speakably repulsive
to all independent and impartial thinkers, and has led a great
German historian (Herder) to declare, with much bitterness,
that the phrase "Christian veracity" deserves to rank with the
phrase "Punic faith."

I could go on quoting such passages. I could give specific instances of
forgery by the dozen, but I do not think it necessary. It is sufficient
to show that forgery was common, and has been always common, amongst
all kinds of priests, and that therefore we cannot accept the Gospels as
genuine and unaltered documents.

Yet upon these documents rests the whole fabric of Christianity.

Professor Huxley says:

There is no proof, nothing more than a fair presumption, that
any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in which we find
it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the second
century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the
events recorded. And between that time and the date of the
oldest extant manuscripts of the Gospel there is no telling
what additions and alterations and interpolations may have
been made. It may be said that this is all mere speculation,
but it is a good deal more. As competent scholars and honest
men, our revisers have felt compelled to point out that such
things have happened even since the date of the oldest known
manuscripts. The oldest two copies of the second Gospel end
with the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter; the remaining
twelve verses are spurious, and it is noteworthy that the maker
of the addition has not hesitated to introduce a speech in
which Jesus promises His disciples that "in My name shall
they cast out devils."

The other passage "rejected to the margin" is still more
instructive. It is that touching apologue, with its profound
ethical sense, of the woman taken in adultery--which, if
internal evidence were an infallible guide, might well be
affirmed to be a typical example of the teaching of Jesus.
Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly, "Most of the ancient
authorities omit John vii. 53--viii. 11." Now, let any
reasonable man ask himself this question: if after an
approximate settlement of the canon of the New Testament,
and even later than the fourth or fifth centuries, literary
fabricators had the skill and the audacity to make such
additions and inte