all Israel the ordinances and judgments."

Can any man, after this, doubt that Esdras is the compiler of all the books which the Jews had not known for many centuries? And are we, who laugh at the Catholic councils, to trust to the word of a Jewish scribe? it is further stated in 2 Chronicles, chap. xxiv. ver. 15, that Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of God given by Moses, and sent it by Saphan to king Josias, who heard it read, which shows that it must have been very short; and, by the context, it would appear to have been the law strictly speaking; another proof that these records were altogether scattered, and are all without authority, since it was so easy to forge them among a people who seemed to preserve no more than a traditional law. Again, although, in the older Jewish books, such as Kings and Chronicles, we find the name of Moses often mentioned, yet no word answering to the five books of Pentateuch is to be found. The Code of laws of Moses seems to have been forgotten; for Solomon ornamented the temple with calves, in express contempt of that law, and this while he was the favourite of God, and the wisest man in the world. The very confusion that pervades the books ascribed to Moses, shows them to have been compilations. Jerome, who was one of the most learned of the fathers, confesses that he dares not affirm that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch; he even adds, that he has no objection to allow that Esdras wrote the books in question. 1

Secondly. We know that no canon of books ever existed among the Jew's till the time of the synagogue under the Maccabees. Before their reign, there had never existed among the Jews any such council; and, if the word occurs in the Pentateuch, it is a fault of the transcribers and composers, who lived when there was a synagogue, and is not to be understood in any other acceptation than a collection of priests. The Pharisees of the second temple chose the books they thought best among a multitude of forgeries. The Talmud relates, that this synagogue were about to reject the Book of Proverbs, Ezekiel's prophecies, and Ecclesiastes, because they imagined these writings contradictory to the law of God; but a certain Rabbin having undertaken to reconcile them, they were preserved as canonical. A prodigious number of forged Books of Daniel, Esdras, and of the Prophets, were then in circulation; and to distinguish the genuine from the false works became absolutely necessary. This doubt and uncertainty conspires to render the decision of the synagogue very doubtful; particularly, as we shall show in the sequel, that many passages of the Prophecies are written evidently about the time of this choice of sacred books, and inserted in them, probably by some cunning priest, as the oracles of Sybil were forged to suit Cæsar.

Thirdly. The similarity of the mysteries of the Jews to those of the Babylonians, is too glaring not to let us see the origin of Genesis in particular. The creation in six days is a perfect copy of the Gahans, or Gahan-bars, of Zoroaster; the particulars of each day's work are literally the same. The serpent was famous among the Babylonians. The mythological deluge of Ogyges and Xissuthrus, are symbols of changes arising on earth, as they imagined, from the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. These, a little ornamented by the historical narration of Deucalion's inundation related by Berosus, is the pattern of Noah's flood; the ark of Osiris and emblematical dove and raven were Egyptian hieroglyphics. The man and the woman in Paradise is a mere copy of Zoroaster's first pair. The original sin is Pandora's box. The Talmud of Jerusalem says expressly that the Jews borrowed the names of the angels, and even of their months, from the Babylonians. The Elohim, or Gods, (not God), are said in Genesis to have created the world. It was not Jehovah, but the genii or gods that are in the Hebrew called makers of the world. And these are the very genii, who according to Sanchoniatho, were by Mercury excited against Saturn.

Fourthly. We ask, in what language was the Pentateuch written, if it really was the work of Moses? It is known that Hebrew is a dialect of the Phenician, and that the Jews spoke Egyptian for a very long time before they adopted the language of the people among whom they dwelt. In Psalm lxxxi. we learn that the Jews were surprised to hear the language of the people beyond the Bed Sea. If, therefore, Moses, or any person of that age, is the author of the Pentateuch, it is evident that the Hebrew books are mere translations. What degree of credit does a nation deserve, who have been able to take for originals books that were in the face of them translations? Is it right to persecute men, as priests have done while they had power, for refusing to give credit to this tissue of contradictory and absurd fables?

Fifthly. In the books of the Old Testament, we find abundant proofs that they have been written in an age greatly posterior to that of Moses. In Genesis, chap. xii. ver. 6, we find these words, "And the Canaanite was then in land." This implies another period when the Canaanite was not in the land, which, we learn from the Bible, did not happen till after David, and could not therefore be written by Moses. The beginning of Deuteronomy is certainly not written by him; for he never passed the Jordan; he died upon Mount Nebo, to the eastward of it. The English translation has in chap. i. v. 5, of this book, said, "on this side of the Jordan," for "on that side," which is in the original. The translator has taken similar liberties very often. In chap. xxxiii. we find this expression, "There never was in Judea so great a prophet as Moses," and such could be pointed out in many places. Here needs no comment to show that such passages could only be written in a posterior age, and when there had been several prophets after Moses. Thomas Paine mentions many other passages, which I shall consider when I come to your next letter.

The above considerations would be sufficient to invalidate the genuineness and authenticity of any historical book: but here we find that the credulity of bigots requires less proof for the authority of a work, which, according to them, is the fountain of faith, than for Ossian's poems, or any other book of no consequence. If a common historical work contains fables, impossible events, and anachronisms; if its age is not ascertained; if we are certain that it was unknown for many centuries; if we are even ignorant whether it is an original or a translation, who would give the slightest credit to such a book? Yet are enlightened nations led by the testimony of the Jews, a people credulous beyond measure, extremely ignorant, almost continually in slavery, and dispersed. This is the nation that pretends to give an account of the creation, and, with a vanity peculiar to an insignificant people, to assume the supremacy among nations, and arrogate to themselves the exclusive protection of Jehovah, and dare make their Adam the common stock of mankind. You allow, my Lord, that several passages have been interpolated in the