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SECTION IX: PERPETUITY
589. On the fact that the Christian religion is not the only religion.--So
far is this from being a reason for believing that it is not the true one
that, on the contrary, it makes us see that it is so.
590. Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews,
true Christians.
591.
592. The falseness of other religions.--They have no witnesses. Jews
have. God defies other religions to produce such signs: Isaiah 43:9; 44:8.
593. History of China.--I believe only the histories, whose witnesses
got themselves killed.
Which is the more credible of the two, Moses or China?
It is not a question of seeing this summarily. I tell you there is
in it something to blind, and something to enlighten.
By this one word I destroy all your reasoning. "But China obscures,"
say you; and I answer, "China obscures, but there is clearness to
be found; seek it."
Thus all that you say makes for one of the views and not at all against
the other.
So this serves, and does no harm.
We must, then, see this in detail; we must put the papers on the table.
594. Against the history of China.--The historians of Mexico, the five
suns, of which the last is only eight hundred years old.
The difference between a book accepted by a nation and one which makes
a nation.
595. Mahomet was without authority. His reasons, then, should have
been very strong, having only their own force. What does he say, then,
that we must believe him?
596. The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world.
Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ desires His
own testimony to be as nothing.
The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and everywhere;
and he, miserable creature, is alone.
597. Against Mahomet.--The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel
is of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even
its very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it.
The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man. Therefore Mahomet was
a false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing with
what they have said of Jesus Christ.
598. It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be
interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by
what is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous.
And since what is clear is ridiculous, it is not right to take his obscurities
for mysteries.
It is not the same with the Scripture. I agree that there are in it
obscurities as strange as those of Mahomet; but there are admirably clear
passages, and the prophecies are manifestly fulfilled. The cases are, therefore,
not on a par. We must not confound and put on one level things which only
resemble each other in their obscurity, and not in the clearness, which
requires us to reverence the obscurities.
599. The difference between Jesus Christ and Mahomet.--Mahomet was
not foretold; Jesus Christ was foretold.
Mahomet slew; Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain.
Mahomet forbade reading; the Apostles ordered reading.
In fact, the two are so opposed that, if Mahomet took the way to succeed
from a worldly point of view, Jesus Christ, from the same point of view,
took the way to perish. And instead of concluding that, since Mahomet succeeded,
Jesus Christ might well have succeeded, we ought to say that, since Mahomet
succeeded, Jesus Christ should have failed.
600. Any man can do what Mahomet has done; for he performed no miracles,
he was not foretold. No man can do what Christ has done.
601. The heathen religion has no foundation at the present day. It
is said once to have had a foundation by the oracles which spoke. But what
are the books which assure us of this? Are they so worthy of belief on
account of the virtue of their authors? Have they been preserved with such
care that we can be sure that they have not been meddled with?
The Mahometan religion has for a foundation the Koran and Mahomet.
But has this prophet, who was to be the last hope of the world, been foretold?
What sign has he that every other man has not who chooses to call himself
a prophet? What miracles does he himself say that he has done? What mysteries
has he taught, even according to his own tradition? What was the morality,
what the happiness held out by him?
The Jewish religion must be differently regarded in the tradition of
the Holy Bible and in the tradition of the people. Its morality and happiness
are absurd in the tradition of the people, but are admirable in that of
the Holy Bible. (And all religion is the same; for the Christian religion
is very different in the Holy Bible and in the casuists.) The foundation
is admirable; it is the most ancient book in the world, and the most authentic;
and whereas Mahomet, in order to make his own book continue in existence,
forbade men to read it, Moses, for the same reason, ordered every one to
read his.
Our religion is so divine that another divine religion has only been
the foundation of it.
602. Order.--To see what is clear and indisputable in the whole state
of the Jews.
603. The Jewish religion is wholly divine in its authority, its duration,
its perpetuity, its morality, its doctrine, and its effects.
604. The only science contrary to common sense and human nature is
that alone which has always existed among men.
605. The only religion contrary to nature, to common sense, and to
our pleasure, is that alone which has always existed.
606. No religion but our own has taught that man is born in sin. No
sea of philosophers has said this. Therefore none have declared the truth.
No sect or religion has always existed on earth, but the Christian
religion.
607. Whoever judges of the Jewish religion by its coarser forms will
misunderstand it. It is to be seen in the Holy Bible, and in the tradition
of the prophets, who have made it plain enough that they did not interpret
the law according to the letter. So our religion is divine in the Gospel,
in the Apostles, and in tradition; but it is absurd in those who tamper
with it.
The Messiah, according to the carnal Jews, was to be a great temporal
prince. Jesus Christ, according to carnal Christians, has come to dispense
us from the love of God and to give us sacraments which shall do everything
without our help. Such is not the Christian religion, nor the Jewish. True
Jews and true Christians have always expected a Messiah who should make
them love God and by that love triumph over their enemies.
608. The carnal Jews hold a midway place between Christians and heathens.
The heathens know not God, and love the world only. The Jews know the true
God, and love the world only. The Christians know the true God, and love
not the world. Jews and heathens love the same good. Jews and Christians
know the same God.
The Jews were of two kinds; the first had only heathen affections,
the other had Christian affections.
609. There are two kinds of men in each religion: among the heathen,
worshippers of beasts and the worshippers of the one only God of natural
religion; among the Jews, the carnal, and the spiritual, who were the Christians
of the old law; among Christians, the coarser-minded, who are the Jews
of the new law. The carnal Jews looked for a carnal Messiah; the coarser
Christians believe that the Messiah has dispensed them from the love of
God; true Jews and true Christians worship a Messiah who makes them love
God.
610. To show that the true Jews and the true Christians have but the
same religion.--The religion of the Jews seemed to consist essentially
in the fatherhood of Abraham, in circumcision, in sacrifices, in ceremonies,
in the Ark, in the temple, in Jerusalem, and, finally, in the law, and
in the covenant with Moses.
I say that it consisted in none of those things, but only in the love
of God, and that God disregarded all the other things.
That God did not accept the posterity of Abraham.
That the Jews were to be punished like strangers, if they transgressed.
Deut. 8:19: "If thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after
other gods, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish,
as the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face."
That strangers, if they loved God, were to be received by Him as the
Jews. Isaiah 56:3: "Let not the stranger say, 'The Lord will not receive
me.' The strangers who join themselves unto the Lord to serve Him and love
Him, will I bring unto my holy mountain, and accept therein sacrifices,
for mine house is a house of prayer."
That the true Jews considered their merit to be from God only, and
not from Abraham. Isaiah 63:16: "Doubtless thou art our Father, though
Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou art our
Father and our Redeemer."
Moses himself told them that God would not accept persons. Deut. 10:17:
"God," said he, "regardeth neither persons nor sacrifices."
The Sabbath was only a sign, Exod. 31:13; and in memory of the escape
from Egypt, Deut. 5:19. Therefore it is no longer necessary, since Egypt
must be forgotten.
Circumcision was only a sign, Gen. 17:11. And thence it came to pass
that, being in the desert, they were not circumcised, because they could
not be confounded with other peoples; and after Jesus Christ came, it was
no longer necessary.
That the circumcision of the heart is commanded. Deut. 10:16; Jeremiah
4:4: "Be ye circumcised in heart; take away the superfluities of your
heart, and harden yourselves not. For your God is a mighty God, strong
and terrible, who accepteth not persons."
That God said He would one day do it. Deut. 30:6: "God will circumcise
thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, that thou mayest love Him with
all thine heart."
That the uncircumcised in heart shall be judged. Jeremiah 9:26: For
God will judge the uncircumcised peoples, and all the people of Israel,
because he is "uncircumcised in heart."
That the external is of no avail apart from the internal. Joel 2:13:
Scindite corda vestra,104 etc.; Isaiah 58:3, 4, etc.
The love of God is enjoined in the whole of Deuteronomy. Deut. 30:19:
"I call heaven and earth to record that I have set before you life
and death, that you should choose life, and love God, and obey Him, for
God is your life."
That the Jews, for lack of that love, should be rejected for their
offences, and the heathen chosen in their stead. Hosea 1:10; Deut. 32:20.
"I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be,
for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. have
moved me to jealousy with that which is not God... and I will move them
to jealousy with those which are not a people... and with a foolish nation."
Isaiah 65:1.
That temporal goods are false, and that the true good is to be united
to God. Psalm 143:15.
That their feasts are displeasing to God. Amos 5:21.
That the sacrifices of the Jews displeased God. Isaiah 66:1-3; 1:11;
Jer. 6:20; David, Miserere.105 Even on the part of the
good, Expectavi.106 Psalm 49:8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and
14.
That He has established them only for their hardness. Micah, admirably,
6; 1 Kings 15:22; Hosea 6:6.
That the sacrifices of the Gentiles will be accepted of God, and that
God will take no pleasure in the sacrifices of the Jews. Malachi 1:11.
That God will make a new covenant with the Messiah, and the old will
be annulled. Jer. 31:31. Mandata non bona.107
That the old things will be forgotten. Isaiah 43:18, 19; 65:17, 10
That the Ark will no longer be remembered. Jer. 3:15, 16
That the temple should be rejected. Jer 7:12, 13, 14.
That the sacrifices should be rejected, and other pure sacrifices established.
Malachi 1:11.
That the order of Aaron's priesthood should be rejected, and that of
Melchizedek introduced by the Messiah. Ps. Dixit Dominus.
That this priesthood should be eternal. Ibid.
That Jerusalem should be rejected, and Rome admitted, Ibid.
That the name of the Jews should be rejected, and a new name given.
Isaiah 65:15.
That this last name should be more excellent than that of the Jews,
and eternal. Isaiah 56:5.
That the Jews should be without prophets (Amos), without a king, without
princes, without sacrifice, without an idol.
That the Jews should, nevertheless, always remain a people. Jer. 31:36
611. Republic.--The Christian republic--and even the Jewish--has only
had God for ruler, as Philo the Jew notices, On Monarchy.
When they fought, it was for God only; their chief hope was in God
only; they considered their towns as belonging to God only, and kept them
for God. I Chron. 19:13.
612. Gen. 17:7. Statuam pactum meum inter me et te foedere sempiterno...
us sim Deus tuus...[108]
Et tu ergo custodies pactum meum.109
Perpetuity.--That religion has always existed on earth which consists
in believing that man has fallen from a state of glory and of communion
with God into a state of sorrow, penitence, and estrangement from God,
but that after this life we shall be restored by a Messiah who should have
come. All things have passed away, and this has endured, for which all
things are.
Men have in the first age of the world been carried away into every
kind of debauchery, and yet there were saints, as Enoch, Lamech, and others,
who waited patiently for the Christ promised from the beginning of the
world. Noah saw the wickedness of men at its height; and he was held worthy
to save the world in his person, by the hope of the Messiah of whom he
was the type. Abraham was surrounded by idolaters, when God made known
to him the mystery of the Messiah, whom he welcomed from afar. In the time
of Isaac and Jacob, abomination was spread over all the earth; but these
saints lived in faith; and Jacob, dying and blessing his children, cried
in a transport which made him break off his discourse, "I await, O
my God, the Saviour whom Thou hast promised. Salutare tuum expectabo,
Domine."[110]
The Egyptians were infected both with idolatry and magic; the very people
of God were led astray by their example. Yet Moses and others believed
Him whom they saw not, and worshipped Him, looking to the eternal gifts
which He was preparing for them.
The Greeks and Latins then set up false deities; the poets made a hundred
different theologies, while the philosophers separated into a thousand
different sects; and yet in the heart of Judaea there were always chosen
men who foretold the coming of this Messiah, which was known to them alone.
He came at length in the fullness of time, and time has since witnessed
the birth of so many schisms and heresies, so many political revolutions,
so many changes in all things; yet this Church, which worships Him who
has always been worshipped, has endured uninterruptedly. It is a wonderful,
incomparable, and altogether divine fact that this religion, which has
always endured, has always been attacked. It has been a thousand times
on the eve of universal destruction, and every time it has been in that
state, God has restored it by extraordinary acts of His power. This is
astonishing, as also that it has preserved itself without yielding to the
will of tyrants. For it is not strange that a State endures, when its laws
are sometimes made to give way to necessity, but that... (See the passage
indicated in Montaigne.)[111]
614. States would perish if they did not often make their laws give
way to necessity. But religion has never suffered this, or practised it.
Indeed, there must be these compromises or miracles. It is not strange
to be saved by yieldings, and this is not strictly self-preservation; besides,
in the end they perish entirely. None has endured a thousand years. But
the fact that this religion has always maintained itself, inflexible as
it is, proves its divinity.
615. Whatever may be said, it must be admitted that the Christian religion
has something astonishing in it. Some will say, "This is because you
were born in it." Far from it; I stiffen myself against it for this
very reason, for fear this prejudice bias me. But, although I am born in
it, I cannot help finding it so.
616. Perpetuity.--The Messiah has always been believed in. The tradition
from Adam was fresh in Noah and in Moses. Since then the prophets have
foretold him, while at the same time foretelling other things, which, being
from time to time fulfilled in the sight of men, showed the truth of their
mission, and consequently that of their promises touching the Messiah.
Jesus Christ performed miracles, and the Apostles also, who converted all
the heathen; and all the prophecies being thereby fulfilled, the Messiah
is for ever proved.
617. Perpetuity.--Let us consider that since the beginning of the world
the expectation of worship of the Messiah has existed uninterruptedly;
that there have been found men who said that God had revealed to them that
a Redeemer was to be born, who should save His people; that Abraham came
afterwards, saying that he had had revelation that the Messiah was to spring
from him by a son, whom he should have; that Jacob declared that, of his
twelve sons, the Messiah would spring from Judah; that Moses and the prophets
then came to declare the time and the manner of His coming; that they said
their law was only temporary till that of the Messiah, that it should endure
till then, but that the other should last for ever; that thus either their
law, or that of the Messiah, of which it was the promise, would be always
upon the earth; that, in fact, it has always endured; that at last Jesus
Christ came with all the circumstances foretold. This is wonderful.
618. This is positive fact. While all philosophers separate into different
sects, there is found in one corner of the world the most ancient people
in it, declaring that all the world is in error, that God has revealed
to them the truth, that they will always exist on the earth. In fact, all
other seas come to an end, this one still endures, and has done so for
four thousand years.
They declare that they hold from their ancestors that man has fallen
from communion with God, and is entirely estranged from God, but that He
has promised to redeem them; that this doctrine shall always exist on the
earth; that their law has a double signification; that during sixteen hundred
years they have had people, whom they believed prophets, foretelling both
the time and the manner; that four hundred years after they were scattered
everywhere, because Jesus Christ was to be everywhere announced; that Jesus
Christ came in the manner, and at the time foretold; that the Jews have
since been scattered abroad under a curse and, nevertheless, still exist.
619. I see the Christian religion founded upon a preceding religion,
and this is what I find as a fact.
I do not here speak of the miracles of Moses, of Jesus Christ, and
of the Apostles, because they do not at first seem convincing, and because
I only wish here to put in evidence all those foundations of the Christian
religion which are beyond doubt and which cannot be called in question
by any person whatsoever. It is certain that we see in many places of the
world a peculiar people, separated from all other peoples of the world
and called the Jewish people.
I see then a crowd of religions in many parts of the world and in all
times; but their morality cannot please me, nor can their proofs convince
me. Thus I should equally have rejected the religion of Mahomet and of
China, of the ancient Romans and of the Egyptians, for the sole reason
that none having more marks of truth than another, nor anything which should
necessarily persuade me, reason cannot incline to one rather than the other.
But, in thus considering this changeable and singular variety of morals
and beliefs at different times, I find in one corner of the world a peculiar
people, separated from all other peoples on earth, the most ancient of
all, and whose histories are earlier by many generations than the most
ancient which we possess.
I find, then, this great and numerous people, sprung from a single
man, who worship one God and guide themselves by a law which they say that
they obtained from His own hand. They maintain that they are the only people
in the world to whom God has revealed His mysteries; that all men are corrupt
and in disgrace with God; that they are all abandoned to their senses and
their own imagination, whence come the strange errors and continual changes
which happen among them, both of religions and of morals, whereas they
themselves remain firm in their conduct; but that God will not leave other
nations in this darkness for ever; that there will come a Saviour for all;
that they are in the world to announce Him to men; that they are expressly
formed to be forerunners and heralds of this great event and to summon
all nations to join with them in the expectation of this Saviour.
To meet with this people is astonishing to me, and seems to me worthy
of attention. I look at the law which they boast of having obtained from
God, and I find it admirable. It is the first law of all and is of such
a kind that, even before the term law was in currency among the Greeks,
it had, for nearly a thousand years earlier, been uninterruptedly accepted
and observed by the Jews. I likewise think it strange that the first law
of the world happens to be the most perfect; so that the greatest legislators
have borrowed their laws from it, as is apparent from the law of the Twelve
Tables at Athens, afterwards taken by the Romans, and as it would be easy
to prove, if Josephus and others had not sufficiently dealt with this subject.
620. Advantages of the Jewish people.--In this search the Jewish people
at once attracts my attention by the number of wonderful and singular facts
which appear about them.
I first see that they are a people wholly composed of brethren, and
whereas all others are formed by the assemblage of an infinity of families,
this, though so wonderfully fruitful, has all sprung from one man alone,
and, being thus all one flesh, and members one of another, they constitute
a powerful state of one family. This is unique.
This family, or people, is the most ancient within human knowledge,
a fact which seems to me to inspire a peculiar veneration for it, especially
in view of our present inquiry; since if God had from all time revealed
himself to men, it is to these we must turn for knowledge of the tradition.
This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also
singular by their duration, which has always continued from their origin
till now. For, whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy, of Lacedaemon,
of Athens and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since
perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many powerful
kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians
testify, and as it is easy to conjecture from the natural order of things
during so long a space of years, they have nevertheless been preserved
(and this preservation has been foretold); and extending from the earliest
times to the latest, their history comprehends in its duration all our
histories which it preceded by a long time.
The law by which this people is governed is at once the most ancient
law in the world, the most perfect, and the only one which has been always
observed without a break in a state. This is what Josephus admirably proves,
Against Apion, and also Philo the Jew, in different places, where they
point out that it is so ancient that the very name of law was only known
by the oldest nation more than a thousand years afterwards; so that Homer,
who has written the history of so many states, has never used the term.
And it is easy to judge of its perfection by simply reading it; for we
see that it has provided for all things with so great wisdom, equity, and
judgement, that the most ancient legislators, Greek and Roman, having had
some knowledge of it, have borrowed from it their principal laws; this
is evident from what are called the Twelve Tables, and from the other proofs
which Josephus gives.
But this law is at the same time the severest and strictest of all
in respect to their religious worship, imposing on this people, in order
to keep them to their duty, a thousand peculiar and painful observances,
on pain of death. Whence it is very astonishing that it has been constantly
preserved during many centuries by a people, rebellious and impatient as
this one was; while all other states have changed their laws from time
to time, although these were far more lenient.
The book which contains this law, the first of all, is itself the most
ancient book in the world, those of Homer, Hesiod, and others, being six
or seven hundred years later.
621. The creation of the deluge being past, and God no longer requiring
to destroy the world, nor to create it anew, nor to give such great signs
of Himself, He began to establish a people on the earth, purposely formed,
who were to last until the coming of the people whom the Messiah should
fashion by His spirit.
622. The creation of the world beginning to be distant, God provided
a single contemporary historian, and appointed a whole people as guardians
of this book, in order that this history might be the most authentic in
the world, and that all men might thereby learn a fact so necessary to
know, and which could only be known through that means.
623. Japhet begins the genealogy.
Joseph folds his arms, and prefers the younger.
624. Why should Moses make the lives of men so long, and their generations
so few?
Because it is not the length of years, but the multitude of generations,
which renders things obscure. For truth is perverted only by the change
of men. And yet he puts two things, the most memorable that were ever imagined,
namely, the creation and the deluge, so near that we reach from one to
the other.
625. Shem, who saw Lamech, who saw Adam, saw also Jacob, who saw those
who saw Moses; therefore the deluge and the creation are true. This is
conclusive among certain people who understand it rightly.
626. The longevity of the patriarchs, instead of causing the loss of
past history, conduced, on the contrary, to its preservation. For the reason
why we are sometimes insufficiently instructed in the history of our ancestors
is that we have never lived long with them, and that they are often dead
before we have attained the age of reason. Now, when men lived so long,
children lived long with their parents. They conversed long with them.
But what else could be the subject of their talk save the history of their
ancestors, since to that all history was reduced, and men did not study
science or art, which now form a large part of daily conversation? We see
also that in these days tribes took particular care to preserve their genealogies.
627. I believe that Joshua was the first of God's people to have this
name, as Jesus Christ was the last of God's people.
628. Antiquity of the Jews.--What a difference there is between one
book and another! I am not astonished that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor
the Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.
We have only to see how this originates. These fabulous historians
are not contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer composes
a romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as such; for
nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than did the golden
apple. Accordingly, he did not think of making a history, but solely a
book to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the beauty of the work
has made it last, every one learns it and talks of it, it is necessary
to know it, and each one knows it by heart. Four hundred years afterwards
the witnesses of these facts are no longer alive, no one knows of his own
knowledge if it be a fable or a history; one has only learnt it from his
ancestors, and this can pass for truth.
Every history which is not contemporaneous, as the books of the Sibyls
and Trismegistus, and so many others which have been believed by the world,
are false, and found to be false in the course of time. It is not so with
contemporaneous writers.
There is a great difference between a book which an individual writes
and publishes to a nation, and a book which itself creates a nation. We
cannot doubt that the book is as old as the people.
629. Josephus hides the shame of his nation.
Moses does not hide his own shame.
Quis mihi det ut omnes prophetent?112
He was weary of the multitude.
630. The sincerity of the Jews.--Maccabees, after they had no more
prophets; the Masorah, since Jesus Christ.
This book will be a testimony for you.
Defective and final letters.
Sincere against their honour, and dying for it; this has no example
in the world, and no root in nature.
631. Sincerity of the Jews.--They preserve lovingly and carefully the
book in which Moses declares that they have been all their life ungrateful
to God, and that he knows they will be still more so after his death; but
that he calls heaven and earth to witness against them and that he has
taught them enough.
He declares that God, being angry with them, shall at last scatter
them among all the nations of the earth; that as they have offended Him
by worshipping gods who were not their God, so He will provoke them by
calling a people who are not His people; that He desires that all His words
be preserved for ever, and that His book be placed in the Ark of the Covenant
to serve for ever as a witness against them.
Isaiah says the same thing, 30.
632. On Esdras.--The story that the books were burnt with the temple
proved false by Maccabees: "Jeremiah gave them the law."
The story that he recited the whole by heart. Josephus and Esdras point
out that he read the book. Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici a Christo Nato
ad Annum 1198, 180: Nullus penitus Hebraeorum antiquorum reperitur qui
tradiderit libros periisse et per Esdram esse restitutos, nisi in IV Esdrae.
The story that he changed the letters.
Philo, in Vita Mosis: Illa lingua ac character quo antiquitus scripta
est lex sic permansit usque ad LXX.
Josephus says that the Law was in Hebrew when it was translated by
the Seventy.
Under Antiochus and Vespasian, when they wanted to abolish the books,
and when there was no prophet, they could not do so. And under the Babylonians,
when no persecution had been made, and when there were so many prophets,
would they have let them be burnt?
Josephus laughs at the Greeks who would not hear...
Tertullian: Perinde potuit abolefactam eam violentia cataclysmi in
spiritu rursus reformare, quemadmodum et Hierosolymis Babylonia expugnatione
deletis, omne instrumentum Judaicae literaturae per Esdram constat restauratum.[113]
He says that Noah could as easily have restored in spirit the book
of Enoch, destroyed by the Deluge, as Esdras could have restored the Scriptures
lost during the Captivity.
(Theos) en te epi Nabouchodonosor aichmalosia tou laou, diaphthareison
ton Graphon... enepneuse 'Esdra to ierei, ek tes phules Leui tous ton progegonoton
propheton pantas anataxasthai logous, kai apokatastesai to lae ten dia
Mouseos nomothesian. He alleges this to prove that it is not incredible
that the Seventy may have explained the Holy Scriptures with that uniformity
which we admire in them. And he took that from Saint Irenaeus.
Saint Hilary, in his preface to the Psalms, says that Esdras arranged
the Psalms in order.
The origin of this tradition comes from the 14th chapter of the fourth
book of Esdras. Deus glorificatus est, et Scripturae vere divinae creditae
sunt, omnibus eandem et eisdem verbis et eisdem nominibus recitantibus
ab initio usque ad finem, uti et praesentes gentes cognoscerent quoniam
per inspirationem Dei interpretatae sunt Scripturae, et non esset mirabile
Deum hoc in eis operatum: quando in ea captivitate populi quae facta est
a Nabuchodonosor, corruptis scripturis et post 70 annos Judaeis descendentibus
in regionem suam, et post deinde temporibus Artaxerxis Persarum regis,
inspiravit Esdrae sacerdoti tribus Levi praeteritorum prophetarum omnes
rememorare sermones, et restituere populo eam legem quae data est per Moysen.[114]
633. Against the story in Esdras, 2 Maccab. 2.; Josephus, Antiquities,
II, i.--Cyrus took occasion from the prophecy of Isaiah to release the
people. The Jews held their property in peace under Cyrus in Babylon; hence
they could well have the law.
Josephus, in the whole history of Esdras, does not say one word about
this restoration. 2 Kings 17:27.
634. If the story in Esdras is credible, then it must be believed that
the Scripture is Holy Scripture; for this story is based only on the authority
of those who assert that of the Seventy, which shows that the Scripture
is holy.
Therefore, if this account be true, we have what we want therein; if
not, we have it elsewhere. And thus those who would ruin the truth of our
religion, founded on Moses, establish it by the same authority by which
they attack it. So by this providence it still exists.
635. Chronology of Rabbinism. (The citations of pages are from the
book Pugio.)
Page 27. R. Hakadosch (anno 200), author of the Mischna, or vocal law,
or second law.
Commentaries on the Mischna (anno 340): The one Siphra.
Barajetot.
Talmud Hierosol.
Tosiphtot.
Bereschit Rabah, by R. Osaiah Rabah, commentary on the Mischna.
Bereschit Rabah, Bar Naconi, are subtle and pleasant discourses, historical
and theological. This same author wrote the books called Rabot.
A hundred years after the Talmud Hierosol was composed the Babylonian
Talmud, by R. Ase, A.D. 440, by the universal consent of all the Jews,
who are necessarily obliged to observe all that is contained therein.
The addition of R. Ase is called the Gemara, that is to say, the commentary
on the Mischna.
And the Talmud includes together the Mischna and the Gemara.
636. If does not indicate indifference: Malachi, Isaiah.
Isaiah, Si volumus, etc.
In quacumque die.[115]
637. Prophecies.--The sceptre was not interrupted by the captivity
in Babylon, because the return was promised and foretold.
638. Proofs of Jesus Christ.--Captivity, with the assurance of deliverance
within seventy years, was not real captivity. But now they are captives
without any hope.
God has promised them that, even though He should scatter them to the
ends of the earth, nevertheless, if they were faithful to His law, He would
assemble them together again. They are very faithful to it and remain oppressed.
639. When Nebuchadnezzar carried away the people, for fear they should
believe that the sceptre had departed from Judah, they were told beforehand
that they would be there for a short time, and that they would be restored.
They were always consoled by the prophets; and their kings continued. But
the second destruction is without promise of restoration, without prophets,
without kings, without consolation, without hope, because the sceptre is
taken away for ever.
640. It is a wonderful thing, and worthy of particular attention, to
see this Jewish people existing so many years in perpetual misery, it being
necessary as a proof of Jesus Christ both that they should exist to prove
Him and that they should be miserable because they crucified Him; and though
to be miserable and to exist are contradictory, they nevertheless still
exist in spite of their misery.
641. They are visibly a people expressly created to serve as a witness
to the Messiah (Isaiah 43:9; 44:8). They keep the books, and love them,
and do not understand them. And all this was foretold; that God's judgments
are entrusted to them, but as a sealed book.
104"Rend your heart."
105Ps. 9:14. "Have mercy."
106Is. 5:7. "He has looked for."
107Ezek. 20:25. Praecepta non bona. "Statutes
that were not good."
[108]"I will
establish my covenant between me and Thee for an everlasting covenant,
to be a God unto Thee."
109Gen. 17:9. "Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore."
[110]Gen. 49:18.
"I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord."
[111]Essays, 1.
22.
112Num. 11:29. Quis tribuat ut omnis populus prophetet.
"Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets."
[113]De cultu
feminarum, i-3. "He could equally have renewed it, under the Spirit's
inspiration, after it had been destroyed by the violence of the deluge,
as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of it,
every document of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been
restored through Ezra."
[114]Eusebius,
Ecclesiastical History, V. viii. 14. "God was glorified, and
the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine, for they all rendered the
same things in the same words and the same names, from beginning to end,
so that even the heathen who were present knew that the Scriptures had
been translated by the inspiration of God. And it is no marvel that God
did this, for when the Scriptures had been destroyed in the captivity of
the people in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Jews had gone back to
their country after seventy years, then in the times of Artaxerxes, the
king of the Persians, he inspired Ezra, the priest of the tribe of Levi,
to restore all the sayings of the prophets who had gone before, and to
restore to the people the law given by Moses." This is Pascal's rendering
into Latin of the passage from Eusebius of which the last lines are in
Greek, above.
[115]"Each
time that."
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