Hitchens there tells us that, although the "people who must never have power are the humorless" (pxviii), and he wishes "to keep the solemn and pious at bay" (xix), nonetheless "a serious person should try to write posthumously ... as if the usual constraints ... did not operate". So with his penchants for cigarettes and whisky (and wild wild women?) having given him a death sentence recently from cancer, Hitchens feels liberated to tell us what he really thinks, (except I assume for the risk that his publisher might have to pulp his book if it proves too free and libelous). We can therefore expect to learn much in this book, written without fear or favor.
I cannot avoid though, drawing attention to an egregious error on the very first page, much as I hesitate to open with a small criticism of a writer whom I greatly admire. If I were an apologist, I might use this slip as proof positive that nothing whatsoever that Hitchens says deserves any notice. But I am not an apologist, so this one mistake can be put down to misfortune. But if I find another one he will start to look as careless as Earnest.
Now as any schoolboy knows, Tertullian did not start writing until the late second century, and mainly wrote in the third century. Hitchens may well be attributing miraculous powers to Tertullian to be able to write his famous line at the ripe age of minus one hundred, but that seems unlikely. This unfortunate slip, and yes it is careless, does actually tell us something about Hitchens' knowledge of and interest in Christianity. The fact is that we have no evidence that martyrology as such started its mythic progress for the church until the second century, so this display of careless ignorance shows a rather cavalier attention to detail, assuming that Christianity was far more advanced in the first century than was in fact the case. But no matter. I'm sure it will be the only error in the book. I look forward to reading it.Christopher Hitchens wrote:"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," wrote the Church Father Tertullian in late first-century Carthage. (p.xv)