On Christianity Excerpts from the Letters of Thomas Jefferson (1760-1826) “...there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest.” Edited, with French, Greek and Latin Translations, by J.L. Antonic
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. 1763 - On Resignation to the Divine Will 2. 1776 - Human Rights are Endowed by Our Creator 3. 1779 - Government Shall Not Coerce Religion 4. 1787 - The Use of Reason in Inquiries of Faith 5. 1787 - Congress Shall Neither Prefer nor Restrict Religion 6. 1801 - Republicanism and the Banishment of Religious Tyranny 7. 1801 - The Bigotry of the Priesthood toward Primitive Christianity 8. 1801 - Christianity Supports Science and Free Thought 9. 1801 - The Transmigration of Souls 10. 1802 - The Separation of Church & State 11. 1803 - Christ as a Moral Example of Godliness, without Deity 12. 1803 - A Syllabus of the Doctrines of Jesus 13. 1803 - The Morality of Jesus & Resisting Calumny 14. 1803 - The Invasion of Conscience by Unjust Inquisition 15. 1805 - Evangelizing Aboriginal Americans, Seeking God’s Providence 16. 1808 - Religious Proclamations Unauthorized by Constitution 17. 1810- The Great Apostasy and the Sensibility of Quakers 18. 1814 - Upholding the Bible, but Not Evangelizing other Nations 19. 1814 - Sectarian Censorship of Published Works
20. 1814 - The Source and Nature of Morality 21. 1816 - The Philosophy of Jesus & Real Christianity 22. 1816 - The First Cause of the Universe & Resurrectionism 23. 1816 - Against Trinity and False Priests 24. 1816 - The False Power and Judgments of Priests 25. 1818 - Against the Athanasian Trinity 26. 1819 - Against Calvin & Hopkins, Saved by Works 27. 1819 - Against Sectarianism, False Doctrine 28. 1819 - Rescuing the Gospels from Unbiblical Tradition 29. 1820 - Pauline Corruption, Presbyterian Clergy, Calvin, & Trinity 30. 1820 - Jesus, the Great Reformer of Judaism & Textual Criticism 31. 1820 - The Philosophy of Christian Materialism 32. 1822 - The False Shepherds of Platonic Christianity 33. 1822 - The Blasphemy and Tyranny of the Five Points of Calvinism 34. 1822 - Unitarianism as Revival of Primitive Christianity 35. 1823 - Against Calvinism and the Pre-Existence of the Christ Incarnate
On Resignation to the Divine Will To John Page from Shadwell, July 15, 1763 Dear Page, [...] Perfect happiness I believe was never intended by the deity to be the lot of any one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I as steadfastly believe. The most fortunate of us all in our journey through life frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us: and to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen, and that by our uneasiness we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations and others such as these may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way, to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life, and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation till we arrive at our journey’s end, where we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much. [...] Th Jefferson “From Thomas Jefferson to John Page, 15 July 1763,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0004 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 9–11.]
Human Rights are Endowed by Our Creator Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America - July 4, 1776 “...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Government Shall Not Coerce Religion Draft for a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom - 1779 Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; THAT Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; THAT all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; THAT the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: THAT to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; THAT even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness; AND is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; THAT our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry;
THAT therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; THAT it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; THAT though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; THAT the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; THAT to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy (sic), which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; THAT it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; THAT she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. SECT. II. WE the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; BUT that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
SECT. III. AND though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; YET we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/draft-for-a-bill-for-establishing-religious-freedom-1779.php
The Use of Reason in Inquiries of Faith To Peter Carr, from Paris - August 10, 1787 Dear Peter: [...] 4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to receive this object. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty and singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the Bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature you will believe in the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor on one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh against them. But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from god. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong as that it’s falsehood would be more improbable than a change of the laws of nature in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still for several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts Etc., but it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired.
The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are Astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, and that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth’s motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the new testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions. 1. Of those who say he was begotten by god, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended bodily into heaven: and 2. Of those who say he was a man, of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law which punished the first commission of that offense by whipping, and the second by exile or death in furcâ. See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19 § 28. 3.and Lipsius Lib. 2. de cruce. cap. 2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, and several others. They will assist you in your enquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement. If that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence increases the appetite to deserve it; if Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but the uprightness of the decision.
—I forgot to observe when speaking of the New testament that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists, because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost. There are some however still extant, collected by Fabricius which I will endeavor to get and send you. [...] Th: Jefferson “From Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, with Enclosure, 10 August 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-12-02-0021 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, 7 August 1787 – 31 March 1788, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, pp. 14–19.]
Congress Shall Neither Prefer nor Restrict Religion Constitution of the United States, 1787 Article VI (1787) “...The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Amendment I (1791)
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Republicanism and the Banishment of Religious Tyranny First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 Friends and Fellow Citizens, [...] All too bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others; and should divide opinions as to measures of safety; but every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. I know indeed that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. [...]
But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear, that this government, the world’s best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. [...] “III. First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-33-02-0116-0004 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 33, 17 February–30 April 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 148–152.]
The Bigotry of the Priesthood toward Primitive Christianity To Dr. Joseph Priestley, from Washington - March 21, 1801 Dear sir, [...] Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind, & for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be an exception. What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in Politics & Religion have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves; (that) they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power & priestcraft. [...] This was the real ground of all the attacks on you. Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, -- the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man -- endeavored to crush your well-earnt & well-deserved fame. But it was the Lilliputians upon Gulliver. Our countrymen have recovered from the alarm into which art & industry had thrown them; science & honesty are replaced on their high ground; and you, my dear Sir, as their great apostle, are on its pinnacle. [...]
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl137.php
Christianity Supports Science and Free Thought to Moses Robinson, March 23, 1801 [...] I know indeed that there are some (of their) leaders who have so committed themselves that pride, if no other passion, will prevent their coalescing. We must be easy with them. the eastern states will be the last to come over, on account of the dominion of the clergy, who had got a smell of union between church & state, and began to indulge reveries which can never be realized in the present state of science. If indeed they could have prevailed on us to view all advances in science as dangerous innovations and to look back to the opinions & practices of our forefathers, instead of looking forward to improvement, a promising ground work would have been laid. But I am hoping their good sense will dictate to them that since the mountain will not come to them, they had better go to the mountain: that they will find their interest in acquiescing in the liberty & science of their country. The Christian religion when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity & simplicity of it’s benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, & the freest expansions of the human mind. [...]
“From Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 23 March 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-33-02-0362 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 33, 17 February–30 April 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 423–424.]
The Transmigration of Souls Letter to Isaac Story, December 5, 1801 “...it is not for me to pronounce on the hypothesis you present of a transmigration of souls from one body to another in certain cases. The laws of nature have withheld from us the means of physical knowledge of the country of spirits and revelation has, for reasons unknown to us, chosen to leave us in the dark as we were. When I was young I was fond of the speculations which seemed to promise some insight into that hidden country, but observing at length that they left me in the same ignorance in which they had found me, I have for very many years ceased to read or to think concerning them, and have reposed my head on that pillow of ignorance which a benevolent creator has made so soft for us, knowing how much we should be forced to use it.” “From Thomas Jefferson to Isaac Story, 5 December 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0025 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 36, 1 December 1801–3 March 1802, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 30.]
The Separation of Church & State To the Danbury Baptists, 01 January, 1802 “To Messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut. Gentlemen, The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing. Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.”
Th. Jefferson
“V. To the Danbury Baptist Association, 1 January 1802,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0152-0006. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 36, 1 December 1801–3 March 1802, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 258.]
Christ as a Moral Example of Godliness, without Deity To Dr. Joseph Priestley - April 09, 1803 Dear Sir, While on a short visit lately to Monticello, I received from you a copy of your comparative view of Socrates & Jesus, and I avail myself of the first moment of leisure after my return to acknowledge the pleasure I had in the perusal of it, and the desire it excited to see you take up the subject on a more extensive scale. In consequence of some conversation with Dr. Rush, in the year 1798-99, I had promised some day to write him a letter giving him my view of the Christian system. I have reflected often on it since, & even sketched the outlines in my own mind: I should first take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most remarkable of the ancient philosophers, of whose ethics we have sufficient information to make an estimate, say of Pythagoras, Epicurus, Epictetus, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Antoninus. I should do justice to the branches of morality they have treated well; but point out the importance of those in which they are deficient. I should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. I should proceed to a view of the life, character, & doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state. This view would purposely omit the question of his divinity, & even his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines have to encounter, not having been committed to writing by himself, but by the most unlettered of men, by memory, long after they had heard them from him; when much was forgotten, much misunderstood, & presented in very paradoxical shapes.
Yet such are the fragments remaining as to show a master workman, and that his system of morality was the most benevolent & sublime probably that has been ever taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the ancient philosophers. His character & doctrines have received still greater injury from those who pretend to be his special disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his actions & precepts, from views of personal interest, so as to induce the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust, and to pass sentence as an impostor on the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that ever has been exhibited to man. This is the outline; but I have not the time, & still less the information which the subject needs. It will therefore rest with me in contemplation only. You are the person who of all others would do it best, and most promptly. You have all the materials at hand, and you put them together with ease. I wish you could be induced to extend your late work to the whole subject. I have not heard particularly about the state of your health; but as it has been equal to the journey to Philadelphia, perhaps it might encourage the curiosity you must feel to see for once this place, which nature has formed on a beautiful scale, and circumstances destine for a great one. As yet we are but a cluster of villages; we cannot offer you the learned society of Philadelphia; but you will have that of a few characters whom you esteem, & a bed & hearty welcome with one who will rejoice in every opportunity of testifying to you his high veneration & affectionate attachment.
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl152.php
A Syllabus of the Doctrines of Jesus Doctrines of Jesus Compared with Others - 09 April, 1803
Syllabus of an Estimate of the merit of the doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of others. In a comparative view of the Ethics of the enlightened nations of antiquity, of the Jews, and of Jesus, no notice should be taken of the corruptions of reason, among the ancients, to wit, the idolatry & superstition of their vulgar, Nor of the corruptions of Christianity by the overlearned among its professors. Let a just view be taken of the moral principles inculcated by the most esteemed of the sects of ancient philosophy, or of their individuals; particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. I. Philosophers ● Their precepts related chiefly to ourselves, and the government of those passions which, unrestrained, would disturb our tranquility of mind.* in this branch of Philosophy they were really great. ● In developing our duties to others, they were short and defective. they embraced indeed the circles of kindred & friends; and inculcated patriotism, or the love of our country in the aggregate, as a primary obligation: towards our neighbors & countrymen, they taught justice, but scarcely viewed them as within the circle of benevolence. still less have they inculcated peace, charity, & love to our fellow men, or embraced, with benevolence, the whole family of mankind. II. Jews ● Their system was Deism, that is, the belief of one only god. but their ideas of him, & of his attributes, were degrading & injurious. ● their Ethics were not only imperfect, but often irreconcilable with the sound dictates of reason & morality, as they respect intercourse with those around us: & repulsive, & anti-social, as respecting other nations. they needed reformation therefore to an eminent degree.
III. Jesus In this state of things among the Jews, Jesus appeared. His parentage was obscure, his condition poor, his education null, his natural endowments great, his life correct & innocent; he was meek, benevolent, patient, firm, disinterested, & of the sublimest eloquence. The disadvantages under which his doctrines appear are remarkable. ● Like Socrates & Epictetus, he wrote nothing himself. ● But he had not, like them, a Xenophon or an Arrian to write for him.2 on the contrary, all the learned of his country, entrenched in it’s power & riches, were opposed to him, lest his labors should undermine their advantages: and the committing to writing his life & doctrines, fell on the most unlettered, & ignorant of men: who wrote too from memory, & not till long after the transactions had passed. ● according to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and reform mankind, he fell an early victim to the jealousy & combination of the altar and the throne; at about 33. years of age,4 his reason having not yet attained the maximum of it’s energy, nor the course of his preaching, which was but of about 3. years,5 presented occasions for developing a compleat system of morals. ● Hence the doctrines which he really delivered were defective as a whole. and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us, mutilated, mistated, & often unintelligible. ● they have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of schismatising followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating & perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a Graecian Sophist,7 frittering them into subtleties, & obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, & to view Jesus himself as an impostor. NOTWITHSTANDING these disadvantages, a system of morals is presented to us, which, if filled up in the true style and spirit of the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man. The question of his being a member of the god-head, or in direct communication with it, claimed for him by some of his followers, and denied by others, is foreign to the present view, which is merely an estimate of the intrinsic merit of his doctrines.
● He corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only god, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government. ● His moral doctrines relating to kindred & friends were more pure & perfect, than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and greatly more so than those of the Jews. and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants, and common aids. a development of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others. ● The precepts of Philosophy, & of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head. ● He taught, emphatically, the doctrine of a future state: which was either doubted or disbelieved by the Jews: and wielded it with efficacy, as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct. “Doctrines of Jesus Compared with Others, 21 April 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0178-0002 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 253–255.]
The Morality of Jesus & Resisting Calumny To Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803 Dear Sir, I now return the sermon you were so kind as to enclose me, having perused it with attention. the reprinting it1 by me, as you have proposed, would very readily be ascribed to hypocritical affectation, by those who, when they cannot blame our acts, have recourse to the expedient of imputing them to bad motives. This is a resource which can never fail them; because there is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive. I must also add that tho’ I concur with the author in considering the moral precepts of Jesus, as more pure, correct, & sublime than those of the ancient philosophers, yet I do not concur with him in the mode of proving it. He thinks it necessary to libel and decry the doctrines of the philosophers. But a man must be blinded indeed by prejudice, who can deny them a great degree of merit. I give them their just due, & yet maintain that the morality of Jesus, as taught by himself & freed from the corruptions of later times, is far superior. Their philosophy went chiefly to the government of our passions, so far as respected ourselves, & the procuring our own tranquility. On our duties to others they were short & deficient. they extended their cares scarcely beyond our kindred & friends individually, & our country in the abstract. Jesus embraced, with charity & philanthropy, our neighbors, our countrymen, & the whole family of mankind. they confined themselves to actions: he pressed his scrutinies into the region of our thoughts, & called for purity at the fountain head. In a pamphlet lately published in Philadelphia by Dr. Priestly, he has treated, with more justice & skill than Mr Bennet, a small portion of this subject. His is a comparative view of Socrates only with Jesus. I have urged him to take up the subject on a broader scale. Every word which goes from me, whether verbally or in writing, becomes the subject of so much malignant distortion, & perverted construction, that I am obliged to caution my friends against admitting the possibility of my letters getting into the public papers, or a copy of them to be taken under any degree of confidence.
The present one is perhaps of a tenor to silence some calumniators. But I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of enquiry into the religious opinions of others. On the contrary we are bound, you, I, & every one, to make common cause, even with error itself, to maintain the common right of freedom of conscience. We ought with one heart and one hand to hew down the daring and dangerous efforts of those who would seduce the public opinion to substitute itself into that tyranny over religious faith which the laws have so justly abdicated. For this reason, were my opinions up to the standard of those who arrogate the right of questioning them, I would not countenance that arrogance by descending to an explanation. Accept my friendly salutations & high esteem. Th Jefferson “From Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 19 April 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0168 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 235–237.]
The Invasion of Conscience by Unjust Inquisition To Benjamin Rush from Washington - April 21, 1803 Dear Sir, In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 1798-99, which served as an Anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic: and I then promised you that, one day or other, I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection, and very different from that Anti-Christian system, imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, & believing he never claimed any other. At the short intervals, since these conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, this subject has been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Doctor Priestly his little treatise of ‘Socrates & Jesus compared.’ This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection, while on the road, and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a Syllabus, or Outline, of such an Estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity, as I wished to see executed, by some one with more leisure and information for the task than myself. This I now send you, as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. and, in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations & calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public; because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that Inquisition over the rights of conscience, which the laws have so justly proscribed.
It behooves every man, who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which the laws have left between god & himself. Accept my affectionate salutations. - Th: Jefferson
“From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 21 April 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0178-0001 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 251–253.]
Evangelizing Aboriginal Americans, Seeking God’s Providence Second Inaugural Address Mar 04, 1805 [...] In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of state or church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies. The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. [...] But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances, have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudice of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested and crafty individuals among them, who feel themselves something in the present order of things, and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did, must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel, in their physical, moral, or political condition, is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety, and knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends, among them is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and bigotry; they, too, have their anti-philosophers, who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of habit over the duty of improving our reason, and obeying its mandates. [...]
I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow citizens have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved. [...] I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence, and our riper years with his wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications, that he will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do, shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations. Th. Jefferson Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp
Religious Proclamations Unauthorized by Constitution To Rev Samuel Miller from Washington - January 23, 1808 SIR I have duly received your favor of the 18th and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with. I consider the government of the U S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U.S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it. I am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But I have always believed that the example of state executives led to the assumption of that authority by the general government, without due examination, which would have discovered that what might be a right in a state government, was a violation of that right when assumed
by another. Be this as it may, every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents. I again express my satisfaction that you have been so good as to give me an opportunity of explaining myself in a private letter, in which I could give my reasons more in detail than might have been done in a public answer: and I pray you to accept the assurances of my high esteem & respect.
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl183.php
The Great Apostasy and the Sensibility of Quakers To Samuel Kercheval from Monticello - January 19, 1810 SIR, [...] Nothing can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there stated; that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Antichrist. You expect that your book will have some effect on the prejudices which the society of Friends entertain against the present and late administrations. In this I think you will be disappointed. The Friends are men, formed with the same passions, and swayed by the same natural principles and prejudices as others. In cases where the passions are neutral, men will display their respect for the religious professions of their sect. But where their passions are enlisted, these professions are no obstacle. You observe very truly, that both the late and present administration conducted the government on principles professed by the Friends. Our efforts to preserve peace, our measures as to the Indians, as to slavery, as to religious freedom, were all in consonance with their professions. Yet I never expected we should get a vote from them, and in this I was neither deceived nor disappointed. There is no riddle in this, to those who do not suffer themselves to be duped by the professions of religious sectaries. The theory of American Quakerism is a very obvious one. The mother society is in England. Its members are English by birth and residence, devoted to their own country, as good citizens ought to be. The Quakers of these States are colonies or filiations from the mother society, to whom that society sends its yearly lessons. On these the filiated societies model their opinions, their conduct, their passions and attachments. A Quaker is, essentially, an Englishman, in whatever part of the earth he is born or lives. The outrages of Great Britain on our navigation and commerce, have kept us in perpetual bickerings with her.
The Quakers here have taken side against their own government; not on their profession of peace, for they saw that peace was our object also; but from devotion to the views of the mother society. In 1797 and 8, when an administration sought war with France, the Quakers were the most clamorous for war. Their principle of peace, as a secondary one, yielded to the primary one of adherence to the Friends in England, and what was patriotism in the original became treason in the copy. On that occasion, they obliged their good old leader, Mr. Pemberton, to erase his name from a petition to Congress, against war, which had been delivered to a Representative of Pennsylvania, a member of the late and present administration. He accordingly permitted the old gentleman to erase his name. You must not, therefore, expect that your book will have any more effect on the society of Friends here, than on the English merchants settled among us. I apply this to the Friends in general, not universally. I know individuals among them as good patriots as we have. I thank you for the kind wishes and sentiments towards myself, expressed in your letter, and sincerely wish to yourself the blessings of health and happiness. Source https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl199.php
Upholding the Bible, but Not Evangelizing other Nations To Samuel Greenhow from Monticello - January 31, 1814 Dear Sir, Your letter on the subject of the Bible society arrived here while I was on a journey to Bedford which occasioned a long absence from home. Since my return it has lain with a mass of others accumulated during my absence, till I could answer them. I presume the views of the society are confined to our own country, for with the religion of other countries, my own forbids intermeddling. I had not supposed there was a family in this state not possessing a bible and wishing without having the means to procure one. When, in earlier life I was intimate with every class, I think I never was in a house where that was the case. However, circumstances may have changed, and the society I presume has evidence of the fact. I therefore enclose you cheerfully an order on Messrs Gibson and Jefferson for 50.D. For the purposes of the society, sincerely agreeing with you that there never was a more pure & sublime system of morality delivered to man than is to be found in the four evangelists. Accept the assurance of my esteem & respect Th: Jefferson
“Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Greenhow, 31 January 1814,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0105 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 7, 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 178.]
Sectarian Censorship of Published Works To N.G. Dufief form Monticello - April 19, 1814 I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this (publishing a scientific book) can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? And are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If M. de Becourt's book is false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose. I know little of its contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage, and over the table of contents. From this, the Newtonian philosophy seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which might be trusted to the strength of the two combatants; Newton certainly did not need the auxiliary arm of the government, and still less the holy author of our religion, as to what in it concerns him. I thought the work would be very innocent, and one which might confide to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but, if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy, and to read what he pleases. I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. One of its fundamental basis is expressed in these words: "The Roman Catholic religion, the only true one, is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish nation. The government protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other whatsoever."
Now I wish this was presented to those who question what you may sell, or we may buy, with a request to strike out the words, "Roman Catholic," and to insert the denomination of their own religion. This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like the Spanish religion, under the "protection of wise and just laws." It would shew to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation has sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of religion as a thing of theory only, and not of practice, as what would be a poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of Europe. But it is impossible that the laws of Pennsylvania, which set us the first example of the wholesome and happy effects of religious freedom, can permit the inquisitorial functions to be proposed to their courts. Under them you are surely safe.
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl229.php
The Source and Nature of Morality To Thomas Law Poplar Forest - June 13, 1814 [...] …how necessary was the care of the Creator in making the moral principle so much a part of our constitution so that no errors of reasoning or of speculation might lead us astray from its observance in practice. Of all the theories on this question, the most whimsical seems to have been that of Wollaston, who considers truth as the foundation of morality. The thief who steals your guinea does wrong only inasmuch as he acts a lie in using your guinea as if it were his own. Truth is certainly a branch of morality, and a very important one to society. But presented as its foundation, it is as if a tree taken up by the roots, had its stem reversed in the air, and one of its branches planted in the ground. Some have made the love of God the foundation of morality. This, too, is but a branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided into duties to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests are to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. [...] The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social animal, without planting in him social dispositions. [...]
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl230.php
The Philosophy of Jesus & Real Christianity To Charles Thomson from Monticello - January 09, 1816 MY DEAR AND ANCIENT FRIEND, -- An acquaintance of fifty-two years, for I think ours dates from 1764, calls for an interchange of notice now and then, that we remain in existence, the monuments of another age, and examples of a friendship unaffected by the jarring elements by which we have been surrounded, of revolutions of government, of party and of opinion. I am reminded of this duty by the receipt, through our friend Dr. Patterson, of your synopsis of the four Evangelists. I had procured it as soon as I saw it advertised, and had become familiar with its use; but this copy is the more valued as it comes from your hand. This work bears the stamp of that accuracy which marks everything from you, and will be useful to those who, not taking things on trust, recur for themselves to the fountain of pure morals. I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that: I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. If I had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side by side. [...]
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl239.php
The First Cause of the Universe & Resurrectionism To John Adams from Monticello - April 08, 1816
[...] I never heard Grimm express the opinion, directly, yet I always supposed him to be of the school of Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, the first of whom committed their system of atheism to writing in `Le bon sens,' and the last in his `Systeme de la Nature.' It was a numerous school in the Catholic countries, while the infidelity of the Protestant took generally the form of Theism. The former always insisted that it was a mere question of definition between them, the hypostasis of which on both sides was `Nature' or `the Universe:' that both agreed in the order of the existing system, but the one supposed it from eternity, the other as having begun in time. And when the atheist descanted on the unceasing motion and circulation of matter thro' the animal vegetable and mineral kingdoms, never resting, never annihilated, always changing form, and under all forms gifted with the power of reproduction; the Theist pointing `to the heavens above, and to the earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth,' asked if these did not proclaim a first cause, possessing intelligence and power; power in the production, and intelligence in the design and constant preservation of the system; urged the palpable existence of final causes, that the eye was made to see, and the ear to hear, and not that we see because we have eyes, and hear because we have ears; an answer obvious to the senses, as that of walking across the room was to the philosopher demonstrating the nonexistence of motion. [...] I have been lately amusing myself with Levi's book in answer to Dr. Priestley. It is a curious and tough work. His style is inelegant and incorrect, harsh and petulant to his adversary, and his reasoning flimsy enough. Some of his doctrines were new to me, particularly that of his two resurrections: THE FIRST a particular one of all the dead, in body as well as soul, who are to live over again, the Jews in a state of perfect obedience to God, the other nations in a state of corporeal punishment for the sufferings they have inflicted on the Jews.
And he explains this resurrection of bodies to be only of the original stamen of Leibnitz, or the homunculus in semine masculino [a man in the male seed], considering that as a mathematical point, insusceptible of separation, or division. THE SECOND resurrection is a general one of souls and bodies, eternally to enjoy divine glory in the presence of the supreme being. He alleges that the Jews alone preserve the doctrine of the unity of god. Yet their god would be deemed a very indifferent man with us: and it was to correct their Anamorphosis of the deity that Jesus preached, as well as to establish the doctrine of a future state. However Levi insists that that was taught in the old testament, and even by Moses himself and the prophets. He agrees that an anointed prince was prophesied and promised: but denies that the character and history of Jesus has any analogy with that of the person promised. He must be fearfully embarrassing to the Hierophants of fabricated Christianity; because it is their own armor in which he clothes himself for the attack. For example, he takes passages of Scripture from their context (which would give them a very different meaning) strings them together, and makes them point towards what object he pleases; he interprets them figuratively, typically, analogically, hyperbolically; he calls in the aid of emendation, transposition, ellipsis, metonymy, and every other figure of rhetoric; the name of one man is taken for another, one place for another, days and weeks for months and years; and finally avails himself of all his advantage over his adversaries by his superior knowledge of the Hebrew, speaking in the very language of the divine communication, while they can only fumble on with conflicting and disputed translations. Such is this war of giants. And how can such pygmies as you and I decide between them? For myself I confess that my head is not formed tantas componere lites [to settle so many disputes].
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl242.php
Against Trinity and False Priests To Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, from Monticello - July 30, 1816 Dear Sir, [...] Altho’ I rarely waste time in reading on theological subjects, as mangled by our Pseudo-Christians, I can readily suppose Basanistos may be amusing. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks [charlatans] calling themselves the priests of Jesus. If it could be understood it would not answer their purpose. Their security is in their faculty of shedding darkness, like the cuttlefish, thro’ the element in which they move, and making it impenetrable to the eye of a pursuing enemy. And there they will skulk, until some rational creed can occupy the void which the obliteration of their duperies would leave in the minds of our honest and unsuspecting brethren. Whenever this shall take place, I believe that Christianism may be universal & eternal. I salute you with great esteem and respect. - TH: Jefferson “Thomas Jefferson to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July 1816,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0167 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 10, May 1816 to 18 January 1817, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 277–278.]
The False Power and Judgments of Priests To Mrs. Samuel H. Smith from Monticello - August 06, 1816 [...] I recognize the same motives of goodness in the solicitude you express on the rumor supposed to proceed from a letter of mine to Charles Thomson, on the subject of the Christian religion. It is true that, in writing to the translator of the Bible and Testament, that subject was mentioned; but equally so that no adherence to any particular mode of Christianity was there expressed, nor any change of opinions suggested. A change from what? The priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to ascribe to me religious, or rather anti-religious sentiments, of their own fabric, but such as soothed their resentments against the act of Virginia for establishing religious freedom. They wished him to be thought atheist, deist, or devil, who could advocate freedom from their religious dictations. But I have always thought religion was a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to him, and not to the priests. I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I have ever judged the religion of others by their lives, and by this test, my dear Madam, I have been satisfied yours must be an excellent one, to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read. By the same test the world must judge me. But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive, a declared assent to all their interested absurdities. My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there. These, therefore, they brand with such nick-names as their enmity chooses gratuitously to impute.
I have left the world, in silence, to judge of causes from their effects; and I am consoled in this course, my dear friend, when I perceive the candor with which I am judged by your justice and discernment; and that, notwithstanding the slanders of the saints, my fellow citizens have thought me worthy of trusts. The imputations of irreligion having spent their force; they think an imputation of change might now be turned to account as a holster for their duperies. I shall leave them, as heretofore, to grope on in the dark. [...] Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl247.php
Against the Athanasian Trinity To Wells & Lilly from Monticello April 1, 1818 [...] I make you my acknowledgements for the sermon on the Unity of God, and am glad to see our countrymen looking that question in the face. It must end in a return to primitive christianity, and the disbandment of the unintelligible Athanasian jargon of 3. being 1. and 1. being 3. This sermon is one of the strongest pieces against it. I observe you are about printing a work of Belsham’s on the same subject, for which I wish to be a subscriber, and enclose you a 5.D. bill, there being none of fractional denominations. The surplus therefore may stand as I shall be calling for other things. Accept the assurance of my great respect. - Th: Jefferson “Thomas Jefferson to Wells & Lilly, 1 April 1818,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-12-02-0483 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 12, 1 September 1817 to 21 April 1818, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, pp. 575–577.] Samuel Cooper Thacher’s Unity of God, A Sermon, Delivered in America, September, 1815 (Liverpool and Boston, [1817]; Poor, Jefferson’s Library, 9 [nos. 531–2])
Against Calvin & Hopkins, Saved by Works to Thomas B. Parker, from Monticello - May 15, 1819 To Thomas B. Parker, I thank you, Sir, for the pamphlet you have been so kind as to send me on the reveries, not to say insanities of Calvin & Hopkins; yet the latter, I believe, is the proper term. (John) Locke defines a madman to be one who has a kink in his head on some particular subject, which neither reason nor fact can untangle. I grant him that postulate, and he reasons as correctly as other men. This was the real condition of Calvin and Hopkins, on whom reasoning was wasted. The straight-jacket alone was their proper remedy. You ask my opinion on this subject. but when we see so many Hopkinsonian religions in the world, all different, yet every one confident it is the only true one, a man must be very clear-sighted who can see the impression of the finger of God on any particular one of them. Were I to be the founder of a new sect, I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee, advise them to extract the honey of every sect. My fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin’s, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power. I salute you with respect and good-will. Th: Jefferson
“Thomas Jefferson to Thomas B. Parker, 15 May 1819,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-14-02-0292 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 14, 1 February to 31 August 1819, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017, pp. 302–303.] “A Lover of the Truth” [Charles Prentiss?], The Trial: Calvin and Hopkins versus the Bible and Common Sense ([Boston, 1819]; Poor, Jefferson’s Library, 9 [no. 534]).
Against Sectarianism, False Doctrine To Ezra Stiles Ely, from Monticello - June 25, 1819 Your favor Sir, of the 14th has been duly received, and with it the book you were so kind as to forward to me. [...] In that branch of religion which regards the moralities of life, and the duties of a social being, which teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do good to all men, I am sure that you & I do not differ. We probably differ on that which relates to the dogmas of theology, the foundation of all sectarianism, and on which no two sects dream alike; for if they did they would then be of the same. You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. I am not a Jew: and therefore do not adopt their theology, which supposes the god of infinite justice to punish the sins of the fathers upon their children, unto the 3d and 4th generation: and the benevolent and sublime reformer of that religion has told us only that God is good and perfect, but has not defined him. I am therefore of His theology, believing that we have neither words nor ideas adequate to that definition. And if we could all, after his example, leave the subject as undefinable, we should all be of one sect, doers of good & eschewers of evil. No doctrines of his lead to schism. It is the speculations of crazy theologists which have made a Babel of a religion the most moral and sublime ever preached to man, and calculated to heal, and not to create differences. These religious animosities I impute to those who call themselves his ministers, and who engraft their casuistries [sophistries] on the stock of His simple precepts. I am sometimes more angry with them than is authorized by the blessed charities which he preached. To yourself, I pray for the acceptance of my great respect. Th: Jefferson “Thomas Jefferson to Ezra Stiles Ely, 25 June 1819,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-14-02-0428 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 14, 1 February to 31 August 1819, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017, pp. 470–471.]
Rescuing the Gospels from Unbiblical Tradition To William Short, October 31, 1819 Dear Sir, [...] Epictetus’ prototype Plato, eloquent as himself, dealing out mysticisms incomprehensible to the human mind, has been deified by certain sects usurping the name of Christians; because, in his foggy conceptions, they found a basis of impenetrable darkness whereon to rear fabrications as delirious, of their own invention. These they fathered blasphemously on him whom they claimed as their founder (Jesus), but who would disclaim them with the indignation which their caricatures of his religion so justly excite. [...] Seneca is indeed a fine moralist, disfiguring his work at times with some Stoicisms, and affecting too much of antithesis and point, yet giving us on the whole a great deal of sound and practical morality. But the greatest of all the Reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its luster from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man: outlines which it is lamentable he did not live to fill up. Epictetus & Epicurus give us laws for governing ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties & charities we owe to others. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent Moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems invented by Ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestly has successfully devoted his labors and learning.
It would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally & deeply afflicted mankind, but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain from the chaff of the historians of his life. I have sometimes thought of translating Epictetus (for he has never been tolerably translated into English) of adding the genuine doctrines of Epicurus from the Syntagma of Gassendi, and an Abstract from the Evangelists of whatever has the stamp of the eloquence and fine imagination of Jesus. The latter I attempted too hastily some 12. or 15. years ago. It was the work of 2. or 3. nights only at Washington, after getting thro’ the evening task of reading the letters and papers of the day.—but with one foot in the grave, these are now idle projects for me [...] Th. Jefferson
“Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 31 October 1819,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-15-02-0141-0001 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 15, 1 September 1819 to 31 May 1820, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 162–165.]
Pauline Corruption, Presbyterian Clergy, Calvin, & Trinity To William Short from Monticello - April 13, 1820 Dear Sir Your favor of Mar. 27. is received, and my granddaughter Ellen has undertaken to copy the Syllabus, which will therefore be enclosed. It was originally written to Dr. Rush. on his death, fearing that the inquisition of the public might get hold of it, I asked the return of it from the family, which they kindly complied with at the request of another friend, I had given him a copy. he lent it to his friend to read, who copied it, and in a few months it appeared in the theological magazine of London. Happily that repository is scarcely known in this country; and the Syllabus therefore is still a secret, and in your hands I am sure it will continue so. But while this Syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in its true and high light, as no imposter himself, but a great Reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of spiritualism: he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin, I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it Etc. Etc. It is the innocence of his character, the purity & sublimity of his moral precepts, the eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of the apologues in which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes indeed needing indulgence to Eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies too may be founded on a postulate which all may not be ready to grant. among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate therefore the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, & leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me to try to sift them apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that his part composed the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been given to us by man.
The Syllabus is therefore of his doctrines, not all of mine. I read them as I do those of other ancient and modern moralists, with a mixture of approbation and dissent. [...] The serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous. Their pulpits are now resounding with denunciations against the appointment of Dr Cooper whom they charge as a Monotheist in opposition to their tritheism. Hostile as these sects are in every other point, to one another, they unite in maintaining their mystical theogony against those who believe there is one god only. The Presbyterian clergy are loudest. the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical, and ambitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be now obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three, nor subscribe to that of Calvin that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to Calvinistic creed. They pant to reestablish by law that holy inquisition, which they can now only infuse into public opinion. We have most unwisely committed to the hierophants of our particular superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of the Universe; we have given them stated and privileged days to collect and catechise us, opportunities of delivering their oracles to the people in mass, and of molding their minds as wax in the hollow of their hands. But, in spite of their fulminations against endeavors to enlighten the general mind, to improve the reason of the people, and encourage them in their use of it, the liberality of this state will support this institution, and give fair play to the cultivation of reason. [...] I salute you with constant and affectionate friendship and respect. Th: Jefferson
“Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 April 1820,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-15-02-0505 . [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 15, 1 September 1819 to 31 May 1820, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 538–541.]
Jesus, the Great Reformer of Judaism & Textual Criticism To William Short from Monticello - August 4, 1820 Dear Sir, I owe you a letter for your favor of June the 29th, which was received in due time; and there being no subject of the day, of particular interest, I will make this a supplement to mine of April the 13th. My aim in that was, to justify the character of Jesus against the fictions of his pseudo-followers, which have exposed him to the inference of being an impostor. For if we could believe that he really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods and the charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that he was an impostor. I give no credit to their falsifications of his actions and doctrines, and to rescue his character, the postulate in my letter asked only what is granted in reading every other historian. When Livy and Siculus, for example, tell us things which coincide with our experience of the order of nature, we credit them on their word, and place their narrations among the records of credible history. But when they (Catholics) tell us of calves speaking, of statues sweating blood, and other things against the course of nature, we reject these as fables not belonging to history. In like manner, when an historian, speaking of a character well known and established on satisfactory testimony, imputes to it things incompatible with that character, we reject them without hesitation, and assent to that only of which we have better evidence. Had Plutarch informed us that Caesar and Cicero passed their whole lives in religious exercises, and abstinence from the affairs of the world, we should reject what was so inconsistent with their established characters, still crediting what he relates in conformity with our ideas of them.
So again, the superlative wisdom of Socrates is testified by all antiquity, and placed on ground not to be questioned. When, therefore, Plato puts into his mouth such paralogisms, such quibbles on words, and sophisms, as a school boy would be ashamed of, we conclude they were the whimsies of Plato's own foggy brain, and acquit Socrates of puerilities so unlike his character. (Speaking of Plato, I will add that no writer, ancient or modern, has bewildered the world with more ignes fatui [fires of the foolish], than this renowned philosopher, in Ethics, in Politics and Physics. In the latter, to specify a single example, compare his views of the animal economy, in his Timaeus, with those of Mrs. Bryan in her Conversations on Chemistry, and weigh the science of the canonized philosopher against the good sense of the unassuming lady. But Plato's visions have furnished a basis for endless systems of mystical theology, and he is therefore all but adopted as a Christian saint. It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified. But to return from this parenthesis.) I say that this free exercise of reason is all I ask for the vindication of the character of Jesus. We find in the writings of his biographers a matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticism and fabrications. Intermixed with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed. These could not be inventions of the groveling authors who relate them. They are far beyond the powers of their feeble minds. They showed that there was a character, the subject of their history, whose splendid conceptions were above all suspicion of being interpolations from their hands. Can we be at a loss in separating such materials, and ascribing each to its genuine author? The difference is obvious to the eye and to the understanding, and we may read as we run to each his part; and I will venture to affirm, that he who, as I have done, will undertake to winnow this grain from its chaff, will find it not to require a moment's consideration. The parts fall asunder of themselves, as would those of an image of metal and clay.
There are, I acknowledge, passages not free from objection, which we may, with probability, ascribe to Jesus himself; but claiming indulgence from the circumstances under which he acted. His object was the reformation of some articles in the religion of the Jews, as taught by Moses. That sect had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust. Jesus, taking for his type the best qualities of the human head and heart, wisdom, justice, goodness, and adding to them power, ascribed all of these, but in infinite perfection, to the Supreme Being, and formed him really worthy of their adoration. Moses had either not believed in a future state of existence, or had not thought it essential to be explicitly taught to his people. Jesus inculcated that doctrine with emphasis and precision. Moses had bound the Jews to many idle ceremonies, mummeries and observances, of no effect towards producing the social utilities which constitute the essence of virtue; Jesus exposed their futility and insignificance. The one instilled into his people the most anti-social spirit towards other nations; the other preached philanthropy and universal charity and benevolence. The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous. Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law. He was justifiable, therefore, in avoiding these by evasions, by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications of scraps of the prophets, and in defending himself with these their own weapons, as sufficient, _ad homines_, at least. That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the Son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore. But that he might conscientiously believe himself inspired from above, is very possible. The whole religion of the Jews, inculcated on him from his infancy, was founded in the belief of divine inspiration. The fumes of the most disordered imaginations were recorded in their religious code, as special communications of the Deity; and as it could not but happen that, in the course of ages, events would now and then turn up to which some of these vague rhapsodies might be accommodated by the aid of allegories, figures, types, and other tricks upon words, they have not only preserved their credit with the Jews of all subsequent times, but are the foundation of much of the religions of those who have schismatized from them.
Elevated by the enthusiasm of a warm and pure heart, conscious of the high strains of an eloquence which had not been taught him, he might readily mistake the coruscations of his own fine genius for inspirations of an higher order. This belief carried, therefore, no more personal imputation, than the belief of Socrates, that himself was under the care and admonitions of a guardian Daemon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations, while perfectly sane on all other subjects. Excusing, therefore, on these considerations, those passages in the gospels which seem to bear marks of weakness in Jesus, ascribing to him what alone is consistent with the great and pure character of which the same writings furnish proofs, and to their proper authors their own trivialities and imbecilities, I think myself authorized to conclude the purity and distinction of his character, in opposition to the impostures which those authors would fix upon him; and that the postulate of my former letter is no more than is granted in all other historical works
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl261.php
The Philosophy of Christian Materialism To John Adams from Monticello - August 15, 1820 My Dear Sir, [...] But enough of criticism: let me turn to your puzzling letter of May 12. on matter, spirit, motion etc. Its crowd of scepticisms kept me from sleeping. I read it, and laid it down: read it, and laid it down, again and again: and to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne, `I feel: therefore I exist.' I feel bodies which are not myself: there are other existencies then. I call them matter. I feel them changing place. This gives me motion. Where there is an absence of matter, I call it void, or nothing, or immaterial space. On the basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need. I can conceive thought to be an action of a particular organization of matter, formed for that purpose by its Creator, as well as that attraction in an action of matter, or magnetism of loadstone. When he who denies to the Creator the power of endowing matter with the mode of action called thinking shall shew how he could endow the Sun with the mode of action called attraction, which reins the planets in the tract of their orbits, or how an absence of matter can have a will, and, by that will, put matter into motion, then the materialist may be lawfully required to explain the process by which matter exercises the faculty of thinking. When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of “nothings”. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are “nothings”, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus taught nothing of it. He told us indeed that `God is a spirit,' but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter.
And the ancient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an ethereal gas; but still matter. Origen says: `Deus reapse corporalis est; sed graviorum tantum corporum ratione, incorporeus.' [God is really corporeal; but only in the manner of heavier bodies, incorporeal.] Tertullian `quid enim deus nisi corpus?' [For what is a god but a body?] and again. `quis negabit deumesse corpus? Etsi deus spiritus, spiritus etiam corpus est, sui generis, in sua effigie.' [who will deny that he took down the body? Although God is a spirit, the spirit is also a body, of its own kind, in its own image.] St. Justin Martyr `{to Theion phamen einai asomaton oyk oti asomaton -- epeide de to me krateisthai ypo tinos, toy krateisthai timioteron esti, dia toyto kaloymen ayton asomaton.}' [The divine body is not really incorporeal -- but because it is held by an elevated being, for this reason it is called incorporeal.] And St. Macarius, speaking of angels says: `quamvis enim subtilia sint, tamen in substantia, forma et figura, secundum tenuitatem naturae eorum, corpora sunt tenuia.' [for although they are subtle, yet in substance, form, and figure, according to the tenuousness of their nature, their bodies are tenuous.] And St. Austin, St. Basil, Lactantius, Tatian, Athenagoras and others, with whose writings I pretend not to be familiar, are said by those who are, to deliver the same doctrine. Turn to your Ocellus d'Argens 97. 105. and to his Timaeus 17. for these quotations.
In England, these Immaterialists might have been burnt until the 29. Car. 2. when the writ de haeretico comburendo was abolished: and here until the revolution, that statute not having extended to us. All heresies being now done away with us, these schismatists are merely atheists, differing from the material Atheist only in their belief that `nothing made something,' and from the material deist who believes that matter alone can operate on matter. Rejecting all organs of information therefore but my senses, I rid myself of the Pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and anti-physical so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind. A single sense may indeed be sometimes deceived, but rarely: and never all our senses together, with their faculty of reasoning. They evidence realities; and there are enough of these for all the purposes of life, without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence. I am sure that I really know many, many, things, and none more surely than that I love you with all my heart, and pray for the continuance of your life until you shall be tired of it yourself.
[...] Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl262.php
The False Shepherds of Platonic Christianity To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse from Monticello - June 26, 1822 Dear Sir, I have received and read with thankfulness and pleasure your denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine. Yet, however sound in its principles, I expect it will be but a sermon to the wind. You will find it as difficult to inculcate these sanative precepts on the sensualities of the present day, as to convince an Athanasian that there is but one God. I wish success to both attempts, and am happy to learn from you that the latter, at least, is making progress, and the more rapidly in proportion as our Platonizing Christians make more stir and noise about it. The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. 1. That there is one only God, and he is all perfect. 2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments. 3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion. These are the great points on which he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin. 1. That there are three Gods. 2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, are nothing. 3. That faith is everything, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit in its faith. 4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use. 5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save. Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin?
Verily I say these are the false shepherds foretold as to enter not by the door into the sheepfold, but to climb up some other way. They are mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-religion made up of the deleria of crazy imaginations, as foreign from Christianity as is that of Mahomet. Their blasphemies have driven thinking men into infidelity, who have too hastily rejected the supposed author himself, with the horrors so falsely imputed to him. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian. I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian. But much I fear, that when this great truth shall be re-established, its votaries will fall into the fatal error of fabricating formulas of creed and confessions of faith, the engines which so soon destroyed the religion of Jesus, and made of Christendom a mere Aceldama; that they will give up morals for mysteries, and Jesus for Plato. How much wiser are the Quakers, who, agreeing in the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, schismatize about no mysteries, and, keeping within the pale of common sense, suffer no speculative differences of opinion, any more than of feature, to impair the love of their brethren. Be this the wisdom of Unitarians, this the holy mantle which shall cover within its charitable circumference all who believe in one God, and who love their neighbor! I conclude my sermon with sincere assurances of my friendly esteem and respect.
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl268.php
The Blasphemy and Tyranny of the Five Points of Calvinism To Dr. Thomas Cooper from Monticello - Nov 2, 1822 Dear Sir, Your favor of October the 18th came to hand yesterday. The atmosphere of our country is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud of fanaticism, lighter in some parts, denser in others, but too heavy in all. I had no idea, however, that: in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy and absurdity of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation. In Boston, however, and its neighborhood, Unitarianism has advanced to so great strength, as now to humble this haughtiest of all religious sects; insomuch that they condescend to interchange with them and the other sects, the civilities of preaching freely and frequently in each others' meeting-houses. In Rhode Island, on the other hand, no sectarian preacher will permit an Unitarian to pollute his desk. In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use to a mere earthly lover. In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others' preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony.
It is not so in the districts where Presbyterianism prevails undividedly. Their ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they had power. Systematic in grasping at an ascendency over all other sects, they aim, like the Jesuits, at engrossing the education of the country, are hostile to every institution which they do not direct, and jealous at seeing others begin to attend at all to that object. The diffusion of instruction, to which there is now so growing an attention, will be the remote remedy to this fever of fanaticism; while the more proximate one will be the progress of Unitarianism. That this will, ere long, be the religion of the majority from north to south, I have no doubt. [...] I salute you with constant friendship and respect.
Source: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl270.php
Unitarianism as Revival of Primitive Christianity To James Smith, from Monticello - December 8, 1822 Sir, I have to thank you for your pamphlets on the subject of Unitarianism, and to express my gratification with your efforts for the revival of primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical fact is better established than that the doctrine of one god, pure and uncompounded was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was among the efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity of the supreme being ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but by the sword of civil government wielded at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a god like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. and a strong proof of the solidity of the primitive faith is it’s restoration as soon as a nation arises which vindicates to itself the freedom of religious opinion, and it’s eternal divorce from the civil authority. The pure and simple unity of the creator of the universe is now all but ascendant in the Eastern states; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States. The Eastern presses are giving us many excellent pieces on the subject, and Priestly’s learned writings on it are, or should be in every hand. In fact the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one is so incomprehensible to the human mind that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea. He who thinks he does only deceives himself. He proves also that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities, the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder is the sport of every wind. With such a person, gullibility (which they call faith) takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.
I write with freedom, because, while I claim a right to believe in one god, if so my reason tells me, I yield as freely to others that of believing in three. Both religions I find make honest men, & that is the only point society has any authority to look to—altho’ this mutual freedom should produce mutual indulgence, yet I wish not to be brought in question before the public on this or any other subject, and I pray you to consider me as writing under that trust. I take no part in controversies, religious or political. At the age of 80, tranquility is the greatest good of life, and the strongest of our desires that of dying in the good will of all mankind. And with the assurances of all my good will to Unitarian & Trinitarian, to whig & tory accept for yourself that of my entire respect. Th: Jefferson “From Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 8 December 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3202.
Against Calvinism and the Pre-Existence of Christ Incarnate To John Adams from Monticello - April 11, 1823 Dear Sir The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of ‘mon Dieu! jusque à quand’! [translation ‘My god! Until when!’] would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Dæmonism. If ever man worshiped a false god, he did. The (God) being described in his 5 points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a dæmon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Now one sixth of mankind only are supposed to be Christians: the other five sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian revelation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a god! This gives completely a gain-de-cause [translation ‘winning case’] to the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D’Holbach. The argument which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is that, in every hypothesis of Cosmogony you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. They say then that it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, as it is now going on, and may for ever go on by the principle of reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or Creator of the world, a being whom we see not, and know not, of whose form substance and mode or place of existence, or of action no sense informs us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend.
On the contrary I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proof of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order. stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view, comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos. So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro’ all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to the unit [one], in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable than that of the few in the other hypothesis some early Christians indeed have believed in the coeternal pre-existence of both the Creator and the world, without changing their relation of cause & effect.
That this was the opinion of St Thomas, we are informed by Cardinal Toleto, in these words: ‘Deus ab æterno fuit jam omnipotens, sicut cum produxit mundum. ab æterno potuit producere mundum.—si sol ab æterno esset, lumen an æterno esset; et si pes, similiter vestigium. at lumen et vestigium effectus sunt efficientis solis et pedis; potuit ergo cum causâ æterna effectus coæterna esse. cujus sententiæ est S. Thomas Theologorum primus.’ - Cardinal Toleta. [translated] ‘God was already omnipotent from eternity, just as when he brought forth the world. He could produce the world from eternity.—If the sun were from eternity, would light be eternal? and if a foot, likewise a trace. but the light and the track are the effect of the efficient sun and foot; therefore, with an eternal cause, the effect could be eternal. of whose opinion St. Thomas is the first of the theologians’ - Cardinal Toleta. Of the nature of this being we know nothing. Jesus tells us that ‘God is a Spirit.’ (John 4:24), but without defining what a spirit is ‘πνευμα ὁ θεος.’ [translation: ‘pneuma ho Theos’ or ‘Spirit of God’] down to the 3rd century we know that it was still deemed material; but of a lighter subtler matter than then our gross bodies. So says Origen. ‘Deus igitur, cui anima similis est, juxta Originem, reapte corporalis est; sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus.’ - Huet [translation] ‘God, then, to whom the soul is like, according to Origen, is properly corporeal; but incorporeal only in relation to heavier bodies.’] -Huet These are the words of Huet in his commentary on Origen. Origen himself says: ‘appellatio ασοματον apud nostros scriptores est inusitata et incognita.’ [translated] ‘The phrase ‘asomaton’ [incorporeal] among our writers is unusual and unknown’
So also Tertullian: ‘Quis autem negabit Deum esse corpus, etsi deus spiritus? spiritus etiam corporis sui generis, in suâ effigie.’ - Tertullian. [translated] ‘But who will deny that God is a body, even though God is a spirit? the spirit also of the body of its kind, in its image.’ -Tertullian These two fathers were of the 3rd century. Calvin’s character of this supreme being seems chiefly copied from that of the Jews. But the reformation of these blasphemous attributes, and substitution of those more worthy, pure and sublime, seems to have been the chief object of Jesus in his discourse to the Jews: and his doctrine of the Cosmogony of the world is very clearly laid down in the 3 first verses of the 1st chapter of John, in these words: ‘εν αρχη ην ὁ λογος, και ὁ λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεος ην ὁ λογος. οὑτος ην εν αρχη προς τον θεον. παντα δε αυτου εγενετο, και χωρις αυτου εγενετο ουδε ἑν ὁ γεγονεν.’ Which, truly translated means: ‘In the beginning God existed, and reason [or mind] was with God, and that mind was God. This was in the beginning with God. all things were created by it, and without it was made not one thing which was made.’ Yet this text, so plainly declaring the doctrine of Jesus that the world was created by the supreme, intelligent being, has been perverted by modern Christians to build up a second person of their tritheism by a mistranslation of the word λογος. One of its legitimate meanings indeed is ‘a word.’ but, in that sense, it makes an unmeaning jargon: while the other meaning ‘reason,’ equally legitimate, explains rationally the eternal preexistence of God, and his creation of the world. Knowing how incomprehensible it was that ‘a word,’ the mere action or articulation of the voice and organs of speech could create a world, they undertake to make of this articulation a second preexisting being, and ascribe to him, and not to God, the creation of the universe.
The Atheist here plumes himself on the uselessness of such a God, and the simpler hypothesis of a self-existent universe. The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away (with) all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this, the most venerated reformer of human errors. So much for your quotation of Calvin’s ‘Mon Dieu! Jusqu’a quand?’ in which, when addressed to the God of Jesus, and our God, I join you cordially, and await his time and will with more readiness than reluctance. May we meet there again, in Congress, with our ancient Colleagues, and receive with them the seal of approbation ‘Well done, good and faithful servants.’
From Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 11 April 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3446
References All Public Domain references, sourced from https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/ and https://founders.archives.gov