Fragments from Reimarus

"'I confess,' said Reimarus, 'that this doubt was the first which rooted itself in my mind, and so immovably, that in spite of all my efforts, I never was able to conquer it.'"—Strauss's Life of Reimarus, p. 260.

"Even if we granted all these miracles to be true, they would not of themselves be able to support offensive teachings or actions. Contradictions cannot be dissolved by any miracle, and vices cannot miraculously become virtues. But as the truth of these miracles has not yet been established, why should we make such tottering facts the basis of all religion?"—Ibid., p. 262.

"'That which is absurd and impossible,' says Reimarus, 'that which in any other history would be called falsehood, deception, outrage, and cruelty, cannot be made reasonable, righteous, and true by the added words: Thus saith the Lord.'"

Reimarus originally wrote the Fragments, as he said, "from time to time, to pacify his mind; for, after doubts had arisen and troubled him for several years, he resolved to write them carefully down, so as to look them well in the face, and see whether they were of sufficient weight to give the matter a decisive issue."

"The first thing that struck him, and the first conclusion he came to, was that the Bible is not a book of religious instruction or a catechism."—Ibid., p. 264.