the Christian faith. We cannot be Christians, if we do not believe that Jesus descended into hell. Who was, then, the first that imagined this journey? It was Athanasius, about three hundred and fifty years after the event. It is in his treatise against Apollinarus, on the incarnation of the Lord, where he mentions that the soul of Jesus descended into hell, while his body remained in the sepulchre. His words are worthy of attention, and shew us with what sagacity and wisdom Athanasius reasoned. Here follow his own words: "It was necessary after his death, that his divers essential parts should perform divers functions; that his body should remain in the sepulchre to destroy corruption, and that his soul should go into hell to vanquish death." The African St. Augustin, in a letter that he wrote to Evodus, seems to agree with him, Quis ergo nisi infidelis negaverit fuisse apud inferos Christum ? Jerome, his cotemporary, was nearly of the same opinion; and it was during the time of Augustin and Jerome, that this Credo was composed, which, among ignorant people, passed for the Apostles' Creed. Thus were opinions, creeds, and sects, established. But how could these detestable fooleries be credited? How did they overturn the other absurdities of the Greeks and Romans, and, at last, the empire itself? How have they caused so many evils, so many civil wars, lighted so many faggots, and spilled so much blood? We are going to account for it. CHAP. XII. OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY, AND PARTICULARLY OF PAUL. WHEN the first Galileans spread themselves among the populace of the Greeks and Romans, they found this populace infected with all the absurd traditions that can take possession of ignorant minds enamoured with fables. They had gods disguised in the shape of bulls, horses, swans, and serpents, to seduce women and girls. Magistrates, and respectable citizens, did not admit of these extravagancies, but the populace fed on them, and these constituted the pagan mob. I fancy I see the followers of Fox dispute with those of Brown. It was not difficult for Jews, possessed with devils, to make their reveries believed by the ignorant, who believed other reveries equally impertinent. Novelty attracted weak minds, who grew tired of their old follies, and ran to hear new tales, just like the mob at Bartholomew fair, demanding a new farce, and becoming disgusted with the old one, which they have so often seen repeated. If we believe the books of the Christians, we are told that Peter, son of Jonas,' dwelt with Simon the tanner, in a garret at Joppa, where he brought to life again the mantua-maker, Dorcas. In the Chapter of Lucian, entitled Philopatris, he speaks of a Galilean with a bald forehead, and large nose, who was carried to the third heaven." See how he speaks of an assembly of Christians, whom he fell in with: "Tatterdemalions almost naked, with fierce looks and the walk of madmen, who moan and make contortions; swearing by the Son who was begotten by the Father, predicting a thousand misfortunes to the empire, and cursing the emperor.' were the first Christians. Such He who had given the greatest notoriety to this sect was this Paul with the large nose and bald forehead, whom Lucian ridicules. The writings of Paul, it appears to me, are sufficient to shew how far Lucian was right. What nonsense he writes to the society of Christians, forming at Rome among the Jewish rabble. "Circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law, but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made ! Acts ix. 39. : uncircumcision."-Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God." 993 In thus expressing himself, Paul spoke evidently as a Jew, and not as a Christian. What a discourse to the Corinthians, "Our fathers were all baptised unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea." Was not Cardinal Bembo right in calling these epistles Epistolacia, and advising people not to read them? What shall we think of a man who says to the Thessalonians, "Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak," and who in the same epistle announces that they ought to pray and prophesy with their heads covered 26 Is his quarrel with the other apostles that of a wise and moderate man? Does not every thing shew him to be a party man? He is a Christian; he teaches Christianity, and goes seven days successively to sacrifice in the temple of Jerusalem, by the advice of James. He writes to the Galatians, "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." And he afterwards circumcises his disciple Timothy, who, as the Jews pretend, was the son of a Greek, and a prostitute. He obtrudes himself among the apostles, and boasts of being as much an apostle as the rest of them: "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. Have we not a power to eat and to drink? have we not a power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord? Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges?" What frightful things in this passage! The 3 1 Cor. x. 1, 2. Rom. ii, 25. Chap. ii. 31. Chap. iv. 2. right of living at the expence of those he has subjugated; the right of making them pay the expences of his wife or his sister; and, at last, the proof that Jesus had brothers, and the presumption that Mary, or Mirja, was brought to bed more than once. I should be glad to know of whom he is speaking again in his 2d Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xi. "For such are false apostles. Howbeit, wherein soever any is bold, I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham ? So am I. Are they the ministers of Christ? I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Five times received I forty stripes, save one; thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; a night and a day I have been in the deep." Behold this Paul, who was twenty-four hours in the deep without being drowned! It is a third of the adventure of Jonah. But does he not here clearly manifest his base jealousy of Peter and the other apostles, by thinking to carry the palm from them, because he has received more stripes and floggings than they have done? 991 Does not his fury for domineering appear in all its insolence, when he says to the same Corinthians, "This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. Being now absent, I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare.' To what simple fools, to what kind of besotted creatures, did he thus address himself like a tyrannical master? Those to whom he had the hardihood to assert that he was carried to the third heaven. Impudent and dastardly impostor! Where is this third heaven in which thou hast travelled? Is it in Venus or in Mars? We laugh at Mahomet, when his commentators pre 1 2 Cor. xiii. 1, 2. tend that he visited seven heavens in succession, in a single night; but Mahomet, in the Alcoran at least, does not speak of such an extravagance as that which is imputed to him; yet Paul dares to assert that he has performed half of this journey. Who was this Paul, then, who still makes so much noise, and who is every day quoted at random? He says he was a Roman citizen, which I dare affirm to be an impudent falsehood. No Jew was a Roman citizen, except under the Decii and Philips. If he were of Tarsus, it was neither a Roman city nor a Roman colony for more than a hundred years after Paul. If he were a native of Giscalus, as St. Jerome states, this village was in Galilee, and, assuredly, the Galileans had never the honour of being Roman citizens. He was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel; that is to say, he was one of Gamaliel's domestics. Indeed, it is remarked, that he took care of the clothes of those who stoned Stephen, which is the employ of a valet. The Jews pretend that he wished to marry Gamaliel's daughter. We see some traces of this adventure in the ancient book which contains the history of Thecla. It is not astonishing that the daughter of Gamaliel should reject a little bald-headed valet, whose eyebrows hung over a deformed nose, and who was bandylegged. It is thus that the "Acts of Thecla" describe him. Disdained, as he deserved to be, by Gamaliel and his daughter, he joined himself with the infant sect of Cephas, James, Matthew, and Barnabas, in order to annoy the Jews. Any one, who has the least spark of reason would judge, that this cause, which has been assigned for the apostacy of this miserable Jew, is more natural than that attributed to him. How can we persuade ourselves that a celestial light knocked him off horseback at noon-day; that a heavenly voice addressed him; F |