By: LARRY SITES Re: Lying religion Would you buy a used car from these guys? Or a recycled

By: LARRY SITES
Re: Lying religion

Would you buy a used car from these guys? Or a recycled religion?

                         FORGERY DEFINED

     Forgery, in legal and moral sense, is the utterance or
publication, with intent to deceive or defraud, or to gain some
advantage, of a false document, put out by one person in the name
of and as the genuine work of another, who did not execute it, or
the subsequent alteration of a genuine document by one who did not
execute the original. This species of falsification extends alike
to all classes of writings, promissory notes, the coin or currency
of the realm, to any legal or private document, or to a book. All
are counterfeit or forged if not authentic and untampered.

     A definition by a high ecclesiastical authority may
appropriately be cited, as it thoroughly defines the chronic
clerical crime. The Catholic Encyclopedia thus defines the crime:

     "Forgery (Lat. falsum) differs very slightly from fraud. It
consists in the deliberate untruthfulness of an assertion, or in
the deceitful presentation of an object, and is based on an
intention to deceive and to injure while using the externals of
honesty. Forgery is truly a falsehood and is a fraud, but it is
something more. ... A category consists in making use of such
forgery, and is equivalent to forgery proper. ... The Canonical
legislation [dealt principally with] the production of absolutely
false documents and the alteration of authentic ... for the sake of
certain advantages. ...

     "Canon law connects forgery and the use of forged documents,
on the presumption that he who would make use of such documents
must be either the author or instigator of the forgery. In canon
law forgery consists not only in the fabrication or substitution of
an entirely false document, but even by partial substitution, or by
any alteration affecting the sense and bearing of an authentic
document or any substantial point, such as names, dates, signature,
seal, favor granted, by erasure, by scratching out or writing one
word over another, and the like." (Catholic Encyclopedia, vi, 135,
136.)

     Under every phase and phrase of this its own clerics legal
definition, the Church is guilty, -- is most guilty.

     A "beginning of miracles" of confession of ecclesiastical
guilt of forgery of Church documents is made in the same above
article by the Encyclopedia, -- very many others will follow in due
course from the same source:

     "Substitution of false documents and tampering with genuine
ones was quite a trade in the Middle Ages. Innocent III (1198)
points out nine species of forgery [of ecclesiastical records]
which had come under his notice." (CE. vi, 136.)

     But such frauds of the Church were not confined to the Middle
Ages; they begin even with the beginning of the Church and infest
every period of its history for fifteen hundred years and defile
nearly every document, both of "Scriptures" and of Church
aggrandizement. As truly said by Collins, in his celebrated
Discourse of Free Thinking:

     "In short, these frauds are very common in all books which are
published by priests or priestly men. ... For it is certain they
may plead the authority of the Fathers for Forgery, Corruption and
mangling of Authors, with more reason than for any of their
Articles of Faith." (p. 96.)

     Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the great "Father of Church
History" (324 A.D.) whom Niebuhr terms "a very dishonest writer,"
-- of which we shall see many notable instances, -- says this: "But
it is not our place to describe the sad misfortunes which finally
came upon [the Christians], as we do not think it proper, moreover,
to, record their divisions and unnatural conduct to each other
before the persecution -- [by Diocletian, 305 A.D.]. Wherefore we
have decided to relate nothing concerning them except things in
which we can vindicate the Divine judgment. ... But we shall
introduce into this history in general only those events which may
be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity."
(Ecclesiastical History, viii, 2; N&PNF. i, 323-324.)

     Eusebius himself fraudulently "subscribed to the [Trinitarian]
Creed formed by the Council of Nicra, but making no secret, in the
letter which he wrote to his own Church, of the non-natural sense
in which he accepted it." (Cath. Encyc. v, 619.) As St. Jerome
says, "Eusebius is the most open champion of the Arian heresy,"
which denies the Trinity. (Jerome, Epist. 84, 2; N&PNF. vi, 176.)
Bishop Eusebius, as we shall see, was one of the most prolific
forgers and liars of his age of the Church, and a great romancer;
in his hair-raising histories of the holy Martyrs, he assures us
"that on some occasions the bodies of the martyrs who had been
devoured by wild beasts, upon the beasts being strangled, were
found alive in their stomachs, even after having been fully
digested"! (quoted, Gibbon, History, Ch. 37; Lardner, iv, p. 91;
Diegesis, p. 272). To such an extent had the "pious frauds of the
theologians been thus early systematized and raised to the dignity
of a regular doctrine," that Bishop Eusebius, "in one of the most
learned and elaborate works that antiquity has left us, the Thirty-
second Chapter of the Twelfth Book of his Evangelical Preparation,
bears for its title this scandalous proposition: 'How it may be
Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the
Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived'" -- (quoting the Greek
title; Gibbon, Vindication, p. 76).

     St. John Chrysostom, the "'Golden Mouthed," in his work 'On
the Priesthood,' has a curious panegyric on the clerical habit of
telling lies -- "Great is the force of deceit! provided it is not
excited by a treacherous intention."' (Comm. on I Cor. ix, 19;
Diegesis, p. 309.) Chrysostom was one of the Greek Fathers of the
Church, concerning whom Dr. (later Cardinal) Newman thus
apologetically spoke: "The Greek Fathers thought that, when there
was a justa causa, an untruth need not be a lie. ... Now, as to the
just cause, ... the Greek Fathers make them such as these self-
defense, charity, zeal for God's honor, and the like." (Newman,
Apology for His Life, Appendix G, p. 345-6.) He says nothing of his
favorites, the Latin Fathers; but we shall hear them described, and
amply see them at work lying in their zeal for God's honor, and to
their own dishonor.

     The Great Latin Father St. Jerome (c. 340-420), who made the
celebrated Vulgate Version of the Bible, and wrote books of the
most marvelous Saint-tales and martyr-yarns, thus describes the
approved methods of Christian propaganda, of the Fathers, Greek and
Latin alike, against the Pagans:

     "To confute the opposer, now this argument is adduced and now
that. One argues as one pleases, saying one thing while one means
another. ... Origen, Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris write at
great length against Celsus and Porphyry. Consider how subtle are
the arguments, how insidious the engines with which they overthrow
what the spirit of the devil has wrought. Sometimes, it is true,
they are compelled to say not what they think but what is needful.
...

     "I say nothing of the Latin authors, of Tertullian, Cyprian,
Minutius, Victorianus, Lactantius, Hilary, lest I should appear not
so much to be defending myself as to be assailing others. I will
only mention the APOSTLE PAUL. ... He, then, if anyone, ought to be
calumniated; we should speak thus to him: 'The proofs which you
have used against the Jews and against other heretics bear a
different meaning in their own contexts to that which they bear in
your Epistles. We see passages taken captive by your pen and
pressed into service to win you a victory, which in volumes from
which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all ... the
line so often adopted by strong men in controversy -- of justifying
the means by the result." (Jerome, Epist. to Pammachus, xlviii, 13;
N&PNF. vi, 72-73; See post, p. 230.)

     Of Eusebius and the others he again says, that they "presume
at the price of their soul to assert dogmatically whatever first
comes into their head." (Jerome, Epist. li, 7; id. p. 88.) And
again, of the incentive offered by the gullible ignorance of the
Faithful, for the glib mendacities of the priests: "There is
nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or
an uneducated congregation." (Epist. lii, 8; p. 93.) Father
Jerome's own high regard for truth and his zeal in propaganda of
fables for edification of the ignorant ex-pagan Christians is
illustrated in numberless instances. He tells us of the river
Ganges in India, which "has its source in Paradise"; that in India
"are also mountains of gold, which however men cannot approach by
reason of the griffins, dragons, and huge monsters which haunt
them; for such are the guardians which avarice needs for its
treasures." (Epist. cxxv, 6; N&PNF. vi, 245.) He reaches the climax
in his famous Lives of sundry Saints. He relates with all fervor
the marvelous experiences of the "blessed hermit Paulus," who was
113 years of age, and for sixty years had lived in a hole in the
ground in the remotest recesses of the desert; his nearest neighbor
was St. Anthony, who was only ninety and lived in another hole four
days' journey away. The existence and whereabouts of Paulus being
revealed to Anthony in a vision, he set out afoot to visit the holy
Paulus. On the way, "all at once he beholds a creature of mingled
shape, half horse half man, called by the poets Hippo-centaur,"
with whom be holds friendly converse. Later "he sees a mannikin
with hooked snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goat's
feet," this being one of the desert tribe "whom the Gentiles
worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi," and whose
strange, language Anthony was rejoiced to find that he could
understand, as they reasoned together about the salvation of the
Lord. "Let no one scruple to believe this incident," pleads Father
Jerome'; "its truth is supported by" one of these creatures that,
was captured and brought alive to Alexandria and sent embalmed to
the emperor at Antioch. Finally holy Anthony reached the retreat of
the blessed Paulus, and was welcomed. As they talked, a raven flew
down and laid a whole loaf of bread at their feet. "Sec," said
Paulus, "the Lord truly loving, truly merciful, has sent us a meal.
For the last sixty years I have always received half a loaf; but at
your coming the Lord has doubled his soldier's rations." During the
visit Paulus died; Anthony "saw Paulus in robes of snowy white
ascending on high among a band of angels, and the choirs of
prophets and apostles." Anthony dragged the body out to bury it,
but was without means to dig a grave; as he was lamenting this
unhappy circumstance, "behold, two lions from the recesses of the
desert with manes flying on their necks came rushing along; they
came straight to the corpse of the blessed old man," fawned on it,
roared in mourning, then with their paws dug a grave just wide and
deep enough to bold the corpse; came over and licked the hands and
feet of Anthony, and ambled away. (Jerome, Life of Paulus the First
Hermit, N&PNF. vi, 299 seq.)

     So gross and prevalent was the clerical habit of pious lies
and pretenses "to the glory of God," that St. Augustine, about 395
A.D., wrote a reproving treatise to the Clergy, De Mendacio (On
Lying), which he found necessary to supplement in 420 with another
book, Contra Mendacium (Against Lying). This work, says Bishop
Wordsworth, "is a protest against these 'pious frauds' which have
brought discredit and damage on the cause of the Gospel, and have
created prejudice against it, from the days of Augustine to our own
times." (A Church History, iv, 93, 94.) While Augustine disapproves
of downright lying even to trap heretics, -- a practice seemingly
much in vogue among the good Christians: "It is more pernicious for
Catholics to lie that they may catch heretics, than for heretics to
lie that they may not be found out by Catholics" (Against Lying,
ch. 5; N&PNF. iii, 483); yet this Saint heartily approves and
argues in support of the chronic clerical characteristics of
suppressio veri, of suppression or concealment of the truth for the
sake of Christian "edification," a device for the encouragement of
credulity among the Faithful which has run riot through the
centuries and flourishes today among the priests and the ignorant
pious: "It is lawful, then, either to him that discourses,
disputes, and preaches of things eternal, or to him that narrates
or speaks of things temporal pertaining to edification of religion
or piety, to conceal at fitting times whatever seems fit to be
concealed; but to tell a lie is never lawful, therefore neither to
conceal by telling a lie." (Augustine, On Lying, ch. 19; N&PNF.
iii, 466.) The great Bishop did not, however, it seems, read his
own code when it came to preaching unto edification, for in one of
his own sermons he thus relates a very notable experience: "I was
already Bishop of Hippo, when I went into Ethiopia with some
servants of Christ there to preach the Gospel. In this country we
saw many men and women without heads, who had two great eyes in
their breasts; and in countries still more southly, we saw people
who had but one eye in their foreheads." (Augustine, Sermon 37;
quoted in Taylor, Syntagma, p. 52; Diegesis, p. 271; Doane, Bible
Myths, p. 437.) To the mind's eye the wonderful spectacle is
represented, as the great Saint preached the word of God to these
accphalous faithful: we see the whole congregation of devout and
intelligent Christians, without heads, watching attentively without
eyes, listening intently without ears, and understanding perfectly
without brains, the spirited and spiritual harangue of the eloquent
and veracious St. Augustine. And every hearer of the Sermon in
which he told about it, believed in furness of faith and infantile
credulity every word of the noble Bishop of Hippo, giving thanks to
God that the words of life and salvation had been by him carried to
so remarkable a tribe of God's curious children.


                         BANK of WISDOM

                     FORGERY IN CHRISTIANITY

                               by
                         Joseph Wheless


 Peace, Larry Sites