第18章 LETTER 3(8)

But even this was not the case:whatever use a particular writer here and there might make occasionally of the ures,certain it is that the Jews continued to be as much despised,and their history to be as generally neglected,nay almost as generally unknown,for a long time at least after the version was made at Alexandria,as they had been before.Apion,an Egyptian,a man of much erudition,appeared in the world some centuries afterwards.He wrote,among other antiquities,those of his own country:and as he was obliged to speak very often of the Jews,he spoke of them in a manner neither much to their honor,nor to that of their histories.He wrote purposely against them:and Josephus attempted afterwards,but Apion was then dead,to refute him.Apion passed,I know,for a vain and noisy pedant;but he passed likewise for a curious,a laborious,and a learned antiquary.If he was cabalistical,or superstitious,Josephus was at least as much so as he:and if he flattered Caligula,Josephus introduced himself to the court of Nero and the favor of Poppaea,by no very honorable means,under the protection of Aliturus a player,and a Jew;to say nothing of his applying to Vespasian the prophecies concerning the Messiah,nor of his accompanying Titus to the siege of Jerusalem.

In short,my lord,the Jewish history never obtained any credit in the world,till Christianity was established.The foundations of this system being laid partly in these histories,and in the prophecies joined to them or inserted in them,Christianity has reflected back upon them an authority which they had not before,and this authority has prevailed wherever Christianity has spread.Both Jews and Christians hold the same books in great veneration,whilst each condemns the other for not understanding,or for abusing them.

But I apprehend that the zeal of both has done much hurt,by endeavoring to extend their authority much farther than is necessary for the support perhaps of Judaism,but to be sure of Christianity.I explain myself,that I may offend no pious ear.

Simon,in the preface of his critical history of the Old Testament,cites a divine of the faculty of Paris,who held that the inspirations of the authors of those books,which the church receives as the word of God,should be extended no farther than to matters purely of doctrine,or to such as have a near and necessary relation to these;and that whenever these authors wrote on other subjects,such as Egyptian,Assyrian,or other history,they had no more of the divine assistance than any other persons of piety.This notion of inspirations that came occasionally,that illuminated the minds and guided the hands of the sacred penmen while they were writing one page,and restrained their influence while the same authors were writing another,may be cavilled against:and what is there that may not?But surely it deserves to be treated with respect,since it tends to establish a distinction between the legal,doctrinal,or prophetical parts of the Bible,and the historical:without which distinction it is impossible to establish the first,as evidently and solidly as the interests of religion require:at least it appears impossible to me,after having examined and considered,as well as I am able,all the trials of this kind that have been made by subtile as well as learned men.

The Old is said to be the foundation of the New,and so it is in one sense:

the system of religion contained in the latter,refers to the system of religion contained in the former,and supposes the truth of it.But the authority on which we receive the books of the New Testament,is so far from being founded on the authority of the Old Testament,that it is quite independent on it;the New being proved,gives authority to the Old,but borrows none from it;and gives this authority to the particular parts only.Christ came to fulfil the prophecies;but not to consecrate all the written,any more than the oral,traditions of the Jews.We must believe these traditions as far as they relate to Christianity,as far as Christianity refers to them,or supposes them necessary;but we can be under no obligation to believe them any farther,since without Christianity we should be under no obligation to believe them at all.

It hath been said by Abbadie,and others,"That the accidents which have happened to alter the texts of the Bible,and to disfigure,if I may say so,the Scriptures in many respects,could not have been prevented without a perpetual standing miracle,and that a perpetual standing miracle is not in the order of Providence."Now I can by no means subscribe to this opinion.It seems evident to my reason that the very contrary must be true;if we suppose that God acts towards men according to the moral fitness of things:and if we suppose that he acts arbitrarily,we can form no opinion at all.I think that these accidents would not have happened,or that the Scriptures would have been preserved entirely in their genuine purity notwithstanding these accidents,if they had been entirely dictated by the Holy Ghost:and the proof of this probable proposition,according to our clearest and most distinct ideas of wisdom and moral fitness,is obvious and easy.But these Scriptures are not so come down to us:they are come down broken and confused,full of additions,interpolations,and transpositions,made we neither know when,nor by whom;and such,in short,as never appeared on the face of any other book,on whose authority men have agreed to rely.