Jefferson the Skeptic

Hudson Review, The, Summer 2006 by Allen, Brooke

Jefferson could find no evidence whatever for Jesus' divinity, and ascribed Jesus' claim to being the son of God to an understandable state of mild delusion brought about by the overheated zealotry of his era.

That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of god physically speaking I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore. But that he might conscientiously believe himself inspired from above, is very possible. The whole religion of the Jews, inculcated on him from his infancy, was founded in the belief of divine inspiration. . . . Elevated by the enthusiasm of a warm and pure heart, conscious of the high strains of an eloquence which had not been taught him, he might readily mistake the corruscations of his own fine genius for inspirations of an higher order. This belief carried therefore no more personal imputation, than the belief of Socrates, that himself was under the care and admonitions of a guardian daemon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects.

The use of the word "sane" in the final sentence says a great deal.

Jefferson considered, or claimed to consider, the moral system taught by Jesus "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man," but believed that it had been distorted out of all recognition by a series of corrupters, most notably the four Evangelists, St. Paul, and John Calvin. This was a common opinion among deists, freethinkers, and theological liberals of the time. It was shared by Adams and, famously, by Priesdey, whose influential books The Corruptions of Christianity and Early Opinions of Jesus had been enthusiastically read and hailed by Jefferson. The pure and simple philosophy of Jesus was comprehensible to any child, Jefferson said, but "the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniac ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded it with absurdities and incomprehensibilities, as to drive into infidelity men who had not the time, patience, or opportunity to strip it of it's [sic] meretricious trappings, and to see it in all it's native simplicity and purity."

In the draft of an 1809 letter to James Fishback, which he felt free to send only after excising this provocative material, Jefferson laid out his opinions in a rational and dispassionate tone.

Every religion consists of moral precepts, and of dogmas. In the first they all agree. All forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness &ca. and these are the articles necessary for the preservation of order, justice, and happiness in society. In their particular dogmas all differ; no two professing the same. These respect vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations, totally unconnected with morality, and unimportant to the legitimate objects of society. Yet these are the questions on which have hung the bitter schisms of Nazarenes, Socinians, Arians, Athanasians in former times, and now of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers &c. Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was longest; and what blood, how many human lives have the words 'this do in remembrance of me' cost the Christian world! We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus; but we schismatize and lose ourselves in subtleties about his nature, his conception maculate or immaculate, whether he was a god or not a god, whether his votaries are to be initiated by simple aspersion, by immersion, or without water; whether his priests must be robed in white, in black, or not robed at all; whether we are to use our own reason, or the reason of others, in the opinions we form, or as to the evidence we are to believe. It is on questions of this, and still less importance, that such oceans of human blood have been spilt, and whole regions of the earth have been desolated by wars and persecutions, in which human ingenuity has been exhausted in inventing new tortures for their brethren. It is time then to become sensible how insoluble these questions are by minds like ours, how unimportant, and how mischievous; and to consign them to the sleep of death, never to be awakened from it. ... We see good men in all religions, and as many in one as another. It is then a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the tranquility of others by the expression of any opinion on the [unimportant points] innocent questions on which we schismatize, and think it enough to hold fast to those moral precepts which are of the essence of Christianity, and of all other religions.