ot, according to the same account, believe a
word of the matter himself at the time it is said to have happened.
His evidence, supposing him to have been the writer of Corinthians xv.,
where this account is given, is like that of a man who comes into a
court of justice to swear that what he had sworn before was false. A man
may often see reason, and he has too always the right of changing his
opinion; but this liberty does not extend to matters of fact.

I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into heaven.--Here
all fear of the Jews, and of every thing else, must necessarily have
been out of the question: it was that which, if true, was to seal the
whole; and upon which the reality of the future mission of the disciples
was to rest for proof. Words, whether declarations or promises, that
passed in private, either in the recess of a mountain in Galilee, or in
a shut-up house in Jerusalem, even supposing them to have been spoken,
could not be evidence in public; it was therefore necessary that this
last scene should preclude the possibility of denial and dispute; and
that it should be, as I have stated in the former part of 'The Age of
Reason,' as public and as visible as the sun at noon-day; at least it
ought to have been as public as the crucifixion is reported to have
been.--But to come to the point.

In the first place, the writer of the book of Matthew does not say a
syllable about it; neither does the writer of the book of John. This
being the case, is it possible to suppose that those writers, who affect
to be even minute in other matters, would have been silent upon this,
had it been true? The writer of the book of Mark passes it off in a
careless, slovenly manner, with a single dash of the pen, as if he was
tired of romancing, or ashamed of the story. So also does the writer of
Luke. And even between these two, there is not an apparent agreement,
as to the place where this final parting is said to have been. [The last
nine verses of Mark being ungenuine, the story of the ascension
rests exclusively on the words in Luke xxiv. 51, "was carried up into
heaven,"--words omitted by several ancient authorities.--Editor.]

The book of Mark says that Christ appeared to the eleven as they sat at
meat, alluding to the meeting of the eleven at Jerusalem: he then states
the conversation that he says passed at that meeting; and immediately
after says (as a school-boy would finish a dull story,) "So then, after
th