and the reason is
equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.

It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter. The story,
so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of fraud and
imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were the authors of it is
as impossible for us now to know, as it is for us to be assured that the
books in which the account is related were written by the persons whose
names they bear. The best surviving evidence we now have respecting this
affair is the Jews. They are regularly descended from the people who
lived in the time this resurrection and ascension is said to have
happened, and they say 'it is not true.' It has long appeared to me a
strange inconsistency to cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the
story. It is just the same as if a man were to say, I will prove the
truth of what I have told you, by producing the people who say it is
false.

That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he was crucified,
which was the mode of execution at that day, are historical relations
strictly within the limits of probability. He preached most excellent
morality, and the equality of man; but he preached also against the
corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon
him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of priest-hood. The
accusation which those priests brought against him was that of sedition
and conspiracy against the Roman government, to which the Jews were
then subject and tributary; and it is not improbable that the Roman
government might have some secret apprehension of the effects of his
doctrine as well as the Jewish priests; neither is it improbable that
Jesus Christ had in contemplation the delivery of the Jewish nation
from the bondage of the Romans. Between the two, however, this virtuous
reformer and revolutionist lost his life. [NOTE: The French work has
here: "However this may be, for one or the other of these suppositions
this virtuous reformer, this revolutionist, too little imitated,
too much forgotten, too much misunderstood, lost his life."--Editor.
(Conway)]

CHAPTER IV - OF THE BASES OF CHRISTIANITY.

IT is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case I
am going to mention, that the Christian mythologists, calling themselves
the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which for absurdity
and extravagance is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the