of the daughters against the ill-mannered
shepherds of that country, and married Zipporah, one of
the girls, and became a shepherd for her father. After
wards, while tending his flock, the Lord appeared to him in
a burning bush, and commanded him to go to the king of
Egypt and demand from him the liberation of the Hebrews.
In order to convince him that the something burning in the
bush was actually God, the rod in his hand was changed
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
into a serpent, which, upon being caught by the tail, became
again a rod. Moses was also told to put his hand in his
bosom, and when he took it out it was as leprous as snow.
Quite a number of strange things were performed, and
others promised. Moses then agreed to go back to Egypt
provided his brother could go with him. Whereupon the
Lord appeared to Aaron, and directed him to meet Moses
in the wilderness. They met at the mount of God, went
to Egypt, gathered together all the elders of the children
of Israel, spake all the words which God had spoken unto
Moses, and did all the signs in the sight of the people. The
Israelites believed, bowed their heads and worshipped ; and
Moses and Aaron went in and told their message to Pharaoh
the king.
,>
XXII.—THE PLAGUES.
Three million of people were in slavery. They were
treated with the utmost rigor, and so fearful were their
masters that they might, in time, increase in numbers suffi
cient to avenge themselves, that they took from the arms of
mothers all the male children and destroyed them. If the
account given is true, the Egyptians were the most cruel,
heartless and infamous people of which history gives any
record. God finally made up his mind to free the Hebrews ;
and for the accomplishment of this purpose he sent, as his
agents, Moses and Aaron to the king of Egypt. In order
that the king might know that these men had a divine
mission, God gave Moses the power of changing a stick
into a serpent, and water into blood. Moses and Aaron
went before the king, stating that the Lord God of Israel
ordered the king of Egypt to let the Hebrews go, that
they might hold a feast with God in the wilderness. There
upon Pharaoh, the king, inquired who the Lord was, at the
same time stating that he had never made his acquaintance,
and knew nothing about him. To this they replied that the
God of the Hebrews had met with them, and they asked
to go a three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice
unto this God, fearing that if they did not he would fall
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SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
upon them with pestilence or the sword. This interview
seems to have hardened Pharaoh, for he ordered the tasks
•of the children of Israel to be increased; so that the only
■effect of the first appeal was to render still worse the con
dition of the Hebrews. Thereupon, Moses returned unto
the Lord and said, “ Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil
entreated this people ? Why is it that thou hast sent me ?
For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name he hath
■■done evil to his people; neither hast thou delivered thy
people at all.”
Apparently stung- by this reproach, God answered:—
■“ Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh; for
with a strong hand shall he let them go; and with a strong
hand shall he drive them out of his land.”
God then recounts the fact that he had appeared unto
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that he had established a
■covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, that he
had heard the groanings of the children of Israel in Egyptian
bondage; that their groanings had put him in mind of his
covenant, and that he had made up his mind to redeem the
children of Israel with a stretched-out arm and with great
judgments. Moses then spoke to the children of Israel
■again, but they would listen to him no more. His first
■effort in their behalf had simply doubled their trouble, and
they seemed to have lost confidence in his power. There
upon Jehovah promised Moses that he would make him a
.god unto Pharaoh, and that Aaron should be his prophet,
but at the same time informed him that his message would
be of no avail ; that he would harden the heart of Pharaoh
so that he would not listen; that he would so harden his
•heart that he might have an excuse for destroying the
Egyptians. Accordingly, Moses and Aaron again went
before Pharaoh. Moses said to Aaron : “ Cast down your
rod before Pharaoh ”—which he did, and it became a serpent.
Then Pharaoh, not in the least surprised, called for his
wise men and his sorcerers, and they threw down their rods
■and changed them into serpents. The serpent that had
been changed from Aaron’s rod was, at this time crawling
upon the' floor, and it proceeded to swallow up the serpents
that had been produced by the magicians of Egypt. What
became of these serpents that were swallowed, and whether
they turned back into sticks again, is not stated. Can we
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believe that the stick was changed into a real living serpent,
or did it assume simply the appearance of a serpent ? If it
bore only the appearance of a serpent it was a deception,
■and could not rise above the dignity of legerdemain. Is it
necessary to believe that God is a kind of prestidigitateur—a
sleight-of-hand performer, a magician or sorcerer ? Can it
be possible that an infinite being would endeavor to secure
the liberation of a race by performing a miracle that could
be equally performed by the sorcerers and magicians of a
barbarian king ?
Not one word was said by Moses or Aaron as to the
wickedness of depriving a human being of his liberty. Not
a word was said in favor of liberty. Not the slightest in
timation that a human being was justly entitled to the
product of his own labor. Not a word about the cruelty of
masters who wTould destroy even the babes of slave mothers.
It seems to me wonderful that this God did not tell the
king cf Egypt that no nation could enslave another, with
out also enslaving itself; that -it was impossible to put
a chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles
upon the brain of the master. Why did he not tell him
that a nation founded upon slavery could not stand ? Instead
of declaring these things, instead of appealing to justice,
to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery.
Suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous
nation, and the President should employ a sleight-of-hand
performer as envoy extraordinary, and instruct him, that
when he came into the presence of the savage monarch, he
should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick, which
would change into a lizard or a turtle; what should we
think ? Should we not regard such a performance as beneath
the dignity even of a President ? And what would be our
feelings if the savage king sent for his sorcerers and had
them perform the same feat ? If such things would appear
puerile and foolish in the President of a great republic, what
shall be said when they were resorted to by the Creator of
all worlds ? How small, how contemptible such a God
appears ! Pharaoh it seems, took about this view of the
matter, and he would not lie persuaded that such tricks
were performed by an infinite being.
Again, Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh as he was
going to the river’s bank, and the same rod which had
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changed to a serpent, and, by this time changed back, was
taken by Aaron, who, in the presence of Pharaoh, smote
the water of the river, which was immediately turned to
blood, as well as all the water in all the streams, ponds and
pools, as well as all water in vessels of wood and vessels of
stone in the entire land of Egypt. As soon as all the
waters in Egypt had been turned into blood, the magicians
of that country did the same with their enchantments.
We are not informed where they got the water to turn into
blood, since all the water in Egypt had already been sochanged. It seems from the account that the fish in the
Nile died, and the river emitted a stench, and there was not
a drop of water in the land of Egypt that had not been
changed into blood. In consequence of this, the Egyptians
digged “ around about the river ” for water to drink. Can
we believe this story ? Is it necessary to salvation to
admit that all the rivers, pools, ponds and lakes of a country
were changed into blood, in order that a king might be
induced to allowed the children of Israel the privilege of
going a three days’ journey into the wilderness to make
sacrifices to their God ?
It seems from the account that Pharaoh was told that
the God of the Hebrews would, if he refused to let the
Israelites go, change all the waters of Egypt into blood,
and that, upon his refusal, they were so changed. This
had, however, no influence upon him, for the reason that
his own magicians did the same. It does not appear that
Moses and Aaron expressed the least surprise at the success
of the Egyptian sorcerers. At that time it was believed
that each nation had its own god. The only claim that
Moses and Aaron made for their God was, that he was the
greatest and most powerful of all the gods, and that with
anything like an equal chance he could vanquish the deity
of any other nation.
After the waters were changed to blood Moses and Aaron
waited for seven days. At the end of that time God told
Moses to again go to Pharaoh and demand the release of
his people, and to inform him that, if he refused, God would
strike all the borders of Egypt with frogs—that he would
make frogs so plentiful that they would go into the houses
of Pharaoh, into his bedchamber, upon his bed, into the
houses of his servants, upon his people, into their ovens,
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and even into their kneading- troughs. This threat had no
effect whatever upon Pharaoh; and thereupon Aaron
stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the
frogs came up and covered the land. The magicians of
Egypt did the same, and with their enchantments brought
more frogs upon the land of Egypt.
These magicians do not seem to have been original in their
ideas, but so far as imitation was concerned, were perfect
masters of their art. The frogs seem to have made such
an impression upon Pharaoh that he sent for Moses and
asked him to entreat the Lord that he would take away
the frogs. Moses agreed to remove them from the houses
and the land, and allow them to remain only in the rivers.
Accordingly the frogs died out of the houses, and out of
the villages, and out of the fields, and the people gathered
them together in heaps. As soon as the frogs had left the
houses and fields, the heart of Pharaoh became again
hardened, and he refused to let the people go.
Aaron then, according to the command of God, stretched
out his hand, holding the rod, and smote the dust of the
earth, and it became lice in man and in beast, and all the
dust became lice throughout the land of Egypt. Pharaoh
again sent for his magicians, and they sought to do the
same with their enchantments, but they could not. Where
upon the sorcerers said unto Pharaoh : “ This is the finger
of God.”
Notwithstanding this, however, Pharaoh refused to let
the Hebrews go. God then caused a grievous swarm of
flies to come into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants’
houses, and into all the land of Egypt, to such an extent
that the whole land was corrupted by reason of the flies.
But into that part of the country occupied by the children
of Israel there came no flies Thereupon Pharaoh sent for
Moses and Aaron and said to them : “ Go, and sacrifice to
your God in this land.” They were not willing to sacrifice
in Egypt, and asked permission to go on a journey of three
days into the wilderness. To this Pharaoh acceded, and in
consideration of this Moses agreed to use his influence with
the Lord to induce him to send the flies out of the country.
He accordingly told the Lord of the bargain he had made
with Pharaoh, and the Lord agreed to the compromise, and
removed the flies from Pharaoh and from his servants and
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from his people, and there remained not a single fly in th©
land of Egypt. As soon as the flies were gone, Pharaoh
again changed his mind, and concluded not to permit the
children of Israel to depart. The Lord then directed Moses
to go to Pharaoh and tell him that if he did not allow the
children of Israel to depart, he would destroy his cattle,
his horses, his camels and his sheep ; that these animals
would be afflicted with a grievous disease, but that theanimals belonging to the Hebrews should not be so afflicted.
Moses did as he was bid. On the next day all the cattle of
Egypt died ; that is to say, all the horses, all the asses, allcamels, all the oxen and all the sheep ; but of the animals
owned by the Israelites, not one perished. This disaster
had no effect upon Pharaoh, and he still refused to let the
children of Israel go. The Lord then told Moses and Aaron
to take some ashes out of a furnace, and told Moses to
sprinkle them toward the heavens in the sight of Pharaoh ;
saying that the ashes should become small dust in all the
land of Egypt, and should be a boil breaking forth with
blains upon man and upon beast thoughout all the land.
How these boils breaking out with blains, upon cattle
that were already dead, should affect Pharaoh, is a little
hard to understand. It must not be forgotten that all the
cattle and all beasts had died with the murrain before the
boils had broken out.
This was a most decisive victory for Moses and Aaron.
The boils were upon the magicians to that extent that they
could not stand before Moses. But it had no effect upon
Pharaoh, who seems to have been a man of great firmness,
The Lord then instructed Moses to get up early in the
morning and tell Pharaoh that he would stretch out his hand
and smite his people with a pestilence, and would, on the
morrow, cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as had
never been known in the land of Egypt, He also told
Moses to give notice, so that they might get all the cattle
that were in the fields under cover.
It must be re
membered that all these cattle had recently died of the
murrain,' and their bodies had been covered with boils and
blains. This, however, had no effect, and Moses stretched
forth his hand toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder
and hail and lightning, and fire that ran along the ground,
and the hail fell upon all the land of Egypt, and all that
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103
were in the fields, both man and beast, were smitten, and
the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every treeof the country except that portion inhabited by the children
of Israel; there, there was no hail.
During- this hail-storm Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron
and admitted that he had sinned, that the Lord was
righteous, and that the Egyptians were wicked, and
requested them to ask the Lord that there be no more
thunderings and hail, and that he would let the Hebrews
go. Moses agreed that as soon as he got out of the city
he would stretch forth his hands unto the Lord, and that
the thunderings should cease and the hail should stop..
But, when the rain and hail and the thundering ceased,
Pharaoh concluded that he would not let the children
of Israel go.
Again, God sent Moses and Aaron, instructing them totell Pharaoh that if he refused to let the people go, the face
of the earth would be covered with locusts, so that man
would not be able to see the ground, and that these locusts
would eat the residue of that which escaped from the hail;
that they would eat every tree out of the field; that they
would fill the houses of Pharaoh and the houses of all his ser
vants, and the houses of all the Egyptians. Moses delivered
his message, and went out from Pharaoh. Some of Pharaoh’s
servants entreated their master to let the children of Israel
go. Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and asked them,,
who wished to go into the wilderness to sacrifice. They
replied that they wished to go with the young and old ;
with their sons and daughters, with flocks and herds.
Pharaoh would not consent to this but agreed that the men.
might go. Thereupon Pharaoh drove Moses and Aaron out
of his sight. Then God told Moses to stretch forth hishand upon the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they
might come up and eat every herb, even all that the hail
had left. “ And Moses stretched out his rod over the land,
of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind all that day
and all that night; and when it was morning the east
wind brought the locusts; and they came up over all theland of Egypt and rested upon all the coasts covering the
face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened ;.
and they ate every herb and all the fruit of the trees which
the hail had left, and there remained not any green thing
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■on the trees or in the herbs of the field throughout the
land of Egypt.” Pharaoh then called for Moses and Aaron
in great haste, admitted that he had sinned against the
Lord their God and against them, asked their forgiveness
and requested them to intercede with God that he might
take away the locusts. They went out from his presence
and asked the Lord to drive the locusts away, “And the
Lord made a strong west wind which took away the
. locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea, so that there
remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt.”
As soon as the locusts were gone, Pharaoh changed his
mind, and, in the language of the sacred text, “ the Lord
hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the
children of Israel go.”
The Lord then told Moses to stretch out his hand toward
heaven that there might be darkness over the land of Egypt,
“ even darkness which might be felt.” “ And Moses
stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a
thick darkness over the land of Egypt for three days
during which time they saw not each other, neither arose
any of the people from their places for three days; but the
children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”
It strikes me that when the land of Egypt was covered
with thick darkness—so thick that it could be felt, and
when light was in the dwellings of the Israelites, there
could have been no better time for the Hebrews to have
left the country.
Pharaoh again called for Moses, and told him that his
people could go and serve the Lord, provided they would
leave their flocks and herds. Moses would not agree to
this, for the reason that they needed the flocks and herds
for sacrifices and burnt-offerings, and he did not know how
many of the animals God might require, and for that reason
he could not leave a single hoof. Upon the question of the
cattle, they divided, and Pharaoh again refused to let the
people go. God then commanded Moses to tell the Hebrews
to borrow, each of his neighbor, jewels of silver and gold.
By a miraculous interposition the Hebrews found favor in
the sight of the Egyptians so that they loaned the articles
asked for. After this, Moses again went to Pharaoh and
told him that all the first-born in the land of Egyyt, from
the first-born of Pharaoh upon the throne, unto the first-
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
born of the maid-servant who was behind the mill, as well
as the first-born of beasts, should die.
As all the beasts had been destroyed by disease and hail,,
it is troublesome to understand the meaning- of the threat
as to their first-born.
Preparations were accordingly made for carrying this,
frightful threat into execution. Blood was put on the
door-posts of all houses inhabited by Hebrews, so that God,,
as he passed through that land, might not be mistaken and
destroy the first-born of the Jews. “And it came to pass,
that at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the
land of Egypt, the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the
throne, and the first-born of the captive who was in the
dungeon. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, and all his.
servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry
in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not
one dead.”
What had these children done ? Why should the babes,
in the cradle be destroyed on account of the crime of
Pharaoh? Why should the cattle be destroyed because
man had enslaved his brother ? In those days women and
children and cattle were put upon an exact equality, and wereall considered as the property of the men ; and when man,
in some way excited the wrath of God, he punished them
by destroying all their cattle, their wives and their little
ones. Where can words be found bitter enough to describe
a god who would kill wives and babes because husbands
and fathers had failed to keep his law ? Every good man
and every good woman must hate and despise such a.
deity.
Upon the death of all the first-born Pharaoh sent for
Moses and Aaron, and not only gave his consent that they
might go with the Hebrews into the wilderness, but be
sought them to go at once.
Is it possible that an infinite God, creator of all worlds
and sustainer of all life, said to Pharaoh : “ If you do not
let my people go, I will turn all the water of your country
into blood,” and that, upon the refusal of Pharaoh to release
the people, God did turn all the waters into blood ? Doi
you believe this ?
Do you believe that Pharaoh, even after all the water
was turned to blood, refused to let the Hebrews go, and,
H
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
that thereupon God told him he would cover his land with
frogs ? Do you believe this ?
Do you believe that after the land was covered with
frogs Pharaoh still refused to let the people go, and that
God then said to him, “ I will cover you and all your people
with lice ?” Do you believe God would make this threat ?
Do you also believe that God told Pharaoh—“ If you do
not let these people go, I will fill all your houses and cover
your country with flies ?” Do you believe God makes such
threats as this ?
Of course God must have known that turning the waters
into blood, covering the country with frogs, infesting all
flesh with lice, and filling all houses with flies, would not
accomplish his object, and that all these plagues would have
no effect whatever upon the Egyptian king.
Do you believe that, failing to accomplish anything by
flies, God told Pharaoh that, if he did not let the people go,
he would kill his cattle with murrain ? Does such a threat
sound God-like ?
Do you believe that, failing to effect anything by killing
the cattle, this same God then threatened to afflict all the
people with boils, including the magicians who had been
rivaling him in the matter of miracles; and failing to do
anything by boils, that he resorted to hail ? Does this sound
reasonable ? The hail experiment having accomplished
nothing, do you believe that God murdered the first-born
of animals and men ? Is it possible to conceive of anything
more utterly absurd, stupid, revolting, cruel and senseless,
than the miracles said to have been wrought by the
Almighty for the purpose of inducing Pharaoh to liberate
the children of Israel ?
Is it not altogether more reasonable to say that the
Jewish people, being in slavery, accounted for the misfor
tunes and calamities, suffered by the Egyptians, by saying
that they were the judgments of God ?
When the Armada of Spain was wrecked and scattered
by the storm, the English people believed that God had
interposed in their behalf, and publicly gave thanks. When
the battle of Lepanto was won, it was believed by the
Catholic world that the victory was given in answer to
prayer. So, our forefathers in their revolutionary struggle
saw, or thought they saw, the hand of God, and most
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
107
firmly believed that, they achieved their independence by
the interposition of the most high.
Now, it may be that while the Hebrews were enslaved
•by the Egyptians, there were plagues of locusts and flies.
It may be that there were some diseases by which many of
the cattle perished. It may be that a pestilence visited that
■country so that in nearly every house there was some one
dead. If so, it was but natural for the enslaved and super
stitious Jews to account for these calamities by saying that
they were punishments sent by their God. Such ideas will
■be found in the history of every country.
For a long time the Jews held these opinions, and they
were handed from father to son simply by tradition. By
the time a written language had been produced, thousands
of additions had been made, and numberless details
invented; so that we have not only an account of the
plagues suffered by the Egyptians, but the whole woven
into a connected story, containing the threats made by
Moses and Aaron, the miracles wrought by them, the pro
mises of Pharaoh, and finally the release of the Hebrews,
•as a result of the marvellous things performed in their
behalf by Jehovah.
In any event it is infinitely more probable that the author
was misinformed, than that the God of this universe was
guilty of these childish, heartless and infamous things.
‘The solution of the whole matter is this :—Moses was
mistaken.
XXIII.—THE FLIGHT.
Three millions of people, with their flocks and herds, with
borrowed jewellery and raiment, with unleavened dough
in kneading troughs bound in their clothes upon their
shoulders, in one night commenced their journey for the
land of promise. We are not told how they were informed
of the precise time to start. With all the modern appliances,
it would require months of time to inform three millions of
people of any fact.
In this vast assemblage there were six hundred thousand
men of war, and with them were the old, the young, the
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
diseased and helpless. Where were those people going ?
They were going to the desert of Sinai, compared with
which Sahara is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava torn
by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a
Gorgon and changed instantly to stone ! Such was the
desert of Sinai.
All of the civilized nations of the world could not feed
and support three millions of people on the desert of Sinai
for forty years. It would cost more than one hundred
thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt Chris
tendom. They had with them their flocks and herds, and
the sheep were so numerous that the Israelites sacrificed,
at one time, more than one hundred and fifty thousand first
born lambs. How were these flocks supported? What
did they eat ? Where were meadows and pastures forthem ?
There was no grass, no forests—nothing! There is no
account of its having rained baled hay, nor is it even
claimed that they were miraculously fed. To support these
flocks, millions of acres of pastures would have been
required. God did not take the Israelites through the land
of the Philistines, for fear that when they saw the people
of that country they would return to Egypt, but he took
them by the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea, going
before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night in a
pillar of fire.
When it was told Pharaoh that the people had fled, he
made ready and took six hundred chosen chariots of Egypt,
and pursued after the children of Israel, overtaking them
by the sea. As all the animals had long before that time
been destroyed, we are not informed where Pharaoh obtained
the horses for his chariots. The moment the children of
Israel saw the hosts of Pharaoh, although they had six
hundred thousand men of war, they immediately cried unto
the Lord for protection. It is wonderful to me that a land
that had been ravaged by the plagues described in the
Bible, still had the power to put in the field an army that
would carry terror to the hearts of six hundred thousand
men of war. Even with the help of God, it seems, they
were not strong enough to meet the Egyptians in the open
field, but resorted to strategy. Moses again stretched forth
his wonderful rod over the waters of the Red Sea, and
they were divided, and the Hebrews passed through on dry
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109
Zand, the waters standing up like a wall on either side.
The Egyptians pursued them ; “ and in the morning watch
the Lord looked into the hosts of the Egyptians through the
pillar of fire,” and proceeded to take the wheels off their
chariots. As soon as the wheels were off, God told Moses
to stretch out his hand over the sea. Moses did so, and
immediately “ the waters returned and covered the chariots
and horsemen and all the hosts of Pharaoh that came into
the sea, and there remained not so much as one of them.”
This account may be true, but still it hardly looks reason
able that God would take the wheels off the chariots. How
did he do it ? Did he pull out the linch-pins, or did he just
take them off by main force ?
What a picture this presents to the mind ! God the
creator of the universe, maker of every shining, glittering
star, engaged in pulling off the wheels of wagons, that he
might convince Pharaoh of his greatness and power.
Where were these people going ? They were going to
the promised land. How large a country was that ? About
twelve thousand square miles. About one-fifth the size of
the State of Illinois. It was a frightful country, covered
with rocks and desolation. How many people were in the
promised land already ? Moses tells us there were seven
nations in that country mightier than the Jews. As there
were at least three millions of Jews, there must have been
at least twenty-one millions of people already in that country.
These had to be driven out in order that room might be made
for the chosen people of God. It seems, however, that God
was not willing to take the children of Israel into the
promised land immediately. They were not fit to inhabit
the land of Canaan; so he made up his mind to allow them
to wander in the desert until all who had left Egypt,
except two, should perish. Of all the slaves released from
Egyptian bondage, only two were allowed to reach the
promised land.
As soon as the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, they found
Themselves without food, and with water unfit to drink by
reason of its bitterness, and they began to murmur against
Moses, who cried unto the Lord, and “ the Lord showed
him a tree.” Moses cast this tree into the waters, and
they became sweet. “ And it came to pass in the morning
the dew lay around about the camp; and when the dew
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
that lay was gone, behold, upon the face of the wildernesslay a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost upon theground. And Moses said unto them, this is the bread
which the Lord hath given you to eat.” This manna was
a very peculiar thing. It would melt in the sun, and yet
they could cook it by seething and baking. One would
as soon think of frying snow or of broiling icicles. But
this manna had another remarkable quality. No matterhow much or little any person gathered, he would have an
exact omer ; if he gathered more, it would shrink to that
amount, and if he gathered less, it would swell exactly to
that amount. What a magnificent substance manna would
be with which to make a currency—shrinking and swelling
according to the great laws of supply and demand I
“ Epon this manna the children of Israel lived for forty
years, until they came to a habitable land. With this meat
. were they fed until they reached the borders of the land of
Canaan.”
We are told in the twenty-first chapter of
Numbers that the people at last became tired of the manna,,
complained of God, and asked Moses why he brought them
out of the land of Egypt to die in the wilderness. And
they said :—“ There is no bread, nor have we any water.
Our soul loatheth this light food.”
We are told by some commentators that the Jews lived
on manna for forty years ; by others that lived upon it for
only a short time. As a matter of fact the accounts differ,
and this difference is the opportunity for commentators. It
also allows us to exercise faith in believing that both
accounts are true.
If the accounts agreed, and were
reasonable, they would be believed by the wicked and un
regenerated. But as they are different and unreasonable,,
they are believed only by the good. Whenever a state
ment in the Bible is unreasonable, and you believe it, you
are considered quite a good Christian. If the statement is
grossly absurd and infinitely impossible, and you still believeit, you are a saint.
The children of Israel were in the desert, and they wereout of water. They had nothing to eat but manna, and
this ihey had had so long that the soul of every person
abhorred it. Under these circumstances they complained
to Moses. Now, as God is infinite, he could just as well
have furnished them with an abundance of the purest and
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Ill
coolest of water, and could, without the slightest trouble
to himself, have given them three excellent meals a day,
with a generous variety of meats and vegetables. It is
■ very hard to see why he did not do so. It is still harder
to conceive why he fell into a rage when the people mildly
suggested that they would like a change of diet. Day after
day, week after week, month after month, year after
year, nothing but manna. No doubt they did the best they
could by cooking it in different ways, but in spite of them
selves they began to loathe its sight and taste, and so they
asked Moses to use his influence to secure a change in the
bill of fare.
Now, I ask whether it was unreasonable for the Jews to
suggest that a little meat would be very gratefully received ?
It seems, however, that as soon as the request was made,
this God of infinite mercy became infinitely enraged, and
instead of granting it, went into partnership with serpents,
for the purpose of punishing the hungry wretches to whom
he had promised a land flowing with milk and honey.
Where did these serpents come from ? How did God
convey the information to the serpents, that he wished
them to go to the desert of Sinai and bite some Jews ? It
may be urged that these serpents were created for the
express purpose of punishing the children of Israel for
having had the presumption, like Oliver Twist, to ask for
more.
There is another account in the eleventh chapter of
Numbers, of the people murmuring because of their food.
They remembered the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the
leeks, the onions and the garlic of Egypt, and they asked
for meat. The people went to the tent of Moses and asked
him for flesh. Moses cried unto the Lord and asked him
why he did not take care of the multitude. God thereupon
agreed that they should have meat, not for a day or two,
but for a month, until the meat should come out of their nostrils
and become loathsome to them. He then caused a wind to
bring quails from beyond the sea, and cast them into the
camp, on every side of the camp around about for the space
of a day’s journey. And the people gathered them, and
while the flesh was yet between their teeth the wrath of
God being provokecl against them, struck them with an
exceeding great plague. Serpents, also, were sent among
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them, and thousands perished for the crime of having been
hungry.
The Rev. Alexander Cruden, commenting upon this
account, says:
“ God caused a wind to rise that drove the quails within
•and about the camp of the Israelites ; and it is in this that
the miracle consists, that they were brought so seasonably
to this place, and in so great numbers as to suffice above a
^million of persons above a month. Some authors affirm,
that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are
innumerable, so that in one part of Italy within the com
pass of five miles, there were taken about a hundred thou
sand of them every day for a month together ; and that
•sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary
they fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers that they
sink them with their weight.”
No wonder Mr. Cruden believed the Mosaic account.
Must we believe that God made an arrangement with
hornets for the purpose of securing their services in driving
the Canaanites from the land of promise ? Is this belief
necessary unto salvation ? Must we believe that God said
to the Jews that he would send hornets before them to
drive out the Canaanites, as related in the twenty-third
chapter of Exodus, and the seventh chapter of Deutoronomy?
How would the hornets know a Canaanite ? In what way
would God put it in the mind of a hornet to attack a
Canaanite ? Did God create hornets for that especial pur
pose, implanting an instinct to attack a Canaanite, but not
a Hebrew ? Can we conceive of the Almighty granting
letters of marque and reprisal to hornets ? Of course it is
not admitted that nothing in the world would be better
calculated to make a man leave his native land than a few
hornets. Is it possible for us to believe that an infinite
being would resort to such expedients in order to drive the
Canaanites from their country ? He could just as easily
have spoken the Canaanites out of existence as to have
spoken the hornets in. In this way a vast amount of
trouble, pain and suffering would have been saved. Is it
possible that there is in this country an intelligent clergy
man who will insist that these stories are true; that we
must believe them in order to be good people in this world,
and glorified souls in the next ?
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
118
We are also told that God instructed the Hebrews to kill
the Canaanites slowly, giving as a reason that the beasts of
the field might increase upon his chosen people. When we
take into consideration the fact the Holy Land contained
•only about eleven or twelve thousand square miles, and was
■at that time inhabited by at least twenty-one millions of
people, it does not seem reasonable that the wild beasts
could have been numerous enough to cause any great alarm.
The same ratio of population would give to the State of
Illinois at least one hundred and twenty millions of inhibitants.
Can anybody believe that, under such circumstances, the
danger from wild beasts could be very great ? What
would we think of a general, invading such a state, if he
•should order his soldiers to kill the people slowly lest the
wild beasts might increase upon them ? Is it possible that
a God capable of doing the miracles recounted in the Old
Testament could not, in some way, have disposed of the
wild beasts ? After the Canaanites were driven out, could
he not have employed the hornets to drive out the wild
beasts ? Think of a God that could drive twenty-one
millions of people out of the promised land, could raise up
innumerable stinging flies, and could cover the earth with
fiery serpents, and yet seems to have been perfectly power
less against the wild beasts of the land of Canaan !
Speaking of these hornets, one of the good old commen
tators, whose viewshave long been considered of great value
by the believers in the inspiration of the Bible, uses the
following language :—
“ Hornets are a sort of strong flies, which the Lord
used as instruments to plague the enemies of his
people. ■ They are of themselves very troublesome and
mischievous, and those the Lord made use of were, it
is thought, of an extraordinary bigness and perniciousness.
It is said they live as the wasps, and that they have a king
or captain, and pestilent stings as bees, and that, if twenty
seven of them sting man or beast, it is certain death to
either. Nor is it strange that such creatures did drive out
the Canaanites from their habitations; for many heathen
writers give instances of some people driven from their
seats by frogs, others by mice, others by bees and wasps
And it is said that a Christian city, being besieged by Sapores,
king of Persia, was delivered by hornets; for the elephants
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
and beasts being stung by them, waxed unruly, and so the
whole army fled.”
Only a few years ago all such stories were believed by
the Christian world ; and it is an historical fact that Voltaire
was the third man of any note in Europe who took the
ground that the mythologies of Greece and Rome were
without foundation. Until his time, most Christians believed
as thoroughly in the miracles ascribed to the Greek and
Roman gods as in those of Christ and Jehovah. The
Christian world cultivated credulity, not only as one of the
virtues but as the greatest of them all. But when Luther
and his followers left the Church of Rome, they were com
pelled to deny the power of the Catholic church at that
time to suspend the laws of nature, but took the ground
that such power ceased with the apostolic age. They
insisted that all things now happened in accordance with
the laws of nature with the exception of a few special
interferences in favor of the Protestant Church in answer
to prayer. They taught their children a double philosophy :
by one, they were to show the impossibility of Catholic
miracles, because opposed to the laws of nature; by the
other, the probability' of the miracles of the apostolic age,
because they were in conformity with the statement of the
scriptures. They had two foundations: one, the law of
nature, and the other, the word of God. The Protestants
have endeavored to carry on this double process of reason
ing, and the result has been a gradual increase of confidence
in the law of nature, and a gradual decrease of confidence
in the word of God.
We are told, in this inspired account, that the clothing
of the Jewish people did not wax old, and that their shoes
refused to wear out. Some commentators have insisted
that angels attended to the wardrobes of the Hebrews,,
patched their garments, and mended their shoes. Certain it
is, however, that the same clothes lasted them for forty
years during the entire journey from Egypt to the Holy
Land. Little boys starting out with their first pantaloons,,
grew as they travelled, and their clothes grew with them.
Can it be necessary to believe a story like this ? Will
men make better husbands, fathers, neighbors and citizens,,
simply by giving credence to these childish and impossible
things ? Certainly an infinite God could have transported
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
115
the Jews to the Holy Land in a moment, and could as easily
have removed the Canaanites to some other country.
Surely there was no necessity for doing- thousands and thou
sands of petty miracles, day after day for forty years, looking
after the clothes of three millions of people, changing the
nature of wool, and linen, and leather, so they would not
“ wax old.” Every step, every motion, would wear away
some part of the clothing, some part of the shoes. Were
these parts, so worn away, perpetually renewed, or was
the nature of things so changed that they could, not wear
away ? We know that whenever matter comes in contact
with matter certain atoms, by abrasion, are lost. Were
these atoms gathered up every night by angels, and replaced
on the soles of the shoes, on the elbows of coats, and on the
knees of pantaloons, so that the next morning they would be
precisely in the condition they were on the morning before ?
There must be a mistake somewhere.
Can we believe that the real God, if there is one,. ever
ordered a man to be killed simply for making hair oil, or
ointment ? We are told in the thirtieth chapter of Exodus,
that the Lord commanded Moses to take myrrh, cinnamon,
sweet calamus, cassia and olive oil, and make a holy
ointment for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables,
candlesticks and other utensils, as well as Aaron and his
sons; saying, at the same time that whosoever compounded
any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should
be put to death. In the same chapter, the Lord furnishes
Moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that
whoever should make any which smelled like it, should be
cut off from his people. This, to me, sounds so unreason
able that I cannot believe it. Why should an infinite God
care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like
his or not ? Why should the Creator of all things threaten
to kill a priest who approached his altar without having
washed his hands and feet ? These commandments and
these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever
sat by chance upon a throne. There must be some mistake.
I cannot believe that an infinite intelligence appeared to
Moses upon Mount Sinai having with him a variety of
patterns for making a tabernacle, tongs, snuffers and dishes.
Neither can I believe that God told Moses how to cut and
trim a coat for a priest. Why should a God care about
�1116
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
such things ? Why should he insist on having buttons
sewed in certain rows, and fringes of a certain color?
Suppose an intelligent civilised man was to overhear, on
bmai, the following- instructions from God to Moses:__
“
mUSt consecrate my priests as follows:—You must
kill a bullock for a sin offering, and have Aaron and his
■sons lay their hands upon the head of the bullock. Then
you must take the blood and put it upon the horns of the
■altar round about with your finger, and pour some at the
■bottom of the altar to make a reconciliation ; and of the fat
.that is upon the inwards, the caul above the liver and two
kidneys, and their fat, and burn them upon the altar. You
must get a ram for a burnt-offering, and Aaron and his
sons must lay their hands upon the head of the ram. Then
you must kill it and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and
CU^ k ram
Pieces’ and burn the head, and the pieces,
and
an(t was^ the inwards and the lungs in water,
and then burn the whole ram upon the altar for a sweet
savor unto me. Then you must get another ram, and have
Aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of that,
then kill it and take of its blood, and put it on the top of
.Aaron s right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and
■on the great toe of his right foot. And you must also put
a little of the blood upon the top of the right ears of Aaron’s
sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the
great toes of their right feet. And then you must take of
the fat that is on the inwards, and the caul above the liver
and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder,
and out of a basket of unleavened bread you must take
•One unleavened cake and another of oil bread, and one wafer,
and put them on the fat of the right shoulder. And you
must take of the anointing oil, and of the blood, and sprinkle
it on Aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons’ garments,
and sanctify them and all their clothes.”—Do you believe
"that he would have even suspected that the Creator of the
universe was talking ?
Can any one now tell why God commanded the Jews,
"when they were upon the desert of Sinai, to plant trees,
telling them at the same time that they must not eat any
•of the fruit of such trees until after the fourth year ? Trees
■could not have been planted in that desert, and if they had
•been they could not have lived. Why did God tell Moses.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
117
while in the desert, to make curtains of fine linen ? Where
could he have obtained his flax ? There was no land upon
which it could have been produced. Why did he tell him
to make things of gold, and silver, and precious stones,
when they could not have been in possession of thesethings ? There is but one answer, and that is, the Penta
tench was written hundreds of years after the Jews had
settled in the Holy Land, and hundreds of years after
Moses was dust and ashes.
When the Jews had a written language, and that must
have been long after their flight from Egypt, they wrote
out their history and their laws. Tradition had filled the
infancy of the nation with miracles and special interpositions
in their behalf by Jehovah. Patriotism would not allow
these wonders to grow small, and priestcraft never denied
a miracle. There were traditions to the effect that God
had spoken face to face with Moses; that he had given
him the tables of the law, and had, in a thousand ways,,
made known his will; and whenever the priests wished to
make new laws, or amend old ones, they pretended to have
found something more that God said to Moses at Sinai. In
this way obedience was more easily secured. Only a very
few of the people could read, and, as a consequence, addi
tions, interpolations and erasures esaped detection. In
this way we account for the fact that Moses is made to
speak of things that did not exist in his day, and were
unknown for hundreds of years after his death.
In the thirtieth chapter of Exodus we are told that the
people when numbered must give each one a half shekel
after the shekel of the sanctuary. At that time no such
money existed, and consequently the account could not, by
any possibility, have been written until after there was a
shekel of the sanctuary, and there was no such thing until
long after the death of Moses. If we should read that
Caesar paid his troops in pounds, shillings and pence, we
would certainly know that the account was not written by
Caasar, nor in his time, but we would know that it was
written after the English had given these names to certain
coins.
So we find that when the Jews were upon the desert it
was commanded that every mother should bring, as a sinoffering, a couple of doves to the priests, and the priests
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
were compelled to eat these doves in the most holy place.
At the time this law appears to have been given, there
were three million people, and only three priests : Aaron,
Eleazer and Ithamar. Among three million people there
would be, at least, three hundred births a day. Certainly
we are not expected to believe that these three priests
devoured six hundred pigeons every twenty-four hours.
Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been
a mother ? Why should that be considered a crime in
Exodus which is commanded as a duty in Genesis ? Why
should a mother be declared unclean ? Why should giving
birth to a daughter be regarded as twice as criminal as
giving birth to a son ? Can we believe that such laws and
ceremonies were made and instituted by a merciful and
intelligent God ? If there is anything in this poor world
suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving
and pure, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy
arms her prattling babe. Read the twelfth chapter of
Leviticus, and you will see that when a woman became the
mother of a boy she was so unclean that she was not allowed
to touch a hallowed thing, nor to enter the sanctuary for
forty days. If the babe was a girl, then the mother was
unfit for eighty days to enter the house of God, or to touch
the sacred tongs and snuffers. These laws, born of bar
barism, are unworthy of our day, and should be regarded
simply as the mistakes of savages.
Just as low in the scale of intelligence are the directions
given in the fifth chapter of Numbers, for the trial of a wife
■of whom the husband was jealous. This foolish chaptei
bas been the foundation of all appeals to God for the ascer
tainment cf facts, such as the corsned, trial by battle, by
water and by fire ; the last of which is our judicial oath. It
is very easy to believe that in those days a guilty woman
would be afraid to drink the water of jealousy and take the
oath, and that, through fear, she might be made to confess.
Admitting that the deception tended not only to prevent
crime, but to discover it when committed, still, we cannot
admit that an honest god would, for any purpose, resort to
dishonest means. In all countries fear is employed as a
means of getting at the truth, and in this there is nothing
dishonest, provided falsehood is not resorted to for the pur
pose of producing the fear. Protestants laugh at Catholics
�ROME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
119
(because of their belief in the efficacy of holy water, and
yet they teach their children that a little holy water, in
which had been thrown some dust from the floor of the
sanctuary, would work a miracle in a woman s flesh. For
hundreds of years our fathers believed that a perjurer could
not swallow a piece of sacramental bread. Such stories
belong to the childhood of our race, and are now believed
only by mental infants and intellectual babes.
I cannot believe that Moses had in his hands a couple of
tables of stone, upon which God had written the ten com
mandments, and that when he saw the golden calf and the
dancing he dashed the tables to the earth, and broke
them in pieces. Neither do I believe that Moses took a
golden calf, burnt it, ground it to powder, and made the
people drink it with water, as related in the thirty-second
chapter of Exodus.
There is another account of the giving of the ten com
mandments to Moses, in the nineteenth and twentieth
chapters of Exodus. In this account not one word is said
about the people having made a golden calf, nor about the
breaking of the tables of stone. In the thirty-fourth chap
ter of Exodus there is an account of the renewal of the
broken tables of the law, and the commandments are given,
but they are not the same commandments mentioned in the
twentieth chapter. There are two accounts of the same
transaction. Both of these stories cannot be true, and yet
both must be believed.
Anyone who will take the trouble
to read the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, and the last
verse of the thirty-first chapter, the thirty-second, thirtythird and thirty-fourth chapters of Exodus, will be com
pelled to admit that both accounts cannot be true.
From the last account it appears that while Moses was
upon Mount Sinai receiving the commandments from God,
tne people brought their jewellery to Aaron, and he cast
for them a golden calf. This happened before any com
mandment against idolatry had been given A'god ought,
certainly to publish his laws before inflicting penalties for
their violation. To inflict punishment for breaking unknown
and unpublished laws is, in the last degree, cruel and un
just. It may be replied that the Jews knew better than to
worship idols before the law was given. If this is so, why
should the law have been given ? In all civilised countries
�120
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
laws are made and promulgated, not simply for the purpose
of informing the people as to what is right and wrong, but
to inform them of the penalties to be visited upon those
who violate the laws. When the ten commandments were
given, no penalties were attached. Not one word was
written on the tables of stone as to the punishments that
would be inflicted for breaking any or all of the inspired
laws. The people should not have been punished for vio
lating a commandment before it was given. And yet, in
this case, Moses commanded the sons of Levi to take their
swords and slay every man his brother, his companion and
his neighbor. The brutal order was obeyed, and three
thousand men were butchered. The Levites consecrated
themselves unto the Lord by murdering their sons and their
brothers for having violated a commandment before it had
been given.
It has been contended for many years that the ten com
mandments are the foundation of all ideas of justice and
of law. Eminent jurists have bowed to popular prejudice,
and deformed their works by statements to the effect that
the Mosaic laws are the fountains from which sprang all
ideas of right and wrong. Nothing can be more stupidly
false than such assertions.
Thousands of years before
Moses was born the Egyptians had a code of laws. They
had laws against blasphemy, murder, adultery, larceny,
perjury ; laws for the collection of debts, the enforcement
of contracts, the ascertainment of damag-es, the redemption
of property pawned, and upon nearly every subject of
human interest. The Egyptian code was far better than theMosaic.
Laws spring from the instinct of self-preservation. In
dustry objected to supporting idleness, and laws were made
against theft. Laws were made against murder, becausea very large majority of the people have always objected
to being murdered. All fundamental laws were born simply
of the instinct of self-defence. Long before the Jewish
savages assembled at the foot of Sinai, laws had been madeand enforced, not only in Egypt and India, but by every
tribe that ever existed.
It is impossible for human beings to exist together with
out certain rules of conduct, certain ideas of the proper and
improper, of the right and wrong, growing out of the rela-
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
tion. Certain rules must be made, and must be enfoiced.
This implies law, trial and punishment. Whoever produces
anything- by weary labor does not need a lev elation fiom
heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing P10~
duced. Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend
that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence,
would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws
were not in force.
Nothing can be more wonderful than the medical ideas ot
Jehovah. He had the strangest notions about the cause
and cure of disease. With him everything was. miracle and
wonder. In the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus, we find
the law for cleansing a leper :—“ Then shall the priest take
for him that is to be cleansed two birds, alive and clean,
and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest
shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen
vessel, over running water. As for the living bird, he shall
take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop,
and shall dip them, and the living bird, in the blood of the
bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall
sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy,
seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let
the living bird loose into the open field.
We are told that God himself gave these directions. to
Moses. Does anybody believe this ? Why should the bird
be killed in an earthern vessel ? Would the charm be broken
if the vessel was of wood ? Why over running water ?
What would be thought of a physician now who would give
a prescription like that ?
Is it not strange that God, although he gave hundreds of
directions for the purpose of discovering the presence of
leprosy, and for cleansing the leper after he was healed,
forgot to tell how that disease could be cured ? Is it not
wonderful that, while God told his people what animals
were fit for food, he failed to give a list of plants that man
might eat ? Why did he leave his children to find out the
hurtful and the poisonous by experiment, knowing that ex
periment, in millions of cases, must be death ?
When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their
flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I
must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their
behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their
I
�122
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
God was quick-tempered, unreasonable, cruel, revengeful
and dishonest. He was always promising, but never per
formed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail,
and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impos
sible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detest
able than that of the Hebrew God. He had solemnly pro
mised the Jews, that he would take them from Egypt to a
land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to
believe that in a little while their troubles would be over,
and that soon, in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their
wives and little ones, they would forget the stripes and
tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again
and again that he would lead them in safety to the pro
mised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every
promise, said to the wretches in his power :—“Your car
cases shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall
wander until your carcases be wasted.” This curse was the
conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and
night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness
of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home.
Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each
one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe
these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my
blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book
that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart cannot be
accepted as a revelation from God.
When we think of the poor Jews destroyed, murdered,
bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine,
butchered by each other, swallowed by the earth, frightened
cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thank
ful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God.
No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and
remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they ex
changed masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was
a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to
those who suffered the despotism of God.
While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indigna
tion, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the
history of the starved and frightened wretches who wan
dered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and
desert, the prey of famine, sword and plague. Ignorant
and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood,
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES. .
123
plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests and
the victims of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death
their only friend.
It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despic
able, hateful and arrogant being than the Jewish God. He
is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the
world he has no parallel. He only is never touched by
agony and tears. He .delights only in blood and pain.
Human affections are nought to him. He cares neither for
love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust
judge, a braggart, hypocrite and tyrant; sincere in hatred,
'jealous, vain and revengeful; false in promise, honest in
curse ; suspicious, ignorant and changeable, infamous and
hideous—such is the God of the Pentateuch.
XXIV.—CONFESS AND AVOID.
The scientific Christians now admit that the Bible is not in
spired in its astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, nor in
any science. In other words, they admit that on these
subjects the Bible cannot be depended upon. If all the
statements in the Scriptures were true there would be no
necessity for admitting that some of them are not inspired.
A Christian will not admit that a passage in the Bible is un
inspired until he is satisfied that it is untrue. Orthodoxy
itself has at last been compelled to say that, while a passage
may be true and uninspired, it cannot be inspired if false.
If the people of Europe had known as much of astronomy
and geology when the Bible was introduced among them
as they do now, there never could have been one believer
in the doctrine of inspiration. If the writers of the various
parts of the Bible had known as much about the sciences as
is now known by every intelligent man, the book never
could have been written. It was produced by ignorance,
and has been believed and defended by its author. It has
lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge.
A few years ago this book was appealed to in the settle
ment of all scientific questions ; but now, even the clergy
confess that in such matters it has ceased to speak with the
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
voice of authority.
For the establishment of facts the
word of man is now considered far better than the word of
God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by
Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. All that God told Moses,
admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes
compared to the discoveries of Descartes, La Place and
Humbolt. In matters of fact, the Bible has ceased to be
regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking
the chains of theology.
A few years ago science en
deavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the Bible.
The tables have been turned, and now religion is endeavor
ing to prove that the Bible is not inconsistent with science.
The standard has been changed.
For many ages the Christians contended that the Bible,
viewed simply as a literary performance, was beyond all
other books, and that man, without the assistance of God,
could not produce its equal. This claim was made when
but few books existed, and the Bible, being the only book
generally known, had no rival. But this claim, like the
other, has been abandoned by many, and soon will be by
all. Compared with Shakespeare’s “ book and volume of
the brain,” the “ sacred ” Bible shrinks, and seems as feebly
impotent and vain as would a pipe of Pan, when some great
organ, voiced with every tone, from the hoarse thunder of
the sea to the winged warble of a mated bird, floods and
fills cathedral aisles with all the wealth of sound.
It is now maintained—and this appears to be the last
fortification behind which the doctrine of inspiration skulks
and crouches—that the Bible, although false and mistaken
in its astronomy, geology, geography, history and philo
sophy, is inspired in its morality. It is now claimed that
had it not been for this book the world would have been
inhabited only by savages, and that had it not been for the
holy Scriptures, man never would have even dreamed of
the unity of God. It is claimed that belief in one God is a
dogma of almost infinite importance—that without this
belief civilisation is impossible, and that this fact is the sun
around which all the virtues revolve. For my part, I think
it infinitely more important to believe in man. Theology
is a superstition—humanity a religion.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
125
XXV—“ INSPIRED ” SLAVERY.
PERHAPS the Bible was inspired upon the subject of human
slavery. Is there in the civilised world to-day a clergyman
who believes in the divinity of slavery ? Does the Bible
teach man to enslave his brother ? If it does, is it not blas
phemous to say that it is inspired of God ? If you find the
institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been
written by God, what would you expect to find in a book
inspired by the Devil ? Would you expect to find that book
in favor of liberty ? Modern Christians, ashamed of the
God of the Old Testament, endeavor now to show that
slavery was neither commanded nor opposed by Jehovah.
Nothing can be plainer than the following passages from
Leviticus xxv.:—“ Moreover, of the children of the strangers
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of
their families that are with you, which they begat in your
land : and they shall be your possession. And ye shall
take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to
inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bond
men for ever.
Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids,
which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are
round about you. Of them shall ye buy bondmen and
bond-maids.”
Can we believe in this, the nineteenth century, that these
infamous passages were inspired by God ?
That God
approved not only of human slavery, but instructed his
chosen people to buy the women, children and babes of the
heathen round about them ? If it was right for the Hebrews
to buy, it was also right for the heathen to sell. This God,
by commanding the Hebrews to buy, approved of the selling
of sons and daughters. The Canaanites who, tempted by
gold, lured by avarice, sold from the arms of his wife the
dimpled babe, simply made it possible for the Hebrews to
obey the orders of their God. If God is the author of the
Bible, the reading of these passages ought to cover his
cheeks with shame. I ask the Christian world to-day, Was
it right for the heathen to sell their children ? Was it
right for God not only to uphold, but to command the in
famous traffic in human flesh ? Could the most revengeful
fiend, the most malicious vagrant in the gloom of hell, sink
to a lower moral depth than this ?
�126
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
According to this God, his chosen people were not only
commanded to buy of the heathen round about them, but
were also permitted to buy each other for a term of years.
The law governing the purchase of Jews is laid down
in the twenty-first chapter of Exodus. li If thou buy a
Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve : and in the
seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by
himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married,
then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have
given him a wife, and she have born him sons, or daughters,
the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall
go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I
love my master, my wife and my children ; I will not go
out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges ;
he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post;
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl: and
he shall serve him for ever.”
Do you believe that God was the author of this infamous
law ? Do you believe that the loving father of us all, turned
the dimpled arms of babes into manacles of iron ? Do you
believe that he baited the dungeon of servitude with wife
and child ? Is it possible to love a God who would make
such laws ? Is it possible not to hate and despise him ?
The heathen are not spoken of as human beings. Their
rights are never mentioned. They were the rightful food of
the sword, and their bodies were made for stripes and chains.
In the same chapter of the same inspired book, we are
told that, “ if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a
rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall be surely punished.
Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two he shall not
be punished, for he is his money.”
Must we believe that God called some of his children the
money of others ? Can we believe that God made lashes
upon the naked back a legal tender for labor performed ?
Must we regard the auction block as an altar ? Were
blood-hounds apostles ? Was the slave-pen a temple ?
M ere the stealers and whippers of babes and women the
justified children of God ?
It is now contended that while the Old Testament is
touched with the barbarism of its times, the New Testa
ment is morally perfect, and that on its pages can be found
no blot or stain. As a matter of fact, the New Testament
�SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
127
is more decidedly in favor of human slavery than the
°ldFor my part, I never will, I never can, worship a God
who upholds the institution of slavery. Such a God I hate
and defy. I neither want his heaven nor fear his hell.
XXVI.—“ INSPIRED ”
MARRIAGE.
Is there an orthodox clergyman in the world who will now
declare that he believes the institution of polygamy to be
right ? Is there one who will publicly declare that, in his
judgment, that institution was ever right ? Was there ever
a time in the history of the world when it was right to
treat women simply as property ? Do not attempt to answer
these questions by saying that the Bible is an exceedingly
good book, that we are indebted for our civilisation to the
sacred volume, and that without it man would lapse into
savagery and mental night. This is no answer. Was
there a time when the institution of polygamy was the
highest expression of human virtue ? Is there a Chris
tian woman, civilised, intelligent and free, who believes
in the institution of polygamy ? Are we better, purer,
and more intelligent than God was four thousand years
ago ? Why should we imprison Mormons. and worship
God ? Polygamy is just as pure in Utah as it could have
been in the promised land. Love and virtue are the same
the whole world round, and justice is the same in every star.
All the languages of the world are not sufficient to express
the filth of polygamy. It makes of man a beast, of woman
a trembling slave. It destroys the fireside, makes viitue
an outcast, takes from human speech its sweetest words,
• and leaves the heart a den, where crawl and. hiss the slimy
serpents of most loathsome lust. Civilisation rests upon
the family. The good family is the unit of good govern
ment. The virtues grow about the holy hearth of home
thev cluster, bloom, and shed their perfume round the fire
side where the one man loves the one woman. Lover
husband—wife—mother— father—child—home ! without
these sacred words the world is but a lair, and men and
women merely beasts.
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SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
Why should the innocent maiden and the loving mother
worship the heartless J ewish God ? Why should they, with
pure and stainless lips, read the vile record of inspired lust ?
The marriage of the one man to the one woman is the
citadel and fortress of civilisation. Without this woman
becomes the prey and slave of lust and power, and man
goes back to savagery and crime. From the bottom of my
heart I hate, abhor and execrate all theories of life of which
the pure and sacred home is not the corner-stone. Take
from the world the family, the fireside, the children born of
wedded love, and there is nothing left. The home where
virtue, dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire—
the fairest flower in all the world.
XXVII.—“INSPIRED ” WAR.
If the Bible be true, God commanded his chosen people to
destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native
land. They were not allowed to spare trembling and whitehaired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mother’s arms.
They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the
sword of war, the unborn child. ‘‘Our heavenly father”
commanded the Hebrews to kill the men and women, the
fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive.
Why were not the maidens also killed ? Why were they
spared ? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and
you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers
and the priests. Is there, in all the history of war, a more
infamous thing than this ? Is it possible that God permitted
the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume
in the maiden’s heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal
feet of lust ? If this was the order of God, what, under
the same circumstances, would have been the command of
a Devil ? When, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife,
a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and
loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now
should make such an order, giving over to massacre and.
rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by
the whole civilised world. Yet, if the Bible be true, the
supreme and infinite God was once a savage.
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
129
A little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little
path leading to a cabin, were found the bodies of two
children and their mother. Her breast was filled with
wounds received in the defence of her darlings. They had
been murdered by the savages. Suppose, when looking at
their lifeless forms, some one had said, “ This was done by
the command of God I” In Canaan there were countless
scenes like this. There was no pity in inspired war. God
raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to kill
even the smiling infant in its mother’s arms. Who is the
blasphemer : The man who denies the existence of God, or
he who covers the robes of the infinite with innocent blood ?
We are told in the Pentateuch that God, the father of us
all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their
fathers, their mothers and their brothers, to satisfy the
brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a God, I pray him
to write in his book opposite my name that I denied this
lie for him.
XXVIII.—“ INSPIRED ” RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
According to the Bible, God selected the Jewish people,
through whom to make known the great fact that he was
the only true and living God. For this purpose he appeared
on several occasions to Moses—came down from Sinai’s
top clothed in cloud and fire, and wrought a thousand
miracles for the preservation and education of the Jewish
people. In their presence he opened the waters of the sea.
For them he caused bread to rain from heaven. To quench
their thirst, water leaped from the dry and barren rock.
Their enemies were miraculously destroyed ; and for forty
years at least this God took upon himself the government
of the Jews. But after all this many of the people had
less confidence in him than in gods of wood and stone.
In moments of trouble, in periods of disaster, in the dark
ness of doubt, in the hunger and thirst of famine, instead
of asking this God for aid they turned and sought the help
of senseless things. This God, with all his power and wis
dom, could not even convince a few wandering and wretched
savages that he was more potent than the idols of Egypt.
This God was not willing that the Jews should think and
�130
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
investigate for themselves. For heresy the penalty was
death. Where this God reigned, intellectual liberty was
unknown. He appealed only to brute force ; he collected
taxes by threatening plagues; he demanded worship on
pain of sword and fire. He acted as a spy, inquisitor, judge
and executioner.
In Deuteronomy xiii. we have the ideas of God as to
mental freedom : “If thy brother, the son of thy mother,
or thy son, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which
is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go
and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor
thy fathers—namely, of the gods of the people which are
round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from
the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the
earth, thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto
him. Neither shall thine eye pity him ; neither shalt thou
spare him; neither shalt thou conceal him. But thou shalt
surely kill him. Thine hand shall be first upon him to put
him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die.”
This is the religious liberty of God—the toleration of
Jehovah. If I had lived in Palestine at that time, and my
wife, the mother of my children, had said to me: “ I am
tired of Jehovah. He is always asking for blood; he is
never weary of killing ; he is always telling of his might
and strength; always telling what he has done for the
Jews ; always asking for sacrifices, for doves and lambs—
blood, nothing but blood.
Let us worship the sun.
Jehovah is too revengeful, too malignant, too exacting.
Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in
beauty; it has covered the earth with flowers. By its
divine light I first saw your face and my beautiful babe.”
If I had obeyed the command of God, I should have killed
her. My hand would have been first upon her, and after
that the hands of all the people ; and she would have been
stoned with stones until she died. For my part, I would
never kill my wife, even if commanded so to do by the real
God of this universe. Think of taking up some ragged
rock and hurling it against the white bosom filled with love
for you ; and when you saw oozing from the bruised lips
ef the death-wound the red current of her sweet life, think
of looking up to heaven and receiving the congratula-
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
131
tions of the infinite fiend whose commandment you had
obeyed!
Can we believe that any such command was ever given
by a merciful and intelligent God?
Suppose, however,
that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them
that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to
worship any other god, that they should kill him ; and
suppose that afterward this same God took upon himself
flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a
different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified
him. I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown ?
What right would this God have to complain of a cruci
fixion suffered in accordance with his own command ?
Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny.
To put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with
putting shackles on the brain. No god is entitled to the
worship or the respect of man who does not give, even to
the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for
himself.
If the Pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty.
The dungeons of the Inquisition were temples, and the
clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in
the ear of God. If the Pentateuch was inspired, every
heretic should be destroyed ; and every man who advocates
a fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be con
sumed by sword and flame.
In the Old Testament no one is told to reason with a
heretic, and not one word is said about relying upon
argument, upon education, or upon intellectual development
—nothing except simple brute force. Is there to-day a
Christian who will say that four thousand years ago it was
the duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed from
him upon the subject of religion ? Is there one who will
now say that, under such circumstances, the wife ought to
have been killed ? Why should God be so jealous of the
wooden idols of the heathen ? Could he not compete with
Baal ? Was he envious of the success of the Egyptian
magicians ? Was it not possible for him to make such a
convincing display of his power as to silence forever the
voice of unbelief ? Did this God have to resort to force to
make converts ? Was he so ignorant of the structure of
the human mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime ? If
�132
SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
he wished to do away with the idolatry of the Canaanites,
why did he not appear to them ? Why did he not give
them the tables of the law ? Why did he only make known
his will to a few wandering savages in the desert of Sinai ?
Will some theologian have the kindness to answer these
questions ? Will some minister who now believes in
religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance
of Catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he
worships an intolerant God ? Is a God who burns a soul
forever in another world better than a Christian who burns
the body for a few hours in this ? Is there no intellectual
liberty in heaven ? Do the angels all discuss questions on
the same side ? Are all the investigators in perdition?
Will the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the
honest folks in hell ? Will the agony of the damned increase
or decrease the happiness of God ? Will there be in the
universe an eternal auto da fe?
XXXIV.—CONCLUSION.
If the Pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology,
geography, history or philosophy, if it is not inspired con
cerning slavery, polygamy, war, law, religious or political
liberty, or the rights of men, women and children, what is
it inspired in, or about ? The unity of God ?—that was
believed long before Moses was born. Special providence ?
—that has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages. The
rights of property ?—theft was always a crime. The
sacrifice of animals ?—that was a custom thousands of years
before a Jew existed. The sacredness of life ?—there have
always been laws against murder. The wickedness of per
jury ?—truthfulness has always been a virtue. The beauty
of chastity ?—the Pentateuch does not teach it. Thou
shalt worship no other God ?—that has been the burden of
all religions.
Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been
written by uninspired men ? that the assistance of God was
necessary to produce these books ? Is it possible that
Galileo ascertained the mechanical principles of “ Virtual
Velocity,” the laws of falling bodies and of all motion ; that
Copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and
�SOME MISTAKES OE MOSES.
133
accounted for all celestial phenomena; that Kepler dis
covered his three laws—discoveries of such importance that
the 8th of May, 1618, may be called the birth-day of modern
science: that Newton gave to the world the Method of
Fluxions, the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the
Decomposition of Light; that Euclid, Cavalieri, Descartes
and Leibnitz almost completed the science of mathematics ;
that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics
and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions
of Galvani, Volta, Franklin and Morse, of Trevethick, Watt
andTulton and of all the pioneers of progress—that all this was
accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the
Pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite God ?
Is it possible that the codes of China, India, Egypt, Greece
and Rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded
in the Pentateuch were alone given by God ? Is it possible
that JEschylus and Shakespeare, Burns and Beranger,
Goethe and Schiller, and all the poets of the 'world, and all
their wondrous tragedies and songs, are but the work of
men, while no intelligence except the infinite God could be
the author of the Pentateuch ? Is it possible that of all
the books that crowd the libraries of the world, the books
of science, fiction, history and song, that all save only one,
have been produced by man ? Is it possible that of all
these the Bible only is the work of God ?
If the Pentateuch is inspired, the civilisation of our day
is a mistake and a crime. There should be no political liberty.
Heresy should be trodden out beneath the bigot’s brutal
feet. Husbands should divorce their wives at will, and
make the mothers of their children houseless and weeping
wanderers. Polygamy ought to be practised; women
should become slaves; we should buy the sons and
daughters of the heathen and make them bondmen and
bondwomen forever. We should sell our own flesh and
blood, and have the right to kill our slaves. Men and
women should be stoned to death for laboring on the seventh
day. “ Mediums,” such as have familiar spirits, should be
burned with fire. Every vestige of mental liberty should
be destroyed, and reason’s holy torch extinguished in the
martyr’s blood.
Is it not far better and wiser to say that the Pentateuch
while containing some good laws, some truths, some wise
�134
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
and useful things is, after all, deformed and blackened by
the savagery of its time ? Is it not far better and wiser
to take the good and throw the bad away ?
Let us admit what we know to be true; that Moses was
mistaken about a thousand things; that the story of creation
is not true ; that the garden of Eden is a myth ; that the
serpent and the tree of knowledge, and the fall of man are
but fragments of old mythologies lost and dead; that
woman was not made out of a rib ; that serpents never had
the power of speech ; that the sons of God did not marry
the daughters of men; that the story of the flood and ark
is not exactly true ; that the tower of Babel is a mistake ;
that the confusion of tongues is a childish thing; that the
origin of the rainbow is a foolish fancy ; that Melthuselah
did not live nine hundred and sixty-nine years ; that Enoch
did not leave this world, taking with him his flesh and
bones ; that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is somewhat
improbable ; that burning brimstone never fell like rain; that
Lot’s wife was not changed into chloride of sodium ; that
Jacob did not, in fact, put his hip out of joint wrestling
with God; that the history of Tamar might just as well
have been left out; that a belief in Pharaoh’s dreams is not
essential to salvation; that it makes but little difference
whether the rod of Aaron was changed to a serpent or not;
that of all the wonders said to have been performed in
Egypt, the greatest is that anybody ever believed the
absurd account; that God did not torment the innocent
cattle on account of the sins of their owners ; that he did
not kill the first-born of the poor maid behind the mill
because of Pharaoh’s crimes ; that flies and frogs were not
ministers of God’s wrath; that lice and locusts were not
the executors of his will; that seventy people did not, in
two hundred and fifteen years, increase to three millions ;
that three priests could not eat six hundred pigeons in a
day ; that gazing at a brass serpent could not extract poison
from the blood; that God did not go in partnership with
hornets ; that he did not murder people simply because they
asked for something to eat; that he did not declare the
making of hair-oil and ointment an offence to be punished
with death; that he did not miraculously preserve cloth
and leather ; that he was not afraid of wild beasts ; that he
did not punish heresy with sword and fire ; that he was not
�SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
135
jealous, revengeful, and unjust; that he knew all about the
sun, moon and stars; that he did not threaten to kill people
for eating the fat of an ox; that he never told Aaron to
draw cuts to see which of two goats should be killed ; that
he never objected to clothes made of woollen mixed with
linen ; that if he objected to dwarfs, people with flat noses
and too many fingers, he ought not to have created such
folks ; that he did not demand human sacrifice as set forth
in the last chapter of Leviticus; that he did not object to
the raising of horses ; that he never commanded widows to
spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law; that several con
tradictory accounts of the same transaction cannot all be
true ; that God did not talk to Abraham as one man talks
to another; that angels were not in the habit of walking
about the earth eating veal dressed with milk and butter,
and making bargains about the destruction of cities ; that
God never turned himself into a flame of fire, and lived in a
bush ; that he never met Moses in an hotel and tried to kill
him ; that it was absurd to perform miracles to induce a
king to act in a certain way and then harden his heart so
that he would refuse; that God was not kept from killing
the Jews by the fear that the Egyptians would laugh at
him ; that he did not secretly bury a man and then allow
the corpse to write an account of the funeral; that he never
believed the firmament to be solid ; that he knew slavery
was and always would be a frightful crime ; that polygamy
is but stench and filth ; that the brave soldier will always
spare an unarmed foe ; that only cruel cowards slay the
conquered and the helpless ; that no language can describe
the murderer of a smiling babe ; that God did not want the
blood of doves and lambs ; that he did not love the smell
of burning flesh; that he did not want his altars daubed
with blood ; that he did not pretend that the sins of a
people could be transferred to a goat; that he did not
believe in witches, wizards, spooks and devils ; that he did
not test the virtue of woman with dirty water ; that he did
not suppose that rabbits chewed the cud ; that he never
thought there were any four-footed birds ; that he did not
boast for several hundred years that he had vanquished an
Egyptian king; that a dry stick did not bud, blossom, and
bear almonds in one night; that manna did not shrink and
swell, so that each man could gather only just one omer ;
�136
SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
that it was never wrong to “ countenance the poor man in
his cause
that God never told a people not to live in
peace with their neighbors ; that he did not spend forty
days with Moses on Mount Sinai giving him patterns for
making clothes, tongs, basons, and snuffers ; that maternity
is not a sin ; that physical deformity is not a crime ; that an
atonement cannot be made for the soul by shedding innocent
blood ; that killing a dove over running water will not
make its blood a medicine ; that a god who demands love
knows nothing of the human heart ; that one who frightens
savages with loud noises is unworthy the love of civilised
men ; that one who destroys children on account of the sins
of their fathers is a monster ; that an infinite god never
threatened to give people the itch ; that he never sent wild
beasts to devour babes ; that he never ordered the violation
of maidens ; that he never regarded patriotism as a crime ;
that he never ordered the destruction of unborn children ;
that he never opened the earth and swallowed wives and
babes because husbands had displeased him ; that he never
demanded that men should kill their sons and brothers for the
purpose of sanctifying themselves ; that we cannot please God
by believing the improbable ; that credulity is not a virtue ;
that investigation is not a crime ; that every mind should
be free ; that all religious persecution is infamous in God
as well as man ; that without liberty virtue is impossible ;
that without freedom even love cannot exist : that every
man should be allowed to think and to express his thoughts ;
that woman is the equal of man ; that children should be
governed by love and reason ; that the family relation is
sacred ; that war is a hideous crime ; that all intolerance is
born of ignorance and hate ; that the freedom of to-day is
the hope of to-morrow : that the enlightened present ought
not to fall upon its knees and blindly worship the barbaric
past; and that every free, brave and enlightened man
should publicly declare that all the ignorant, infamous,
heartless, hideous things recorded in the “ inspired ” Penta
teuch are not the words of God, but simply “ Some Mistakes
of Moses.”
Printed and Published by Ramsey and Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Some mistakes of Moses, by Robert G. Ingersoll, the destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns, is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1916]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: viii, [9]-136 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. "The only complete edition published in England. Reprinted verbatim from Colonel Ingersoll's authorized American edition" [Title page]. First published, Washington DC: Farrell, 1879. Printed and published by Ramsey and Foote. Signature on front page: 'A. [Arthur] Bonner'. No. 69c in Stein checklist.
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Bible
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Bible. O.T. Pentateuch
Moses (Biblical Leader)
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fe 2-5 'y 5
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
POINTING OUT A MEANS BY WHICH THE WORKING CLASSES MAY RAISE» •
THEMSELVES FROM THEIR PRESENT STATE OP LOW WAGES AND
CEASELESS TOIL TO ONE OF
COMFORT, DIGNITY, AND INDEPENDENCE;
AND WHICH IS ALSO CAPABLE OF ENTIRELY REMOVING, IN
COURSE OF TIME, THE OTHER PRINCIPAL SOCIAL EVILS
BY-
M. G. II.
“ The Diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be prevented or
cuied, without being spoken about in plain language."— J ohn Sxuabt.Miu.
ILoniJon:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH H0L30RN;
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1885.
[PRICK ONE PENNY.]
�INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
This little tract—made as small as possible in order that, by its mode
rate price, it may be within the reach of even the very poorest—is
written for the purpose of pointing out to the working classes, and
indeed to all other classes, the only true means of bettering their
condition. Its object is thoroughly practical, since the means we
advocate is simple, and requires no self-denial; but, on the contrary,
must cause a speedy improvement in the circumstances of the parties
adopting it. And, moreover, if its practice were universally recog
nized as a great social duty (as there is every reason to believe it will
be in time), it leads us to hope that, besides Poverty, the two other
great evils of our country, Prostitution and Celibacy, may be entirely
extirpated. We doubt not that at first it will be overwhelmed with
contempt and abuse, more especially by the “moralist;” but we
firmly believe that after such a calm examination of the subject as
its immense importance deserves, it will be acknowledged to be the
only means of escaping from the manifold evils under which we all, rich
and poor, now suffer. We have thought it necessary to precede the
communication of this means by a short explanation of the principal
cause of the present state of Low Wages, in order that the reader
may the more deeply feel that any scheme, benevolent or otherwise,
for the abolition of poverty, hitherto tried, must either be totally
powerless to effect its object, or, if successful, can only be so at the
cost of inflicting fresh evils, hardly less grievous than Poverty itself.
�3
POVERTY:
ITS
AND
CAUSE
CURE.
L
“The life of our working classes is worse than that of most of the
beasts of burden. They toil unremittingly, at a laborious, monotonous,
and in many cases a deadly occupation; without hope of advance
ment, or personal interest in the work they are engaged in. At night
their jaded frames are too-tired to permit their enjoyment of the few
leisure hours; and the morn awakens them to the same dreary day of
ceaseless toil. Even the seventh day, their only holiday, brings them,
fa this country, little gaiety, little recreation.................... Thus have
the poor to toil on, as long as their strength permits. At last some
organ gives way, the stomach, the eyes, or the brain; and the un
fortunate sufferer is thrown out of work, and sent to the hospital,
whilst his wife and family are reduced to the brink of starvation.
Often, the man, rendered desperate by his hopeless position, plunges
into drink, and gives himself over to ruin. At other times, the
Working classes, in a frenzy of rage at their infernal circumstances,
determine that they will have higher wages or perish. Hence result
the disastrous strikes, and the terrible social revolutions, that have in
recent times so often convulsed society. But they are vain; they are
but the blind efforts of men to do something or die, the fruitless
heavings of a man in a night-mare. The mountain of misery in
variably falls back upon their breast, with only increased pressure ;
and forces them, worn out by impotent struggles, to bear it quietly
for another little season.”
The above extract presents a sad, but too true, picture of the
*
manner in which thousands, nay millions, of our fellow countrymen
are forced to pass their lives. That it is not overdrawn, all belonging
fo the class referred to must be able to testify. Those who earn good
wages, and therefore save themselves and families from a personal ex
perience of the bitter miseries of poverty, doubtless know many less
favored by fortune, who have sunk and been trodden upon, in the hard
struggle for the bare necessaries of life which is going on around us.,
• From “The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, Sexual,
ind Natural Religion.” E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
�4
Were we to ask, “ What is the cause, and what trie cure (if any) ot
¡this sad state of things ? ” how various and how contradictory would
be the replies. Some, and these would be of the richer classes, would
attribute it principally to idleness, drunkenness, or improvidence ;
recommending as its remedy education, the establishment of penny
Banks, sick funds, hospitals, &c. A large portion of th® middle
classes, viewing it from religious grounds, would declare it to be a
visitation-from heaven, sent for our spiritual good; and offer no Other
hope than that all -will be set right in the next world. Other®, of a
more practical turn, lay it at the door of over-competition, and re
commend emigration to the colonies as a cure. From the above,
opinions would vary, in proportion as we descend the Social scale,
through all the gradations ot trades unions, associated industry, socialism, change of laws, down to the extreme of red republicanism, and
a forcible division of the property of the rich amongst the poor.
'Now, in a work of this limited kind, it would be quite impossible
to examine in detail all these various schemes for the bettering of th®
state of the working classes. We must therefore content ourselves
with remarking that those among them that are at all practical, and
that - have had a trial, partial or general, have either been totally
powerless, or, at best, have only had a-very passing effect, in raising
the poor from the mire in which they are sunk. The main question
is, “ How can we raise wages ? ” All else is comparatively unim
portant—for as long as the present miserable rate of wages prevails
(a rate hardly sufficient to keep starvation from a man’s door), edu
cation, savings’ banks, and the like, are but mockeries. Even reli
gion itself is but a poor substitute for food and other necessaries.
No; if we could but raise wages to a fair rate, all the rest would
follow in time, even to the reformation of our criminals and prosti
tutes, who are for the most part driven into those wretched paths of
life Tor very bread.
Inorder to solve the question, “How can we raise wages?” we
must first look to the cause of the present low rate. This, it must be
evident to all, arises from the fact that the number of hands able and
willing to work greatly exceeds the capital for their employment at
good wages; in short, that the supply of labor is too large in propor
tion to the demand. When this is the case, wages will always be
low; and all efforts to raise them by such means as trades-unions and
strikes can only result in misery to both employers and employed«
We do not wish here to discuss the vexed subject of the combinations
of workmen against employers for the purpose of forcing up wages;
we only state a fact which few will dispute, namely, that this means
of bettering their condition is scarcely ever successful, but on the
contrary, nearly always leaves those who have taken part in it in a
worse condition than ever. Equally powerless for good is the plan,
once very popular, of fixing wages by law, at a higher rate than
would be warranted by the demand. Such compulsory interference
with the labor market was -.easily evaded.; but where enforced, it
always had the effect of throwing a number of men out of work. A
�ô>
moment’s consideration wiH'convince us that such must be the result.
Capital is a certain sum which is divided, in the form of wages,
amongst a certain number of men. If, without altering the relative
proportion between capital and labor, we forcibly raise the current
rate of wages, a portion only of the hands may indeed obtain that
advance, but at the cost of depriving the rest of their shares alto
gether; that is, throwing them out of work, to starve, or rely on
charity.
Brom the above considérations, we believe it will be acknowledged
that the only means of raising wages, without at the same time
causing a number of hands to suffer by it, would be to increase the
capital, and therefore the demand for labor, as compared with the
supply.
Now, from various causes, amongst the principal of which we may
mention the application of steam to land and sea travelling (that is,
railway and steam navigation), the rotation of crops and other im
provements in agriculture, &c., this country has increased in wealth
within the last fifty years to an extent and with a rapidity hitherto
unknown. And yet the working classes have by no means benefited
by all this increase of capital. It is quite as difficult for them to gain
an honest livelihood now as it was formerly. The very small weekly
snnas (six or eight shillings, for instance) which we find to have been
the current wages two centuries or so back, may seem to give the lie
to this; but such sums were in reality equal to double or treble their
present value, since food and rent were then not one-half or one-third
as high as at present. To convey some idea of the cost of living at
that period, we give the following table of the price of some of the
necessaries of life about the middle of the 17th century :—
Oatmeal, per quart .......... 1 Ad.
Beef and Mutton, per lb. ... 34d.
Beer, per gallon.................. 3d.
Bacon
„ ... 3^-d.
Eggs, per dozen.................. 3d.
Dutch Cheese
„ ... 2|d.
Sack of Best Coals ...........6d.
Best Salt Butter
„ ... 4d.
Weekly rent of a laborer’s
Biscuit
„ ... l^d.
Cotton Candles
„ ... 4d.
cottage.......................... 2d.
We have not given the price of wheaten bread, because in the middle
of the 17th century it had hardly come into general use, its place
being supplied by .rye, oatmeal, or buck wheat, whose price bore about
the same relative proportion to wages as wheaten bread now does.
Few will be bold enough to assert that wages have advanced in
greater proportion than this. We here speak of factory and other
trade operatives. The agricultural laborer has fared far worse, for
his wages have never considerably varied, during two centuries, from
10s. per week, notwithstanding the increase in the cost of the prin
cipal necessaries. As we should expect, we find his condition to be
worse than any other class of honest laborers, and by far inferior to
that of the condemned criminals. From Mr. Mayhew’s work we
learn that, whilst prisoners on hard labor are supplied with a weekly
allowance of 254 ounces of solid food—that being’the smallest amount
which (according to eminent medical men) can be given consistently
�6
with health and vigor—the English laborer can procure for himself
alter feeding his family, no more than an average of 140 ounces’
that is to say, the honest working man gets hardly more than half
as. 7n}ch
the crlminal, whose allowance is the smallest consistent
with health and vigor. In plain terms, a large portion of the most
hard-working of our industrial classes are half-starved.
If the case of male laborers is bad, doubly so is that of the females
lhe miserable condition of the sempstresses and slop-workers for
large shops is well known. Indeed, so truly appalling is the life they
lead, that instead of wondering at our streets being over-run with
prostitutes, we ought rather to feel astonishment that so many young
women should be found willing to prefer a virtuous life with sixteen
hours daily toil, and barely enough food to keep life in them, to the
degraded course of living on the streets: in which way, however
■shameful, they can at least generally procure an abundance of food.
After such facts as these, and they might be multiplied indefinitely,
let us- no longer boast of our civilization, our respect for religion our
wondrous progress in arts and sciences. Such only tend to dazzle us
and to hide with a gilded cloak the vast mass of poverty, over-work’
and vice, beneath. If all our glorious achievements cannot lighten
the sufferings of our fellow beings, then have they nothing accom
plished worthy of being called glorious.
We are now led to inquire into the causes which have prevented
the poorer classes from sharing in the great increase of wealth which
has taken place during the present century. Such, all our best
modern authors declare to be ovek-pofulation. We shall now
examine and explain what is called the “Law of Population.”
n.
One of the chief propositions of this law is the following:_ “All
animated nature has a constant tendency to increase beyond the
means for its support; ” that is to say, that, however great may be
the increase in the produce of the soil, it will always in old countries
be far short of the increase of living beings, supposing nothing were
to prevent their following natural instinct, and multiplying their
species unchecked. This applies equally to the human race, not
withstanding the power they possess of immensely augmenting the
produce of the soil above the natural yield.
Now, although man’s greatest power of multiplication is not exactly
known, it can be approached nearly enough for our present purposes.
It has been variously stated by different writers at the power of
doubling the numbers in the course of every 25 years, to as rapidly
as every 10 years. We will choose the more moderate rate, and
suppose population capable of doubling itself every quarter of a
century. Representing the present population as I,' at the end of
25 years it would be 2; in fifty years it would have again doubled, 4;
in another 25 years, 8; and at the end of the century, 16; that is, it
would be sixteen times as numerous as at first.
�1
As to the rate of increase of the produce of the soil, it is even more
difficult to arrive at a true result, than in the case of population; but
one thing we may be certain of, that it is very far indeed behind the
latter. For the sake of argument, however, we will suppose that the
produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years, by
a quantity equal to what it at present produces. No sane man could
suppose a greater increase than this. Indeed in a few centuries it
■would make every acre of land in the island like a garden.
In the table here given we see these two rates contrasted :—
At the end of
Present 25
50
75
100
Time. Years. Years. Years. Years.
Increase of Food .....
1
2
3
4
5 &c.
Increase of Population ...
1
2
4
8
16 &c.
By this we see, that, were it possible for min to follow his greatest
rate of multiplication, at the end of a century he would exceed, by
more than three times, the food for his sustenance. But we know
that this would be practically impossible. A larger number of in
dividuals than could procure food would not be able to exist a week
after food began to run short; which, in the above example, would
occur after the lapse of the first 25 years. We therefore see that the
Mte of increase of the human race must be limited to the very
moderate rate of increase of food; all efforts to exceed that rate being
met by a falling off in the necessary supply of food, that is, by
famine. But though this must operate to repress excess of multipli
cation, were there no other checks; still, in point of fact, it is rarely
that this is the actual one. It is replaced (especially in more civilize^ ■
Countries) by a large variety of other checks. In describing these,
we shall for convenience divide them into two great divisions, the
Positive and the Preventive checks. The former consists of wars,
vice, disease, misery, and all other causes whatsoever which tend to
shorten the duration of human life. The latter, having no direct
influence on the deaths, operates in checking the births, and consists
in Sexual Abstinence or Celibacy, whatever form it may assume.
The priesthood, convents and nunneries in Catholic countries, the
large standing armies and navies of most civilized states, to whose
members marriage is generally impossible; above all, the class who
remain single from motives of prudence, common to all countries, but
most numerous in Switzerland, Norway, a few German States, and
our own, all have the effect of reducing the number of births, and
thus effecting, by opposite means, precisely the same end as is brought
about by the positive check, namely, keeping down the population to
the level of the food.
From the action of one or other of these checks man has had no
means of escape. He cannot choose apart from them: he can only
choose between them. If he follows natural instincts without restraint,
and brings more beings into the world than can find support (making
every allowance for increased yield of the products of the soil con
�8
sequent on improving knowledge of agriculture, &c.), the Stirplus
twist be cut off by disease, vice, or war; unless, indeed, a part of
these evils are warded off, as amongst the working classes of England,
by fearful efforts of industry, which reduce them to the condition of
mere machines. . On the other hand, if he exercise that prudence
and foresight which is peculiar to civilized man, and restrain himself
from begetting offspring until late in life (say thirty), he will by this
prudence procure for himself exemption to a very great extent from
the evils of over-population: but at the cost, besides an immense
amount of unhappiness, of introducing vicious habits.
Had we space we should examine in detail the condition of every
modern state in the world, and show how population is repressed in
each, either by the positive or preventive check; and how in pro
portion to the rarity of the one, we shall be sure to find the opposite
check in force. However, as such would lead us beyond the limits of
á small tract of this nature, we must content ourselves with reviewing
two or three countries where their action is most plainly seen
Amongst the most remarkable is Hindostán or India. Here marriage
is greatly encouraged, by the religious code, which makes the pro
creation of male children one of the greatest merits In the
ordinances of Menu (their Bible,) it is said, “ By a son, man obtains
a victory over all people; by a son’s son, he enjoys immortality; and
afterwards by the son of that grandson, he reaches the solar abode.”
Thus, marriage in India is considered a religious duty; and therefore
the preventive check operating little, the positive one must of necessity
supply its place. The people are so crowded that the most excessive
poverty prevails, and periodical famines have been always very Se
quent. Wars and pestilences have also at times carried off large
numbers. So much for the positive check falling on a race but lialfcivilized ; let us see its effect on a people much more advanced_ the
Chinese.
In China the population is enormous, being upwards of 300 millions
or about one-third of the human race. These vast numbers are
owing to the goodness of the soil and climate, the very great attention
that has always been paid to agriculture, and also the extraordinary
encouragements to marriage, which here, as in India, is considered a
religious duty; to be childless being held a dishonor. The preventive
check having therefore operated but little, the positive has been the
chief one. The most grinding and abject poverty prevails among the
lower classes, together with an untiring industry and hard work, (&
combination which finds a parallel perhaps in England alone).
Famines are very frequent, which sweep off vast numbers, and
infanticide is very general. It is in these modes rather than by wars
(which, till lately, have not been so destructive in China), that the
positive check operates. The check to population from vicious sexual
intercourse does not appear to be very considerable in China. The
women are modest and reserved, and adultery is rare.
From the above two examples of the operation of the positive
check, let us turn to the opposite extreme, where the preventive check
�9
or sexual restraint, is in greatest force, namely, in Switzerland, Nor
way, ^nd several of the German States. We shall borrow the words
of a weekly periodical, which sets forth in glowing terms the pros
*
perous and happy condition of the people of those countries. “ They
are certainly in advance of us in England,” says the writer. “ They
have almost destroyed pauperism; they have no ragged children, nor
ragged schools; the very boys have such regard for the rights of pro
perty, that the orchards are not enclosed, and cherry trees hang loaded
over the paths and roads, without being robbed by the pilferer, or
watched by the owner; not even watch-dogs are kept; each defends
the property of his neighbour as well as his own. The houses are
large and comfortable, two stories, and sometimes three, with nu
merous apartments; and in all the country there are no such cots
hovels as there are in England. The people are all well but simply
dressed; and even the few laborers that live on day wages are as well
dressed, and as comfortably fed and lodged, as their masters; and
work and live in hope that by their savings, which are weekly accu
mulating, they shall be able to purchase a little farm for themselves,
and spend the evening of their days in comfort.” We should remark
that the writer of the article from which the above is taken, attri
butes all these beneficial results to the system of “ peasant pro
prietors” there in force; that is to say, the possession by every
laborer of a piece of land of from five to ten or more acres, which is
Cultivated by himself and his family. Now we do not deny that such
may be a very useful means of raising the condition of the working
classes, giving them, as it does, a personal interest in their work;
still w® assert that alone it would be quite powerless to raise one jot
the poor from their miserable condition. In proof of this, we point
to the description of the state of the Chinese above given, which
shows the results of the above system (for there it is in greatest force,
nearly every peasant being a land-holder) when unaided by sexual re
straint.
The true cause of this prosperity we find in the custom of late
marriages and celibacy, more general in those countries than in any
other in Europe. Indeed, so much is it felt to be a duty to refrain
from wedlock until the man is able to maintain a wife and children,
that in some of the states alluded to, a law is enforced which requires
every person intending to marry, to prove before a magistrate that he
possesses the means of supporting a family; otherwise he cannot
marry. However repulsive such a law may seem to us Englishmen,
born and bred in an atmosphere of liberty, there can be no doubt that
it has effected in those countries all the improvements so remarkable
of late years.
We shall now turn to our own country, and endeavour to solve the
question put in th,e first part of this work, “ What are the causes
* “Family Herald,” for the week ending Feb. 22, 1857, article,
“The World but little known.”
�10
which have operated in cutting off the working classes of England
from their due share of the vast increase of wealth, which has takes
place in this country during the present century ? ” To thia we
boldly answer, early marriages and undue procreation; and in this we
are supported by all the greatest modern writers on the state of the
poor, to wit, Messrs. John Stuart Mill, Malthus, McCulloch, Dr.
Whately, and others too numerous to mention. We are so impressed
with the idea (which has descended to us from the ancient Hebrews),
that to rear a large family is a very meritorious act, that it may seem
startling when we lay at its door all the poverty, misery, and even
crime, so rife amongst the poorer classes. And yet from the facts
before passed in review, namely, the existence of universal poverty in
all those countries whose inhabitants do not practise sexual restraint,
and, on the contrary, its rarity in proportion as sexual restraint is
exercised, we can no longer shut our eyes to the conclusion, however
harsh it may appear, that the large families common amongst the
working classes have not only the effect of dragging down and
crippling the parents who have to toil for their support, but are also
the great cause of the present state of low wages, ceaseless drudgery,
and early death, consequent on an over-crowded population, and too
great a supply of labor in proportion to the demand. As long as the
number of hands seeking work is greater than the capital for their
employment at fair wages, it is vain to expect a rise in wages ; just
in the same way as when the population of a country exceeds the
food for its comfortable support, it would be impossible for all to get
enough sustenance.
III.
From what we have said in the preceding chapters, it may be
thought that we would wish to impress upon the poor and working
classes the duty of exercising moral restraint; that is, sexual ab
stinence. This is the view of the question taken by Mr« Malthus,
Dr. Chalmers, and many other writers; and no doubt whatever can
exist as to the power of this means, if it could be adequately prac
tised, to remove poverty and want in England. But, with all due
deference to such eminent authorities, we cannot refrain from ex
pressing our firm conviction that such a remedy for poverty is almost,
if not quite, as bad as the disease it would cure. Our endeavours
should be not merely directed to the removal of poverty, which is but
one form of human misery, but to the much larger question of a re
moval of all the causes of unhappiness. If we remove one only to
replace it by another as bad, then have we done no real good.
This subject—the evils of moral restraint or sexual abstinence
will require a little careful examination; as, although we all feel by
instinct that it is an evil, yet (from its very nature causing its victims
to hide their sufferings) it is much less capable of being clearly de
fined and put down in black and white, than is that of over-popula
tion, and its natural result—poverty.
In order the better to explain this subject, we shall borrow a few
�.11
passages from the work already quoted from, which, being written
by a student of medicine, who has evidently carefully studied this
branch of physiology, is entitled to our serious attention.
“It is most unwise,” he says, “ to suppose that our chief duty with
regard to our appetites and passions, is to exercise self-denial. This
quality is far from being at all times a virtue ; it is quite as often a
vice; and it should by no means be unconditionally praised. Every
natural passion, like every organ of the body, was intended to have
moderate exercise and gratification. ... At the present, in this
country, abstinence or self-denial, in the matter of sexual love, is
much more frequently a natural vice than a virtue; and instead of
deserving praise, merits condemnation, as we may learn from the
mode in which all-just nature punishes it. Wherever we see disease
following any line of conduct, we may be certain that it has been
erroneous and sinful, for nature is unerring. Sexual abstinence is
frequently attended by consequences not one whit less serious than
sexual excess, and far more insidious and dangerous, as they are not
io generally recognised. While every moralist can paint in all its
horrors the evils of excess, how few are aware that the reverse of the
picture is just as deplorable to the impartial and instructed eye.”
Those who require a more detailed account should consult the work
itself, where also are shown in vivid colors the hundred times more
ruinous effects resulting from the abuse of this part of our frames,
whether in the form of self-pollution, or that of prostitution, with the
melancholy list of diseases in their train ; both of which vices are
sure to be rampant wherever great obstacles to marriage exist.
Let us now view moral restraint or sexual abstinence from a lower,
but, to the majority, more influential point of view; that is, its effect
On the every-day comfort of the working man. It is here that would
be found the greatest difficulty in its adoption; for to a young
operative a wife is a necessity, if he would obtain any of those in
numerable small comforts, without which, however trifling they may
be thought by some, this life is hardly worth the having. Unable to
hire a cook or housekeeper, as is done by the more wealthy bachelor,
he would find it impossible to procure comfortable meals, nor even
any degree of cleanliness in his home, engaged as he is from morning
to night at work, probably far away from home. If the life of the
unmarried working man is comfortless and dreary, ten times more so
must be that of the unmarried woman after a certain age. Indeed,
amongst the poorer classes, such a person is quite in the way; she is
felt to be a burden to her family if she remain at home; and it is
hardly possible to support herself independently in lodgings, except
in the most miserable way. Thus, apart from any other reason,
marriage is felt to be an absolute necessity to both sexes, soon after
their reaching full growth, for the sake of that dearest of all things
to an Englishman, no matter how miserable it may be, a home. The
last remaining objection to moral restraint and late marriage, namely,
the deprivation, during the flower of man’s life, of the two dearest
objects for which human nature yearns—to love and be beloved by a
�12
wife and children—is too evident from the unhappiness it is universally
acknowledged to produce, to nc-ed illustration. Suffice it to say that
by this, the lot of the greater part of the middle classes, especially
the female portion, is rendered so comfortless and dreary, that many
of them would joyfully exchange their comfort and wealth, enjoyed
in solitude, for the poverty of what are called their less fortunate
neighbours, who at least are not deprived of all outlet for the social
and domestic virtues with which we are all endowed. Indeed, so ut
terly cheerless and miserable are the lives of most of that much to
be pitied section of the middle classes, called in ridicule “old maids,”
that we could not have the heart to wish to see the like state amongst
the poor, who, God knows, have as it is but very few pleasures.
“Is there no escape, then,” we are tempted to cry in despair, “from
the miseries inflicted on man by want of food, love, or leisure.”
“There is none,” cries the orthodox political economist; “none,”
repeats the disciple of Malthus; “none,” echoes the religionist. “If
such be the case then, if ordinary political economy, Malthusianism
of the ascetic school, religion itself, can do nothing but tear from us
all hopes of improvement in this world, and content themselves with
croaking resignation and patience under our afflictions: then will we
have none of them.” But we truly believe that human affairs are not
so hopeless, else should we have refrained from opening afresh the
many wounds which torment us. No, there is a means, the only
means, by which the evils of want of love, equally with those of want
of food and leisure (those three great necessities of our nature), may
in course of time, be entirely cured. It may appear at first sight,
perhaps, ridiculously unequal to such gigantic results, perhaps im
moral, perhaps unnatural, but we are confident in being able to meet
and refute any objections which can be made to it, and prove it to be
the only solution to the question nearest to the interests and happiness
of mankind—“Is it possible to obtain for each individual a fair share
of food, love, and leisure ? ”
IV.
The means we speak of, the only means by which the virtue and
the progress of mankind are rendered possible, is preventive sexual
intercourse. By this is meant, sexual intercourse where means are
taken to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be obtained
without entailing upon us the want of food and leisure, by over
crowding the population.
Two questions here arise: First, “ Is it possible, and in what way?”
Second, “Can it be done without causing moral and physical evil?”
In answer to the first question, we reply that there are several
means which have been adopted in this country, and more especially on
the continent, for the purpose of checking the increase of an already
numerous family without the exercise of perfect continence; but we
shall.chiefly recommend the following, as most of the others are more or
less iniurious to the health or nervous system of the parties adopting
�13
them. The following, however, has none of these objections, being
perfectly harmless, easy of adoption, and at the same time not in the
least diminishing the enjoyment of the act of coition. It consists in the
introduction of a piece of fine sponge, slightly soaked in tepid water,
and of sufficient size, in such a way as to guard the womb from the
entrance of the male semen during sexual connection. This might
be followed by an injection of tepid water.
By this means a fruitful result would be rendered Impossible. The
other means of preventing conception which have 1 een employed or
proposed, are, firstly, withdrawal before ejaculation; secondly, the
use of the sheath, or “French Letter;” thirdly, the use of injections
immediately after intercourse; and fourthly, the avoidance of con
nection, from two days before, till eight days after, the monthly
courses—at which time impregnation is far most likely to occur. Of
these, the two first are the most certain preventives: but the two
last, as well as the sponge, are the least open to objection in other
respects.
The second question was, “ Can preventive sexual intercourse be
used without causing physical or moral evils?” We firmly believe
that it can, or at least, that if there be any evil results, such would
sink into insignificance beside the present ones, which, arising as they
do from over-population, are otherwise irremediable. We think a
ealm consideration of the principal objection which may be urged
against the adoption of this invaluable means, will enable us to con
vince the reader that it is founded on error. We allude to the idea
that many entertain, of preventive intercourse being a kind of murder
or infanticide. In order to do this, we must pause to explain the
nature of the act of generation, which, though one of the simplest,
and at the same time most beautiful operations of nature, has often
been considered as a deep mystery and a subject never to be
mentioned.
The fixture human being is formed by the union, in the womb, of
two very minute cells, of opposite sexes, invisible to the naked eye,
called the sperm (male) and germ (female) cells, which is effected by
the act of copulation. When once this union has taken place, the
embryo, as it is then called, possesses life, which is as sacred as that
of the adult’s, and the destruction of which would truly be murder.
But to prevent this union from taking place is a totally different
matter. Before coition the seminal fluid is no more than a secretion,
like the saliva, perspiration, &c.; and consequently it is a total con
fusion of ideas to associate its loss with infanticide, as it cannot be
murder to destroy that which has never existed as life. Moreover,
the curious discovery has recently been made, that every time a
woman menstruates (that is, has the monthly illness), one or more of
the germ cells or eggs is spontaneously discharged, and, if sexual
coition have not previously taken place, it is wasted. So that, if we
go on the principle that to prevent a birth is murder, we might with
equal justice accuse those persons who remain unmarried during the
time of potence (namely, more than 30 years) of the murder of all
�14
the children who might have been bot~n, had they married. Far from
being murder, preventive intercourse is the only possible means of
preventing murder; for that is hardly too strong a word to apply to
the bringing into the world of such a number of beings as we know
could never find support should they all reach manhood. Let us see
if facts do not bear us out in this assertion. In this country, amongst
the poor, 53 in every 100, or more than one-half of the children who
are born, die in infancy. Now in spite of this large amount of mor
tality, those who survive to manhood, perhaps not more than one-third
of those born, still find it next to impossible to gain a livelihood.
What, then, would be the result, think you, were it possible, by im
provements of dwellings and other means of health, to save those
children from an early grave, and throw upon the already over
crowded labor market a triple number of hands? Famine.
Thus, if we know that, as at present, twice or thrice as many being#
are brought into the world as can by any possibility find food, instead
of a crime, would not preventive intercourse rather be the greatest
virtue we could possibly practise, since it would save nearly twothirds of our fellow-beings from the death by slow starvation, poverty, ■
or neglect, which is otherwise inevitable?
For the satisfaction of those who may feel timid in adopting any
thing which they suppose to be new, it will be as well to mention that
Messrs. Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, Dr.
Knowlton, and the author of the Elements of Social Science, have,
in the journals or books edited or published by them, strongly re
commended the adoption of preventive intercourse. It is also openly
advocated by a number of the most eminent foreign writers, some of
them holding high positions in the universities of their respective
cities.
With regard to the extent to which it should be practised, that
must of course depend greatly on the present state of population of
the country, or of the class adopting it; but we believe we should be
near the mark in saying that, under existing circumstances, married
persons should in no ease allow themselves more than two children, at
least in this country. Indeed, considering the fearfully over-crowded
state of England, it would be a noble sacrifice on the part of married
persons to refrain from having any for the present, until the rate of
wages has somewhat risen.
*
The day will come, and soon too, we hope, when the having a large
family, far from being thought a virtue, as at present, will be looked
upon in its true light--that of a great social wrong; and although
this tract is more particularly addressed to the working classes, as
they are probably the greatest sufferers by the present state of things,
and the least aware of its true cause, we nevertheless believe limited
procreation ts be a duty equally binding on all classes, rich or poor.
Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the great Law of Population, laid it
* Or until the price of the necessaries of life—as bread, house
rent, clothing, &c.—has fallen ; which, as we have before shown, is
practically the same as an increase of money-wages.
�15
down as a duty strictly binding on all, “ Not to bring beings into the
world for whom one cannot find means of support;” but what would
be the result of following that course? Why, to give the rich a
monopoly of those blessings, or rather those necessaries of life, love
and offspring, cutting off the poor from what is now often their only
solace. Instead of the above, we should rather say, “It is a sacred
duty for us all, by the use of preventive means, to limit the number
of our families, in order that we may not prevent our fellow beings
from obtaining their share of love, food, and leisure,” any one of
which is, in the present age of celibacy and large families, quite un
attainable without a proportionate sacrifice of the two others. .
Preventive intercourse, then, is the only means by which it i3 pos
sible for mankind to make any real or satisfactory advance in happi
ness; and were it to be universally practised, it could not fail to
cheapen food, raise wages, and remove the greater part of the vice
and disease for which, in spite of all our boasting, this country is
remarkable.
But although preventive intercourse is the main remedy for poverty
amongst the poor, and celibacy amongst the rich, there are some other
schemes which, tried with the above, would doubtless do much good.
Amongst the foremost is associated industry, that is, the system which
gives every working man in trade a direct interest in the success of his
labor, and a share of the profits, raising him from the condition of a.
mere machine to that of a kind of junior partner. In a similar
manner, there is no doubt that to raise the country laborer from his
present condition of a hired drudge, to that of an owner of land,
however small in quantity, would have a very beneficial effect in im
proving his state, moral and physical. This would require an altera
tion in the laws regarding freehold land, which now render its ac
quirement almost impossible for any but a rich man. However, as
such reforms are for the most part out of the reach of the class to
whom this work is addressed, and are, after all, of little consequence
compared with the duty of limiting procreation, we need not longer
pause to consider them.
In conclusion, we call upon all to throw away false prejudices, and
unite in the adoption of preventive sexual intercourse. By such
means the state of ideal happiness for which we all instinctively
yearn, may not be in time so unattainable; meanwhile, the working
classes can, by the practice of the above simple and harmless ex
pedient, very much better their condition with regard to wages: in
which it is vain to expect a rise as long as the supply of labor is so
great in proportion to the demand, as is the case in these days of
large families and over-crowded population. Working men! your
salvation is in your own hands. If you allow yourselves to turn
from it and lean solely upon socialism, red republicanism, and
trades’-unions, your condition is indeed hopeless; but we sincerely
believe that when once you learn the true remedy for your ills, you
will not be slow to adopt it: and by using every effort in your power
to Spread the knowledge of it amongst your fellow workmen, will
be the means of raising the class to which you belong, from the state
�16
of semi-slavery, ^ith ceaseless toil and scantv food, which is but too
commonly their lot, to one of comfort and Independence.
POSTSCRIPT.
The reader is earnestly requested to do all in his power towards
making widely known the contents of this tract. This he might do
with little or no trouble to himself, by lending it amongst his friends
or fellow workmen, or by leaving it on the tables of coffee-houses,
mechanics’ institutes, and other public places. It must be evident
that unless the duty of limited procreation be almost universally
recognized, any good effected by its practice in raising wages, will be
liable to be counteracted by the earlier marriages and increased pro
creation of those not adopting it.
The 22ndEdition, enlarged by the addition of a Fourth Part, of the
TpLEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical, Sexual,
and Natural Religion. With the Solution of the Social
Problem. Containing an Exposition of the true Cause and only Cure
of the three primary social evils—Poverty, .Prostitution, and
Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine. Price 2s. 6d.; or in cloth 3s.
Post-free.
Upwards of 600 pages.
%
u
Opinions of the Press.
. . si)me respects all books of this class are evils; but it would be weakness and
criminal prudery a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a book as
the one in question is not only a far lesser, evil than the one that it combats, but in
\??nse a
which it is mercy to issue and courage to publish.”—Reasoner.
.
. av?xnever risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
thrni this. i Ur ^reatest hope is that it may get into families where the principles
w
inculcated by a parent, who will use his authority in the advice to both sons
and daughters, which should always accompany the reading of works like this. And
we are certain that in every case where it is read with care, there will be another
soldier gained to that brave band who are ever encircling the ramparts of bigotry
and ignorance.
**This book is the BIBLE OF THE BODY. It is the founder of a great moral
reform. It is the pioneer of health, peace, ami virtue. It should be a household Lar
in every home. head it, study it, husbands and wives Had you, had your parents,
read a book like this, a diseased, dwarfed, deteriorated race would not now be
wasting away in our country. By reading this wonderful work every young man may
preserve his health and his virtue. Some will say the disclosures are exciting or
indelicate—not so; they are true, and the noblest guide to virtue and to honour.
That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the population can
be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We
really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary work; we can
only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a blessing to the human race.”—
Ptepte's Paper.
“ Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that
this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever
met with. The anonymous author is a physician, who has brought his special know
ledge to bear on some of the most intricate problems of social life. He lays bare to the
public, and probes with a most unsparing hand, the sores of society, caused by anoma
lies in the relation of the sexes. Though we differ toto ccelo from the author in his
views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dis
solution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence
and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole
field of political economy
.. .
—The British Journal of Homoeopathy. January, 1860. 1 (Pub
lished Quarterly, Price 5s.)
London: K Truetx>ve, 256, High Holborn, W.O.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 16 cm.
Notes: Published anonymously. Publisher's advertisement for Elements of social science, 22nd ed., on p.16. Full title: Poverty: its cause and cure pointing out a means by which the working classes may raise themselves from the present state of low wages and ceaseless toil to one of comfort, dignity and independence and which is also capable of entirely removing in course of time, the other principal social evils. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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E. Truelove
Date
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1885
Identifier
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N294
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[Unknown]
Subject
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Social problems
Birth control
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Birth Control
NSS
Poverty
Working Class-Great Britain