The Road to Monticello

by Hayes, Kevin J. ;

  “The Gospel According to Luke” provided the first source text Jefferson used for his Life of Jesus. He omitted the entire first chapter of Luke. This omission excludes the story of the birth of John the Baptist and thus eliminates an episode Jefferson saw as an unnecessary digression. By omitting the first chapter of Luke, Jefferson also eliminated the story of the Annunciation—Gabriel is not among the dramatis personae in this retelling of the life of Christ. Jefferson also avoided any reference to Mary being a virgin. Nothing happens in Jefferson’s Life of Jesus that cannot happen in nature. Jefferson excluded all supernatural elements from his narrative, regardless how central they had been to the traditional story of Christ’s life.

  Jefferson’s Life of Jesus begins as the second chapter of Luke begins, with Joseph and Mary leaving Nazareth and traveling to Bethlehem. Jefferson retained the first seven verses of the chapter, which tell the story of Christ’s birth in a manger. He excised verses eight through twenty, which relate the story of an angel announcing the birth of Jesus to the nearby shepherds and their adoration of him. Jefferson found nothing wrong with the shepherds, but the angels had to go. This section of the Gospels contains some of the most quoted and heartfelt passages in the Bible. Jefferson wasted no sentiment here. In the Gospel according to Luke, multitudinous angels appear, praise God and say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” In the Gospel according to Jefferson, there are no angels whatsoever.

  After quoting a part of the twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Luke, which supplies the name of Jesus, Jefferson excised verses twenty-two through thirty-eight—the story of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. He resumed the story at the thirty-ninth verse, when Joseph and Mary return to Nazareth. With so much of the intervening text removed, Jesus grows into adolescence very quickly.

  Even with the verses he retained, Jefferson tinkered with the text. Verse forty of the second chapter of Luke reads: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” There was one part of this sentence Jefferson found inappropriate, the closing independent clause. In Jefferson’s version, the verse reads: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom.” To Jefferson’s mind, the grace of God had nothing to do with Christ’s wisdom.

  Jefferson retained the next several verses from the second chapter of Luke, which tell how Joseph and Mary became separated from their son for three days but eventually found him “in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.” Mary, too, has a question for him.

  “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing,” she asks.

  “How is it that ye sought me?” Jesus asked in turn. “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”

  That’s how Luke told the story. In Jefferson’s version, Jesus does not reply to his mother’s question at all. He says nothing.

  Jefferson ended what can be considered his first chapter with the verse that ends the second chapter of Luke: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Jefferson liked the beginning of this verse, not its ending, so he eliminated the closing prepositional phrase. In his version, the chapter ends, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature.”

  From this point in his biography, Jefferson’s editing process became more complex as the different books of the Gospel tell varying stories of Christ’s life. Starting with the third chapter of Luke, Jefferson began to intercut passages from other books of the Gospel. The early verses of the third chapter of Luke establish the setting in terms of both time and place, but Jefferson disliked the syntax of the passage: the opening sentence does not even end until the second verse. The original text of the first four verses of the third chapter of Luke reads:

  Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

  Jefferson omitted the phrase “the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness” and the entire sentence following it. In its place, he substituted the first independent clause of Mark 1:4: “John did baptize in the wilderness.” Jefferson’s substitution recalls the process of condensation he had used in his writing ever since he began his legal commonplace book. It makes the factual information less wordy and more precise. Furthermore, his revision eliminates references to both God and repentance.

  Jefferson intercut a passage from Matthew to describe John’s baptism of Jesus (3:4–6, 13). After quoting from Luke (3:23) to record that Jesus was now “about thirty years of age,” he related a story from John (2:12–16) showing how Jesus chased the money changers from the temple. He also included the memorable phrase, “Make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.”

  After this episode, Jefferson flashed forward, intercutting the story of Herodias asking her father for the head of John the Baptist from the sixth chapter of Mark. This biblical episode was one of Jefferson’s favorites. Hanging at Monticello was a finely rendered copy of Guido Reni’s Herodias Bearing the Head of St. John.

  Jefferson also included the story of Jesus choosing his apostles and a long excerpt from the fifth chapter of Matthew. This chapter begins Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which extends over the next two chapters of Matthew. Not even the Sermon on the Mount was sacrosanct from Jefferson’s scissors. After including the first twelve verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew, he intercut three verses from Luke (6.24–26), which record a different sermon by Jesus. Recognizing that the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew was incomplete, Jefferson audaciously completed it by adding another text Jesus spoke.

  Herodias Bearing the Head of St. John, after the original by Guido Reni. (Monticello, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.)

  Toward the end of the fifth book of Matthew, he added another excerpt from Luke (6:34–36) to the Sermon on the Mount: “And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” This passage is a substitution for a passage from the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew (5:48), which is similarly worded: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Recognizing that both sentences shared the same syntax, Jefferson logically concluded that the sentence in Matthew was a mistranscription for Christ’s words. The sentence in Luke, Jefferson decided, more closely resembled what Christ said.

  Separating what Christ said from what others attributed to him seemed a simple process to Jefferson. As he told William Short, “The difference is obvious to the eye and to the understanding, and we may read, as we run, to each his part; and I will venture to affirm that he who, as I have done, will undertake to winnow this grain from its chaff, will find it not to require a moment’s consideration. The parts fall asunder of themselves as would those of an image of metal and clay.”22

  Jefferson continued the Sermon on the Mount with the entire sixth chapter of Matthew and the first two verses of the seventh: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” After some further changes, he skipped ahead to a later passage in Matthew (12:35–37), which he used to complete the Sermon on the Mount: “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brin
geth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Jefferson considered the Sermon on the Mount to represent Jesus Christ at his best and felt that there was nothing religious about it at all. Rather, it forms a compendium of Christ’s moral precepts that everyone interested in living an upright life can follow.

  The conclusion of the Life of Jesus is simultaneously the most natural and yet the most daring part of the whole biography. It ends with one compound sentence describing Christ’s burial. Jefferson formed the sentence from the beginning of a verse from John (19:42) and the ending of a verse from Matthew (27:60): “There they laid Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.”

  Of course, neither John nor Matthew ended Christ’s story here. Both books of the New Testament tell the story of Christ’s resurrection next. To Jefferson, the story of the resurrection had no place in the biography of Jesus of Nazareth. It, too, was another supernatural element that Jefferson eliminated from his life of Christ.

  While all these revisions to the Bible may make it seem like Jefferson was an atheist himself, he was not. Few documents provide a better indication of Jefferson’s attitude toward a supreme being than Samuel Whitcomb’s 1824 interview with him. Whitcomb, who was an atheist, confronted Jefferson on the subject.23 Jefferson professed his belief in a supreme being. Whitcomb suggested that “if the Being of God was admitted it seemed to go far toward proving the Truth of and preparing the way for the admission of Christianity.”

  Jefferson disagreed.

  “Jesus was one of the best men that ever lived,” Jefferson told him.

  “But,” replied Whitcomb, “how could He make such pretensions to Divinity and …”

  “He never did so,” replied Jefferson, cutting Whitcomb off in mid-sentence.

  “Well,” Whitcomb responded, “He professed to have Divine Aid in working miracles.”

  “No he did not,” Jefferson responded. “Paul was the first who had perverted the Doctrines of Christ.”

  Whitcomb made some additional remarks and “concluded by saying that the Clergy in our Country were investigating these subjects with considerable independence.”

  Jefferson disagreed once more. Whitcomb did not record his precise response, but his summary captures its essence: “He dissented and expressed himself warmly in a phrase which I suppose was not English but some other language ‘The Clergy were all———.’”

  He did not tell Whitcomb about his Life of Jesus. He did not even tell his family about the book. This was one of those books Jefferson liked to read by himself late at night just before falling asleep. Reading the wisdom of Christ before bed, Jefferson gave himself much to ponder as he drifted off to sleep.

  Christians may take offense at Jefferson’s decision to omit the resurrection. From a literary perspective, the conclusion to his Life of Jesus offers a good example of his use of understatement. The quiet simplicity of Christ’s death and burial provide a stirring contrast to his posthumous reputation. The ending of Jefferson’s Life of Jesus is reminiscent of the ending of Paradise Lost. As Milton rewrote the story of Adam and Eve, there is a profound sense of calm as the two leave Paradise and enter the world. The ending of Jefferson’s Life of Jesus is similarly low key. There’s no mourning, no fanfare, no weeping; once the physical burial is complete, the people move on. Jefferson leaves the reader with the image of the sepulchre once everyone has left, an image simple in composition, complex in terms of its symbolic resonance: “There they laid Jesus, And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.”

  CHAPTER 40

  The Autobiography

  Rereading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography in the spring of 1820, William Short regretted that Jefferson had yet to write his life story. Short had asked him to do so earlier but without result. Tenaciously, he wrote again that year to reiterate the request: “I have lately read over again Dr Franklin’s plain and simple narration of the events of his own life. It has renewed my desire to see the same kind of work from yourself; but I will not be importunate in asking it at your hands against your own inclination, notwithstanding the great gratification it would give to your invariable and faithful friend.”1 While aware of Franklin’s autobiography and other recent books devoted to the lives of the patriots, Jefferson had so far avoided writing the story of his life. The year following Short’s letter, however, he finally relented.

  After heading his manuscript with the date January 6, 1821, Jefferson drafted his opening sentence: “At the age of 77, I begin to make some memoranda and state some recollections concerning myself, for my own more ready reference and for the information of my family.” The revisions he made to this sentence verify the discomfort he felt writing about himself. After inscribing the phrase “recollections concerning myself,” he went back and revised it to read: “recollections of dates and facts concerning myself.”2

  Limiting himself to dates and facts, Jefferson, paradoxically, sought to make his personal story as impersonal as possible. He had few literary models to guide him in his composition. The presidential memoir had yet to emerge as a lucrative, almost obligatory work. In addition to Franklin’s, Jefferson knew other famous autobiographies of the era, including Rousseau’s Confessions. To be sure, he would not be using Rousseau as a model. Jean-François Marmontel’s Memoires, which Jefferson knew from the four-volume Oeuvres Posthume de Marmontel, offered another possible model for his own memoirs.

  Having become good friends with Marmontel in Paris, Jefferson knew from personal experience that he was an expert anecdotalist and recognized a quality in Marmontel’s Memoirs that resembled his conversation. An expert anecdotalist himself, Jefferson, unlike either Franklin or Marmontel, included relatively few of his personal anecdotes in his autobiography. Short was hoping for a work patterned on Franklin’s, but Jefferson’s autobiography would be something very different.

  As far as openings go, Jefferson’s first sentence leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn’t make for the kind of start that suggests a terrific life story is to follow. But it does offer an indication of the autobiography as a whole. Though not as highly crafted or carefully revised as his most famous writings, Jefferson’s autobiography is not without valuable literary qualities. His seemingly modest opening, for example, embodies a deliberate literary pose. While he claims to be writing the story of his life solely for the benefit of himself and his family, Jefferson understood that it would reach a much wider audience after his death. The care with which he preserved his public papers—and destroyed his most intimate private papers—shows his understanding that whatever documents he saved would be read, studied, and published.

  The early pages sustain the initial pose, making the book seem like a reference guide for personal use. When George Wythe enters the story, for example, Jefferson avoided saying much about him, despite how important Wythe was to his legal education. Instead, Jefferson referred to a character sketch he had written the previous year: “For a sketch of the life and character of Mr. Wythe see my letter of Aug. 31. 20. to Mr. John Saunderson.”3 The cross-reference to a letter from his files confirms the uneasiness Jefferson felt as he wrote the story of his life. He had recently written a good sketch of Wythe. Why bother writing another?

  Though it might seem cumbersome to locate this letter to read his account of George Wythe, it was no problem for Jefferson, who maintained a huge and highly organized file of his correspondence. Always fascinated with the latest technology, he had begun using a polygraph almost as soon as the device was invented. While president, he had acquired one from Charles Willson Peale. Invented by John Isaac Hawkins and developed and produced by Peale, the polygraph, applying the principle of the pantograph, held two pens and allowed its user to write a letter and make a copy of it simultaneously. The early polygraphs were finicky, however, and Jefferson sugge
sted improvements to Peale and purchased new models as they improved in reliability and ease of use. He meticulously made copies of his letters and organized his correspondence so that he could locate any letter effortlessly.

  At times, the text of Jefferson’s autobiography suggests an uncharacteristic impatience. Describing his relationship with Patrick Henry, Jefferson initially recalled his law student days when he listened to the debates over the Stamp Act from the lobby door of the House of Burgesses and heard Henry present his famous Virginia Resolutions. Jefferson included little other information about the role Henry played in his life. Since he had recorded his impressions in several letters to William Wirt, who had incorporated much of what he wrote in Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, Jefferson found it unnecessary to write about Henry all over again. Instead of repeating what had been written, he simply referred readers to Wirt’s text.

  Shifting from his education to his public life, Jefferson corrected some errors that had entered early American history. Discussing the origins of the intercolonial committees of correspondence, for example, he refuted an error John Marshall had perpetuated in his Life of George Washington—that Massachusetts was responsible for initiating these committees. In a series of letters two years earlier, Jefferson had argued convincingly that Virginia deserved credit. Instead of repeating his previous arguments, he again referred his readers to the letters. But he did admit an error he had made in one of them.

  Jefferson never had a problem admitting when he was wrong. As he said earlier, “Error is the stuff of which the web of life is woven: and he who lives longest and wisest is only able to wear out the more of it.”4 Admitting his error in the autobiography, he exemplified this idea. Some of the minor topics discussed in the autobiography seem introduced primarily for the purpose of correcting errors in his previous writings. Jefferson saw this book as one of his last opportunities to set the record straight.