Robert Taylor > Quotes

“A regular succession of the most learned and intelligent of the Christian Fathers, from and in the apostolic age, steadily maintained, that Christ never had any real existence as a man; that he was merely a phantom or hobgoblin, and that all the business of his crucifixion and miracles took place only in a vision. These, from the Greek word, which expresses their sentiment, are called the Docetæ, or Docetian Fathers, as opposed to the Ebionite, or Beggar Heretics, who maintained the contrary hypothesis, that Jesus had a real existence.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“7.“ It is notorious that forged writings, under the names of the Apostles, were in circulation almost from the apostolic age.—See 2 Thess. ii. 2. 7. “The tracing of a writing up to the apostolic age, would therefore, afford no presumption of its genuineness: the name of an Apostle is no proof that the writing is not the composition of an impostor.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“17. Why should his divinity have ever been dreamed of, if his real existence, as a man, could ever have been ascertained?”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“1 John, iv. 2.—“ Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God.” 2 John, vii.—“ For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” 1 John iv. 3.—“ And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God.” This is language that could not have been used, if the reality of Christ’s existence as a man could not have been denied, or if the Apostle himself had been able to give any evidence whatever of the fact pretended.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“It is well enough known, that in the early ages of Christianity, many silly and fraudulent persons composed fictitious narratives of the life and actions of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, and gave them out as the writings of Peter, Nicodemus, Thomas, Barnabas, and even Judas Iscariot.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“5. “1 John v. 7, is by far the most notorious, and most universally acknowledged and reprobated. Note!;—“ In our common editions of the Greek Testament, are MANY readings, which exist not in a single manuscript, but are founded on CONJECTURE.”—Marsh, vol. 2, p. 496,”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“The Unitarian editors of the New Testament, strain every nerve to get the whole account of Herod seeking the young child to destroy him, and slaying all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, (Matt. ii. 16,) whom “God made to glorify him by their deaths,” (Church of England Collect,) ejected from the canonical scriptures. It”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“There can be no doubt, that had the objections of Porphyry, Hierocles, Celsus, and other enemies of the Christian faith been permitted to come down to us, the PLAGIARISM of the Christian scriptures, from previously existing Pagan documents, is the specific charge that would have been brought against them.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“As we see Protestantism to be a mere modification or reform of Popery, so Popery was nothing more than a similar modification or reform of Paganism. 64 It is absolutely certain that the Pagans were in possession of the whole Gospel story many ages before its Jewish origin was pretended; and it was not till the first error had been committed, of suffering the people to become acquainted too intimately with the contents of the sacred books, that it became necessary to invent a chronology, and to “give to airy nothing a local habitation, and a name.”**”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“That the name of CHRISHNA, and the general outline of his story, were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly.”—Asiatic researches, Vol. 1. p. 259. I ask the reader then to direct his researches to those researches! I ask the Christian to say, whether he can suspect, that this Christian writer would have spelt the name CHRISHNA rather than Krishna, or Krishnu, with a base design of producing an apparent resemblance where there was none in reality?”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“The titles at the head of each book were prefixed, not by the authors, but by the early transcribers.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“IV. THAT THE EVENTS, WHICH THEY RELATE, NEVER HAPPENED, is demonstrable (further than as a consequence of the preceding proposition), from the fact, that some, many, or all of these events, had been previously related of the gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, and more especially of the Indian idol CHRISHNA, whose religion, with less alteration than time and translations have made in the Jewish Scriptures, may be traced in every dogma and every ceremony of the Evangelical Mythology.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion

“2 Cor. iii. verse 6.—“ Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” If the reader can reconcile such a passage to any supposable circumstances or condition of a first preacher of the Gospel, ere yet any part of the New Testament was put into letter, his faith will remain unshaken.”
― Robert Taylor, Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion