The Age of Reason

The Age of Reason

By Thomas Paine.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Editor’s Introduction
4. The Age of Reason
   1. Part I
      1. I: The Author’s Profession of Faith
      2. II: Of Missions and Revelations
      3. III: Concerning the Character of Jesus Christ, and His History
      4. IV: Of the Bases of Christianity
      5. V: Examination in Detail of the Preceding Bases
      6. VI: Of the True Theology
      7. VII: Examination of the Old Testament
      8. VIII: Of the New Testament
      9. IX: In What the True Revelation Consists
      10. X: Concerning God, and the Lights Cast on His Existence and Attributes by the Bible
      11. XI: Of the Theology of the Christians; and the True Theology
      12. XII: The Effects of Christianism on Education; Proposed Reforms
      13. XIII: Comparison of Christianism with the Religious Ideas Inspired by Nature
      14. XIV: System of the Universe
      15. XV: Advantages of the Existence of Many Worlds in Each Solar System
      16. XVI: Application of the Preceding to the System of the Christians
      17. XVII: Of the Means Employed in All Time, and Almost Universally, to Deceive the Peoples
      18. Recapitulation
   2. Part II
      1. Preface
      2. I: The Old Testament
      3. II: The New Testament
      4. III: Conclusion
   3. Part III
      1. To the Ministers and Preachers of All Denominations of Religion
      2. An Essay on Dreams
      3. An Examination of the Passages in the New Testament
         1. The Book of Mark
         2. The Book of Luke
         3. The Book of John
      4. Contradictory Doctrines Between Matthew and Mark
      5. Private Thoughts of a Future State
5. Endnotes
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Editor’s Introduction

With Some Results of Recent Researches

In the opening year, 1793, when revolutionary France had beheaded its king, the wrath turned next upon the King of kings, by whose grace every tyrant claimed to reign. But eventualities had brought among them a great English and American heart⁠—Thomas Paine. He had pleaded for Louis Capet⁠—“Kill the king but spare the man.” Now he pleaded⁠—“Disbelieve in the King of kings, but do not confuse with that idol the Father of Mankind!”

In Paine’s Preface to the Second Part of The Age of Reason he describes himself as writing the First Part near the close of the year 1793. “I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has since appeared, before a guard came about three in the morning, with an order signed by the two Committees of Public Safety and Surety General, for putting me in arrestation.” This was on the morning of December 28. But it is necessary to weigh the words just quoted⁠—“in the state it has since appeared.” For on August 5, 1794, François Lanthenas, in an appeal for Paine’s liberation, wrote as follows: “I deliver to Merlin de Thionville a copy of the last work of T. Payne [The Age of Reason], formerly our colleague, and in custody since the decree excluding foreigners from the national representation. This book was written by the author in the beginning of the year ’93 (old style). I undertook its translation before the revolution against priests, and it was published in French about the same time. Couthon, to whom I sent it, seemed offended with me for having translated this work.”

Under the frown of Couthon, one of the most atrocious colleagues of Robespierre, this early publication seems to have been so effectually suppressed that no copy bearing that date, 1793, can be found in France or elsewhere. In Paine’s letter to Samuel Adams, printed in the present volume, he says that he had it translated into French, to stay the progress of atheism, and that he endangered his life “by opposing atheism.” The time indicated by Lanthenas as that in which he submitted the work to Couthon would appear to be the latter part of March, 1793, the fury against the priesthood having reached its climax in the decrees against them of March 19 and 26. If the moral deformity of Couthon, even greater than that of his body, be remembered, and the readiness with which death was inflicted for the most theoretical opinion not approved by the “Mountain,” it will appear probable that the offence given Couthon by Paine’s book involved danger to him and his translator. On May 31, when the Girondins were accused, the name of Lanthenas was included, and he barely escaped; and on the same day Danton persuaded Paine not to appear in the Convention, as his life might be in danger. Whether this was because of The Age of Reason, with its fling at the “Goddess Nature” or not, the statements of author and translator are harmonized by the fact that Paine prepared the manuscript, with considerable additions and changes, for publication in English, as he has stated in the Preface to Part II.

A comparison of the French and English versions, sentence by sentence, proved to me that the translation sent by Lanthenas to Merlin de Thionville in 1794 is the same as that he sent to Couthon in 1793. This discovery was the means of