"It is not difficult to discover the progress by which even simple supposition, with the aid of credulity, will in time grow into a lie, and at last be told as a fact; and wherever we can find a charitable reason for a thing of this kind we ought not to indulge a severe one." Paine's use of the word "lies" in this connection is an archaism. Carlyle told me that his father always spoke of such tales as "The Arabian Nights" as "downright lies"; by which he no doubt meant fables without any indication of being such, and without any moral. Elsewhere Paine uses "lie" as synonymous with "fabulous"; when he means by the word what it would now imply, "wilful" is prefixed. In the Gospels he finds "inventions" of Christian Mythologists--tales founded on vague rumors, relics of primitive works of imagination mistaken for history,--fathered upon disciples who did not write them. His treatment of the narrative of Christ's resurrection may be selected as an example of his method. He rejects Paul's testimony, and his five hundred witnesses to Christ's reappearance, because the evidence did not convince Paul himself, until he was struck by lightning, or otherwise converted. He finds disagreements in the narratives of the gospels, concerning the resurrection, which, while proving there was no concerted imposture, show that the accounts were not written by witnesses of the events; for in this case they would agree more nearly. He finds in the narratives of Christ's reappearances,--"suddenly coming in and going out when doors are shut, vanishing out of sight and appearing again,"--and the lack of details, as to his dress, etc., the familiar signs of a ghost-story, which is apt to be told in different ways. "Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar, not many years before, and they generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the execution of innocent persons. In cases of this kind compassion lends its aid, and benevolently stretches the story. It goes on a little and a little further, till it becomes a most certain truth. Once start a ghost, and credulity fills up its life and assigns the cause of its appearance." The moral and religious importance of the resurrection would thus be an afterthought. The secrecy and privacy of the alleged appearances of Christ after death are, he remarks, repugnant to the supposed end of convincing the world.*