quainted in geometry and the liberal arts, and thereby qualified for masters and wardens, which is seldom or ever the case with English Masons."

Under the head of Free-Masonry, written by the astronomer Lalande, in the French Encyclopedia, I expected, from his great knowledge in astronomy, to have found much information on the origin of Masonry; for what connection can there be between any institution and the sun and twelve signs of the zodiac, if there be not something in that institution, or in its origin, that has reference to astronomy? Every thing used as an hieroglyphic has reference to the subject and purpose for which it is used; and we are not to suppose the Free-Masons, among whom are many very learned and scientific men, to be such idiots as to make use of astronomical signs without some astronomical purpose.

But I was much disappointed in my expectation from Lalande. In speaking of the origin of Masonry, he says, "L'orgine de la Maconiere se perd, comme tant d'autres, dans l'obscurite des temps;" that is, the origin of Masonry, like many others, loses itself in the obscurity of time. When I came to this expression, I supposed Lalande a Mason, and on inquiry found he was. This passing over saved him from the embarrassment which Masons are under respecting the disclosure of their origin, and which they are sworn to conceal. There is a society of Masons in Dublin who take the name of Druids; these Masons must be supposed to have a reason for taking that name.

I come now to speak of the cause of secrecy used by the Masons.

The natural source of secrecy is fear. When any new religion overruns a former religion, the professors of the new become the persecutors of the old. We see this in all the instances that history brings before us. When Hilkiah the priest and Shaphan the scribe, in the reign of king Josiah, found or pretended to find the law, called the law of Moses, a thousand years after the time of Moses, (and it does not appear from the 2nd book of Kings, chap. xxii. xxiii., that such law was ever practised or known before the time of Josiah,) he established that law as a national religion, and put all the priests of the sun to death. When the Christian religion overran the Jewish religion, the Jews were the continual subjects of persecution in all Christian countries. When the Protestant religion in England overran the Roman Catholic religion, it was made death for a Catholic priest to be found in England. As this has been the case in all the instances we have any knowledge of, we are obliged to admit it with respect to the case in question, and that when the Christian religion overran the religion of the Druids in Italy, ancient Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, the Druids became the subjects of persecution. This would naturally and necessarily oblige such of them as remained attached to their original religion to meet in secret and under the strongest injunctions of secrecy. Their safety depended upon it. A false brother might expose the lives of many of them to destruction;

and from the remains of the religion of the Druids, hus preserved, arose the institution which, to avoid the name of Druid, took that of Mason, and practised, under this new name, the rights and ceremonies of Druids.

THOMAS PAINE.

EXTRACT OF A REPLY

TO THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF.

GENESIS.

THE bishop says, "the oldest book in the world is Genesis." This is mere assertion; he offers no proof of it, and I go to controvert it, and to shew that the book of Job, which is not a Hebrew book, but is a book of the Gentiles, translated into Hebrew, is much older than the book of Genesis.

The book of Genesis means the book of generations; to which are prefixed two chapters, the first and second, which contain two different cosmogonies, that is, two different accounts of the creation of the world, written by different persons, as I have shewn in the preceding part of this work.

The first cosmogony begins at the first verse of the first chapter, and ends at the end of the third verse of the second chapter; for the adverbial conjunction thus, with which the second chapter begins, shews those three verses to belong to the first chapter. The second cosmogony begins at the fourth verse of the second chapter, and ends with that chapter.

In the first cosmogony the name of God is used without any epithet joined to it, and is repeated thirty-five times. In the second cosmogony it is always the Lord God, which is repeated eleven times. These two different styles of expression shew these two chapters to be the work of two different persons, and the contradictions they contain shew they cannot be the work of one and the same person, as I have already shewn.

The third chapter, in which the style of Lord God is continued in every instance, except in the supposed conversation between the woman and the serpent (for in every place in that chapter where the writer speaks, it is always the Lord God), shews this chapter to belong to the second cosmogony,

This chapter gives an account of what is called the fall of man, which is no other than a fable borrowed from and constructed upon the religion of Zoroaster, or the Persians, of the annual progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. It is the fall of the year, the approach and evil of winter, announced by the ascension of the autumnal constellation of the serpent of the zodiac, and not the moral fall of man, that is the key of the allegory, and of the fable in Genesis borrowed from it.

The fall of man in Genesis is said to have been produced by

eating a certain fruit, generally taken to be an apple. The fall of the year is the season for gathering and eating the new apples of that year. The allegory, therefore, holds with respect to the fruit, which it would not have done had it been an early summer fruit. It holds also with respect to place. The tree is said to have been placed in the midst of the garden. But why in the midst of the garden more than in any other place? The solution of the allegory gives the answer to this question, which is, that the fall of the year, when apples and other autumnal fruits are ripe, and when days and nights are of equal length, is the mid-season between summer and

winter.

It holds also with respect to clothing, and the temperature of the air. It is said in Genesis, chap. iii., ver. 21, " Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." But why are coats of skins mentioned? This cannot be understood as referring to any thing of the nature of moral evil. solution of the allegory gives again the answer to this question, which is, that the evil of winter, which follows the fall of the year, fabulously called in Genesis the fall of man, makes warm clothing necessary.

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But of these things I shall speak fully when I come in another part to treat of the ancient religion of the Persians, and compare it with the modern religion of the New Testament. At present, I shall confine myself to the comparative antiquity of the books of Genesis and Job, taking, at the same time, whatever I may find in my way with respect to the fabulousness of the book of Genesis ; for if what is called the fall of man in Genesis be fabulous or allegorical, that which is called the redemption in the New Testament cannot be a fact. It is morally impossible, and impossible also in the nature of things, that moral good can redeem physical evil. I return to the bishop.

If Genesis be, as the bishop asserts, the oldest book in the world, and, consequently, the oldest and first written book of the Bible, and if the extraordinary things related in it, such as the creation of the world in six days, the tree of life, and of good and evil, the story of Eve and the talking serpent, the fall of man and his being turned out of paradise, were facts, or even believed by the Jews to be facts, they would be referred to as fundamental matters, and that very frequently, in the books of the Bible that were written by various authors afterwards; whereas there is not a book, chapter, or verse of the Bible, from the time Moses is said to have written the book of Genesis, to the book of Malachi, the last book in the Bible, including a space of more than a thousand years, in which there is any mention made of these things or any of them, nor are they so much as alluded to. How will the bishop solve this difficulty, which stands as a circumstantial contradiction to his assertion?

There are but two ways of solving it.

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First, that the book of Genesis is not an ancient book; that it has been written by some (now) unknown person, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about a thousand years after the time that Moses is said to have lived, and put as a preface or introduction to the other books, when they were formed into a canon in the time of the second temple, and, therefore, not having existed before that time, none of these things mentioned in it could be referred to in these books.

Secondly, that admitting Genesis to have been written by Moses, the Jews did not believe the things stated in it to be true, and, therefore, as they could not refer to them as facts, they would not refer to them as fables. The first of these solutions goes against the antiquity of the book, and the second against its authenticity, and the bishop may take which he pleases.

But be the author of Genesis whoever he may, there is abundant evidence to show, as well from the early Christian writers, as from the Jews themselves, that the things stated in that book were not believed to be facts. Why they have been believed as facts since that time, when better and fuller knowledge existed on the case than is known now, can be accounted for only on the imposition of priestcraft.

Augustine, one of the early champions of the Christian church, acknowledges, in his City of God, that the adventure of Eve and the serpent, and the account of Paradise, were generally considered as fiction or allegory. He regards them as allegory himself, without attempting to give any explanation, but he supposes that a better explanation might be found than those that had been offered.

Origen, another early champion of the church, says, "What man of good sense can ever persuade himself that there were a first, a second, and a third day, and that each of these days had a night, when there were yet neither sun, moon, nor stars? What man can be stupid enough to believe that God, acting the part of a gardener, had planted a garden in the east, that the tree of life was a real tree, and that its fruit had the virtue of making those who eat of it live for ever?"

Maimonides, one of the most learned and celebrated of the Jewish rabbins, who lived in the eleventh century (about seven or eight hundred years ago) and to whom the bishop refers in his answer to me, is very explicit, in his book entitled More Nebachim, upon the non-reality of the things stated in the account of the Creation in the book of Genesis. "We ought not (says he) to understand, nor take according to the letter, that which is written in the book of the Creation, nor to have the same ideas of it with common men; otherwise, our ancient sages, would not have recommended, with so much care, to conceal the sense of it, and not to raise the allegorical veil which envelopes the truths it contains. The book of Genesis, taken according to the letter, gives

the most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the Divinity. Whoever shall find out the sense of it ought to restrain himself from divulging it. It is a maxim which all our sages repeat, and above all with respect to the work of six days. It may happen that some one, with the aid he may borrow from others, may hit upon the meaning of it. In that case, he ought to impose silence upon himself; or if he speak of it, he ought to speak obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner, as I do myself, leaving the rest to be found out by those who can understand."

This is, certainly, a very extraordinary declaration of Maimonides, taking all the parts of it.

First, he declares, that the account of the Creation in the book of Genesis is not a fact; that to believe it to be a fact, gives the most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the Divinity.

Secondly, that it is an allegory.

Thirdly, that the allegory has a concealed secret.

Fourthly, that whoever can find the secret ought not to tell it. It is this last part that is the most extraordinary. Why all this care of the Jewish rabbins, to prevent what they call the concealed meaning, or the secret, from being known, and, if known, to prevent any of their people from telling it? It certainly must be something which the Jewish nation are afraid or ashamed the world should know. It must be something personal to them as a people, and not a secret of a divine nature, which the more it is known, the more it increases the glory of the Creator, and the gratitude and happiness of man. It is not God's secret, but their own, they are keeping. I go to unveil the secret.

The case is, the Jews have stolen their cosmogony, that is, their account of the Creation, from the cosmogony of the Persians, contained in the books of Zoroaster, the Persian lawgiver, and brought it with them when they returned from captivity by the benevolence of Cyrus, king of Persia; for it is evident, from the silence of all the books of the Bible upon the subject of the Creation, that the Jews had no cosmogony before that time. If they had a cosmogony from the time of Moses, some of their judges who governed during more than four hundred years, or of their kings, the Davids and Solomons of their day, who governed nearly five hundred years, or of their prophets and psalmists, who lived in the mean time, would have mentioned it. It would, either as fact or fable, have been the grandest of all subjects for a psalm. It would have suited to a tittle the ranting, poetical genius of Isaiah, or served as a cordial to the gloomy Jeremiah. But not one word, nor even a whisper, does any of the Bible authors give upon the subject.

To conceal the theft, the rabbins of the second temple have published Genesis as a book of Moses, and have enjoined secresy to al' their people, who, by travelling or otherwise, might happen to

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