The Age of Reason Thomas Paine (beach read TXT) 📖

in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days⁠—for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.”

I forbear making any remark on this abominable imposition of Matthew. The thing glaringly speaks for itself. It is priests and commentators that I rather ought to censure, for having preached falsehood so long, and kept people in darkness with respect to those impositions. I am not contending with these men upon points of doctrine, for I know that sophistry has always a city of refuge. I am speaking of facts; for wherever a thing called a fact is a falsehood, the faith founded upon it is delusion, and the Doctrine raised upon it not true. Ah, reader, put thy trust ia thy Creator, find thou wilt be safe; but if thou trustest to the book called the Scriptures, thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood. But I return to my subject.

There is, among the whims and reveries of Zechariah, mention made of thirty pieces of silver given to a potter. They can hardly have been so stupid as to mistake a potter for a field; and if they had, the passage in Zechariah has no more to do with Jesus, Judas, and the field to bury strangers in, than that already quoted. I will recite the passage.

Zechariah 11:7: “And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called ‘Beauty,’ and the other I called ‘Bands,’ and I fed the flock. Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul loathed them, and their souls also abhorred me. Then said I, I will not feed you; that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat everyone the flesh of another. And I took my staff, even ‘Beauty,’ and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day; and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord.

“And I said unto them, if ye think good give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them unto the potter in the house of the Lord.

“Then I cast asunder mine other staff even ‘Bands,’ that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.”89

There is no making either head or tail of this incoherent gibberish. His two staves, one called “Beauty” and the other “Bands,” is so much like a fairy tale, that I doubt if it had any other origin. There is, however, no part that has the least relation to the case stated in Matthew; on the contrary, it is the reverse of it. Here the thirty pieces of silver, whatever it was for, is called a goodly price; it was as much as the thing was worth, and according to the language of the day, was approved of by the Lord, and the money given to the potter in the house of the Lord. In the case of Jesus and Judas as stated in Matthew, the thirty pieces of silver were the price of blood; the transaction was condemned by the Lord, and the money, when refunded, was refused admittance into the treasury. Everything in the two cases is the reverse of each other.

Besides this, a very different and direct contrary account to that of Matthew is given of the affair of Judas, in the book called the Acts of the Apostles. According to that book the case is, that so far from Judas repenting and returning the money, and the high priest buying a field with it to bury strangers in, Judas kept the money and bought a field with it for himself; and instead of hanging himself as Matthew says, that he fell headlong and burst asunder.

Some commentators endeavor to get over one part of the contradiction by ridiculously supposing that Judas hanged himself first and the rope broke.

Acts 1:16: “Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was a guide to them that took Jesus. (David says not a word about Judas); verse 17, for he (Judas) was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.”

Verse 18: “Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and his bowels gushed out.” Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

I pass on to the twelfth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

Matthew, 27:35: “And they crucified him and parted his garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.” This expression is in the 22nd Psalm, verse 18. The writer of that Psalm (whoever he was, for the Psalms are a collection, and not the work of one man) is speaking of himself and of his own case, and not that of another. He begins this Psalm with the words which the New Testament writers ascribed to Jesus Christ⁠—“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”⁠—words which might be uttered by a complaining man without any great impropriety, but very improperly from the mouth of a reputed God.

The picture which the writer draws of his own situation, in this Psalm is gloomy enough. He is not prophesying