him, on a level
with Judaism and Christianity. He is more just toward heathenism than
toward Judaism, and more just toward Judaism than toward Christianity.
Everything positive in religion is, as such, superstition. Christ was a
mere man, whose chief merit consists in the struggle against
superstition. What he taught, and what he was anxious for, no one,
however, may attempt to learn from the New Testament writings, inasmuch
as these were forged as late as the time of Constantine. All which the
church teaches of his divinity, of his merits, of the gracious influence
of the Holy Spirit, is absurd. There is no rule of truth but reason, and
it manifests its truths directly by a peculiar sense. Whatever this
sense says is true. It is this sense which perceives the world. The
reality of everything which exists is God. In the proper sense there
can, therefore, not exist any atheist, because every one who admits the
reality of the world admits also the reality of God. God is not a
person--least of all are there three persons in God. If God be the
substance in all the phenomena, then it follows of itself that God
cannot be thought of without the world, and hence that the world has no
more had an origin than it will have an end. One may call the world the
body of God, the shadow of God, the son of God. The spirit of God is in
all that exists. It is ridiculous to ascribe inspiration to special
persons only; every one ought to be a Christ, a prophet, an inspired
man. The human spirit, being a breath of God, does not perish; our
spirit, separated from its body by death, enters into a connection with
some other body. Thus Edelmann taught a kind of metempsychosis. What he
taught had been thoroughly and ingeniously said in France and England;
but from a German theologian, and that with such eloquent coarseness,
with such a mastery in expatiating in blasphemy, such things were
unheard of. But as yet the faith of the church was a power in Germany!"

From Edelmann the transition is easy to the reckless and vicious Bahrdt.
This man stands among the first of those who have brought dishonor upon
the sacred vocation. What Jeffreys is to the judicial history of
England, Bahrdt is to the religious history of German Protestantism.
Whatever he touched was disgraced by the vileness of his heart and the
satanic daring of his mind. He heard theological lectures. Thinking that
in this field he could infuse most venom and reap a greater harvest of
g