135, 136:— by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Summary, Meaning & Analysis
This isn't a poem in the usual sense; it's actually two prose notes (numbered 135 and 136) from Shelley's lengthy philosophical work *Queen Mab*, where he directly challenges organized Christianity.
The poem
I will beget a Son, and He shall bear The sins of all the world. A book is put into our hands when children, called the Bible, the purport of whose history is briefly this: That God made the earth in six days, and there planted a delightful garden, in which He placed the first pair of human beings. In the midst of the garden He planted a tree, whose fruit, although within their reach, they were forbidden to touch. That the Devil, in the shape of a snake, persuaded them to eat of this fruit; in consequence of which God condemned both them and their posterity yet unborn to satisfy His justice by their eternal misery. That, four thousand years after these events (the human race in the meanwhile having gone unredeemed to perdition), God engendered with the betrothed wife of a carpenter in Judea (whose virginity was nevertheless uninjured), and begat a son, whose name was Jesus Christ; and who was crucified and died, in order that no more men might be devoted to hell-fire, He bearing the burthen of His Father’s displeasure by proxy. The book states, in addition, that the soul of whoever disbelieves this sacrifice will be burned with everlasting fire. During many ages of misery and darkness this story gained implicit belief; but at length men arose who suspected that it was a fable and imposture, and that Jesus Christ, so far from being a God, was only a man like themselves. But a numerous set of men, who derived and still derive immense emoluments from this opinion, in the shape of a popular belief, told the vulgar that if they did not believe in the Bible they would be damned to all eternity; and burned, imprisoned, and poisoned all the unbiassed and unconnected inquirers who occasionally arose. They still oppress them, so far as the people, now become more enlightened, will allow. The belief in all that the Bible contains is called Christianity. A Roman governor of Judea, at the instance of a priest-led mob, crucified a man called Jesus eighteen centuries ago. He was a man of pure life, who desired to rescue his countrymen from the tyranny of their barbarous and degrading superstitions. The common fate of all who desire to benefit mankind awaited him. The rabble, at the instigation of the priests, demanded his death, although his very judge made public acknowledgement of his innocence. Jesus was sacrificed to the honour of that God with whom he was afterwards confounded. It is of importance, therefore, to distinguish between the pretended character of this being as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and his real character as a man, who, for a vain attempt to reform the world, paid the forfeit of his life to that overbearing tyranny which has since so long desolated the universe in his name. Whilst the one is a hypocritical Daemon, who announces Himself as the God of compassion and peace, even whilst He stretches forth His blood-red hand with the sword of discord to waste the earth, having confessedly devised this scheme of desolation from eternity; the other stands in the foremost list of those true heroes who have died in the glorious martyrdom of liberty, and have braved torture, contempt, and poverty in the cause of suffering humanity. (Since writing this note I have some reason to suspect that Jesus was an ambitious man, who aspired to the throne of Judea. The vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of Jesus was a supernatural event. Testimonies of miracles, so frequent in unenlightened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something divine. This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, met with the reveries of Plato and the reasonings of Aristotle, and acquired force and extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute was death, which to doubt was infamy. CHRISTIANITY is now the established religion: he who attempts to impugn it must be contented to behold murderers and traitors take precedence of him in public opinion; though, if his genius be equal to his courage, and assisted by a peculiar coalition of circumstances, future ages may exalt him to a divinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was persecuted in the name of his predecessor in the homage of the world. The same means that have supported every other popular belief have supported Christianity. War, imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood; deeds of unexampled and incomparable atrocity have made it what it is. The blood shed by the votaries of the God of mercy and peace, since the establishment of His religion, would probably suffice to drown all other sectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive from our ancestors a faith thus fostered and supported: we quarrel, persecute, and hate for its maintenance. Even under a government which, whilst it infringes the very right of thought and speech, boasts of permitting the liberty of the press, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he is a deist, and no one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged humanity. But it is ever a proof that the falsehood of a proposition is felt by those who use coercion, not reasoning, to procure its admission; and a dispassionate observer would feel himself more powerfully interested in favour of a man who, depending on the truth of his opinions, simply stated his reasons for entertaining them, than in that of his aggressor who, daringly avowing his unwillingness or incapacity to answer them by argument, proceeded to repress the energies and break the spirit of their promulgator by that torture and imprisonment whose infliction he could command. Analogy seems to favour the opinion that as, like other systems, Christianity has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and perish; that as violence, darkness, and deceit, not reasoning and persuasion, have procured its admission among mankind, so, when enthusiasm has subsided, and time, that infallible controverter of false opinions, has involved its pretended evidences in the darkness of antiquity, it will become obsolete; that Milton’s poem alone will give permanency to the remembrance of its absurdities; and that men will laugh as heartily at grace, faith, redemption, and original sin, as they now do at the metamorphoses of Jupiter, the miracles of Romish saints, the efficacy of witchcraft, and the appearance of departed spirits. Had the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of reasoning and persuasion, the preceding analogy would be inadmissible. We should never speculate on the future obsoleteness of a system perfectly conformable to nature and reason: it would endure so long as they endured; it would be a truth as indisputable as the light of the sun, the criminality of murder, and other facts, whose evidence, depending on our organization and relative situations, must remain acknowledged as satisfactory so long as man is man. It is an incontrovertible fact, the consideration of which ought to repress the hasty conclusions of credulity, or moderate its obstinacy in maintaining them, that, had the Jews not been a fanatical race of men, had even the resolution of Pontius Pilate been equal to his candour, the Christian religion never could have prevailed, it could not even have existed: on so feeble a thread hangs the most cherished opinion of a sixth of the human race! When will the vulgar learn humility? When will the pride of ignorance blush at having believed before it could comprehend? Either the Christian religion is true, or it is false: if true, it comes from God, and its authenticity can admit of doubt and dispute no further than its omnipotent author is willing to allow. Either the power or the goodness of God is called in question, if He leaves those doctrines most essential to the well-being of man in doubt and dispute; the only ones which, since their promulgation, have been the subject of unceasing cavil, the cause of irreconcilable hatred. IF GOD HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE
This isn't a poem in the usual sense; it's actually two prose notes (numbered 135 and 136) from Shelley's lengthy philosophical work *Queen Mab*, where he directly challenges organized Christianity. He contends that the Bible's central narrative is a harsh fable designed to instill fear, that the historical Jesus was merely a courageous reformer who met his end because of that, and that Christianity spread not by reason but through violence, torture, and deception. The last line abruptly cuts off in the middle of a thought, posing a powerful question: if God has spoken, why is there so much disagreement?
Line-by-line
I will beget a Son, and He shall bear / The sins of all the world.
A book is put into our hands when children, called the Bible...
During many ages of misery and darkness this story gained implicit belief...
The belief in all that the Bible contains is called Christianity...
The vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of Jesus was a supernatural event.
CHRISTIANITY is now the established religion: he who attempts to impugn it...
The same means that have supported every other popular belief have supported Christianity.
Analogy seems to favour the opinion that as, like other systems, Christianity has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and perish...
Had the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of reasoning and persuasion...
Either the Christian religion is true, or it is false: if true, it comes from God...
Tone & mood
The tone is furious, precise, and unapologetic. Shelley writes like an angry lawyer—he constructs his argument methodically while making his contempt clear. Phrases like 'the God of compassion and peace' are laced with cold sarcasm, directed at a deity Shelley views as a tyrant, while he expresses genuine, almost tender admiration for the human Jesus as a martyr for liberty. By the end, the tone shifts to one of exasperation: the final broken sentence captures a man so frustrated by the glaring contradiction that he can't even complete his thought.
Symbols & metaphors
- The forbidden tree — Shelley interprets the Garden of Eden story not as a sacred myth but as proof of a cruel and arbitrary God — one who places temptation within reach and then punishes humanity eternally for succumbing to it. In this view, the tree represents divine entrapment instead of divine wisdom.
- The carpenter's betrothed wife — By portraying Mary in strictly domestic and legal terms, Shelley removes the sacredness from the Incarnation. This phrasing aims to present the miracle as a social scandal, shifting the reader's focus from theological aspects to the human realities of the narrative.
- The blood-red hand — Shelley's depiction of God reaching out with a 'blood-red hand wielding the sword of discord' serves as a stark contrast to the typical portrayal of a compassionate deity. This image embodies the violence he perceives as the real legacy of Christian history — crusades, inquisitions, and burnings.
- Milton's poem — *Paradise Lost* serves as a reminder that art can endure beyond the belief systems that create it. Shelley suggests that the theology will eventually be ridiculed, but Milton's poetry will keep it alive like a museum keeps a dinosaur bone — a relic of something that no longer exists.
- The broken final sentence — The text ends abruptly in block capitals, and this unfinished form serves as its own symbol. It illustrates the unanswerable challenge that Shelley presents: the question regarding God's silence doesn't need to be completed because the silence itself is the answer.
- The deist in the pillory — This figure—a real person from Shelley's England—represents every freethinker who faced punishment through force rather than debate. He embodies Shelley's main point: that when a belief system can't justify itself, coercion takes the place of reason.
Historical context
Shelley wrote *Queen Mab* between 1812 and 1813 when he was just nineteen and twenty years old, and he published it privately in 1813. He had already been expelled from Oxford in 1811 for co-authoring a pamphlet titled *The Necessity of Atheism*. Notes 135 and 136 are part of a lengthy series of prose annotations to the poem, which serves as a visionary critique of monarchy, religion, and commerce. These notes are actually longer and more argumentative than the poem itself. At the time, Shelley was living in a Britain where blasphemous libel could lead to serious legal consequences — Richard Carlile and others were imprisoned for distributing freethought literature. *Queen Mab* circulated underground for years before it was pirated and became popular among working-class radicals in the 1820s and 1830s. Shelley was influenced by the French philosophes, Hume's skepticism, and William Godwin's ideas on rationalist anarchism. Tragically, he died in a boating accident in 1822 at the age of twenty-nine, never witnessing the full impact of his work.
FAQ
These notes are technically prose endnotes to *Queen Mab*, Shelley’s extensive philosophical poem. They're so significant—and so revolutionary—that they’re frequently read and included in anthologies as standalone pieces. The two-line epigraph at the top is poetry, while the rest consists of prose arguments. Shelley used these notes to express ideas that were too straightforward and legally risky to include in the poem itself.
Yes, he was openly and defiantly critical—something that was genuinely dangerous in early nineteenth-century Britain. This stance got him expelled from Oxford. In these notes, he doesn't hold back: he refers to the God of the Bible as a 'hypocritical Daemon' and views the entire Christian narrative as a politically convenient fiction. Later in life, he became somewhat more accepting of a pantheistic view, but he never took back his rejection of institutional Christianity.
Yes, and this is one of the most surprising points in the notes. Shelley distinguishes between the human Jesus — a courageous reformer who sought to liberate his people from superstition and was ultimately killed for it — and the divine Christ shaped by later teachings. He ranks the historical Jesus 'among the true heroes who have died in the noble struggle for liberty.' His issue lies not with Jesus as a person; rather, it's with the institution that has formed around his name.
He is drawing on a historical trend: every religion that once held power in a civilization eventually turns into mythology for the next. The Greeks and Romans worshipped Jupiter wholeheartedly; today, those tales are merely literature. Shelley suggests that Christianity will take a similar path—that future generations will view concepts like grace, original sin, and redemption as charmingly outdated, much like how we perceive Jupiter's romantic escapades. It's a long-term argument, and he was aware that it wouldn't be well-received.
The truncation seems intentional—or at least that's how Shelley presented it. The sentence creates a logical dilemma: if God is real and all-powerful, why has His message led to centuries of violent disagreement? The lack of an answer speaks volumes. Ending mid-thought also reflects the feeling of being silenced, aligning perfectly with the theme.
Shelley is likely referencing cases from contemporary Britain, where blasphemous libel laws were actively enforced. Richard Carlile, Daniel Isaac Eaton, and others faced prosecution for publishing freethought and deist material in the early nineteenth century. Shelley viewed these prosecutions as evidence that the church and state couldn't respond to rational criticism, leading them to resort to legal violence instead.
Shelley employs Pilate to present a contingency argument: the Roman governor believed Jesus was innocent and even stated this publicly, but still chose to hand him over for crucifixion. Had Pilate acted solely on his own judgment, the crucifixion likely wouldn't have occurred, and Christianity — which hinges entirely on that event — might not have come into being. Shelley's assertion is that the foundation of the world's largest religion relies on one man's cowardice. This is a thought meant to provoke and unsettle.
It’s a backhanded compliment. Shelley suggests that Christian doctrine will one day be ridiculed like we do with ancient superstitions. However, he recognizes that Milton's poem is so impactful that it will preserve the memory of those beliefs — similar to how a great novel can help you grasp a world you'd never want to inhabit. Art endures beyond the belief system that created it. As a poet himself, Shelley clearly found this both admirable and somewhat unsettling.