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Sacred Scripture

The Jefferson Bible

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, was characterized by some of his contemporaries as “the arch-apostle of the cause of irreligion and free thought.” [1] Even impartial historians are forced to conclude that he had “deistic leanings,” [2] and that his friendship with notorious infidels like Thomas Paine did “much to propagate deistic views” in the early years of the American Republic. [3] However, there is another side to Jefferson’s character which is not so well known as the negative one of his antipathy to organized religion. Whatever else may be said in his favor, it must be admitted that he had a reverence and respect for the person and teachings of Jesus Christ which according to his limited vision he tried to put into practice. The purpose of this study will not be to prove that Jefferson was a Christian, or that he was not a deist. It will only be to present a piece of historical evidence which should indicate that the full Jefferson portrait has not yet been painted, at least on the side of his religious beliefs. There is no need to point out how important is a just estimate of Jefferson in this matter, since much of the present-day controversy in America over the relations of Church and State revolves around the pivotal question of what our Founding Fathers intended to legislate on the subject of religion; and their intention, it is safe to say, was an expression of their own religious convictions.

History of the Jefferson Bible

The so-called Jefferson Bible, or more accurately, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, is now the property of the United States National Museum at Washington, having been obtained by purchase in 1895. It is a small folio booklet, some 8 by 4 inches in area and one inch thick. There are 83 leaves to the book, which is bound in red leather, and on the title page, in Jefferson’s handwriting, is the caption, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English.” Except for two maps of Palestine and Asia Minor, which are inserted among the leaves, the whole volume is a compilation of four parallel columns of Gospel texts, two to a page, in the four languages mentioned in the title. The texts are not written but were cut out of printed copies of Greek, Latin, French and English Testaments and pasted in this book of blank pages.

It is not certain exactly when Jefferson composed this collection of the sayings of Jesus. The closest estimate is the winter of 1816-17, or about nine years before his death. From his correspondence, however, we know that he had been thinking about the project as early as 1803. In a letter which he wrote to the chemist, Joseph Priestley, he congratulated the latter for his comparative review of Socrates and Jesus, adding that in his opinion the Gospels contained much extraneous matter. By careful pruning, he thought a selection could be made of those sayings which were absolutely the words of Jesus Himself. [4] A week later he wrote a friend that he considered “the moral precepts of Jesus as more pure, correct and sublime than those of the ancient philosophers.” [5] On April 21, 1803, he wrote to Dr. Rush, a physician and sincere Christian, sending him the syllabus of an evaluation of the doctrines of Christ compared with those of other great teachers. Secretive by nature, Jefferson explained that he was sending this or his own eye and indicated its confidential character:

In confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations and calumnies. I am, moreover, averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public, because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavoured to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquest over the rights of conscience, which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others, or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. [6]

Late in January of the following year, Jefferson wrote to Priestly from Washington, how pleased he was to hear he had undertaken to make a detailed study of the doctrines of Jesus compared with those of the ancient philosophers:

I think you cannot avoid giving, as preliminary to the comparison, a digest of his moral doctrines, extracted in his own words from the Evangelists, and leaving out everything relative to his personal history and character. It would be short and precious. With a view to do this for my own satisfaction, I had sent to Philadelphia to get two testaments (Greek) of the same edition, and two English, with a design to cut out the morsels of morality, and paste them on the leaves of a book, in the maner you describe as having been pursued in forming your Harmony. But I shall now get the thing done by better hands. [7]

This is the first clear statement of Jefferson that he planned to prepare such a book, which he decided at the time not to do himself but to have Priestley compose. But Priestley died in the same year (1804), and so the project was not carried into effect. Finally in 1813, John Quincy Adams prevailed upon Jefferson to compose the work which he had handed over to Priestley, and sent to the ex-President all of Priestley’s unfinished drafts, saying that he did so because “I wish it may stimulate you.” [8]

Writing to Adams from Monticello, Oct. 12, 1813, Jefferson gives a description of the proposed volume as follows:

We must reduce our volume to the simple Evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphiboligisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages. [9]

From this it would seem that Jefferson made two such books, one a volume of 46 pages, and the other an enlargement which has come down to us as the Jefferson Bible.

Under date of Jan. 29, 1815, he confided in a letter to Charles Clay that he had finished making the extracts from the four Gospels: “Probably you have heard me say I had taken the four Evangelists, had cut out from them every text they had recorded of the moral precepts of Jesus, and arranged them in a certain order, and although they appeared but as fragments, yet fragments of the most sublime edifice of morality which had ever been exhibited to man.” [10]

Consistent with his previous intention, in this letter Jefferson declares he does not wish to publish the compilation, saying: “I not only write nothing on religion, but rarely permit myself to speak on it.” [11]

More revealing still is Jefferson’s letter to Charles Thompson, in commenting on Thompson’s interest in the moral teachings of Jesus Christ:

I, too, have made a wee little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. [12]

Towards the end of the letter, Jefferson makes a statement which suggests that he is not describing the volume now in the National Museum, but the preliminary one of 46 pages, for he says: “If I had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side by side.” [13]

Later in the same year, in a letter to a certain Vanderkemp, Jefferson gives further details as to how he made this preliminary volume. After explaining how careful he was that the syllabus should not get out in connection with his name, being unwilling to draw on himself “a swarm of insects, whose buzzing is more disquieting than their bite,” he continued:

I made, for my own satisfaction, an extract from the Evangelists of the text of His morals, selecting those only whose style and spirit proved them genuine, and his own…. It was too hastily done, however, being the work of one or two evenings only, while I lived at Washington, overwhelmed with other business, and it is my intention to go over it again at more leisure. This shall be the work of the ensuing winter. [14]

Vanderkemp was himself publishing a book in the near future, and inquired of Jefferson if he might incorporate into it the latter’s syllabus from the Gospels. Jefferson agreed with the following proviso: “I ask only one condition, that no possibility shall be admitted of my name being even intimated with the publication.” [15]

Three years later, Jefferson was still planning to expand his Gospel collection into something more substantial. This is the last reference in his published and manuscript writings to the “Morals of Jesus.” He wrote from Monticello to William Short: “The last I attempted too hastily some 12 or 15 years ago. It was the work of 2 or 3 nights only, at Washington, after getting through the evening task of reading the letters and papers of the day.” [16]

As previously stated, the larger syllabus of 83 leaves was composed some time in 1816 or 1817. The earlier compilation of parallel texts in English only is last known to have been in the possession of his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. A remarkable fact is the secrecy in which Jefferson managed to keep both collections of the sayings of Jesus. Neither syllabus was known to his grandchildren until after Jefferson’s death when they inherited his papers. It was then also for the first time they learned that he was in the habit of reading from these extracts every night before going to bed.

The subsequent history of the larger collection is briefly told. The National Government had purchased Jefferson’s papers and had published an edition of his writings. Public interest was expressed particularly in the “Bible of Thomas Jefferson” after it came into the possession of the United States National Museum, and it was in consequence of this interest that the Fifty-seventh Congress in its first session passed the following resolution:

That there be printed and bound, by photo-lithographic process, with an introduction of not to exceed twenty-five pages, to be prepared by Dr. Cyrus Adler, Librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, for the use of Congress, 9,000 copies of Thomas Jefferson’s Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, as the same appears in the National Museum; 3,000 copies for the use of the Senate and 6,000 copies for the use of the House. [17]

Contents of the Jefferson Bible

The photo-lithographic copy of the Jefferson Bible as printed by Congress has two main sections, following a 19-page introduction. The first is a Table of Contents, written long-hand in ink by Jefferson himself, followed by the inserted clippings from the four New Testaments as described above. Before evaluating the selections themselves, it will be worthwhile to transcribe the entire Table of Contents, thus allowing the reader to get a bird’s eye view, as it were, of Jefferson’s “profession of faith.” The transcription here given will cover all the details of the original, including spelling, abbreviations, numeration and corrections: [18]

Following this Table of Contents are a number of blank pages, seven to be exact; these in turn followed by a full page title, in long hand, which reads: “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English.”

Next come the two folded maps previously referred to, cut out of a book, with the printed numbers “1” and “414” on each, respectively. Then begin the inserted extracts, roughly ten to fourteen verses per column, down page, with two columns to a page. The first three columns are in small print, the fourth in English is large type. Marked along the right hand margin are the chapters, Mt. 8, L. 19, etc., from which the corresponding verses were drawn. Occasional errors of placement are the only blemish in an otherwise scrupulously neat-looking compilation.

All told there are exactly 990 verses extracted and collected in the brochure. Most of them are from the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke; very few from St. John, although the Joannine selections are noteworthy. For example: Jesus driving the traffickers out of the temple, the Parable of the Good Shepherd, Judas’ betrayal of Christ, Trial of Christ before the Highpriest, and Peter’s denial of Christ.

In accordance with his plan to give extracts from the life and morals of Jesus, Jefferson simply eliminated everything in the Gospels which involves what are technically called strict mysteries, as well as all comments of the Evangelists on the doctrines of Christ. Thus every reference to the Divinity of Christ, Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Primacy is omitted. For this reason also the fourth Gospel is practically ignored. Not a single miracle of Christ is listed; so much so that where a moral precept occurs in a miraculous context, the precept will be cut out of its setting, verses skipped if necessary, in order to avoid quoting a miraculous event. To illustrate this prejudice against miracles, we may examine what Jefferson does when he quotes the long instruction of Christ regarding divorce, recorded in the first Gospel. Verses 1 to 3 of chapter 19 in Matthew, which begin the instruction, read as follows in the full text:

And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan.

And great multitudes followed him, and he cured them there.

The Pharisees also came, unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? [19]

Jefferson quotes these verses in sequence, and beyond them to verse 26 inclusive. Yet out of all these twenty-six verses, he cut out of the printed English text just five words, italicized above in verse 2, namely, “…and he cured them there.” [20]  In the Greek, the words excised with a knife and a blank left are…[Greek text omitted - editor]…with corresponding blanks also in the Latin and French versions.

The same sort of excision is found throughout the collection, not only with regard to the miracles of Christ but in every case where reference is made to the supernatural life or to supernatural means of sanctification. To take only one example each from the other three Gospels, St. Mark in the first chapter, verse 4, relates that: “John did baptize in the wilderness and preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Jefferson carefully cut out the italicized portion. [21] St. Luke in the second chapter describes the return of Jesus from Jerusalem to Nazareth at the age of twelve, saying, “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them; and his mother kept alt these things carefully in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and grace before God and men.” Again the italicized phrases are deleted. [22]  In the Gospel according to St. John, the Evangelist begins the narrative of the Last Supper with the words: “And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come forth from God and was going to God, he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel and girded himself.” The whole center portion of the narrative is excised. [23]

Significance of the Jefferson Bible

In order to appreciate the importance of the Jefferson Bible certain items should be called to mind. The weight of historical evidence “is abundant to prove Jefferson a deist who shared the views and attitudes in matters of religion that were common to the English deists” of his day. [24]  Unfortunately the term “deist” has been used so indiscriminately by secular historians that it is hard to know just what it means in a particular context, and here as applied to Jefferson. On the one hand epithets like “infidel,” “atheist,” and “materialist” leveled at him by the colonial clergy are suspect because they were used by his personal enemies. [25]  On the other hand there are so many incriminating statements in Jefferson’s writings, especially his letters, that an unbiased reader is led to conclude that if the Sage of Monticello was not an infidel, he was only a shade removed from infidelity. For instance, the following communication to John Adams seems to bear out Jefferson’s own confession that, “I am a materialist.” [26]  He writes:

I feel bodies which are not myself: there are other existences then. I call them matter. I feel them changing place. This gives me motion. Where there is an absence of matter, I call it void, or nothing, or immaterial space. On the basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need.

When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences, is to talk of nothing. To say that, the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say, they are nothings, or to say that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by the Lockes, the Tracys and the Stewarts. [27]

The question is, how are these damaging confessions to be understood? Was Jefferson an atheist not only nominally but really? And if only nominally, what proof do we have that in real life he admitted the existence of a personal God in spite of the bizarre speculations he put on paper when trying to philosophize on his religious beliefs? It is the writer’s opinion that the Morals of Jesus or the Jefferson Bible give us the key to the problem, proving that its author was not an infidel but a deist, in the sense of one who rejects the need of divine revelation and consequently repudiates any form of established religion, beyond the limits of independent human reason and will.

That Jefferson believed in God is evident first from his ready acceptance of the teachings of Christ on the subject, the Lord’s Prayer, the Eight Beatitudes, the Parables of the Unjust Steward and the Ten Talents, the Sermon on the Mount—all of which presuppose a belief in the existence of God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Correlative with this goes the belief in prayer arid some kind of Providence, and to that extent, at least, an acceptance of some kind of grace, requested for example in the petition, “Deliver us from evil,’’ in the Pater Noster. [28]

Also the Morals of Jesus allows us to conclude that Jefferson believed in some sort of future life, where the good are rewarded and the wicked punished. Besides the Parables of Lazarus and Dives, of the Pharisee and Publican, and the Wedding Feast, Jefferson accepted and extracted the whole discourse of Christ about the Day of Judgment, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, not excluding the classic verse 46, in which Christ foretells: "These will go into everlasting punishment, but the just into everlasting life."

The need for the practice of virtue and the duty to avoid sin are equally subscribed to by Jefferson on almost every page of the Extracts. Apart from the very title, The Life and Morals of Jesus, it is noteworthy that practically every selection in the anthology has to do directly with the observance of the commandments of God. The Sermon on the Mount is typical. Moreover, the single word “precepts” occurs ten times in the short Table of Contents; and the following sins are mentioned by name in the same index: adultery, injustice, avarice, pride, hypocrisy and swearing. On the side of virtue, the double precept of the love of God and the neighbor is referred to twice, apparently the only case of duplication in the syllabus; it is also the only case in which Jefferson quoted parallel passages from all three Synoptics, bearing on a single precept of Christ.

A complete analysis of the Morals of Jesus would extend to a volume. And the analysis should be made. For our purpose it is enough to have seen at some length the contents of this unusual collection of New Testament extracts, and briefly reviewed its history and theological importance. However, one question still remains to be answered. What are we to make of Jefferson’s apparent profession of materialism, quoted above, and referred to elsewhere in his writings? The answer lies in a closer examination of the context in which these claims to believe in matter only were made. Writers on colonial history have not always examined this context, with consequent injustice done to the author of such statements. For example, in his letter to Adams, it is true that Jefferson speaks of “my creed of materialism.” But what does he mean? He can only mean the “materialism” professed by John Locke and the other writers mentioned. Yet we know that Locke was not a materialist, though he did say that reason alone is scarcely able to decide for or against the materiality of the soul. [29] He denied, however, any intention to undermine belief in the spirituality of the soul. In other words, while he held on faith that the soul was not material, he did not see his way clear to proving its immateriality. [30]

In the same context, Jefferson naively appeals to the Fathers of the Church as witnesses to the materiality of God: “Jesus told us, ‘God is Spirit,’ but He has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter. And the ancient fathers generally, of the first three centuries, held it to be matter light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter.” [31] Jefferson was certainly wrong in supposing that the Fathers attributed any materiality to God. But he was right in saying that many of them held spirit “to be matter, light and thin.” Not a few, for example, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, Hilary and Origen believed that finite spirits required a body as a principle of individuation and limitation. Even in Scholastic times, the degree of immateriality that belongs to finite spirits was disputed. Jefferson’s error, therefore, lay in using a speculative opinion regarding finite spirits to explain the constitution of all reality, created and divine.

A correct estimate of Jefferson’s attitude toward religion would be a valuable contribution to the history of Church and State relations in America. To do him justice, however, we should interpret his religious convictions not on the sole basis of his scattered statements where he is trying, and fails, to express himself properly on matters beyond his capacity, but in the light of the principles by which he guided his interior life and directed his personal relations with God. Among the extant writings of Thomas Jefferson, the Morals of Jesus is the best single source in which these principles are recorded.

John A. Hardon, S.J.
West Baden College
West Baden Springs, Indiana

References

American Ecclesiastical Review
Vol. 130, June 1954, pp.361-375

Copyright © 1998 by Inter Mirifica