Historians seem to have been somewhat misled both by the lofty and philosophical tone of the Bill for Religious Freedom and the comments made by Jefferson in the "Notes on Virginia", specially written by him, as we always must remember, for a group of French philosophers and the French public. A philosopher he was, but before all he was a purist and a historian of law. For him the main question was first to determine whether the jurisdiction of the Common Law in matters of religion was founded in law. He had already studied minutely the history of Common Law and made copious extracts in his "Commonplace Book"; he had noticed in Houard's "Coutumes Anglo-Normandes" that some pious copyist had prefixed to the laws of Alfred four chapters of Jewish law. "This awkward Monkish fabrication makes the preface to Alfred's genuine laws stand in the body of the Work; and the very words of Alfred himself form the frauds, for he declares in that preface that he has collected these laws from those of Ina, of Offa, Ethelbert, and his ancestors, saying nothing of any of them being taken from the scripture." Consequently the pretended laws of Alfred were a forgery. Yet, palpable as it must be to a lawyer, our judges have piously avoided lifting the veil under which it was shrouded. In truth, the alliance between Church and State in England, has ever made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even bolder than they are: for, instead of being contented with these four surreptitious chapters of _Exodus_, they have taken the whole leap, and declared at once, that the whole Bible and Testament, in a lump, make part, of the Common law.... Finally in answer to Fortescue Aland's question why the Common law of England should not now be a part of the Common law of England? We may say that they are not, because they never were made so by legislative authority; the document which imposed that doubt on him being a manifest forgery.[66] [Illustration: A PAGE FROM JEFFERSON'S "COMMONPLACE BOOK" _From the manuscript in the possession of the Library of Congress_] Bolstered up with his texts, references, and authorities, Jefferson could now, if need be, confute the redoubtable Mr. Pendleton in the Committee of Revisors, but such a legal technical presentation of the facts would evidently not appeal either to the Assembly at large or to the public. These had to be approached in an entirely different way; for to speak of frauds, forgeries, and monkish fabrication would not do at all in a public document and, on the contrary, might create a revulsion of feeling. It became necessary to present the reform in an entirely different light and Jefferson did so in the first section of the bill. The phrasing of these lofty principles is well known; still it may not be out of place to reproduce them once more: