person, thus meriting the appellation of the son of God, because of his holy life and good qualities whence we see that the first Christians were as well as the first Apostles, true Socinians. But St. Paul to give, without doubt, more lustre to his ministry, and his adherents after him, willing to extol the holiness of their religion, made a God of Jesus, a dogma which it is no more permitted to doubt, especially since the partizans of Paul have become more numerous, and stronger than those of St. Peter and the other Nazarenes, or Jewish founders of primitive Christianity, which thus totally changed its face as to its capital dogmas.

Having thus become masters of the field of battle, Paul, his adherents, and the disciples formed in their school, saw themselves in possession of the power of regulating belief, of inventing new dogmas, of making gospels, and of arranging them in their own manner, of forging to themselves titles, and of excommunicating as heretics all those who showed themselves unteachable. It is thus that the author of the Acts of the Apostles, only speaks, as it were, of his master, of St. Paul, and glances very slightly over the Acts of the Apostles of the contrary party. The same author (St. Luke) is presumed to have composed his gospel from the notes furnished him by St. Paul, though he had neither known nor seen Jesus Christ.

Faustus, the Manichean, said on the subject of the gospels, "that they had been composed a long time after the Apostles, by some obscure individuals, who fearing that faith would not be given to histories of facts with which they must have been unacquainted, published under the name of the Apostles their own writings, so filled with mistakes and discordant relations and opinions, that we can find in them neither connection nor agreement with themselves."

A little further on he loudly accuses his adversaries, who had the credit of being orthodox, and says to them, "It is thus that predecessors have inserted in the writings of our Lord many things which, though they bear his name, do not # at all agree with his doctrine. That is not surprising since we have often proved that these things have not been written by himself nor by his Apostles, but that for the greater part they are founded on tales, on vague reports, and collected by I know not who, half Jews, but little agreed among themselves, who have nevertheless published them under the name of our Lord, and thus have attributed to him their own errors and deceptions."

Origeo informs us, that Celsus exclaimed against the licence that the Christians of his time, had taken of altering many times imprudently the originals of their gospels, in order to be able to deny or to retract those things, which embarrassed them.

CHAPTER III. Of the Authority of the Councils, of the Fathers of the Church, and of Tradition

It is only in the Fathers of the Church, and the Councils, that we can find the proofs of the authenticity of the Christian traditions, and according to the proofs which remain it appears, that they only approved or rejected opinions, as they found them favourable or injurious to the interests of the party which they had embraced. Every ecclesiastical writer, and every assembly of Bishops, adopted as canonical the writings in which they found their own particular dogmas, the others they treated as apocryphal or suppositious. A slight acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers, will show us that we cannot rely on them for any facts; we shall find that their books are filled with negligences, tales, impertinences and falsehoods; we shall see them buried in the thickest darkness of superstition and prejudice. Every word announces their incredulity or their insincerity. St. Clement the Roman, believed the fable of the phoenix reviving from its ashes, and cites it as a proof of the resurrection.

Papias, who was the master of St. Irenæus, was, in the opinion of Eusebius himself, a man of weak mind, a fabulous author, who had contributed to lead many men into error, and amongst others St. Irenæus who was his disciple, whom Eusebius regards as a very credulous man, though he was the first ecclesiastical historian of note. It is not surprising that those who have followed such guides have fallen into error.

On the other side, we should never finish, were we to enter into a detail of the excesses committed by the Fathers of the Church and the Councils: their history would only serve to prove their ambition their pride, their infatuation, their seditious spirit, their cheats, their intrigues, and their cruelties in the persecutions which they excited against their adversaries. It is nevertheless on the probity and on the knowledge of these great personages that we are called to rely! It is pretended that it is from them that we hold the pure oracles of truth; must we then take lessons of mildness, of charity, of, holiness, from the writings of some factious individuals, who were perpetually quarrelling and treating their adversaries with the utmost cruelty, whose works were filled with gall, whose conduct it is admitted even by their own friends and admirers, was almost always unjust, violent, and criminal? How can it be expected that we should find any point of unity in the canons and decrees of assemblies agitated by intrigue, discord, and animosity? How can we regard as saints, and infallible doctors, as persons worthy of our confidence, perverse men, continually involved in disputations with others, and in contradictions with themselves? What guide can we expect to find in turbulent priests whose ambition, avarice, and intriguing and persecuting spirit are every where visible? It is only necessary to read ecclesiastical history to be convinced that the picture which we have drawn of the Councils and Fathers is no ways exaggerated.

On the other hand the writers and Councils on whose authority, Christians are called upon to found their belief, do, in all their traditions, but blindly follow and copy each other; we see them devoid of the arts of reasoning, of logic, and of criticism; hence their works are found filled with fables, vulgar errors, and forgeries. Is it possible to believe the traditions of such a man as St. Jerome, who in his life of St. Anthony, assures us that this holy man had a conference with satyrs with goats feet? Do we not justly doubt the sincerity of St. Augustine, when he says, "that he had seen a nation composed of men, who had eyes in the middle of their stomachs?" Are such authors more entitled to credit, than those of Robinson Crusoe, and of the Thousand and One Nights?

Supposing even that at the commencement of Christianity, there had been authentic books in which the actions and the discourses of Jesus Christ and his Apostles had been faithfully related, should we be justified in supposing that they have been handed down to us such as they were originally? Prior to the invention of printing, it was doubtless much easier to impose upon the public than it is now, and notwithstanding, we see that the Press gives currency to innumerable falsehoods.

The spirit of party causes every thing to be adopted that is useful to its own cause. That granted, how easy was it for the heads of the Church, who were once the only guardians of the holy books, either from pious fraud, or a determined wish to deceive, to insert falsehoods and articles of faith, in the books entrusted to their care.

The learned Dodwell admits, that the books which compose the New Testament did not appear in public, until at least 100 Years after Christ. If this fact be certain, how shall we convince ourselves that they existed prior to this time? These books were solely entrusted to the care of the ecclesiastical gentry, till the third or fourth century, that is to say, to the guardianship of men, whose conduct was universally regulated by self interest and party spirit, and who possessed neither the probity nor knowledge requisite for discovering the