A Historical And Philosophical Critiqueof Thomas Jefferson's View of Christianity

by

Joseph David Rhodes

Major Term Research Paper (Graduate)History 443.01, Fall 1996.

Professor Robert Mathis, Ph.D.Stephen F. Austin State University

December 12 , 1996

A Historical and Philosophical Critique ofThomas Jefferson's View of Christianity

A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different

from the Platonists, who call me an infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the

gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor

saw. . . If I had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin, and French texts in columns side

by side. This shall be the work of the ensuing winter [of 1816-1817] . . . If a history of his life

can be added, written with the same view of the subject, the world will . . . at length see the im-mortal merit of this first of human sages . . . Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian. I rejoice that in this blessed country of free enquiry and belief, which has surrender-ed its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian. The population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divid-ed into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be a Unitarian by myself. . . . . Mine, after all may be a Utopian dream, but being innocent, I have thought I might indulge in it till I go to the land of dreams, and sleep there with the dreamers of all past and future times.1

Thomas Jefferson's brand of religion remains an interesting topic of historical

discussion. Although his convictions are not always consistent and frequently he was

reticent in discussing them openly and publicly (probably from anxiety about criticism),

it is now possible in light of the archival and primary source material to determine his

exact view of Christianity.2 But more than merely accurately labeling his theological

position as deistic Unitarianism or rationalistic moralism is needed. The knotty and

politically incorrect question as to whether or not Jefferson's Unitarian "religion" is

actually Biblical and historic Christianity must be raised. If by Jefferson's own logic the

negation of orthodoxy is true orthodoxy, then the case against traditional orthodoxy

somehow must have been proven. Was Thomas Jefferson's vision of pure and

unadulterated "Christianity" minus the later, supposedly corrupting elements of

superstition and "Platonism" conceptually and historically valid?3 Did he really deal

justly and objectively with the historical context of "The Christian tradition" (Jaroslav

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Pelikan's term) ? Was his historical and theological handling of the gospel of Jesus and

the New Testament done, on the whole, without severe prejudice and in a honest

endeavor to grasp the truth in context?

In this essay I shall take some of Jefferson's key assertions which

American historians and also religious historians have identified as his core "religious

beliefs" and attempt to sketch in outline his theological motivation and philosophical

Weltanschuuang. Then I shall attempt a short critique of Jeffersonian "Christianity" from

the standpoint which he rejected, but which I find, obviously, more convincing. Because

of the emotionally volatile character of this inquiry and due to the necessity of stating

one's presuppositions honestly, we shall now lay out our historiographical assumptions

by which we endeavor to critique Jefferson:

(1) That there is a definitive body of doctrine and religious tradition which can be

called historic or orthodox Christianity, whether or not as a whole it is ultimate truth. Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan is one of many who describe " The Christ-ian Tradition" in concrete historical and uniquely unsectarian terms, "catholic"Christianity. This is what the famous Cambridge professor of literature, C.S. Lewis, called mere Christianity.4 It is firmly grounded in the first century and in the New Testament, but it is also exemplified in many forms and in connection with many individual idiosyncrasies in Western civilization and in the histori-cal institution called the Christian Church.

(2) That there is a more or less acceptable and reasonably universal methodology,

i.e., which can be used to compare Jefferson's own version or perspective on

historical Christianity (particularly the person of Jesus Christ) with the actual original documents and early summations of the tradition by those who

were close enough to the facts to know. Here we also suppose that ancient

people who wrote on these things were not necessarily blinded by irrationalism or nonsensical superstition, but were, as most of us today, aware of the differ- ence between what was sincere report and a "con", i.e., pure

unsubstantiated propaganda.

(3) That Jefferson actually meant what he said about Jesus and Christianity to be taken as objective and veridical truth. We shall not be satisfied at simply pur- suing some psychological or sociological reductionism of his view (or ours) to historical and philosophical relativism. Rather than adopt such a nihilistic

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and suspicious hermeneutic, we shall try rather to argue simply whether or not Jefferson actually made his case historically and philosophically.

Obviously, in a brief study as this proposes to be, we cannot attain total

thoroughness nor exhaustive analysis at any point. But we shall look our themes

biblically, historically, and philoso-phically. Jefferson's views on Christianity deserve

such a straightforward unflinching response. It is only fair and reasonable that we

should apply a certain amount of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment rational

analysis to Jefferson's statements on faith, though we may certainly reject several of

restrictive prejudices about religious truth from that period. This is also an important

investigation, because Jeffersonian "religion" and Jeffersonian "tolerance" is a relevant

issue in contemporary debates and discussions about American "values" and

"separation of Church and State".

I. Jefferson's Early Negative Religious Experience : A Factor.

It is quite important to get Jefferson himself in historical context and a sensible

frame of reference here before we proceed to look at main religious assertions.

Therefore, a quick look at his biographical and social context is in order.

While it is no doubt methodologically questionable and risky to approach

Thomas Jefferson through psychohistory or popular analysis, we feel that some valid

points can be made by examining some crucial experiences which may had effected his

religious or spiritual outlook. Especially important, we think, are the ideas which he

formed as a young man and a student on his own, emotional reactions and motivational

impressions which he may have carried through life, despite his later more

sophisticated philosophical rationalizations about them. Now, the fact that he did have

some negative and unfortunate perceptions of historic traditional Christianity does not

necessarily prove that his critique of the latter is invalid, but it might suggest that his

efforts to redefine and reinterpret the role of Scripture and the bearers of Christian

tradition was not wholly scientific or philosophically unbiased.

Fawn Brody, who has written a controversial and popular account of

Jefferson's life has recorded a significant allusion about Jefferson's experiences as a

pupil of Rev. James Maury, a dour Anglican clergyman, who boarded and instructed

young orphaned Thomas two years after his father's death. She observes: " Jefferson

wrote nothing of this teacher in his Autobiography save to say that he was 'a correct

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classical scholar'," but when one compares this comment with the warm praise he

showered on his teachers at William and Mary College, it becomes by contrast a clear

indication of his dislike. "5 Maury, though a fairly exceptional clergyman in respect to

many talents, was somewhat overbearing about his French royal ancestry and the

rights of Anglican priests within the English colonies, particularly the legal obligations

for clerical salaries. Perhaps more significant, as Brody notes, was that he looked down

on the Scots (Jefferson's ethnic heritage) and the ministers of the small evangelical

sects which were challenging the state church in gaining members and support. Brody

makes quite a bit of this:

Jefferson lived with this clergyman when was fourteen and fifteen, the great ado-

lescent rebellion years. All the hostility that would normally have been expended,

and with great guilt, against his father, could now be recklessly concentrated on

Maury and the whole Anglican Church. And the contrast between this clergyman, who called the speeches of dissident ministers " the frantick ravings of

fanaticism, or the artful fictions of imposture, " and his own father who believed in freedom of the mind, generated a hostility that had permanent consequences in

America. No other statesman of his time would match Jefferson in his hatred of the

establish-ed faith. He never really exorcised this hatred. We cannot be be sure if it began

with James Maury, or with William Douglas before him. But Jefferson's repudiation of every standard of Maury's life was total.6

Brody continues by contrasting Maury's intolerant attitudes about people with

that of

Jefferson:

Maury despised the Indians as barbarians; Jefferson, like his father, found them

fascinating objects of study, and fighting men worthy of respect. Maury had no faith

in what he called the "vulgar herd," and quoted in his speeches, " Cursed be the man

who trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the

Lord. " Jefferson, the first of the great democrats in our history, said, " The steady

character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor." Maury preach-

ed that " all enjoyments and possession of the world " become a temptation to evil."

" The grand purpose of life," he said, " is to prepare for death, and that is preparing

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for eternity . " Jefferson would live under the benign beacon, " The earth belongs to

the living. "7

That such experiences may have adversely affected young Jefferson's

mind set cannot, I think, be doubted. However, as we all know bad examples of lawyers,

doctors, teachers, and even psychologists, one must not overplay this card. What is

clear is that Jefferson rather early developed an anti-establishmentarian feeling and an

intolerance for religious bigotry (bigotry and tolerance are such weasle notions outside

of a "normative" standard, however). One may question, on the other hand, if his

reaction was justified: must one reject orthodox Christianity because certain

representatives of it (priests, teachers, etc.) are imperfect examples of applying it or

because religious authorities occasionally justify racial prejudices or excessively

emphasize eternity over this life? Certainly Jefferson, without realizing it, may have

simply been caught up in the Enlightenment mood which rejected wholesale the

transcendent worldview of Protestant Christianity and the sometimes legalistic

strictures of colonial Puritanism. In either case, he had deep personal beef about

Anglicanism and favored disestablishing the Church in Virginia when he was Governor

and an acting board member of the Visitors of William and Mary College in 1780. His

intolerance for classical Christian theology can be seen in his routing of the divinity

professors and complete secularization of the college (keeping only the other

humanities, sciences, and modern languages). Many Jefferson scholars, furthermore,

have noted this basic life-long distrust of priests and preachers as factionalistic

schismatizers and authoritarian wardens of man's free spirit. Was it possibly the

fixation of an adolescent resistance to the religious and scholastic discipline of his early

tutor? Or, was it perhaps, more likely, the fascination with a new philosophy which

promised relief from the frustration of making a firm commitment to a Lord which he

did not clearly know or understand ?

We can look at this dilemma from another perspective also, and that is whether

or not Thomas Jefferson was not naive about human nature including his own. One can

see him as a young lawyer and aristocrat, one who owned a plantation with over a

hundred slaves, yet who felt moral indignation at aristocratic privilege and monarchy.

He did not seem to recognize that within himself there was a struggle between the

democratic and aristocratic, or between republican virtue and patrician self-

authorization. His adoption of the Enlightenment perspective on human evolution,

moreover, seemed to rationally support his sophisticated indecision on this matter.

One senses he was never comfortable about it, though.

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But now we turn from endeavoring to somehow account for the

Jeffersonian mind set to actually examining his more mature rationalizations about

Christianity (we are speaking here in the neutral sense of cognitive declarations of

one's essential life and world perspectives). Hopefully, we shall fairly represent his

viewpoint and accurately delineate his actual religious beliefs. The English theologian,

William Temple, once said that criticism in religion and philosophy must at the same

time be both passionate and relentless. And far from Jefferson's private views on Jesus

Christ and Biblical revelation being immaterial to his political and social philosophy, we

will try to show that they defined his human character and influence in history. Here

Herbert Butterfield, the eminent Cambridge historian of a former generation,

comments:

Our final interpretation of history is the most sovereign decision we can take, and

it is clear that every one of us, as standing alone in the universe, has to take it for him-

himself. It is our decision about religion, and our total attitude to things, and about

the way we will appropriate life. And it is inseparable from our decision about the role

we are going to play ourselves in that very drama of history.8

That historical objectivity here is difficult we admit, but we feel that the

necessity of objectivity is vital, however impossible to fully achieve. Here John

Montgomery, a Lutheran historian and theologian, relevantly comments:

Egocentricism and the countering of it constitute at root a religious problem, and

thus once again the process of defining history leads to the realm of ultimate religi-

ous concern. The student who is a slave to his own personality will face and insup-

erable barrier to understanding the men of the past and the issues that moved them;

in the realm of historical inquiry particularly, only the one who loses his life will ever find it.9

One really ought to include too in passing Russell Kirk's insightful remarks about

Jefferson. He wryly comments that Jefferson's agrarian and equalitarian

Republicanism had doctrines more radical than his actual practice and was far less

extreme in his notions notions of liberty (both religious and political) than the French

philosophes : " Jefferson son tried his hand at everything, and often succeeded; and

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as his talents were immensely varied, so did his character display odd and sometimes

inconsistent facets. "10

II. Jefferson's Unitarianism and "the Jefferson Bible"

Almost anyone ought to appreciate the phenomenal ability of Jefferson as a

philosopher and statesman, especially in the broad grasp of human issues. One good

example of this is is his work as a young scholar in demonstrating that Anglo-Saxon

code of laws from the time of King Albert were actually a mixture of Christian moral

principles with pagan legal precedents. Thus he corrected the dubious pronouncement

of historian Sir Matthew Hale that " Christianity is parcel of the laws of England " by

showing that in fact the King himself had declared his laws to be drawn from the

heathen laws " of Ina, of Offa, Athelbert and his ancestors " and was "saying nothing of

any of them being taken from the Scriptures."11 Moreover, as a young law student he

had written, " The truth is that Christianity and Newtonianism being reason and verity

itself, in the opinion of all but infidels and Cartesians, were protected undet the wings of

common law from other sects, but not erected into dominion over them. " Alfred Mapp,

Jr. adds here that Jefferson was not then as wholly tolerant in religious matters as

became later, "but that he had embraced the idea, which he would later express in the

Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, that ` error may be safely tolerated where

truth is left free to combat it. "12 It shall be our argument, momentarily, that Jefferson

consistently did not practice forbearance toward orthodox Christianity, and that in fact

he pursued a fairly radical intellectual attack on its historical and theological

credentials. This attack, of course, focused on the sins of the Church, particularly its

frequent endorsement or agitation against heretics and infidels. He makes some rather

shocking remarks (which are historically exaggerated, we might add!) in his famous

Notes On Virginia (1781-2):

. . . The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious

to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods,

or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in

a court of justice cannot be be relied on, reject it then, and the be the stigma on him.

Constraint may may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never

make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinantly in his errors, but it will never make

him a truer man.

8

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform

the office a censor morum over such other. Is uniformity attainable ? Millions of in-

nocent men, women, and children since the introduction of Christianity, have been

been been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch to-

ward conformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world

fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support rogurey and error all over the

earth.13

The Jeffersonian approach here to history of Christianity is quite

interesting in itself, as one can detect in the paragraphs previous to the comment

above an Enlightenment-style argument that all the improvements in religion and

society had been the result of "reason and free inquiry" whether in Roman times or in

later Reformation (apparently he felt little good could be said for the Middle Ages and

Scholastic theology). This is decisively revealing, for while he applauds the free

research and rational inquiry ad fontes, the impact of Christian humanism and the new

Renaissance learning, he misses the whole commitment of individuals like Wyclif, Hus,

Luther, and even Newton and Locke later, to Biblical revelation and supernaturalism.14

The blinders of his genteel rationalism will thus allow him only to see the factors which

are personally philosophically appealing. He wholly ignores the nearly unbroken chain

of intellectual devotion to Sola Scriptura (as well as Sola Gratia and Sola Fide) which

ran from the pre-reformers through the later Puritans like John Milton and Jonathan

Edwards. Nor did Jefferson stop to notice that Galileo himself, much like the Lutheran

Johannes Kepler, and non-conformist Isaac Newton, fully believed in both faith and

reason under the supreme illumination of the Divine Word.15

One generally positive development which did grow out of Jefferson's thinking on

Christianity here was the adoption of The Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779),

which the Virginia Assembly made law in 1786. In this application of his libertarian

principles and free thought, the famous Virginian who had authored the political

manifesto in 1776 made perhaps his most balanced statements. Essentially, he

observed that " Holy Author of our religion . . . chose not to propagate it by coercions

on either [the body or mind], as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious

presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being

themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of

others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and

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infallible, as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and

maintained false religions over the greater part of the world, and through all time . "16

Although certain political critics of Virginian Philosopher in the early

1800s implied he was an atheist or infidel, it is really quite apparent that some part of

Christianity and the historic tradition of Jesus strongly appealed to Jefferson's most

profound aspirations.17 The slanders of certain extreme Federalist journalist and

muckrakers like Callender aside, Jefferson's image as Third President, definitely (and

perhaps righteously) suffered because of his association with Thomas Paine and his

ready endorsement of English Deism and French anti-ecclesiasticalism. Dumas Malone

points out that Jefferson's friend, John Adams, detested Thomas Paine, and his

detestation was based on no prime concern for the Establishment in New England or for

traditional theology, since he was fiercely independent of both. Indeed, both Adams and

Jefferson were unique individuals and quiet literally freethinkers in the broadest sense

of the term. It was, of course, shortly after this troubled period, that Jefferson declared

his moratorium on discussions of religious philosophy: " I not only write nothing on

religion, but rarely permit myself to speak on it, and never but in a reasonable

society."18 This eventually leads us, then, to the next juncture of our discussion. We

begin with Malone's careful narrative:

During his presidency, when he could not turn to that alienated friend [John

Adams] and deemed it a political necessity to be careful, he found "reasonable com-

pany" in Dr. Benjamin Rush, to whom he had proclaimed immortal phrase his hos-

tility to every form of tyranny over the human mind. He also found it in Dr. Joseph

Priestly, the renowned Chemist and Unitarian clergyman who had been the target

of William Cobbett and other other Federalist writers but now rejoiced in freedom

from all fear of persecution. In theology neither fully agreed with Jefferson, but for

the former he prepared what was to perhaps to be his fullest statement of his reli-

gious position he ever made, and he received the immediate stimulus for this action

from the latter.19 Priestly had sent Jefferson his theological pamphlet entitled Socrates and Jesus

Compared in the spring of 1803 as well as previously dedicating his General History of

the Christian Church (four volumes, published in 1802-1803) to him. Jefferson had been

intending to compare the chief philosophers of Greece and Rome with Jewish

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philosophy and that of Jesus for nearly five years and had promised his friend Dr. Rush

a statement of his views.20 In later months , he endeavor whole-heartedly to make a

place for himself as a Biblical scholar and as a religious philosopher, and the syllabus

which was consequently drawn up displays his skill in epitomizing the man from

Nazareth's moral and religious doctrines. The perspective of interpretation here,

naturally, came from Jefferson's classical studies, his acceptance of the materialistic

Greek philosophers (e.g., Democritus and Epicurus), and his rejection of Platonic

idealism and Augustinian Christianity with its Neoplatonic strands. Jefferson believed

too, essentially, in the Stoical-Materialistic doctrine of God and spirits, i.e., that "spirit"

was a kind of refined ethereal matter. Because he held to the eternality and primacy of

natural matter, then, he also subsequently rejected every traditional supernaturalism as

substantially unreal and illogical in a natural and deterministic cosmos. Actually,

Jefferson did this more in practice, for in actual principal, he was actually a radical Deist

from the beginning. But if Deism was his metaphysics, Unitarianism was his heart

religion.

Another aspect of Jefferson's religious-philosophical orientation which lies

in the background of his radical approach to the Gospels was his total lack of knowledge

of Hebrew and his corresponding lack of respect (probably due to basic unfamilarity)

with the Old Testament. He sought to apply the canons of rationalistic historical and

literary criticism to the Bible, particularly to the Gospels, that portion of the Christian

tradition which mainly interested him. In doing this, he harshly depicted Jewish

monotheism as "degrading" and heaped scorn upon the idea that there could be a

special people of God. Here one must imagine that Jefferson sincerely thought that

Jehovah must be a kind of great Democrat himself, or that perhaps his reading of the

Deistic revisions of Biblical and Classical history had convinced him that such an

indeterminate and arbitrary deity could be the real Creator.21

One is reminded here of the little story that Christian apologists often

use as a discussion opener. One person states that he cannot believe the Bible because

he is quite convinced the venerable old book is "full of contradictions, lies, horrors, and

myths". The second person then responds in earnest cross-examination, " But have you

actually read the Bible? ". To this the erstwhile learned critic retorts caustically: " No, of

course not, but I sure have heard a lot of bad reports on it ! ". In the matter of Thomas

Jefferson's Deist methodology, we see a similar pattern of self-serving credo ut

intelligam. He tends to believe later and secondary authorities and then demonstrates

severe weakness in dealing with unmutilated text and hoary tradition itself.

Nevertheless, the Monticello sage was confident that Jesus came to correct the Jews'

horribly mistaken idea of a jealous and wrathful deity. Notes Dumas somewhat

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ironically: " He believed, therefore, that they stood in grave need of reformation when

Jesus came. He did not realize the extent to which the one whom he regarded as the

greatest of teachers drew on the precepts of his own people. "22

Jefferson, as many rationalists who would later write about the Gospels,

absolutely separated the Messianic office and title from Jesus. While he wished to know

nothing of the "Christ" (i.e., Messianic) persona, he expressed unlimited admiration and

devotion to the man, Jesus the Nazarene. He states:

In this state of things among the Jews, Jesus appeared. His parentage was obscure;

his his condition poor; his education null; his natural endowments great; his life cor-

rect and innocent: he was meek, benevolent, patient, firm, disinterested, & of the

sublimest eloquence.23

Jefferson wished to get back to the unvarnished reality of Jesus and his teaching, but he strongly felt that the Master's discourses were the reminiscences of unlettered men who had them put to writing later. Thus, the Monticello philosopher cum Bible scholar began with his eighteenth-century prospectus on "what really happened" in those by-gone days. But next he explained why Jesus was crucified: " According to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and reform, he fell an early victim to the jealously and combination of the alter and the throne ". It was apparent, moreover, that Jesus' incomplete system of moral philosophy (and pure rational "religion", doubtlessly), was cut short. Jefferson thus expounded the notion that because of the foregoing scenario, Jesus' doctrines have come down to us " . . . multilated, misstated, and often unintelligible." And though he does not specifically indict them by name, we perceive that it is Paul and the early Christian fathers who corrupted Jesus' simple Gospel doctrines by engrafting on them " the mysticisms of a Greek sophist [Plato], frittering them in subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon.”24

He follows up on this caveat by describing the further corruptions of pristine "christianity" as it was "invested by priestcraft and established by kingdomcraft, constituted a conspiracy of church and state against the civil and religious liberties of mankind." This attitude was powerfully reinforced by his reading of Joseph Priestley's volume, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, in two volumes. The latter, published in 1793 confirmed Jefferson in his own estimate of Gospel origins.25 Yet, despite these detestable "corruptions" Jesus' system appeared to him as the epitome of rational religion and true morality: " . . . a system of morals is presented to us, which, if filled up in the true style and spirit of the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man."26

One almost sees the admiration of Jesus' doctrines here as a reverse reflection of Jeffersonian own republicanism and agrarian "goodness." For Jefferson's vision of Jesus' ethic and philosophy was that of a morally just God (by Enlightenment standards) and a consequent moral reciprocity between man and man. The motive and dynamic of this conduct of "universal philanthropy", i.e., benevolence first to one's own family and countrymen and then all mankind, was the reward of future life. In this Jefferson perceived the real key to which Jesus' religion was superior to that of the Jews and Greeks. Jefferson feels this Jesus must not be obscured by the trappings of religious ceremony or the mystical penumbra of theology: " He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head." Obviously, however, the president-philosopher failed to notice at

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this point that the face he was seeing in the magic mirror of the past more resembled his own than that of Jesus who had actually repeatedly said that come to bring "the sword" and distinguish among human affections those which were godly and those which were evil. Nor, does it seem, that Jefferson took too seriously those passages which speak of Jesus as coming Savior or Lord (Gk., kyrios) in God's kingdom.27

While Jefferson was anxious to remove the animus of atheism from his record in the early 1800's, his syllabus had taken no account of the divinity question itself. As indicated by our opening quotations, Jefferson's religious inquiry and philosophic reflection over it, had led him to believe (as he expressed to Benjamin Rush in April 23, 1803) that he had hit upon the authentic gospel of Jesus. Even Priestly, a confirmed Unitarian, was somewhat taken back by his remarks that while Jesus' character was the most innocent, benevolent, etc. of all men, that the historic rabbi had never laid claim to a divine mission.28 And while Priestly indeed refused to rule on the question whether or not Jefferson was a Christian in the historic sense, Jefferson's only personal concern seemed to be in the realm of moral reward for upright conduct. It was also in this spirit that he turned to the compilation of his famous (or infamous to some) "Jefferson Bible", which he actually entitled, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. This was a series of extracts from the Gospels (frequently out of context) which by his philosophical criteria he could accept as genuine. The first edition was made from clippings out of two English New Testaments and formed a booklet of forty-six pages and was completed by 1808-1809. By winter of 1819 or spring of 1820, Jefferson had put together a quadrilingual work in Greek, Latin, English, and French which Francis I. Fesperman calls "an expurgated polygot diatessaron.29

Essentially, the earlier manuscript was " an abridgment of the New Testament for use by the Indians, being unembarrassed with matters of fact or faith beyond the level of their comprehension."30 And it was in his notable letter from Monticello to John Adams on October 13, 1813, that Jefferson explained his purpose in this project:

. . . It was the reformation of this "wretched depravity" of morals [the legal rabbin-

ic disputes over Mosaic precepts] which Jesus undertook. In extracting the pureprinciples which he taught, we should have to strip off the artifical vestments inwhich they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves . . . We must reduce

our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even must reduce from them, the

very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphiboligisms into which they have been

led,by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving

their own misconceptions as his dicta, and dicta, and expressing unitelligibly for

others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the

most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has even has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse

out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidentially his, and

whichis as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines, such as were professed

and

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acted upon by the unlettered Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Christians of

the first century. Their Platonizing successors, indeed, in aftertimes, in order to

legitimate the corruptions which they had incorporated into the doctrines of Jesus,

found it necessary to disavow the primitive Christians, who had taken their princi-

ples from the mouth of Jesus himself, of his Apostles, and the Fathers contemporary

with them. They excommunicated their followers as heretics, branding them with the

opprobrious name of Ebionites or Beggers . . . .31

One is quite struck with the sheer audacity of Jefferson here in his scissors-and-

paste handling of sacred tradition, his eminent freedom in rearranging the ancient

chronicle of events, his cocksureness in dividing Jesus and his apostles' words from

later redactors, and his historiographical model of the canon of the the Second

Testament. Needless to say, later manuscript experts and those who have actually

specialized in studying the New Testament as received in the ancient primary

exemplars and versions have not been convinced that Jefferson knew what he was

doing. His bizzare splitting of verses and radical recombinations of whole pericopes,

whose natural grammatical flow and thought are ignored, seems most arbitrary and

subjective.32 Fesperman observes further: " Jefferson used approximately 44 percent of

Matthew, 32 percent of Luke, 17 percent of John, and 15 percent of Mark. Since he

emphasizes Jesus' teachings over his deeds and omits everything miraculous,

Jefferson's preference for Matthew and Luke is not surprising. "33

It quickly becomes rather obvious that Jefferson certainly did not

approach the authority of Holy Scriptures in a traditional Christian way, whatever his

protestations to the contrary. Whereas Joseph Priestly (at least an evangelical Unitarian

in part) would accept the New Testament canon as given, while holding the right to

private judgment over the degree or validity of inspiration in various parts, Thomas

Jefferson felt able to rewrite parts and remake the canon by means of his historical

guesses. He is not quite as vociferous as Thomas Paine whose book The Age of Reason

is a frontal assault on the character of the Bible as being the product of deception,

ignorance, and superstition. Like Paine, however, he accepted the "book" of Nature as

the authentic revelation of Deity to man's critical reason; he could not accept the

principle of either Special Revelation in holy writ or special providential miracles as in

the history of Israel and the Church. But the circle he drew to shut out the supernatural

and particular, as we see it, factually and logically, shut him outside of the original and

historic Christian tradition. His rationalism and attempt to treat the record of the

14

Divine covenants and salvation-history as one would the annals of Livy or Tacitus

simply does not square with attitude of Jesus himself or his immediate followers to the

Law and Prophets on the one hand, nor the emerging record of the Evangelion on the

other. And it is the particular nature of that Good News which followers who were

eyewitnesses of Jesus and his friends compiled in the middle to later decades of the first

century as the Gospels. But one of the Gospel writers, Luke, also published the first

genuine history of the Church, the book of Acts, which links the conversion of the

Apostle Paul to Jesus and his original circle. It is very tendentious and unnatural to

separate the organic whole into layers and pieces why one may dispense or keep

according to modern preferences. This did seem to be Jefferson's method. It was the

method which best suited him, but it is a method which ignores the primary assertions

of the New Testament record such as Luke 1:1-4; John 19:24-25; Acts 1:-5; I Corinthians

15:1-11; 2 Peter 1:16-21; 1 John 1:1-4; and Revelation 1:1-20. While it is perfectly

logical to reject this witness, and even possible (from the standpoint of faith) to

question how we know it is true, to rewrite to fit a human philosophy is spiritually risky,

and historically invalid.

What are we to make of Jefferson's contempt for Paul? Why should we

accept that his understanding of Jesus was superior to that of a near historical

contemporary who claimed with calm assurance that he had actually met the risen

Lord, and who subsequently was accepted by his apostles, even Peter (Cf. Acts. 12-15,

Galatians 1-2; 2 Peter 3:15ff.). Consider his blatant contempt for the great apostle-

missionary: " I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to him (Jesus) the

former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and rogurey to others of his

disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and the

first corruptor of the Doctrines of Jesus. ”34 One may note that the Monticello

philosopher rejected the catholic epistles with equal glee, though the epistle of James

seems to brim with Jesus' "moral philosophy", and actually is a Christian sermon on

"wisdom" in Christ by a relative and disciple of Jesus. Finally, the contemptuous

manner in which Jefferson treated the Apocalypse of John clearly indicates just how little

Jefferson really understood Jesus' own statements in respect to His Parousia (e.g., Mark

13, Matthew 24) and the whole Old Testament teaching about the kingdom of God and

Divine triumph in judgment over human wickedness (Ps. 2; Isaiah 2, 12, 25, 33, 62,66;

Jeremiah 33; Ezekiel 20; 40-44; Joel 2,3; Zephaniah 2,3; Zechariah 9, 14; etc.). Again,

one must ask, why is an eighteenth century rationalist American in a better position to

understand the mind of Jesus than those in the first-century of his own religious

tradition who were his devoted disciples? Jacob Jocz, a modern Hebrew-Christian and a

scholar of New Testament and Judaism at the University of Toronto (Wycliffe College)

15

has recently destroyed such an imaginary opposition of Jesus vs. Paul in his epochal

study of the actual relationship between nascent Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism in

the first century. He categorically states: " The link between Paul and the historical

Jesus was formed by the Church in Jerusalem. The importance of the primitive Church in

shaping Pauline theology is now increasingly recognized. "35 Anyone can confirm this in

principle by listening to what Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians 15: 1ff. where he speaks

of himself as primarily as servant and witness of "the tradition" (Gr., paradosis ) of Peter

and the other twelve.

Jefferson employed his test of critical reason (with a republican agenda!)

quite readily to the New Testament and thus it is not really surprising that he would

eliminate what savored of the Divine monarchism and transcendent authoritarianism of

the Bible. His program of "demythologizing" Jesus and the Gospels while not as

sophisticated and drastic as Rudolf Bultmann and followers in the twentieth century,

certainly was sufficiently radical for his day. He doubtlessly saw his work as liberating

people from fanaticism and ignorant superstitions, but in essence he was redefining

Christianity. He was rebuilding the meaning of the New Jerusalem a la Paine, Voltaire,

and Priestly. He perceived misunderstandings and paradoxes in Scripture, but he failed

to see that his moralistic substitute for Christian orthodoxy had its own internal

contradictions and paradoxes. Most significant, perhaps, is the cavalier and irreverent

disregard of the actual tradition of Jesus for a modern and personal tradition for which

he desired Jesus of Nazareth's support.36 Quips Fesperman, " It is clear that Jefferson's

view of Scripture had no room for inspiration and revelation as the terms are normally

used. "

A more in depth perusal of the "Jefferson Bible" would reveal what he

excluded (Jesus' miracles of healing and controlling nature, Jesus' own miraculous birth

and supernatural endowments, supernatural foreknowledge in prophecy, all Messianic

references about Jesus' work of redemption and resurrection, and all Christological

passages which link Jesus with God in creation. In his letter to William Short (August 4,

1820), he plainly remarks, " That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as

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 . . . ."37 Likewise, Jefferson's handling of the Johannine

Christological sedes doctrina is the most revealing. Naturally, having rejected Old

Testament Messianic prophecy and cavalierly dismissing Jesus' own statements about

the Divine role of the Son of Man, he has no place for actual textual connection of the

historical Jesus with the eternal Logos of God. But Jefferson was too good at Greek, to

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not know, as we all do, that John 1:1-18 unambiguously and explicitly affirms precisely

this fact. So, whatever his explanations to John Adams and others, he really skirts the

primary issue of the New Testament documents. The idea of Jesus as Divine Savior (as

Archibald Hunter and Joachim Jeremias would unequivocally affirm, as thousands of

other Christian Greek scholars) is the overruling idea in the New Testament in both the

Gospels and Paul's letters. Jefferson simply ignores the whole context of the narratives

and confessions which present Jesus as true incarnate divinity and as the supreme

object of faith, the true mediator with God the Father.38

III. The Epitome of Jefferson's Unitarianism

Jefferson probably best summarized his view of Jesus' system of morals in his letter to

Dr. Benjamin Rush on April 21, 1803.39 The emphasis is this letter is that Jesus corrected the

Deism of the Jews and providing them with juster notions of Divine attributes and government,

that his moral doctrines were more perfect than either the Jewish ethical precedents or Greek

philosophical notions, that his precepts went deeper than Hebrew commandments by focusing

on the motivations of the heart, and finally, that he emphasized the incentives to morality in

the doctrine of the future state. This analysis certainly summarizes certain aspects of Jesus'

teaching (those with which Jefferson would be most comfortable), but it fails miserably to catch

the gracious and redemptive motif of Divine forgiveness for sinners and Jesus identification of

himself as the fulfilment of that Law of God (i.e., perfection) which man cannot attain. Texts

which do not suit Jefferson like Matthew 5:18-20; 11:16-19; 16:13-20; 20:24-28; Mark 8:27-30;

10: 44,45; Luke 7:18-35; 9: 18-21; 15:3-7; 18:18-30 just do not fit Jefferson's humanistic

moralism. Besides this, how does he explain the the centrality of the Lord's Supper, a

covenantal or testamental meal - with all its sacramental meaning - when he has rejected the

Old Testament religious ceremony's as having no place in Jesus teaching. Obviously, he has

completely ignored the venerable tradition of the typology of Redemption which both the

Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Hebrews bear eloquent testimony. Jesus actual teaching,

contra Jefferson's horrible reductions of it, is full of positive endorsements and yet distinctive

renovations of the ceremonies and feasts of the Law. Jesus, of course, was a faithful and

perfect Jew (or Israelite), and not an Enligtenment philosopher. So, Jefferson's strictures

against Jewish customs and legalism really only demonstrate he has not understood the

primary assertions of Jesus that man cannot save himself. This is the heart of Jesus' teaching ,

and not as Jefferson avers, merely oriental hyperbolism and ad hominem evasions of his

Jewish critics. Sadly, Jefferson's philosophical prejudices against the transcendent God's ability

and design to act personally in His world blinded him to the redemptive as well as apocalyptic

themes of the the Gospels and Epistles. Thus, he balks and hesitates to enter into the well-

17

substantiated doctrines of the Resurrection and the Second Coming, preferring a vague

comfort of undefined "afterlife" and "judgment". Perhaps the clearest indication of Jefferson's

failure to commit himself to God as redeemer is his total dismissal of the Cross , i.e., Jesus'

atoning death for mankind. Because Jefferson could conceive of himself or other good people

as sinners, he could not and would not grasp the truth of the substitutionary death of the

Messiah for lost humanity, which Jesus did affirm in those text Thomas abandoned. He might

have yielded to Priestly that Jesus' death was a supreme example of voluntary obedience to

God's will, but he saw nothing in it for transforming his own condition. His reason could not

accept man's alienation and estrangement from God. Therefore, he preferred to see Jesus'

death as just another case of tragic victimization of a moral liberator by repressive

authoritarians. Jefferson had no consciousness of this as God's eternal plan: " For God so loved

the world that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him might have eternal life "

(John 3:16) or " For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost " (Luke

19:10).

Jefferson's appreciation of the Sermon on the Mount was conditioned too. For while he

was ready to embrace Jesus' ethic of love for God and for one's neighbor, he refused to

understand this in spiritual terms, and rather favored materialistic pragmatism. For this reason

he rated repentance (and restitution) much higher than forgiveness of his scale of values.40

In some of Jefferson's last letters from Monticello to John Adams and James Smith he

explores and defines his Unitarian religion fairly explicity. We shall summarize this under some

brief headings and provide sources for our reader.41 Since these represent the mature thoughts

of Jefferson's last ten years of life, we shall hold them authoritative positions.

A. . . . Jefferson held to a basic Epicurian and benevolent moralism while rejecting the

"rubbish" contained in the biographers of Jesus: His immaculate conception, his deity, hisrole in creation, his resurrection and ascension, his miracles, the Eucharist, original sin, the atonement, regeneration, election, and clerical orders. He was a philosophical physic-alist and materialist who rejected metaphysical transcendence of mind, spirit, or God!

B. He believed that the Baptists and Methodists were mostly good republicans, but that the Anglicans and Presbyterians were monarchist malcontents.

C. He denied that Jesus' teaching had any hint of spiritualism and suggested that spirit was some kind of ethereal gas, but still matter.

D. Jefferson rejected the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds as pyrrhonic speculations and use-less dreams or mental fantasies. ( By logical implication, he would reject the Apostle's Creed

18

of the earlier 2nd or 3rd centuries also).

E. " No historical fact is better established than the doctrine of one God, pure and uncom-

pounded, was that of the early ages of Christianity . . . ." [ Antithesis: The doctrine of the Trinity is polytheistic and is not truly a Christian belief].

F. The faith of Athanasius (the great fourth-century Church father) is incomprehensible tothe human mind (the paradox of three-in-one is a monstrous absurdity?). But Jefferson doesacknowledge that both Unitarians and Trinitarians can be honest men. (It is fascinating com-parison to read the beautiful and profound words of Athanasius himself, as in his treatise, On The Incarnation, after reading the self-serving bile and political rancor of Jefferson. Bibli-cal Christians, including Messianic Jews, who believe, in Yeshua as their Lord, hold this doctrine as a sacred mystery which transcends analytical human reason, but is not a " mon-strous absurdity).

G. Jefferson hated the predestinarian theology of Calvin, and noted: " If ever man worship-ped a false God, he did. The Being described in his five points, is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent Governor of the world; but a daemon of malignant spirit. "

H. Jefferson rejected the idea of a special Christian or Jewish revelation as " giving a great handle to atheism".

I. Jefferson perceived strongly the design and rationality of the universe and saw a con-summate skill and power in its composition, but he refused to accept creation ex nihilo. He did believe that it was impossible for reason not to posit an ultimate cause, a Fabri-cator, Preserver, and Regulator for all things, an intelligent and powerful Agent, i.e., the eternal preexistent Creator ( but, inconsistently, he seems to allow that both the worldand the Creator are both eternally co-existent.)

K. Fesperman concludes: "He- [Jefferson] was certainly nearer to Deism and to Unitarianism

than to any of the orthodox churches, but he does not fit perfectly into either of these two."42

IV. A Short Critique: Reaction.

19

I find Jefferson's religion quite uninspiring and positively harmful if you consider

that the most consistent application of it has landed the majority of contemporary

Americans precisely where they are, i.e., a state of secularized irreligion. Perhaps a

better way to put this is to say that the Enlightenment rationalism which allowed

Jefferson (in his mind) to bring about the demise of authoritarian revelation and

supernatural Christianity, has moved beyond Jefferson today to the demise of

transcendent ethicalism altogether. The cry of this age is for life without ethics, or at

least life without moral absolutes, even those liberal republican virtues and ethics of

reciprocity of the Jefferson Bible. No one seriously cares that much about the Deists'

purely human Jesus, who is about as quaint as a Galilean boy-scout helping little old

ladies across the Sea of Galilee. Contrawisely, it would appear that in the New Age

movements of today, there has been a rebirth of the worst sorts of ancient paganism

and pre-Christian superstitions.

One wonders if the fundamental point of departure of rationalism and

liberalism might not just be wrong. If the rejection of traditional orthodoxy has lead to

the rejection and loss of spiritual reality altogether or else the introduction of all kinds

of spiritual demonaltry, is not time to ask with Paul Johnson if the Christian-God-is-dead

theme is not itself dead in its sins and trepasses. . . . 43 Even on an essentially practical

level, one is strongly tempted to ask if Jeffersonian " tolerance” and doctrines of the

"separation" of religious belief from the life of the state has not done an immense harm

in the later twentieth century. The famous and erudite Supreme Court Judge, Joseph

Story, who was Jefferson's contemporary (and certainly his intellectual peer) draws out

a clear and coherent connection between the state and the Church, faith and society.

He argues:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion

And Morality are indespensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute

of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness,

these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally

with the pious man, ought to reject and to cherish them. A volume could not trace

all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where

is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obliga-

tion desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?

Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be main-

20

tained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined edu-

cation on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to ex-

pect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.44

Personally my experience as a student of the New Testament and early

Christian literature has led me to precisely the opposite conclusions about Trinitarian

Christianity and the accuracy and dependability of the Christian tradition. I would

therefore agree with the assessment of those like C.S. Lewis, F.F. Bruce, W.F. Albright,

C.F.D. Moule, John Montgomery, E.M. Blaiklock, Donald Guthrie, Paul L. Maier, et al. that

the New Testament Gospel is not only historically reliable, but that its message of

redemption is the best hope for mankind in this rather dark hour of resurgent

heathenism (yes, I know - heathenism is constantly resurging!). Moreover, I convinced

with Lewis and Montgomery particularly, that one cannot simply have Jesus as a great

moral teacher. The plain New Testament record is that he, who incomparably and

unimpeachably pure, but also humble and marvelously sagacious, said that he was the

Son of God and that He was man's savior from sin, death, and cosmic evil. Now,

unbelievers may wrinkle their face in disbelief and amusement, but logically there it is.

Either Jesus was a deluded madman or a wicked deceptionist of vilest order, or else he

was simply God or the Son of God as he said.45

Jefferson's curt dismissal of the majority of the New Testament remains a

key issue for me. Most of the so-called additions to Jesus' words and the rash dismissal

of St. Paul can be summarily dealt with, however. One one the great benefits of textual

criticism and study of the New Testament over the last two hundred years is to show

that we do in fact have an essentially reliable manuscript tradition (about 99.8 %) which

can be traced back to original apostles. The other point is that the writers of the New

Testament (Luke, John, and Paul) were real people whose life and work left traces in the

archeaological and historical strata of the ancient world. Essentially, too the early

church Fathers (who Jefferson claims to have read) yield a reasonably consistent

portrayal of supernatural, redemptive Christianity from 95-175 A.D.46 Most of the

current debate (the Dead Scrolls furor, the Gnostic origins, etc.) cannot change the

basic perception that the New Testament record was either a fake and apostolic

deception in toto from 35 A.D. or before, or else essentially an accurate (if highly

biased) record of the most unique religious phenomenon of history. This great

phenomenon split the leading monotheistic religion, Judaism, overcome Graeco-Roman

1

1

21

paganism and the influx of mystery religious, and established itself firmly in Western

civilization until recent times. Jefferson just did not read the right books, nor did he, I

think, read the main book correctly.

Soren Kierkegaard, the famous Danish savant, in the early decades of the

nineteenth century, the circumstances in which the modern world was birthed , wisely

observed that when Christianity marries itself to the world spirit, or the Zeitgeist of the

day, it becomes a widow in the next generation. In his day in Denmark, he rightly

perceived the dangerous alliance of the Lutheran church in Denmark with Hegel's

idealistic system. Thus, he fought against the allegedly superior "system" or Hegelian

evolution and religious relativism, and defended the subjective individual and

particularism of Christianity. Most important, he saw, as evidentally Thomas Jefferson

did not, that reason alone can not reach God, because God is not an object which yields

simply to irreverent reason. Rather, he acknowledged that there is an "infinite

qualitative distinction" between finite and sinful man and holy and infinite God. In his

great philosophic works like Fear and Trembling and Either/Or he recognized with St.

Paul, Augustine, Calvin, and Luther that only faith and only Jesus Christ can bridge this

gap. Without Jesus, there is no reason for the season.

Endnotes:

22

1 Letters to Charles Thompson, F.A. Van Der Kemp, and Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse from Monticello and Popular Forest, January 9, 1816, April 12, 1916, and June 26, 1822 cited in Bernard Mayo, Jefferson Himself (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1942, 1992), xvi, pp. 332-323. 2Letter to J. Correa de Serra, cited in Bernard Mayo, Jefferson Himself , p. 326. 3Ibid. , p. 50. Cf. further pp. 51-52 for later comments. And see also Mayo, Jefferson Himself, p. 17. 4Cf. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition ( 5 Vols.; Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1974-85). See the classic book by Professor C.S. Lewis, Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, Mere Christianity (New York: Collier-Macmillian Books, 1943) and also his trenchant apologetic work, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York and London: Simon and Schuster Touchstone Books, 1947, 1975.5Fawn Brody, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974; Reprinted by Bantam Books, 1975), p. 49. The quotation from Jefferson is from his letter to Elbridge Gerry, March 29, 1801, cited by Brody (ch. iii, footnote 17). 6Despite the negative impact that Rev. Maury's personality had on Jefferson, he evidently appreciated the classical Greek and Latin he taught him. He wrote to Joseph Priestly in 1800, " I enjoy Homer in his own language infinitely beyond Pope's translation . . . I thank on my knees, Him who directed my early education, for having put into my possession this rich source of delight. . . .", Brody, p. 51. 7Here we acknowledge the grave dangers and self-deceptions of criticism from the Christian perspective. None of us as humans are truly authorized to declare judgment of the motivations of another's heart and it is finally impossible to be sure of our finite external observations except as seeing fruitful tendencies of character (Cf. Jesus' words in Matthew 7:1-5 and St. Paul's admonition in Romans 2:17-29). But as historians we do seek to evaluate actions and statements and to draw conclusions about meaning and purpose. We must judge actions and ideas as good and evil. People are God's affair. 8Christianity and History (London: Collins' Fontana Books, 1957), p. 39, cited in John Warwick Montgomery's The Shape of the Past: A Christian Response to Secular Philosophies of History (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975), p. 4. 9The Shape of the Past , p. 17. 10The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana ( Chicago: Henry Regenry Co., 1953), p. 64. 11Alfred J. Mapp, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim: The Presidency, The Founding of the University, and the Private Battle (Lanham, Mass. Madison Books, 1991), p. 241. 12 Ibid., p. 242. 13Adrienne Koch and William Peden, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Randon House, The Modern Library, 1944), p. 275. We shall attempt to show reasons later why this imagined irrelevance of theological doctrine to life and politics is rather misleading. Suffice to say, most modern Christians would not advocate a " State Church " with punitive powers. 14On Sir Isaac Newton’s particular version of Christian faith, which is an even more controversial topic than Jefferson’s unitarianism, please see the essay by Thomas C. Pizenmaier, “ Was Isaac Newton An Arian ? ” in Project Muse: http://jhu.edu. , pp. 58-80. Originally published in the Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (1997), 57-80 15 Adrienne Koch and William Peden, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson , p. 276. 16 Adrienne Koch and William Peden, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson , pp. 272-279.17For a balance of perspective on the questions of the Bible in the preEnlightenment and postEnlightenment eras see, John Hannah, ed., Inerrancy and the Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), and, for America especially the superb study, The Bible In America: Essays In Cultural History. Edited by Nathan O. Hatch and Mark Noll (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), chaps. I-III. 18From the Public Papers of Thomas Jefferson, cited in Adrienne Koch and William Peden, Op. Cit., VII, pp. 311-313. Yet he has an epistemological and a theological problem here despite his valiant reach for democratic fairness and pure religious toleration. Basically, he errs in two points: He admits that there is a certain (true) author of Christianity, and that one can objectively perceive the truth or falsity of several religious options in history. How can he do this without a tacit assumption of an objective and transcendent standard which is either Divinely approved or revealed? His quandary yet remains. 19For this it is best to consult Dumas Malone's magisterial analysis, especially Vol. IV, Jefferson The President: First Term 1801-1805 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1970), chaps. XI-XII, pp. 190-223.20Dumas Malone, Jefferson The President: First Term 1801-1805, p. 200. Malone is here citing his letter to Charles Clay, January 29, 1815.21Ibid., pp. 200-201. Malone's account of Jefferson's relationships and troubles, incidentally, seems to avoid most of the speculative psychohistory and romantic guesswork of Fawn Brody and it fully exposes our chief subject for discussion and critical response. 22For what follows we happily give credit to Malone, Op. Cit., pp. 201-205. This may be compared with the selections of material from Jefferson's letters in Bernard Mayo, Jefferson Himself, pp. 231-232; 299-

23

301; and pp. 321-326. For in depth theological and philosophical analysis I have found neither Brodie or Mapp much help. Koch and Malone are much more dependable sources for reflection. 23A doctrine, incidentally, which he seemed to believe in some sense without ever clearly defining or philosophically demonstrating the necessity. Jefferson seems simply to have retained some of his childhood piety which he reinterpreted in the categories of Enlightenment metaphysics.24Dumas Malone, Ibid., p. 202. 25The Writings of Thomas Jefferson . Paul Leicester Ford, ed., 10 Vols. (New York, 1899), VIII, 227, cited by Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: The First Term 1801-1805 , p. 202.26Dumas Malone, p. 203. This kind of explanation is hardly original, having been around at least as long as the Woffenbuttel Fragments of H.S. Reimarus in 1778 which took a similar line with the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. Cf. Gotthold Lessing, Lessing's Theological Writings. A Library of Modern Religious Thought. Henry Chadwick, General Editor (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1956).27Jefferson could have profited greatly from reading the histories of Josephus (e.g.,The Annals and the Jewish Wars ) or the early Jewish-Christian literature of the first and second century. For his near Marcionism on the Old Testament (which tended toward religious anti-Semitism) needed correction theologically. He might have also benefited from the great work of German scholar Ernest W. Henstenberg on the Messianic hope in the Old Testament (Christology of the Old Testament, Berlin, 1848) or Alfred Edersheim's scholarly life of Christ, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (2 Vols.; London: Longmans & Green, 1912) or Professor Horace Hummel's splendid analysis, The Word Becoming Flesh (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia , 1979), works written in the last two centuries which exemplify the orthodox Christian response to rationalistic Bible criticism 28Cf. Dumas, pp. 203-204. See, for example, Jesus' parables of the Kingdom and repeated assertions of his redemptive mission such as Matthew 9:1-7; 10:32-33; 11:25-30; 18:10-14; 20:17-19; 26:26-30; Mark 2:1-12; 10:32-34; 14:22-26; Luke 5:17-26; 12:8-9; 15:3-7; 18:31-34; 22:15-20; John 3:1-21; 5:19-47; 6:35-40ff.; 8:31-47; 14:1-14, to mention a few. It is quite obvious to most orthodox Christians that neither Jefferson or Priestley wished to take everything Jesus said in the New Testament as equally significant. But to Priestley's credit he recognized the basic outline of Jesus' Messianic mission. Cf. C.H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938) and William T. Manson's, The Servant-Messiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957). Otherwise, one is a great loss to explain why the Jewish Sanhedrin actually felt threatened and had Jesus put to death. Jefferson's explanations which reduce Jesus' message and mission to a mere simplification of ethics and a rejection of Israelite cultus hardly merit much refutation. There were hundreds of Rabbinic attempts at summarizing Torah! 29"Jefferson's Bible", in Ohio Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 4 (October, 1976), pp. 79-90. Edgar Goodspeed has even traced which editions of Greek, Latin, and French text Jefferson employed in his creation of The Life and Morals, Cf. his article, " Thomas Jefferson and the Bible ," in The Harvard Theological Review , Vol. 40 (January, 1947): 71-76.30Henry Wilder Foote, The Religion of Thomas Jefferson (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), p. 61, cited by Fesperman, Op. Cit. 31Adrienne Koch and William Peden , The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson , p. 632. 32See the examples listed by Fesperman, "Jefferson's Bible ", pp. 79-80. Jefferson, for instance totally rearranges Matthew's account of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and inserts Luke 6:24-26 with its "four woes" between Matthew 5:12-13, which is internally unnatural and without external basis.33Ibid. What is even less surprising is that Jefferson's selection of authentic "Jesus" material is guided by his own sense of what Jesus should have said if he was a great moral philosopher, thus leaving out the historic Jewish and Old Testament basis which both conservative Jewish and Christian scholars agree that Jesus reflected and believed. Jefferson's method here is classic example of the logical pecadillo known as petitio principia, reasoning from the conclusion to the premise. For more authentic approaches to the historical Jesus in his Jewish context one may profitably consult J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1925); J.A. Fitzmeyer, Essay On the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London : Geoffrey Chapman, 1971); Geza Vermes' superb work, Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); and Jacob A Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ (Second Rev. Edition; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1979).34Letter to William Short, April 13, 1820. Cf. Saul K. Padover (ed.), Democracy by Thomas Jefferson (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1939), pp. 184-185, cited by Francis Fesperman, p. 81.35The Jewish People and Jesus Christ: The Relationship Between Church and Synagogue, Op. Cit ., V, pp. 151ff. Jocz finds much support for his conclusions, too, in the work of earlier experts such Wilhem Bousset, Carl von Weizacker, and Emil Schurer. Cf. further, Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church. (Revised Edition; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), Preface, " The Judeo-Christians ," pp. xxxvii-xli.

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36Fesperman observes, incidentally, that Priestley would " strongly believed in Jesus' resurrection and most assuredly would have included gospel materials relating to that event, rather than stop with Jesus' burial, as Jefferson did.", "Jefferson's Bible ," p.82. 37Fesperman , p. 83. This kind of reading, I would suggest is possible only if one reads the Greek with one eye closed and simply dismisses every reference to Jesus as Kyrios and the anointed Messiah, Gr., Christos as secondary and inauthentic. But the a priori reasoning is not necessary unless one already believes in Deism or Unitarianism and rejects the possibility of a true Incarnation of God.38Here we offer as evidence of this our own unpublished study, Jesus of Nazareth: A Unitarian-Universalist ? A Biblical and Historical Critique, which is a detailed monograph. See chapters I-III.39Cf. Koch and Peden, p. 570. 40Cf. Koch and Peden, Op. Cit. , p. 495.41These are found in Koch and Peden, pp. 693-707.42Cf. Fesperman, p.88. Jefferson was not one to be worried overly about logical consistency, even though he demanded it of others. While his rationalism could tolerate an absentee landlord deity, he also emotionally desired a more imminent god, one who was present in all things, hence his occasional verge on the precise opposite of Deism, namely Pantheism, God = the Universe. 43See Johnson's essay, " The Necessity of Christianity" in Truth Journal , No. I. (1985). Professor Johnson is the author of the popular Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties (New York: Harper & Row, 1983).44Citation from Story's work, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution Of The United States. Originally published in New York: Harper, 1859. Reprinted in Chicago: Regenry Gateway, 1986, Appendix, p. 371. Although it is not explicity stated, there can be little doubt that "relgion" for Judge Story was the " Christian religion " of the Bible and Jesus Christ. No attempt to prove this will be made here, since that is not the point. The point is, that unlike Jefferson, Story saw each and every attempt to separate faith from morals as impossible in law and society. For a rigorous defense of this see John Warwick Montgomery, The Law Above The Law (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1974) and William J. Bennett, The Devaluing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (New York: Simon and Shuster Touchstone Books, 1992), Chapter 7, pp. 203-224 and passim. 45See Montgomery's History And Christianity (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1969), chaps. I-IV. See also Paul L. Maier's First Christians: Pentecost And The Spread of Christianity (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) and C. Thomas McIntire, ed., God, History and Historians: Modern Christian views of history (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). These books somewhat shore up my philosophic rashness here. Apologetic evidence remains a matter of probability, however, and absolute proof of any bit of human knowledge or historical events remains unattained.46Cf. the archaeological and paleographic works of F.F. Bruce, Sir Frederick Kenyon, W.F. Albright, and Carston Thiede listed in the term paper biblography. Bruce Metzger's work, The Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 1968), remains the best general higher introduction to these questions. But also the book by Carston Thiede, among other recent controversial studies, alleges that we now have solid first-century manuscript fragments of the New Testament. See Eyewitness to Jesus by Carston Peter Thiede and Matthew D'Ancona (New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1996). However, even if Thiede's position cannot be maintained, we still have marvelous early 2nd century evidence for orthodox Christianity as given by tradition. Generally, these questions are also well addressed in the standard evangelical handbook, D.A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament ( Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1992), especially chapters 1 (“ The Synoptic Gospels,” pp. 19-60) and 24 (“ The Canon of Scripture,” pp. 487-500).

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