e Christians found out this, one of their zealous priests (worse
than any atheist) forged several things under Plato's name, but
conformable to Christianity, by which the heathens were fraudulently
converted.

[Footnote 25: Origen, a Father of the Church, was born about 185. He
carried to extremes the celibate life taught in the Gospel; and his
"Treatise against Celsus" contains, according to St. Jerome and
Eusebius, the refutation of "all the objections which have been made,
and all which ever will be made against Christianity." [T. S.] ]

Epicurus was the greatest of all freethinkers, and consequently the most
virtuous man in the world. His opinions in religion were the most
complete system of atheism that ever appeared. Christians ought to have
the greatest veneration for him, because he taught a higher point of
virtue than Christ; I mean the virtue of friendship, which in the sense
we usually understand it, is not so much as named in the New Testament.

Plutarch was a freethinker, notwithstanding his being a priest; but
indeed he was a heathen priest. His freethinking appears by showing the
innocence of atheism, (which at worst is only false reasoning,) and the
mischiefs of superstition; and explains what superstition is, by calling
it a conceit of immortal ills after death, the opinion of hell torments,
dreadful aspects, doleful groans, and the like. He is likewise very
satirical upon the public forms of devotion in his own country (a
qualification absolutely necessary to a freethinker) yet those forms
which he ridicules, are the very same that now pass for true worship in
almost all countries: I am sure some of them do so in ours; such as
abject looks, distortions, wry faces, beggarly tones, humiliation, and
contrition.

Varro,[26] the most learned among the Romans, was a freethinker; for he
said, the heathen divinity contained many fables below the dignity of
immortal beings; such, for instance, as Gods BEGOTTEN and PROCEEDING
from other Gods. These two words I desire you will particularly remark,
because they are the very terms made use of by our priests in their
doctrine of the Trinity: He says likewise, that there are many things
false in religion, and so say all freethinkers; but then he adds; "which
the vulgar ought not to know, but it is expedient they should believe."
In this last he indeed discovers the whole secret of a statesman and
politician, by denying the vulgar the privilege of freethinking, and