Hermann Samuel Reimarus: Quotes about history

Hermann Samuel Reimarus was German philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on history.
Hermann Samuel Reimarus: 24 quotes0 likes

“The unerring signs of truth and falsehood are clear, distinct consistency and contradiction. This is also the case with revelation, in so far as that it must, in common with other truths, be free from contradiction. And just as little as miracles can prove that twice two are five or that a triangle has four angles, can a contradiction lying in the history and dogmas of Christianity be removed by any number of miracles.”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, p. 75

“It is always a sign that a doctrine or history possesses no depth of authenticity when one is obliged to resort to miracles in order to prove its truth. Miracles do not possess in or by themselves any principle containing a single article of faith or conclusive fact. It follows not because a prophet has performed miracles that therefore he has spoken the truth, because false prophets and magicians also performed signs and wonders, and false Christs performed miracles by which even the elect might be deceived. It follows not because Jesus restored sight to a blind man and healed a lame one, ergo God is threefold in person, ergo Jesus is a real God and man. It follows not because Jesus awakened Lazarus from death that therefore he also must have arisen from death.”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, p. 75

“That which is absurd and impossible, 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."”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, p. 7

“Thus the existing history of Jesus enlightens us more and more upon the object of his conduct and teaching, which entirely correspond with the first idea entertained of him by his apostles, i. e., that he was a worldly deliverer. It enlightens us also upon the fact that they had good reason to believe in him as such so long as he lived. It also shows that the master, and how much more his disciples found themselves mistaken and deceived by the condemnation and the death, and that the new system of a suffering spiritual Saviour, which no one had ever known or thought of before, was invented after the death of Jesus, and invented only because the first hopes had failed.”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, p. 28