Alternative Religion/ Library

THE INDICTMENT

I charge, and purpose to prove, from unimpeachable texts and historical records, and by authoritative clerical confessions, beyond the possibility of denial, evasion, or refutation:

1. That the Bible, in its every Book, and in the strictest legal and moral sense, is a huge forgery.
2. That every Book of the New Testament is a forgery of the Christian Church; and every significant passage in those Books, on which the fabric of the Church and its principal Dogmas are founded, is a further and conscious later forgery, wrought with definite fraudulent intent.
3. Especially, and specifically, that the “famous Petrine text”—“Upon this Rock I will build my church”—the cornerstone of the gigantic fabric of imposture,—and the other, “Go, teach all nations,”—were never uttered by the Jew Jesus, but are palpable and easily proven late Church forgeries.
4. That the Christian Church, from its inception in the first little Jewish-Christian religious societies until it reached the apex of its temporal glory and moral degradation, was a vast and tireless Forgery-mill.
5. That the Church was founded upon, and through the Dark Ages of Faith has battened on—(yet languishes decadently upon)—monumental and petty forgeries and pious frauds, possible only because of its own shameless mendacity and through the crass ignorance and superstition of the sodden masses of its deluded votaries, purposely kept in that base condition for purposes of ecclesiastical graft and aggrandizement through conscious and most unconscionable imposture.
6. That every conceivable form of religious lie, fraud and imposture has ever been the work of Priests; and through all the history of the Christian Church, as through all human history, has been—and, so far as they have not been shamed out of it by skeptical ridicule and exposure, yet is, the age-long stock in trade and sole means of existence of the priests and ministers of all the religions.
7. That the clerical mind, which “reasons in chains,” is, from its vicious and vacuous “education,” and the special selfish interests of the priestly class, incapable either of the perception or the utterance of truth, in matters where the interests of priestcraft are concerned. ¹⁰

My accusal, therefore, is not limited in purpose, scope or effect to any one Church or sect, but is aimed alike at all of the discordant factions of ancient Jewish and more modern Christian faith. For, as has been well said, “Faith is not knowledge, no more than that three is four, but eminently contained in it; so that he that knows, believes, and something more; but he that believes many times does not know—nay, if he doth barely and merely believe, he doth never know.” The same critical cleric at another place said: “Still less was it ever intended that men should so prostitute their reason, as to believe with infallible faith what they are unable to prove with infallible arguments.” (Chillingworth, Religion of Protestants, pp. 66, 412.) With infallible facts I purpose to blast the false pretenses of Priest-forged Faith.

It is matter of fact, that for some 1500 years of this Era there was but one “True Church” of Christ; and that Church claims with conscious pride the origin and authorship of all the New Testament Books, out of its own Holy bosom, by its own canonized Saints. The New Testament Books are, therefore, distinctively Catholic documents. That Church, therefore,—if these its credentials and documents are forgeries,—as from its own records I shall prove—itself forged all the Books of the New Testament and all the documents of religious dogma and propaganda the forgery of which shall be proved in this book, and did itself perpetrate all the pious frauds herein revealed, and is their chief beneficiary. All the other Christian sects, however, are sprung or severed from the original One True Church;—“all other forms of the Christian religion . . . originated by secession from the True Church, ... and their founders ... were externally members of the Church.” (CE. vii, 367.) All these Protestant sects, therefore, with full knowledge of the guilty facts and partakers in the frauds, found their claim to Divinity—and priestly emoluments—upon and through those tainted titles, and thus yet fully share the guilt as accomplices after the fact. The “Reformed” Sects, on breaking away from the old Monopoly of Forgery, appropriated the least clumsy and more plausible of the pious Counterfeit of Christianity, and for the centuries since have industriously and knowingly been engaged in passing the stolen counterfeit upon their own unsuspecting flocks; they are therefore equally guilty with the original Forgers of the Faith. 

OUTLINE OF CASE AND PROOFS

The proofs of my indictment are marvelously easy. They are to be found in amplest record of history and accredited ecclesiastic authorities, and in abounding incautious admissions made by the Recredited spokesmen of the Accused: upon these I shall freely and fully draw for complete proofs of my every specification. These damning things of the Church, scattered through many clerical volumes and concealed in many archives, are not well known to the pious or preoccupied layman. My task is simply to bring together ¹¹ the documentary proofs and expose them before the astonished eves of the modern reader; that is the prime merit of my work. To accomplish this purpose with unimpeachable certitude, I need and make no apology for the liberal use of quotation marks in presenting the ensuing startling array of accusations and confessions; to be followed by the plenary proofs.

As in the judicial process, I shall, before proceeding to the concrete proofs, define first the crime charged, and outline the scope of the evidence to be presented. I shall first make a prima facie justification of the charges, by citing a few generalities of confession of guilt, with corroborations by weighty supporting authorities, and thus create the proper “atmosphere” for the appreciation of the facts. Then shall come the shaming proofs in astounding detail. 

Next>

<Return to Start

Return to Texts Index