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LETTER V

Your fifth letter begins with stating the importance of the concession of Thomas Paine, that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are genuine. You triumph, and think it a silent acknowledgment of the reality of the prophecies mentioned in those books. Stop, my Lord, your alma-mater surely has not taught you to draw such conclusions. In a genuine book there may be contained incredible events, as in Tacitus, Suetonius, and almost all existent histories. It is your duty to prove that the prophecies there related are not among those popular stories which are apt to gain general credit, whether they are or are not forgeries written after the events. Before we know when Jeremiah wrote, and what is the meaning of the writings under his name, no man is warranted to triumph at the testimony of the Jews after the captivity; since it is a point, in which all parties agree; that their canon and books were compiled at that period, and nobody ever questioned the credulity of the Jews. You proceed to state your notions of the history of the Old Testament; it is all a matter of opinion; and, as you do not support it by any proofs, we must still continue to regard the contradictions and impostures contained in the Old Testament as proofs of its having been the work of ignorant fanatics. I pass over your effusions: that metaphysical disquisitions teach us the limits of our faculties, I strenuously maintain; and if you mean nothing else, we are agreed. That our notions of time and place are not the bugbears which the scholastics would persuade us, is to me unquestionable; that both in science and religion we affix no ideas to many words, I grant; that certainty in philosophical disquisitions is not easily found, I also allow; but, that a man tired with the arduous task of reasoning, of discerning between truth and falsehood, should seek in polemics or superstition a consolation for his ignorance, I consider as a proof of the impaired state of his faculties; he is like the thirsty traveller, who, burnt by the scorching sun, seeks to relieve his distress by drinking of the first water he meets, without regarding its purity. Your acknowledgment that it is possible even for a Bishop to err in matters of religion, gives me real pleasure. To consider our creed as a matter that admits of doubt, is a great step in the road of truth. You say, "May God forgive him that is in an error." Your wish is humane; but, if God be the Creator of mankind, he cannot be offended at the conclusions we may draw, after having employed the faculties he has given us. I wish too that mankind should forgive them that are in an error; but, I hope, they will recollect the long sway of superstition, and its danger to mankind; may they decide in favour of that system which is conformable to reason, and has the greatest tendency to improve society!

You next proceed to show the propriety of the angel ordering Moses to pull off his shoes, which you say is a mark of reverence to God. Is it then by such ridiculous customs that you reconcile your omnipotent and all-wise God? Too long have men substituted rites for morality. O superstition! that makes the Asiatics eat the excrements of the lama, the Papists devour their God; that persuades all Christians that water washeth away sin; and, that if a child happens to die before his face is sprinkled, he must inevitably suffer everlasting torments: led by this, men despise society, and tremble at ceremonies invented by their priests.

I shall not go at great length into the particular contradictions which are found in the enumeration of the families that returned from Babylon. There certainly are great mistakes in the sums; and where precision was to be expected more than in any thing preserved in the record of the people of God, we find them committing the most gross errors, even when they attempt to be peculiarly exact. It is curious, that the individual sums are altogether different in the different accounts, and, therefore, that there must have been a much greater number of errors than you would persuade your readers.

You come to the book of Job; and confine your remarks to disprove the objection of Mr. Paine, drawn from the name Satan, which, he says, is there for the first and only time mentioned in the Bible. Your answer, that it is repeatedly to be found elsewhere in the Old Testament, is just but it certainly does not prove Job to be a Jewish book. We know that Sathan, as well as the names of all the angels, are Chaldean; and as I have already shown, that the Scriptures are compilations written after the captivity, it is not wonderful that this name, together with many others, should be found in the Hebrew Bible. As you say nothing in favour of the book of Job, I shall only observe, that it is not only the opinion of Abenezra, but even of Jerome, the author of the Vulgate, that it is not a Hebrew book, the idiom being in many instances altogether different from the style of that language, and very frequently bearing marks of its Arabic and Syriac origin, as the reader may see in his preface to Job in the Vulgate edition of the Bible. The resemblance between Job's Satan and Momus is so striking, that we cannot help recognising the author to have been a Gentile; and thus are the Jews deprived of a book, which, at least, contains no murders, and shows more knowledge than that nation ever possessed. Your remark as to the generality of the belief of a benevolent and a malevolent being, certainly does not prove that the Gentiles borrowed this notion from the Jews; you ought to have known history better, and that the wars of the Gods and angels formed part of the creed of many nations, not only before a book of the Bible existed, but even before the birth of Moses. Dionysius and Osiris had already fought against the evil genii: the famous Vishnu has been from the highest antiquity the enemy of Chiven. That the numerous mythological systems which have ever existed, sprang from the report of the fathers of the Jewish nation, may appear probable to a clergyman; it is but a pious whim; to me it is a proof, that all religious systems have sprung from the fancy of men. The philosophers among the heathens understood by the evil and bad genii nothing more than the influence of the good or bad seasons, which, personified by ignorant or cunning priests, have by the vulgar been deemed real personages. Besides, where do you find in the Pentateuch any accounts of the Devil? I only see the serpent, an emblem I have already said, copied from the Egyptians, but by the Jews considered a real snake, which talked and walked upright. It was but a poor imitation of the Ahrimanes of Zoroaster.

Concerning the utility of prayers, and the tendency of those of the Jews, I shall say nothing. It is a certain fact, that Solomon, the wisest of men, and who made excellent prayers, killed his brother; while many of those heathen tribes, abhorred by the Jews, had no other crime than to adore images; and, if superstition among them sometimes produced the abominable practice of human sacrifices, they never carried their piety so far as to exterminate whole nations. Besides, the Jews had not even a pretence to despise their neighbours for offering human sacrifices. The case of Jephtha shows plainly that this barbarity was common among God's people. I am utterly surprised at your misplaced exclamations upon the morality of the heathens. Far be it from me to stand forward as the patron of heathenish superstition; it is the mother of ours, and I abhor the common stock; but, my Lord, you ought not to confound the rites of the Greeks with their morals. The Athenians possessed virtues which we in vain look for among the despicable Jews. They possessed knowledge, and their philosophers had more sense than to believe the tales of the priests. Epicurus taught peaceably, and was revered by all, while the vulgar of his country firmly believed their mythology. Such an instance never happened among the Jews. Jehovah would quickly have sent a plague among Epicurus and his followers, or ordered his priests "to kill every one his neighbour and his friend, and hang them up before the sun." Your holy brethren would think nothing of a burning match on the occasion; if it were in your power, atheists would not exist long. But you talk so confidently of the adoration of images among the Gentiles, that we would imagine the Jews were all philosophers. Do you forget their reverence to the holy of holies, which none could approach; the ark of the covenant, and the calves? Or has the story of the five golden mice, for looking at which fifty thousand and three score and ten Israelites were smote by the Lord, escaped you?

Your rhapsody upon the sublimity of Bible composition, and its superiority to all profane writers, is a proof of the strength of early imbibed prejudice. I lament to see a man of your learning think so much like an old woman. The proverbs, to be sure, are wonderful compositions, and prove the great gift of wisdom bestowed by God upon Solomon! What indeed can be more sublime than the following, which I beg leave to add to the specimens given by your Lordship! "The horse leech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea four things say not it is enough; the grave, and the barren womb, the earth that is not filled with water, and the fire that saith not it is enough." – "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea four which I know not; the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon the rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid." – "There be three things which go well, a greyhound, an he-goat also, and a king." – "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honour of kings is to search out a matter." – "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee, and put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite." – "Buy the truth, and sell it not." – "A whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit." – Excellent Solomon! Hear also this wise king in Song of Songs. "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman; thy-navel is like a round goblet which wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies; thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins; thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fish pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim; thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus." Whether this alludes to one of Solomon's concubines, or our mother, the church of Jesus Christ, the expressions are equally applicable, beautiful, and simple; they are worthy of a man "wiser than Ethan the Ezrehite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mehol," who, I dare say, were wise men. Upon the whole, I agree with you, that Solomon, the illustrious offspring of the man after God's own heart and the virtuous Bathsheba, was not "a witty jester." As to what you call his "sins and debaucheries," these holy books were certainly not written with a view to make us avoid them. Solomon is set before us as a pattern of wisdom and goodness; and the number of his wives and concubines is exultingly recorded as a proof of his greatness, as much as his treasures, which exceed all conception, and the number of his horses, which exceed all belief.

Your pious belief in the inspired prophecies of Isaiah, is natural to a superstitious and credulous mind. The philosopher who doubts before he gazes, sees in what you call prophecies nothing else but scraps of history or legend. He receives with diffidence all predictions. He is aware of the great ease with which forgeries may be passed among the vulgar for prophecies. When pretended predictions are made, they are altogether overlooked; even the ignorant think not of them till they are said to be accomplished; the learned despise them in both instances; and it is not till after their authenticity has gained a sort of general belief, that the philosopher thinks of enquiring when and how they were made. At this period he can find no evidence of their history, but from the credulous who have been imposed upon by them. Besides, no prophecy is ever direct, it always has an equivocal meaning, and is explained to suit the events which have happened. Religious enthusiasts write in such a mystic language upon the sins of mankind, and the judgements that are to come upon them, and in so general and ambiguous terms, that it is easy for a subtle interpreter, or a visionary fanatic, to explain them according to his own system. Have not the bears of the Apocalypse been made to signify by turns, the Pope and the Devil? Has not the New Jerusalem been sometimes taken for a real flying town, seen in the air by the first fathers of the church, as Tertullean informs us? Do not other divines tell us that it means the kingdom of heaven? Have not scripture divines, even in the first ages of the church, pretended that the verses of Virgil, Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Sa-tumia regna, jam nova progenies ccelo demittitur alto; – natte mets vires, mea magna potentia solus, and talia perstabat memorans, fixusque manebat, were clear prophecies of the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ? It might be worth enquiring at this time, whether the Roman Bard was inspired by the Holy Ghost? Lastly, I may ask, does your Lordship believe in the many prophecies that have of late appeared of the French revolution?

But we have more reasons to declare the pretended clear prophecies of the Bible to be fables. In many instances they are so accurate, and so unlike these passages which we know to have been written previous to the events to which they are applied, or those which are not yet fulfilled, that no philosopher can pronounce them to have been written historically. Thus, we find Jacob announce to his twelve sons, the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, the fate of their posterity; the situation of the district to be occupied by the Israelites in the land of Canaan, two hundred years before Joshua parcelled out this land in lots to the Israelites; the kind of life the different tribes would lead; the small number of the posterity of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, as well as the power of Judah; all which are related as exactly as if the patriarch had seen the throne of David and Solomon with his own eyes. Some of the supposed predictions of Isaiah and Daniel, are even more minutely correct. You have treated the question of the genuineness and date of works very lightly; you think it is of no great consequence to ascertain the genuineness of the different books of the Bible. Let us for a moment suppose, that by some accident, the age of Virgil had been forgotten, or the sixth book of his Æneid been ascribed to a writer of the age of Æneas; would not the Romans be entitled to regard, as a most wonderful prophecy, the lively representation given by Anchises of the future heroes of the republic, the two Cæsars, and the young Marcellus?

To resume our subject: I remind you of the passage already quoted from Bellarminus, that it was the opinion of the fathers of the church, that the Prophets, among other books, had been collected and arranged by Esdras. I have also stated the selection of genuine works by the synagogue, during the reign of the Maccabees, when the Talmud says that the forgeries of Daniel, Esdras, &c. were prodigious. The destruction by Antiochus Epiphanus of the already broken Jewish books, written by Esdras, may be collected from what is said in Maccabees, chap. i. ver. 56 and 57. "And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire, and whosoever was found with any of the books of the Testament, or if any consented to the law, the king's commandment was, that they should put him to death."

It is without reason that you triumph at the application which Thomas Paine makes of the prophecy of Isaiah, in chapters xliv. and xlv. No man that reads the passage can hesitate for a moment to declare it a narrative of the deliverance of the Jews by Cyrus, after the seventy years captivity. Cyrus is mentioned by name, as well as his command to rebuild Jerusalem, and his victories over the nations, above one hundred years before the event. Will you then, without any proofs of Isaiah having written this book, insist upon calling it a prophecy? And have not sceptics been justified in their disbelief of the genuineness of such books? Mr. Paine, however, has overlooked a more remarkable prophecy in this book, which has been tortured into an application to Christ. This is contained in chapter lxiii. ver. 1. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in. righteousness, mighty to save." And again, in chap. ii. (talking of the supposed Christ) Isaiah says, "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plough-shares." – "And the idols he shall totally abolish." Can this possibly allude to Christ? Did he come from Edom in mighty power, in rich garments? Was his march so terrible? Was he the man who trampled all in his fury; who with his own arm brought salvation to himself, and was upheld by his fury; as also mentioned in chap. lxiii.? Do not these pretended prophecies also apply to Judas Maccabeus, who delivered the Jews from the tyranny of Antiochus Epi-phanus? And is it not also a proof of the mutilated state of the works of the prophets to see details about Cyrus intermingled with others applying to Judas Maccabeus? I say nothing of Daniel, for his prophecy I shall consider particularly afterwards, and show its true meaning; at present, it may be sufficient to say, that the similarity between the book of Ezra and Daniel proclaim them to be from the same hand; but both have evident marks of having been considerably mutilated. When philosophers cannot ascertain the age of pretended predictions, they consider their clearness as a demonstration of their being histories. Who tells you that the books which the synagogue, like the Nicene council, chose, were not either altogether written, or considerably interpolated, to adopt them to the times? The great question is always, what authority had the synagogue to decide, and whether their decision ought to influence men of sense, any more than the determination of the Popish councils.

As a proof of the absurdity of the application of prophecies, I shall here quote one, which is apparently clearer than any in the whole Bible, and is adduced by the most famous divines as an unquestionable prediction of Christ. It is in Micah, chap. v. ver. I. "Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us; they shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Here even the birth-place of Christ is mentioned, the insults offered to him, his existence from everlasting, and his coming to save Israel. And Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 6, and John, chap. vii. ver. 43, both expressly refer to that passage as a prophecy. Hear now what follows in ver. 5, of the same chapter of Micah: "And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrians shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men." Can this apply to Jesus Christ? Were the Syrians in the land when he came? Were not the Romans masters of Judea? Your rules of belief are admirable: a little faith, wherever you meet contradictions, absurdities, or wonders, is an invaluable prescription, common to the Bramin, the Musselman, and the Christian. Do but believe that Mahomet is a prophet, that he went up to heaven and saw the eternal Father, and you will go through the other articles of the Mahometan faith without difficulty. Do but admit the gospel of Barnabas where Mahomet is predicted, and we have no reason to say that it is less authentic than our gospel, and the work is done; but, I may say with you, "Proof, proof is what I require, and not assertion."

We will not relinquish our reason in obedience to the despotic mandates of the credulous.

You allow that the miracles of the Jews fall to the ground, if the history of that nation is proved false. I beg you to observe, that if it is true, it does not follow that the miracles are. If you can believe that the history of the Jews is well authenticated, and without numerous contradictions, and if you can exculpate the writers from bad motives, and a desire to deceive, and if you can rely upon their wisdom, you then will really prove yourself a Christian, a man of uncommon faith. The history of the Jews, every where confused, containing prodigies, deserves no more credit than their antedeluvian tale. Even Chinese history, supported by astronomical observations, is beyond a certain period rejected by all men, from the fables it contains. If you are disposed to believe, I advise you to read the fabulous history of China and of Hindostan, in the holy books of the respective nations, which are adopted by whole nations, and are, at least, more beautiful than the Jews.

I have purposely omitted to speak of Ecclesiastes. I find here several Epicurean notions, a disbelief of a future life, the propriety of enjoying themselves in this life, and other sensible remarks; which prove that the writer enjoyed more common sense than most of his countrymen.