THE CHRISTIAN TENETS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON

Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull, 1819.

The American Revolution was conceived within a harmonic balancing of Enlightenment and Christian principles. America's foremost Founders unabashedly revelled in Newtonian science and Enlightenment reason, but they equally subscribed to Christian moral philosophy. Thus, they attained an equilibrium among their shared creeds, by extracting the paradigmatic teachings of Jesus Christ as distinct from rigid dogmas imposed by the Church and State; then emulsifying the distillation into a philosophical, political and scientific elixir for a new age.

Watercolor of Jefferson by John Trumbull, derived from Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson, the most reflective and instrumental Founder to shape American democracy's political mores, devoted his life to the causes of religious liberty, individual sovereignty, and freedom of conscience.1 In doing so, Jefferson became a universal target for competing Christian sects and political adversaries who craved dominance and power. His enemies spread malicious rumors that Jefferson was a fervid atheist, poised to set Christianity ablaze. To the contrary, Jefferson was enamored with the benevolent Divine Creator, whom he believed designed the exquisite universe and imbued humankind with natural rights.2 It was in defense of these God-bestowed natural rights that Jefferson advocated for the protection of Americans' entitlement to worship in freedom, safe from the machinations of those who wished to establish "a particular form of Christianity through the United States; as every sect believes its form the true one," as he stated in a letter to Benjamin Rush on September 23, 1800. In that letter, Jefferson also informed Dr. Rush that his rivals are right to fear he will oppose them, for he has "sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."3

As was his scientific nature, Jefferson scrutinized the merits of various religious and philosophical doctrines by comparatively analyzing the canon of legendary Greco-Roman scholars, Judaism and Jesus Christ. He wrote his conclusions in an insightful treatise titled Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, Compared with Those of Others. In Syllabus, Jefferson clarifies that he is not attempting to determine the divinity of Christ, but is instead juxtaposing Jesus Christ's tenets against those "moral principles inculcated by the most esteemed sects of ancient philosophy," including Judaism, and revered sages such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Seneca, and so forth.3

Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch, 1877.

Jefferson's final judgment was an affirmation of Christ's exemplary morality and humanitarian standards, which he declared were superior to any other ethical code he investigated. Accordingly, he states that even Christ's humble beginnings, impoverishment and multiple material disadvantages could not obscure his great natural endowments. "His life was correct and innocent," writes Jefferson, and "he was meek, benevolent, patient, firm...and of the sublimest eloquence." Jefferson then decries that Jesus' life was cut short by the unscrupulous and jealous, which he notes is the typical fate of those who wish to enlighten and reform mankind. In savage rebuke of contemporary Church hierarchy, Jefferson additionally declares that Christ's simple, pure doctrines have been perverted by obscure jargon. He concludes Syllabus by stating that Jesus Christ taught a peculiar system superior to all others, "both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants, and common aids."4

Jefferson's opinion of Jesus Christ was shared by most of the prominent Founders and certainly, most Americans. It may be true that Jefferson and a number of his eminent peers were Deists who eschewed religious myths, but they never denied the existence of God the Creator, or the magnificence of Christ. They aspired to instill Christ's beatific premises espousing egalitarianism, redemption, hope, morality, and the preciousness of every human being, into the spirit of the law. Indeed, Christ's very precepts are the fertile ground from which human liberty, modern democracy, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights blossomed. Christ's maxims not only inspired the original Europeans who settled upon America's shores, the Patriots of the American Revolution, and multitudes of ethnicities across the globe, they manifest power from the highest realm of consciousness, ad infinitum.

Citations

1. Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1777-1786, Monticello.org. https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/virginia-statute-religious-freedom/

2. Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823. Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3446.

3. Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, in Memoir, Correspondence, and Micellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Edition 2, Volume 3 (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), 441-442.

4. Thomas Jefferson, Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, Compared with Those of Others, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0178-0002.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jefferson, Thomas and Randolph, Thomas Jefferson. Memoir, Correspondence, and Micellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Edition 2, Volume 3. Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830.

Jefferson, Thomas. Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, Compared with Those of Others. In Memoir, Correspondence, and Micellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Edition 2, Volume 3. Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830.

Jefferson, Thomas. Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1777-1786. Monticello.org. https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/virginia-statute-religious-freedom/

Koch, G. Adolf. Religion of the American Enlightenment. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968.

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823. Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3446.