Plato was a freethinker, and his notions are so like some in the Gospel, that a heathen charged Christ with borrowing his doctrine from Plato.  But Origen[25] defends Christ very well against this charge, by saying he did not understand Greek, and therefore could not borrow his doctrine from Plato.  However their two religions agreed so well, that it was common for Christians to turn Platonists, and Platonists Christians.  When the Christians found out this, one of their zealous priests (worse than any atheist) forged several things under Plato’s name, but conformable to Christianity, by which the heathens were fraudulently converted.

[Footnote 25:  Origen, a Father of the Church, was born about 185.  He carried to extremes the celibate life taught in the Gospel; and his “Treatise against Celsus” contains, according to St. Jerome and Eusebius, the refutation of “all the objections which have been made, and all which ever will be made against Christianity.” [T.  S.] ]

Epicurus was the greatest of all freethinkers, and consequently the most virtuous man in the world.  His opinions in religion were the most complete system of atheism that ever appeared.  Christians ought to have the greatest veneration for him, because he taught a higher point of virtue than Christ; I mean the virtue of friendship, which in the sense we usually understand it, is not so much as named in the New Testament.

Plutarch was a freethinker, notwithstanding his being a priest; but indeed he was a heathen priest.  His freethinking appears by showing the innocence of atheism, (which at worst is only false reasoning,) and the mischiefs of superstition; and explains what superstition is, by calling it a conceit of immortal ills after death, the opinion of hell torments, dreadful aspects, doleful groans, and the like.  He is likewise very satirical upon the public forms of devotion in his own country (a qualification absolutely necessary to a freethinker) yet those forms which he ridicules, are the very same that now pass for true worship in almost all countries:  I am sure some of them do so in ours; such as abject looks, distortions, wry faces, beggarly tones, humiliation, and contrition.

Varro,[26] the most learned among the Romans, was a freethinker; for he said, the heathen divinity contained many fables below the dignity of immortal beings; such, for instance, as Gods BEGOTTEN and PROCEEDING from other Gods.  These two words I desire you will particularly remark, because they are the very terms made use of by our priests in their doctrine of the Trinity:  He says likewise, that there are many things false in religion, and so say all freethinkers; but then he adds; “which the vulgar ought not to know, but it is expedient they should believe.”  In this last he indeed discovers the whole secret of a statesman and politician, by denying the vulgar the privilege of freethinking, and here I differ from him.  However, it is manifest from hence, that the Trinity was an invention of statesmen and politicians.