“Pious Frauds” – Rev. A. Kampmeier, 5/9/1907

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

The term “pious fraud,” often used by advanced thinkers when attacking traditional religious belief, is of course
repudiated by those yet holding to traditional religion as entirely unjustified, as only springing from hatred and as
being a mean way of attacking religion. Is the term “pious fraud” unjustified? I think the term is fully justified in
many cases, and will give a few striking examples from the Bible. The second epistle of Peter in the New Testament
pretends not only to have been written by Peter, the intimate disciple of Jesus, but it even says, referring to the
story of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mount: “The voice: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,
we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount.” (Chap. i, 18.) It has long been
known that this epistle is entirely spurious. Even in the fourth century it was believed by some to be spurious, and
these doubts have again and again turned up, till now no unprejudiced biblical scholar accepts it as authentic. The
general belief in its authenticity, and for which it was taken up into the canon, was very probably due, besides the
mention of the name of Simon Peter in the address to the readers, to the before-cited words in that epistle, by
which the writer fully asserts himself to have been an eyewitness of that miraculous event of the transfiguration
related in the gospels. Sincere believers in Christianity thus argued: “Would a man have been such a liar as
to call himself an eyewitness of that event if he had not been—a man who wrote an epistle of such religious
earnestness and spirituality?” Sincere believers in the truth of Christianity instinctively felt that the writer of the
epistle, if he had not been an eyewitness, would have been a liar. Rather than accept such an immoral act on
the part of the author of the epistle, the writing was accepted as authentic in spite of its many contradictions.
It is a well-known fact now that the first centuries were full of such literary productions ascribed to immediate
disciples of Jesus and others of his contemporaries, which have deceived people even to our own time, and
the so-called second epistle of Peter is one of them.

That this epistle is still accepted as authentic by the majority of Christians is only due to its fortunate admission into
the canon and the reason that it is a writing of earnest admonitions only, an epistolary writing, instead of a narrative.
In a narration of incidents proofs for unauthenticity could have been found much more easily, as any one knows is
the case with regard to the apocryphal gospels which are outside of the New Testament canon. But let us take another
example. The book of Daniel in the Old Testament expressly claims to have been written by a certain Daniel living in
the time of the Babylonian exile. It is well known now that this book was written almost 400 years later, during the
time of the Maccabees. This was even proven to be so by the neo-Platonist Porphyry as early as the third century,
for which reason his books were later burned by order of the Emperor Theodosius, in order that his criticism of the
book of Daniel should not become generally known. Since the beginning of the last century, however, the authenticity
of the book has been given up more and more, and no unprejudiced Bible scholars accept it any longer. And yet that
book has misled the most eminent men since it was written, because it exerted such an enormous influence in the
formation of Christianity by being the first of the books of the Old Testament to give prominence to the idea of a
kingdom coming from heaven through the appearance of the “Son of Man” in the clouds. We may almost say
Christianity is based upon this book alone. If it had not been for this book and the reverence in which it was
held in the time of Jesus on account of its supposedly genuine prophecies, Jesus would very probably never
have been moved to his career. We may say that Jesus in believing in the divine character of this book was
deluded by it as many others have been since his time. Even such eminently acute minds as Isaac Newton
were so misled by the apparently genuine prophecies of the book, which predicted the most minute historical
details four hundred years ahead, that he spent much time on this book and considered his calculations
based thereon of more value than any of his scientific discoveries. And what an amount of useless work
was spent by other men on that book, as well as on the book of Revelation, which is based upon it!

And all this was because the unknown author of that book played his part so well in fabricating fictitious prophecies
without the least foundation of truth. Another example: We all know that Deuteronomy came out about 650 B.C.,
in the reign of the Jewish king Josiah (that is, the essential part of it), in order to influence King Josiah to begin that
radical reform which made the temple in Jerusalem the only place of worship and abolished all other places of
worship throughout the limits of the kingdom of Judah and those of the former kingdom of Israel. That book was
given to King Josiah as a writing which had come down from Moses himself, who had forbidden any other place
of worship but the one which Jehovah had chosen, and declared that all the evils had come upon the Hebrews
because they had transgressed that command—Deuteronomy being filled with curses predicting in detail what
ills would come as a consequence of disobeying this command of Jehovah through his servant Moses. Until the
time of the appearance of Deuteronomy even the most pious Hebrews and prophets had worshiped Jehovah
without any scruples in other places outside Jerusalem. They never knew of any such command given by Moses
as to worship only in one place and no other. Now with one stroke a matter was introduced which had never been
known before. A book purporting to have been written by Moses was suddenly discovered and brought to light.
If this wasn’t pious fraud, what was it? Another example: The fourth gospel of the New Testament purports to be
a writing of John, a disciple of Jesus, and his most intimate one. Although it does not say this expressly, it is
written in such an ingenious way that any reader receives the impression that that gospel had come from the
most intimate personal connections with Jesus. This book, on account of its seemingly greater spirituality than
the other gospels (though in fact it is very materialistic, as witness the resurrection of Lazarus, already in a state
of decomposition) and on account of the very mysterious and mystical air surrounding it, has played its part so
well that it has charmed all but the most cool and impartial critics.

Only these have seen through its unhistorical garb, and the so-called gospel of John is more and more accepted
as a most ingenious fiction on the person of Jesus, with perhaps very little historical fact underlying it. Now, what
are we to call such writings as I have mentioned and which every unprejudiced man now knows to be unauthentic?
Can we say that the pretension of being written by men like Moses and Daniel, centuries ahead and prophesying
things to happen many centuries later, or pretending to be eyewitnesses, as the author of II Peter and the fourth
gospel, is only an innocent device which the author has used to express his thoughts and is of no importance at
all? Can we say that those unknown writers had to use some external machinery or frame by means of which and
in which to set forth their ideas? Are we to think that the authors of these books thought that the garb of their books
was of no importance at all, but only the religious and moral ideas uttered in them? Surely not. It was not for this
reason alone—i.e., to have a suitable frame in which to set their ideas, as novelists and poets do—that they chose
their special garb, but they knew very well that just the pretense of being genuine prophecies and relating events
from eyewitnesses would have a most convincing influence upon the reader; that, in fact, this seeming genuineness,
so ingeniously worked out, would be the most important thing to the reader. And if this is so, what else can we call
this proceeding but pious fraud? I, at least, do not know of any other term which would describe it more correctly
and strikingly. Most believers in these books believe in them because they sincerely consider them as authentic
as they appear to be, and because their minds have not been critically trained.

But as soon as they discover their authenticity, and are convinced of it after thorough study, their former sincere
belief will change into the very natural attitude of righteous anger, because of having been deluded by only
apparent truth, and that not only of an insignificant kind but of a kind from which, as long as it seemed to be
fact, the most far-reaching and most important inferences were to be drawn. If, then, the term “pious fraud”
is used by advanced thinkers, let us be careful how we condemn them; let us consider that it is the righteous
anger of honest, upright and truth-loving minds which leads them to use this expression. The great majority of
Christians believe in the Bible not in the first place on account of the religious and moral truths in it, but on
account of the seemingly divine inspiration found in it. An uncritical mind, for instance, does not know that the
whole Hebrew history as represented in the Old Testament as having taken place under the special divine
guidance of God, and entirely different from the natural development of any other people, as well as the host
of prophecies found in the Old Testament which later were fulfilled, were only a makeup of the Jewish priests
after the exile. I am here referring especially to those many prophecies occurring in the historical books, the
Pentateuch, etc.—for instance, the prediction of the Macedonian empire already in the time of Moses. (Num.
xxiv, 24.) If the origin of these historical books, as the science of biblical criticism teaches it, would be known to
the great majority of Christians, there would be nothing but the unanimous outcry of “pious fraud,” and this outcry
would be fully justified as things are. The ancient Jewish mind does not seem to have had the least scruple
about manufacturing fictitious prophecies and history. And it was equally so with the early Christian writers.

Fiction in the cause of religion, pretending to be true history and fact, seemed to them perfectly justifiable.
This trait is also reflected to a smaller degree in another way in the New Testament. It is well known that the
New Testament writings are filled to the brim with the most unhistorical and unnatural twistings of passages
of the Old Testament to suit any idea that is intended to be expressed. This rabbinical art, which to us now is
nothing but pure sophistry, was not even disdained by Jesus. The saying of God to Moses: “I am the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” is cited by him as a proof for personal immortality, although any one knows that
nothing of the kind is implied in that passage. But to the times of Jesus and the first Christian centuries such
things seemed perfectly natural and right. The modern mind has evolved to the point of a greater scrupulousness
in regard to straightforward methods of teaching religious truth, and this without doubt is due to the influence of
science upon religion, for science seeks nothing but pure and naked truth and permits not the least prevarication.
The term “pious fraud” is an outflow of this modern, more truthful and scrupulous spirit. This spirit does not use
the term indiscriminately for any myth or legend of ancient times which has developed gradually and naturally,
but it uses it only when intentionally a false garb has been used for the furtherance of religious purposes, by
which consequences have followed which have proved dangerous for the cause of truth.