Note 24 — ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD RELIGION; HOW, AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE, SO MANY RELIGIONS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED INTO THE WORLD.

It was their want of success among the Jewish people which led to the resolution of seeking their fortune among the Gentiles; but as a little more knowledge than they possessed was necessary for the accomplishment of their design—the Gentiles being philosophically trained, and consequently too much the friends of truth and reason to be duped by trifles—the sectaries of Jesus gained over to their cause a young man24 of ardent temperament and active habits, somewhat better instructed than the illiterate fishermen of Galilee, and more capable of drawing audiences to listen to his talk. He being warned from heaven (miraculously of course), leagued himself with them, and drew over some partizans by the threat of “fabled hell,” (a plagiarism from the ancient poets), and by the hope of the joys of paradise, into which blessed abode he was impudent enough to assert that he had at one time been introduced.