with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory
is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists,
accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains
to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

CHAPTER III - CONCERNING THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST, AND HIS
HISTORY.

NOTHING that is here said can apply, even with the most distant
disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous
and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was
of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality
had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek
philosophers, many years before, by the Quakers since, and by many
good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.

Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or
anything else. Not a line of what is called the New Testament is of
his writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other
people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and
ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his
birth. His historians, having brought him into the world in a
supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same
manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

The wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told, exceeds
everything that went before it. The first part, that of the
miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity;
and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this
advantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not be