Many things in this book will greatly shock, and even give heartfelt pain to, numerous persons whom I greatly respect. I have a large share of the love of approbation, and naturally desire the good opinion of those with whom I have been associated in a long life. There is no pleasure in the fact that I have to stand quite alone in the eyes of nearly all Christendom. There is no satisfaction in being deemed a disturber of the peace of the great majority of those “professing and calling themselves Christians.” But, at the same time, I must not be indifferent in matters where I believe truth is concerned.

Before I withdrew from the orthodox ministry I used to wonder why God in his gracious providence had not seen fit to so order events as to give us a credible and undoubted history of the incarnation and birth of his Son Jesus Christ, and why that Saviour, who had come to repair the great evils inflicted upon our race by Adam, had never once mentioned that unfortunate fall.

I do not deny that there was a person named Jesus nearly nineteen hundred years ago. I think there were several persons bearing this name and who were contemporaneous, and that several of them were very good [pg 3] men; but that any one of them was such a person as is described in the Gospels I cannot believe. I lay special emphasis on the word such. Admitting for the sake of the argument the real, historical personality of Jesus of Nazareth, he has by the process of idealization become an impersonation, and I have so attempted to make it appear; and I cannot but think that this view is not inconsistent with the most enlightened piety and religious devotion, while this explanation relieves us of many things which are absurd and contradictory.

I desire to explain more fully than appears in the Table of Contents the plan of this book. I first combat the policy of suppression and deception, and insist that the whole truth shall be published, and have shown that sacerdotalism is responsible for the fact that it has not been done. As so-called Christianity is based upon Judaism, I undertake to show the fabulous character of many of the claims of the Jews, disclaiming all intention to asperse the character of Israelites of the present generation.

I thought it proper in this connection to give the substance of an open letter to the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on Moses and the Pentateuch—to which His Honor never responded—showing that the “law of Sinai was not the first of which we have any knowledge,” and that Moses was not “the greatest statesman and lawgiver the world had ever produced,” as the Chief-Justice had affirmed in a lecture before the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania. [pg 5]

Presenting brief views of the symbolic character of the Old Testament, and showing how “Astral Keys” unlock many Bible stories, I undertake to show that the so-called fall of Adam is a fable, nothing more; and then, as the first Adam is shown to be a myth, I go in search for the “last Adam.” Finding no knowledge of such a person except in the New Testament, I deem it necessary to briefly show the character of this book, that it may be determined how far it should be received as evidence in a matter of so much importance. Then in five chapters, more or less connected, I combat the idea of the historical, or rather traditional, Jesus, and follow with an examination of the evangelical dogma of Blood-Salvation, and close with a very brief summary of the Things that Remain as the foundation of faith.

I do not expect caste clergymen to read this book any farther than is necessary to denounce it. It is their way of meeting questions like those herein discussed. I am prepared to have certain dilettanti sneer-ingly say, “This book is of no critical value.” They are so accustomed to “scholarly essays” which “are poetically sentimental and floridly vague” that they have little respect for anything else. The book is intended for the common people, and not for the professional critics.

I do not expect everybody to agree with me, especially at first. Truth can afford to wait, and in years to come many points that I have made, which are now so startling, will be calmly and intelligently accepted. [pg 6]

There are probably mistakes in the book—mistakes in names, in dates, and perhaps in facts; but these will not affect the main argument. No man knows everything. Until recently it was never suspected by the learned world that The Contemplative Life was not written by Philo nearly nineteen centuries ago, instead of being written by a monk in the third century of the Christian era. Even Macaulay and Bancroft have made mistakes, and so have many other authors of good repute.

I have always tried to preserve a reverent spirit—a genuine respect for true religion and morality. I have always been profoundly religious, and cannot remember the time when I was not devout. But I do not believe that it is ever proper “to do evil that good may come.” In this work I have sought only the truth, in the firm conviction that superstition and falsehood cannot promote a course of right living, which is the object and aim of all true religion.

I have a supreme disregard for literary fame. I do not shrink from being called a compiler or even a plagiarist. There is absolutely very little of real originality in the world. I could have followed the course of many writers and absorbed or assimilated, and thus seemingly made my own what they had written; but I have chosen to quote freely, and so have substantially given the words of many authors of repute, and at the same time saved myself the labor of a re-coining, which does not, after all, deceive the intelligent reader. The books from which I largely [pg 7] quote are mainly voluminous and very expensive, and some of them are out of print. I am indebted to the learned foot-notes of Evan Powell Meredith in his prize essay on The Prophet of Nazareth for several things, and must not fail to acknowledge my obligations to certain living authors for valuable assistance, and especially to my friend Dr. Alexander Wilder, who prepared at my request the substance of Chapter X., The Drama of the Gospels, and who, in my judgment, has few superiors in classical and Oriental literature.

I sympathize with those persons who will complain-ingly exclaim, “You have taken away my Saviour, and I know not where you have laid him.” But suppose that we do not need a Saviour in the evangelical sense? Suppose that man has not fallen, but that the race has been rising these many centuries; and that while we have mainly to save ourselves, all the good and great men of all ages have aided us in the work of salvation by what they have said and done and suffered, so that instead of one savior we really have had many saviors. I think that this view is more reasonable and consoling than the commercial device of what is called the “scheme of redemption,” besides having scientific facts to sustain it.

I have preserved on the title-page some of my college degrees, to indicate my professional studies of theology and law, and not from motives of pedantry.

18. 2. WESTBROOK.

1707 Oxford Street,

Philadelphia.[pg 9]