PREFACE. 
XXXV 
appears in me as little less than a blind lust of Destruction. 
(That is to say, on the rare occasion when I so far fall from 
adeptship as to credit the evidence of my senses). 
I have consequently done all I can to shock and hurt the 
enemy.  I have painted their God as the obscene thing he 
is from my knowledge of my Uncle Tom ;  I have made his 
Trinity ridiculous and his scheme disgusting ;  I have painted 
Magdalen as the Syrian strumpet she was from the best models 
among English society whores (thank you, Ada ;  thank you, 
Kathleen !) ;  I have painted Mary as a lascivious flapper from 
my knowledge of English virgins — thank you, Vera !  thank 
you, Lydia !  thank you, Millicent ! — the hag is my mother-
in-law, and the baboon the Reverend F. F. Kelly.  I cannot 
pretend to remember exactly who ’ sat ’ for the ox and the ass, 
though the names of Charles Watts and Joseph Mc. Cabe 
somehow instinctively suggest themselves in this connection. 
The satyr and nymph crowd are mostly painted from 
imagination, for on my honour I hardly know so many 
decent people ;  I painted Jesus first as a joke — the brass 
bottle of our braying clergy ;  I developed him as a low 
class Jew [not knowing any South African millionnaires I 
took him straight out of the Gospel] and lastly I miracu-
lously turned him into a real man, chiefly out of compli-
ment to the distinguished fictionist Ernest Renan.  In 
other words, I have kept as close to my documents as any 
one has any reason to expect. 
With regard to the plot, I must ask my readers to 
believe in the existence of a great magical brotherhood