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