“The late John Fransham was by many persons esteemed a madman or a fool. The eccentricity of his conduct drew after him a crowd of boys in the streets; he used to walk about with a cat under his arm, which he affirmed possessed a soul, and that cats would be saved rather than human beings – he used to pass whole nights on Mousehold heath, almost without clothes. Yet this man, they knew, was surpassed by few for the depth of his researches, the accuracy of his classical knowledge, and his profound metaphysical enquiries.” – British Neptune, 25 October 1818

One of the more surprising features of the modern religious landscape is that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people in historically Christian countries who identify as pagans. Numerous people today feel drawn, for an interesting mix of reasons, to embrace beliefs and practices based on those of pre-Christian Europe and the Middle East. This modern pagan revival has been going on since at least the eighteenth century.

But how did the revival begin? Who was the first person to embrace revived paganism in the modern era?*

According to my research so far, the title of first modern pagan goes to an Englishman – a teacher from Norwich by the name of John Fransham.

In this piece, I will present a sketch of Fransham’s life, outline his philosophical views, and publish for the first time one of his satirical writings.

[* = In fact, pagan revivals have been breaking out ever since Christianity first took over. I wrote a book on this with Francis Young: Paganism Persisting, which is out in paperback in April. In this piece, however, we are concerned specifically with the modern revival – the one that began in the 1700s.]

Who was John Fransham?

John Fransham was born in the city of Norwich in eastern England in 1730. His father was employed by the local Anglican parish in an undistinguished job: he is variously reported to have been the parish clerk, the sexton or the watchman.

The young John received what amounted to a fairly good education for the time, in subjects which included Latin and theology. He showed sufficient promise that it was planned that he should study at Oxford or Cambridge with a view to entering the Anglican priesthood. Unfortunately – or not, depending on one’s perspective – the relative who was to have paid for this unexpectedly died.

From the age of 15 to his mid-20s, Fransham seems to have drifted from one occupation to another. He did manual work with a cooper, and later with a weaver. He clerked for attorneys and authors, and (rather amusingly) wrote sermons for clergymen. He spent some time with a company of actors. At around the age of 18, he left Norwich, intending to walk up to Scotland. He got as far as Newcastle, where he joined the army; but he was thrown out for being bandy-legged. He spent most of the rest of his life in Norwich, although he lived in London for a short period in his late 30s.

After his youthful drifting, Fransham settled down and worked as a teacher. At different times, he kept a school and served as a private tutor for wealthy families. He taught Latin, Greek, French and mathematics. Teaching has never been a lucrative profession, and it is said that Fransham was no stranger to poverty. He was also mean with money. He was financially better off in his later years, but he spent most of his adult life living in a garret, and his average lifetime income was no more than 8 shillings per week (well under £100 today).

Fransham was remembered as a genuine, unaffected eccentric. He may have had mental health problems; or he may have been what today we would call neurodiverse. He did not take care over his appearance, or even his cleanliness, and this hampered his progress in polite society. A number of anecdotes are told about his peculiar behaviour. As a young man, he stopped wearing shoes and stockings for three years. He believed that good health mattered only in comparison with illness, so he sometimes deliberately made himself sick on confectionery. He played the oboe, but he burned his instrument in order to brew some tea when he had a headache. He had morbid fears: he was uncommonly afraid of fire, and of being buried alive.

He took up the hobby of playing with a ‘bilbo-catch’, a toy whose object was to catch a ball on a spike. He set himself, and eventually achieved, the task of catching the ball precisely 666,666 times. He declared that this was an ambition “which no one less than the gods would ever think of attempting”.

Fransham never married – something that he apparently regretted in later life. It was thought that he didn’t have much time for women, or at least for those who didn’t share his intellectual interests. This can perhaps be explained as typical eighteenth-century sexism. It bears noting that Fransham had some female students, and it is said that several ladies from affluent families in and around Norwich had an unusual knowledge of Latin and Greek as a result.

Fransham’s views on political and social issues can be seen as a manifestation of his eccentricity. On the one hand, he stood out against the orthodoxies of the day by opposing slavery and imperialism. On the other hand, he was a firm supporter of absolute monarchy and social hierarchy; he opposed the democratic experiments of revolutionary France. He also had an abhorrence for cruelty to animals, including even insects. He denounced practices such as hunting and bull-baiting. When he saw a boy beating a donkey, he tried to attack him with a poker. When asked whom he would vote for if he had a vote, he replied, in reference to the practice of tail-docking: “that man who has humanity enough to drive long-tailed horses”.

John Fransham died on 1 February 1810, and he was buried in the local churchyard of St George’s, Colegate in Norwich. He was remembered as an honest man who had lived simply and who had had, in the words of his biographer William Saint, a “tender sensibility for the feelings of others”.

Fransham’s worldview

Fransham was fundamentally a child of the Enlightenment. He saw himself as a sceptical thinker, a facts-don’t-care-about-your-feelings guy:

….[S]carcely a sentence could be uttered in his presence, or any information communicated to him, without his rejoining with ‘Are you sure that is true? On what do you ground your belief? – You should be very cautious of the evidence of testimony. A Mathematician believes nothing without proof.’ &c. &c.

Given that he was formed in the critical, questioning atmosphere of the Enlightenment, it is no surprise that Fransham was an enemy of Christianity. His opposition to the faith was based in part on moral grounds: he was scandalised that Christians tolerated cruelty to animals and persecuted homosexuals.

Fransham’s freethinking scepticism and antipathy to Christianity were wholly unremarkable characteristics to find in an eighteenth-century thinker. At times, his views on the divine likewise seem to have mirrored those of the great Enlightenment deists like Voltaire, Jefferson and Rousseau: there is one God, the supreme lawgiver of the universe, but he is not to be confused with the primitive and capricious Jehovah of the Bible. At one point, for example, Fransham writes of a “supreme deity” who is “that universal genius, nature, cause, ground, substratum, or necessary law, which unites and sustains the universal system”.

Yet Fransham did not stop there. He was not just another identikit eighteenth-century rationalist who believed in a remote cosmic deity. He was a pagan polytheist. How did he arrive at this deeply unusual position?

A key part of the answer lies in his love of the Graeco-Roman classics, which he preferred to the learning of modern times. He was a particular admirer of Plato and Cicero, and he was also familiar with numerous other ancient writers, philosophers and poets, including Homer, Horace, Juvenal, Xenophon, Lactantius, Lucian, Lucretius, Ovid, Pindar, Propertius, Quintilian, Sextus Empiricus, Tibullus, Isocrates, Virgil, Sallust, Euripides, Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius.

This is only part of the answer, however. Lots of people in Fransham’s time loved classical literature and yet didn’t attempt to reconstruct the religious systems that they found in it.

It appears from his writings that Fransham thought his way into the eccentric project of reviving paganism by two separate but complementary routes.

Firstly, one aspect of Fransham’s polytheism took the form of equating broad cosmic and philosophical concepts with classical deities. We can see this in the first part of his most explicitly pagan work, a set of poems to the gods entitled Antiqua Religio (Ancient Religion). I have posted the text of this work online here. It begins with three hymns to a kind of pagan holy trinity: Jupiter, Minerva and Venus. Jupiter is presented as the supreme deity who pervades the universe: the source of everything, and the power by which everything is interconnected. Minerva personifies the philosophical conceptions of truth and the laws of the universe. Venus is portrayed as a generative and unifying power, who lays to rest “the strifes. . . of the world”.

Secondly, and at the same time, Fransham developed a much more peculiar theory to the effect that the individual constituent parts of the universe, large and small, must each have presiding spirits of some kind. These could be identified with classical pagan divinities. The following passage gives some idea of how Fransham’s theory of presiding spirits could be applied to different parts of the natural world, including the earth (Tellus), the sky (Coelus), the sea (Tethys), and the haunts of nymphs and genii:

But every situation or state of nature is hospitable to its proper inhabitants: – a little cavern or quiet shelter in the close domain of Tellus – the gentle shades and silent realm of calm Proserpina – the soft and limpid provinces of Tethys – the cool refreshment of a Naide’s bed – the ample theatre of Coelus – the elevated mounts or flowery meads of Pan and Pales – the hollow hills and close retreats where Echo hides herself – the fragrant carpet of the open heath, where Fairies dance by setting sun or moon-light… the antient seats and intimate recesses of sylvan Nymphs and Dryades; – why may not these, or any other imaginable scenes, in the succession of various nature, become as social homes or peaceful sanctuaries, animated and cheered by the presence of their peculiar Genii and friendly Penates, which there find and communicate their proper blessings?

Fransham presented his paganism as an alternative to both gloomy Christian superstition and cold materialist atheism. It was this religious niche – between Christianity and rationalism – that the modern pagan revival in general evolved to fill. Fransham seems to have got there before anyone else in trying to fill it.

It is perhaps worth noting that there is evidence that Fransham had a reputation for having paranormal experiences – perhaps surprisingly for someone who emerged, however erratically, from the Enlightenment tradition. There are accounts of him correctly predicting the deaths of two individuals; and it is said that he “boasted of his divinatory power” as a result of one of these cases. He also seems to have acquired a reputation as a fortune teller or astrologer – but in fact he despised such people as charlatans. When two women attempted to consult him about their prospects of finding a husband, he angrily threw them out.

Fransham’s works

Fransham wrote extensively, but he published little during his lifetime. In 1760, he brought out an anonymous Essay on the Oestrum or Enthusiasm of Orpheus, which argued in favour of emotional ‘enthusiasm’. This proved to be of sufficient interest that it was republished at least once. In 1768, he published a pair of satirical Anniversary Discourses (again anonymous), which related to Socrates and to Ben Jonson’s character Bartholomew Cokes. Soon afterwards, he turned his attention to journalism. In 1769, it seems that he took over a satirical paper in Norwich called Robin Snap. The paper did not last beyond the following year – although Fransham continued to write articles for it after it ceased publication.

Fransham wrote numerous other works in manuscript form which never saw the light of day. Not all of these survive, but many of them do. Those which survive are held in Norfolk Record Office, and no-one seems interested in claiming copyright over them.

Two works may be candidates for the title of Fransham’s masterpiece. One is The Code of Aristopia, an exercise in describing a utopian society. The other is his Synopsis of Classical Philosophy, a treatise which seeks to argue against the fear of death. It seems that he liked to talk about death.

We have already mentioned Fransham’s Antiqua Religio, which I have published online here.

Below, I have reproduced a short piece which Fransham wrote as part of his critique of Christianity. It may be noted that its perspective is one of nonsectarian monotheism rather than polytheistic paganism.

At this stage, let me ask a few questions. Should I publish more of Fransham’s works? Should I try to publish a selection of them in book form? Will you buy the book if I do?

A sample of Fransham’s work

In this short piece, Fransham writes with irony in the persona of a professed Christian. He takes aim at the argument sometimes made by Christians that the spread and triumph of the church in the face of persecution must have been miraculous. Fransham counters that the supreme god is responsible for the spread and triumph of all religions in different countries. Britons are Christians simply because they are familiar with the Christian system. Missionary activity should be halted. Fransham further points to the immorality of Christians – note here the references to slavery and to cruelty to animals – and suggests that, while some Christians are good people, this is despite their religion rather than because of it.

Question. Are the evidences for Christianity, external and internal, sufficient to support its credit and authenticity?

Response. We should wish to have the subject impartially explored; and therefore, if my discourse at first may seem to lean too much to one side of the question, a subsequent discussion may correct its deficiency.

In the first place, it is alleged that:

Whatever corruptions may prevail among modern Christians, surely Christianity itself had a divine origin, and its first promulgation a special providence. How else can we account for its wide progress and establishment, notwithstanding all the opposition and persecution it met with from the secular powers of this world?

To this, however, it is replied that:

Commonly a wind of persecution raises a flame of zeal, which spreads and gathers force in opposition to it. This may be a very natural effect of human spite and perverseness, or of the love of liberty, or of that general suspicion of a bad cause which violence excites.

They were the poor at first who had the gospel preached unto them. Invectives and prophecies against the pomp and grandeur of this world, a community of goods, and the general rumours or news of a change might be very soothing to the envious, poor and discontented everywhere. Thus, the passions of multitudes of malcontents might naturally be engaged on the side of Christianity as a novelty to turn the world upside down [Footnote: Acts 17.6], to pull down the mighty and raise up the low, to fill the bellies of the needy and send the rich empty away.

However, though we cannot account for the growth of oaks or shrubs, mushrooms and funguses in their several times and places, yet some sufficient causes they must have, whether assignable or not; and we doubt not the divine origin and fabrication of every species. We cannot explain particularly how some families have risen to sovereignties, or how they surmounted the envy of the world and all the opposition of potent competitors. No more can we indicate all the causes concurring to the growth and progress of Mahometanism or any other hierarchy, in despite of the prejudices and prepossessions of prior establishments. Yet we suppose that the same divine power which produces wise men and fools, the strong and the weak, is the author and source of all.

How far secular potentates could oppose or persecute Christianity in its infancy before they heard of it, or thought it worth any kind of notice, no mortal can imagine. How far their persecutions extended in its robuster years we have but very precarious ground of conjecturing. After Christianity had been slightly persecuted under several virtuous emperors, not so much as a religion but as a fermenter of seditious practises, real or suspected, it was at length politically adopted and established by a degenerate one [Fn: Constantine], to whom it offered such expiation for crimes as honest paganism would not afford. Since which time numberless miserable sinners have crept under the supposed shelter of an advocate or mediator appointed to intercept the justice of heaven. Moreover, from historical remains, we have sufficient intimation that cabals of secular powers and human agents suppressed many writings of early adversaries to Christianity and forged many testimonials of it; and since those times it has not wanted the support of machinations and confederacies, dark and wide, and the combined influence of temporal premiums and persecutions, public and private, direct and sinister. Thus far might human means and influence proceed.

Yet, after all, in whatever manner or degree divine power may have been exerted in favour of Christianity or any other establishment – since every power is derived from the supreme, and as “the powers that be are ordained of God” [Editor: This is a quote from Romans 13.1] – this may become a sufficient and conclusive argument for the divine origin or authority of all national religions in the world. Now, therefore, let modern infidels and modern bigots mark the consequence. As wise men and fools, a man and a louse, a cat and a mouse, an eagle and a worm, a lion and a frog, an oak and a fungus, are works of the same omnipotent; and as no two individuals of the same species, nor two species of the same genus, can be found exactly similar; every one must be produced not merely by a general, but by a special exertion of the same divine power – and this indeed (not as the Deists object against revelation) not in the way of mending a defect in the original plan of divine providence, but as a destined part of that immense and progressive whole or universal system extending through all the regions of space and periods of eternity.

Thus, all agents and transactions, all religious dispensations, modes, and sects of religion are equally derived from the supreme dispenser and are constituent parts of the universal plan of divine administration. True it is that as one star differs from another star in glory, so all the divine works, or dispensations in general, are not equally glorious, but may differ from each other in glory. Christianity by law established, with all its gloss of modern eloquence and wealth and splendour and philosophical refinements superadded, is doubtless a more glorious dispensation than the primitive [Fn: 1 Corinthians 1.21, 23] foolishness of preaching to Greeks or poor Jews, or than a rude squalid Indian pagoda; and the magnificent establishment of ancient oracles or pagan potentates must have been much more glorious displays of divine munificence than a beggarly conventicle of poor Christian Methodists. So likewise, the pomp of popery must appear a far more glorious dispensation of providence than the paltry lot of any sordid sect of Protestants who cannot afford the magnificence of a Catholic church: high altars with suitable decorations and lustre, music, incense, and even miraculous appendages of solemn worship. Yet all these various professions, or dispensations, from the grandest even to the meanest, have their just and proper claims to a divine authority, as now explained. By this argument, however, some will not be induced to put their trust in dumb idols and false gods (as they call them) or in false prophets and impostors, or in the legends and mummeries of popery, how grave and solemn soever they be; yea, though they mislead whole nations in darkness and ignorance.

How cautious then ought all professors to be, however mighty their conceits, when they endeavour to draw converts to their own religious persuasion; lest in the attempt they should supplant or needlessly shock those tenets of others which may be the proper consolations of their lives, yet not be able to substitute a compensation to their minds with sufficient authority. A Christian might subvert the faith of a Turk without establishing his hope in Christ; or a Turk might explode the confidence of a Christian without fixing his hope in the paradise of Mahomet. In such a view, it seems most advisable for each to hold fast his own prime assurance firm unto the end. But then everyone’s conceitedness should rest in his own consolation and never prompt him to disturb the harmless conceits of another, perhaps more safe and comfortable than his own. What excuse, then, for the arrogance and pretensions of missionaries on either side, especially if they be only hypocritical and neither side allow to the other a preference in morals?

After this general statement of the subject, a brief reply to the question may suffice. Are the evidences of Christianity sufficient? We may answer by asking: How can this question furnish matter of doubt to us? To us, it should seem rather a subject of our feeling than of speculation, and its decision depends on the sensations of each individual. In this part of the world, our early education, our natural affections, our personal connections and interests, are all pre-engaged on the side of Christian profession. Let us only make our appeal to the first person we meet in the streets that is no stranger to his own parish church.

“Was there ever a person called Jesus Christ?”

“Doubtless there was.”

“And was he the son of God, very God of very God?”

“Most assuredly, we have always heard so. The very babes know this in their catechism or creed book. ‘Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting’. [Editor: This is a quote from the Athanasian Creed.] Those are the very words.”

“And did not this divine person die for our sins?”

“To be sure: ‘the just for the unjust, that we might be saved’.” [Editor: This is a paraphrase of 1 Peter 3.18.]

“And did he not rise again from the dead?”

“Yes, verily.”

“How do you prove it?”

“‘For if Christ be not risen, our faith is vain. We are yet in our sins.’ [Editor: This is a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 15.14-17.] Not only so, but this just holy one who died for the unjust shall come again to judge the world in righteousness at last, every one according to his works.”

“Prove this.”

“‘For we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ, who will render to every man according to his deeds.’” [Editor: This quotation is taken from a combination of Romans 14.10 and 2.6.]

Is not all this very fair and convenient? Highly reasonable? I forebear to enlarge, lest I should seem tedious. But to deny these things must be shocking to the ears of every civilised Christian. If indeed we had passed the first twenty or thirty years of our life among Turks or Indians or old Athenians, those articles of holy Christian faith might have sounded like strange things to our ears. But after dwelling all our time in Christendom, and especially in England, it would verily be full as absurd and preposterous to object or demur against the harmless words and sounds of Trinity, Redemption, Salvation, Damnation, and so forth as against – against (what shall we say?) – as against the snapping and cracking of whips, or against the sight of bobtailed cropped horses or overloaded asses, to which we have been so long accustomed that nothing is more easy and familiar to us. For whatever we are much used to hear or to see becomes right and reasonable, fit and good and just as it should be.

Well, therefore, may we conclude, as the evil spirit in the Acts: “Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are ye (new pretenders)?” [Editor: This is a quote from Acts 19.15.] “Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.” [Editor: This is a quote from Colossians 2.8.] The form of sound words in a good old way is a charm of security against all enticing words of men’s wisdom, against all disputations and questions which tend only to damnable heresies and blasphemies, even to men’s own destruction – whereas in the safe and good way of old paths they may find rest for their souls [Fn: Jeremiah 6.16].

The French author of Nature Displayed avers that the simple tolling of a parish bell for prayers is a sufficient evidence of the credibility of our common Christianity, since the practice might be traced back to such primitive times and situations and persons as were not liable to deception – as derived from the testimonies and instructions of those eyewitnesses and apostles who could neither be deceived themselves nor have any interest in deceiving others. [Editor: The reference is to Noël-Antoine Pluche and his Spectacle de la Nature.] But whether any evidence of it be sufficient for good morals may deserve some farther consideration as follows, viz.:

THE ONE GREAT ARGUMENT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY

While Christianity is the professed religion of horse-dockers, bull-baiters and slave-traders, and yet many good characters are to be found among Christians, these must be ascribed, not to the influence of their religion, but either to the moral education carefully annexed to it or to the natural goodness of their own tempers. Such Christians, therefore, may be good men, not because of their religion, but notwithstanding their religion.

To the laws, however, not to the gospel, men owe their protection against the violent and cruel dispositions of ruffians, horse-dockers, horse-racers, duck-hunters, stag-hunters, bull-baiters, and such national characters, to whom the evidences and doctrines of Christianity are plainly insufficient for the prevention or cure of a morbid callous which time and evil custom bring upon them. Such a callousity of temper, such a cruelty of practice and monstrous pravity of taste or fancy is to be found among Christians only, and therefore, while remaining so notorious in Christendom, must continue the reproach of Christianity and render its name an abomination to the rest of the world.

How impudent the arrogance of her people, among whom such abominations prevail, among whom such cruelties and monstrous whims are customary, to pretend to the best religion and government! Is it thus that we judge of a tree by its fruits? Christians and Englishmen are bull-baiters and horse-croppers; and the pretended sons of liberty, tyrannical oppressors and slave-traders. They who are so fond of cracking their whips, cropping the tails and ears of their horses, and hunting timorous animals merely under the notion of sport, discover a malignity which only laws or human powers deter from being exercised on their own species.

“The modes of faith contend however long,

His can’t be right, whose life is in the wrong.”

[Editor: This is an adaptation of a couplet from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, 3.305-306: “For modes of faith let graceless Zealots fight / He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right”.]

However, to all the sceptical objections occurring in this whole discussion, it may be finally replied:

1. In the first place, they admit the divine origin and authority of the Christian religion as well as of all others, and therefore this is a sufficient recommendation of it in Christendom as a rule of faith and practice – and though an equal claim be thus left open for others, e.g. Mahometanism, yet let the Turks or Persians look to that, for to them we may leave it. When we live in their country, it will be time enough to consider of that. Be it sufficient for us to stand upon our own bottom.

2. In the next place, no objection can lie against the use of anything from the abuse of it, as this would be an endless absurdity and inconvenience. If therefore Christians be cruel or addicted to any other vice, and will pervert or abuse their institution to wicked purposes, or neglect to make the proper use of it, such pravity must not be imputed to the religion itself, but to the corruption or inattention of its professors.

On these two foundations, we may safely rest the defence of Christianity against all the quibbles and cavills of infidels and sceptics. It is well for the public repose that the simple peasant, the labouring man, or men of business and active life can have no leisure for such idle speculations.