than whom there had not been a greater Prophet born of Woman St. Mat. 11. 11. where the feeble are to be as David and the house of David as God Zechar. 12. 8. The meanest Form in Christ's School to equallize the highest in Moses his and the highest in Christ's to take out those Lessons that were never read to any before Christ set up School and to perform those Exercises that were never set to any till Christ gave us a Formula of them in his fulfilling all righteousness and a command to perform them Chrisostom de virgin cap 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God indulged those times in those and many other things but after the coming of Christ the way is made much streighter and more noble work set us Secuudùm Natur am vivere laus ejus est qui nondum credidâ—t Justin ad Zenam To live according to Nature is his commendation that hath not yet attain'd to the Christian Faith to which whosoever subscribes binds himself to a more holy and heavenly frame of Heart and course of Life than any of the most strict forreign Sects propounded And that under pain of losing the reward of a Christian. For the proof of which we have as full and clear Testimony from the mouth of him who is Amen the faithful and true Witness as for any Doctrine in all the Bible not only in that foremention'd Preface to his Royal Law but in the Sanction annex'd to it St. Mat. 7. 26. Every one that heareth these sayings of mine these terms that I have added to the remedying Law as it was dispenc'd by Moses in this Form of words prefix'd But I say unto you For what can these sayings of Christ's be but what he had in that Sermon said unto them over and above what they had hear'd was said to them of old time and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell and great was the fall of it and all this both Law and Sanction he preach'd not as the Scribes as a Commentator on Moses but of his own authority in his own name as a Lawgiver which Sanction set to his Law when it first went out of his sacred Lips he was so far from reversing as when he seals up all Prophesie the whole new Testament the Law to his Disciples he binds it upon them and confirms the unalterableness of it in such forms as these Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22. 12. that is to them that continue in well doing eternal life but to them that are contentious will rather be arguing with God about his Proposals quarrelling with his Law of Liberty than submit to the practice of it and obey not the Gospel indignation and wrath c. Rom. 2. 8. I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and end the first and the last and what I said at the first I say now at the last what I was at the beginning I shall be at the end still of the same mind and of this mind Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in thorow the gates into the city for without are dogs c. If any man shall add unto these things make those things necessary to salvation which I have not made so as the Judaizing Pseudo-christians who beside the Yoke of Christ made the Yoke of Moses necessary I will add to him the Plagues that are written in this book And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this Prophesie make that needless that I have made needful as the Gnosticks did God shall take away his part out of the book of life Rev. 22. 13. c. In which Quotations and hundreds more of sacred Texts the Evangelists do so fully obviate the Popish Distinction of Precepts and Counsels and the Antinomian's whole brood of worse Birds of that evil Egg who turn all Christ's Precepts into Counsels And in the language of Isidore so manifestly pervert and Isidor Pelusiot lib. 4. ep 125. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adulterate the divine Doctrine by mixing the pure and limpid sence of sacred Scripture with their own Opinions as I wonder how Christian ears can endure to hear their Croakings in flat Contradiction to the divine Oracles or tingle not to hear them putting those things to the question which Christ has so positively and without the least ambiguity determined and that their folly is not manifest to all men as well as their audacity in their interpreting ambiguous places in the Apostolical Writings point blank to Christs manifest and plain sence as if that Spirit of Promise by which their Pens were directed had not brought to their remembrance but made them forget what Christ had said and prompted them to propound Salvation upon as contrary Terms to Christs as darkness to light And in their concluding against the necessity of Evangelical good Works from those very places where the necessity of them is most strenuously asserted and maintain'd To show these blind Leaders of the blind how great their Darkness is even in those things wherein they think they have the clearest Light when they hear St. Paul conclude that a man is justified by faith not works they take faith there to be terminus diminuens and to import a lighter burden an easier Yoke than those works which they deny justification to § 5. Whereas it will easily appear to him that rightly states the grand Controversie then arising upon the Coming of Christ and the common notion of the word Faith in the stating of that Controversie That none of the contending parties did or could except they would wilfully pervert the stated sence of that term and become Barbarians to one another understand by Faith in that question any thing else but Christian Religion Can any man think that St. Paul had not more Grace or Wit than to assert that a man's bare depending on Christ for salvation without observing that Physician 's Rules would bring him health That they who do not so much as believe him but give him the lye when he protests he will exclude from Interest in him all those that keep not his sayings that they I say who when he pronounceth woe and menaces do not take him for an honest man a man of his word either can believe in him for eternal life or if they should would obtain it by him or lastly that he or any body else in their right wits would dispute that which all rational men grant viz. that no Religion can save any man that does not cordially comply with it or that any man can cordially comply with a Religion as of divine Original and not conform to its Precepts not follow his God in the
pieces At the lowest rate it demonstrates to what an height those curious cursed arts were then grown to Can we think that St. Paul would have singled out that place where Satan was inthron'd to have wrought miracles in for the confirmation of the Divinity of the Gospel had they not been special miracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Luke stiles them Act. 19. 11 12. Would he have given experiments of the healing vertue conveyed from his body to aprons and handkerchiefs where counter-charming amulets were of that common use as the proverb of Ephesia Alexipharmaca speaks them to have been What would it have profited to have invocated the name of the Lord Jesus over the sick there where were extant such a number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of books teaching how to unravel the Conjurers work had the Apostle not been assured that the vertue of that name and of his own body through that name was both as to cause and effect above every name above any word they could find in their books of curious Arts that name of Judahs Gods imposing having infinitely more power than the word of Ida's Tactyls invention though it came not with that boysterous harshness as did their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Clemens reckons them in the place above quoted Sect. 2. This Image of Diana this counterfeit of the Divine Magia descending from faln Jupiter was not only worship'd at Ephesus and in all Asia but throughout the Roman Empire In whose Metropolis the Sect of those black Philosophers was grown so numerous under Tiberius as his decree to banish them the City had taken effect if the multitude of Families which that hook threatned to extirpate and their promise to give over the practice of those curious arts had not made the Emperour relent Sueton. Tiberius 36. By this connivance Magical operations attain'd to that perfection in Nero's Reign as men could not promise themselves to find their grounds on that side of the hedge next morning where they left them over-night For Pliny lib. 28. reports that at that time an Olive-yard belonging to Vectius Marcellus was by Magick removed one night unto the other side of the high-way A thing so strange as I should hardly give credit to Livies report but that I find Apuleius make mention of it in his Apologie as a thing so usual and ancient as the Laws of the twelve Tables made provision against it by making it capital The naming of Apuleius his Apology brings to mind the occasion of it which was to purge himself of the crime of Magick wherewith he was charged before Claudius Maximus Lievtenant of Africa as Apollonius Thyaneus was of the same crime before Domitian A pair of the fiercest Pagan adversaries to our Religion August de Civitat 8. 19. The Jews indeed had a sharper edge against us and as strange a back as Hell could forge coming not one whit behind the Gentile in his proficiency in the black Art being grown more Samaritan than the Samaritan himself 1. Not only in their charmings by the explication of the Tetragrammaton Jehovah in twelve and in forty two letters to which they imputed that force as they affirm'd with no less blasphemy to their own than our Religion that Moses wrought all his miracles by means of Shemhamphorash the twelve-letter'd explication of the name Jehovah ingraven on the rod of God And that our Jesus by vertue of the same sowed within his skin effected those great works which he performed And that Rabbi Chanina by vertue of the two and forty letter'd name of God did whatsoever he would The Jews father'd this Art upon Solomon who they say left forms of conjurations of the efficacy whereof one Eleazar gave proof before Vespasian and his Sons and their whole Army Josephus being present as himself reports Antiquit. lib. 8. cap. 2. Yea that whosoever knew these explications being modest humble of a middle age not given to anger or drunkenness and wore them about him would be belov'd above and below in heaven and in earth rever'd and fear'd of men and heir of this and the world to come Buxtorf lexic. voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. But in their Wisemens reading certain verses over wounds laying Phylacteries upon sick persons charming away serpents and an evil eye of which practices the Jerusalem Talmudists amongst whom our Saviour converst make frequent mention In particular they tella story in Sotah of R. Meirs being too hard for an Inchantress and in Sanhedrim R. Joshuah out-vying a Samaritane conjurer of Tyberias quoted by Dr. Light foot in his Harmony It were endless to trace Josephus through all those passages where he describes Judaea in our Saviours time to have been over-run with Magical Juglers Under Felix saith he Judaea was again full of Magical Impostors and Seducers of the unskilful vulgar who by their inchantments drew companies into the wilderness promis4ng they would shew them from heaven manifest signs and prodigies at the same time a certain Jew out of Aegypt came to Jerusalem professing himself a Prophet who perswaded the multitude to follow him unto Mount Olivet promising that from thence they should see the walls of Jerusalem fall so flat as through their ruines there should be a way opened into the City Joseph Ant. Jud. 20. 6. Which Aegyptian in another place he styles Magician Jos. 〈◊〉 Jud. 2. 12. Nay he scarce mentions a sticker in the Jewish wars upon whom he sets not this brand that he was a jugling conjurer Such was John the son of Levias c. Josep 〈◊〉 J. 4. 4. Sect. 3. The Primitive Church was so beset with these snares of Hell as she thought good to caution her Catechumens of the danger of falling into them â—not only by informing them that in their renouncing the Devil and all his worship at Baptism they renounc'd Auguries Divinations Amulets Magical Inscriptions on Leaves Witchcraft Incantation and calling up of Ghosts Id. Catech. illuminat 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But by inserting into the Greek Liturgies this form of abrenuntiation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I renounce Conjurations Charmes Amulets and Phylacteries St. â—yril Catech. Mystag 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem Cat. c. But what need we any other Witness of the infamy of that Age for the then general spreading of this Diabolical Art than the Satyrical reflections which their own Poets made upon it Juvenal in his sixth Satyr Horace in his Epode against Canidia and Virgil in his Pharmaceutria do in the chain of their Golden Verses hale that Cerberus out of his Kennel into so clear a Sun-shine so manifestly discover those depths of Satan and bring to light those hidden things of darkness as the reading of their Poems is enough to initiate their over-curious Readers in those mysteries of iniquity which were then working and the translation of them might lay a temptation before the ductile vulgar to essay the efficacy of their
gave were as little to the credit of the Gods as Suidas reports them to have been appears from that low esteem which in his old Age he had of both exprest by his condemning to the flames when he was great Pontiff two thousand Oracles Sueton. Octav. 31. though at his entrance into that Office he was so devout an Adorer of the old Religion consisting in a great part of those Oracles as he preferr'd his Augurate above his Empire fastning his name at his reforming of the Calender rather on that month when he commenc'd Augur than on that wherein he began his Reign and protesting that if any of his Nieces had been old enough he would have preferr'd her to the place of a Vestal fallen void by the death of one of those Nuns with that protestation upbraiding the Senators irreligiousness exprest in their making means that their Daughters might not be called to that lot Touching Apollo himself and the rest of the twelve great Deities what his thoughts were grown to by that time he was grown old he more than intimated in his erecting of that strange Order of Table-Knights Sueton. Octav. 70. instituted as not only Antonius but the common Libels objected against him in contempt of Apollo whom Augustus as Master of the Order personated and the other eleven he and she Deities whom the rest of the Knights represented in that his supper of the twelve Gods Impia dum Caesar Phoebi mendacia ludit c. This was the burthen of the City Song descanting upon his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his twelve Gods discovering that degree of sacrilegious impiety to speak in the then modern Roman dialect towards the Gods of the greater Nations and especially to Apollo as so devout a person as Augustus was could not have arrived to by any other wind but what blew from that coast which Suidas points out He durst not without the leave of these Gods have been thus familiar with them § 6. This may suffice to vindicate Suidas and prove the truth of this position That the Polity of Rome was so averse to the entertainment of a foreign God as our Jesus was the first strange God that that Empire embrac'd either by Publick Edict of the Senate or the private Conscience of the Emperours as Tertullian Apol. cont gentes cap. 21. distinguisheth Ipse pro sua conscientia Christianus He as to his own private perswasion being already a Christian. Senatus respuit Caesar in sententia mansit Id. ibid. cap. 5. The Senate rejected Tiberius his motion for the Canonization of Christ but Tiberius persisted in the Opinion of Christs being God Sed Caesares ipsi credidissent super Christo si aut Caesares non essent seculo necessarii aut si Christiani potuissent esse Caesares Id. ibid. cap. 21. Yea even the Emperours themselves would have become Christians if they had not been hamper'd with secular interest or if that Christians could have been Caesars Upon which passages because they give both light and strength to the preceding discourse though not without hazard of spilling my Readers patience I shall venture to make these reflections 1. To clear that clause aut si Christiani potuissent esse Caesares from the Anabaptistical gloss this Note will be sufficient That Constantine and his Successors reconciled this inconsistency of Christianity and Empire and therefore it was not absolute but only occasional and temporary nor of all Empire or Civil command but particularly respected the Roman Empire For there were Christian Magistrates and that under the Emperour very early in the Primitive Times both Martial as Cornelius and Civil as Sergius Paulus as Judicious Grotius observes Ob temporum circumstantias quae vix ferebant exerceri sine actibus quibusdam cum Christiana lege pugnantibus Grotius de Jur. bel pacis l. 2. 9. 3. The circumstances of those Times were such as did scarcely permit the Office of the Emperour to be exercised without certain Acts contrary to the Christian Law 2. It will be therefore worth the while to enquire what that Secular Interest was in which the Emperours were so involv'd in that juncture as it was a Remora to their casting their assistance on Christ and a bar to him that was a Christian to become Emperour Let him that tied untie this knot let Tertullian himself Apol. 5. determine who infers the story of Tiberius above-mentioned with an ergo from that old Decree quoted by him in the preceding clause Vetus erat decretum nè qui Deus ab Imperatore consecraretur nisi à Senatu probatus There was an old Decree that none should be Canonized for a God by the Emperour Euseb. interpr Tertul. ab Imperatore by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hist. Eccles. 2. 2. whereby this seems to have been an ancient Constitution made under their Kings who were also Generals in War and were hereby prohibited to adopt new Gods either at home or abroad without the Vote of the Senate and renewed with this alteration of Name when the Senate held the Soveraignty at home and the Emperour or General abroad without limitation of their Power while their Commission lasted saving in this particular that they should not at their conquest of Nations or Cities make any foreign God Free of the Roman State till he had first been approved of by the Senate In which Decree Reason bids that we should take Emperour not in the then new but in its old sence as it signifies a General as the next words ut M. Aemilius de deo suo Alburno import for Aemilius was in no other sence an Emperour but as he was the Roman General whose Office it was to evocate the Gods of conquer'd Cities as we have heard before and offer them fair quarter Now lest the General might dubb upon the place any such God this Decree was added by way of caution to that former which Crinitus Tri◠de honest discipl lib. 10. cap. 3. vide Junii notas in Tertul. Apol. cap. 5. out of the Books of the Pontiffs delivers in these terms Separatim nemo siet habens deos novos sive advenas nisi publicè adscitos privatim nè colunto which Law Cicero thus translates Separatim nemo habessit deos neve novos sed nè advenas nisi publicè adscitos privatim colunto Cic. de legib l. 2. p. 318. Let no man have any new or strange Gods Let not any be worshipt in private that are not publickly infranchised that is till those signs they gave of their renouncing their former Cities and People and their coming over to the Roman had been canvast in the Senate and approved of Upon which Eusebius hath this Note Hist. Eccl. 2. 2. out of Tertullian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If God do not please man he shall not be God well exprest in the following clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With you humane judgement confers divinity By this we see where the Senates and Emperours shooe pinches
his Exhortatory to the Gentiles or Eusebius who in his Praeparatory to the Gospel or Theodoret who in his Books of the Affections of the Greeks write that Plato did translate many things into his out of Moses his Books When Numenius the Philosopher stiles Plato the Moses of Greece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is Plato but Moses speaking in the Attick Dialect Vives in Aust. de civit lib. 8. cap. 11. God planting his word in Judaea the Center of the habitable Earth left all men without excuse who by natural Sentiments finding a Dearth at home did not travel thither to buy Corn so that it is not to be wondred at that inquisitive men should come out of all Nations and hang upon the Skirts of the Jews But towards the rising of the Sun of Righteousness the day Star of the Septuagint arose in the sight of the Gentile Empire Temple light confining it self no longer to that Kingdom of Priests diffused its beams not faintly through the Crannies of verbal Tradition to a few but in their full Lustre to all through its Windows made by this Translation as wide on the out-side as the material Temples were on the inside So that those Scriptures of Moses and the Prophets to which the Apostles appeal'd for the proof of what they taught had been for some hundreds of Years made common to Gentiles and in every man's hand that listed to read them by which means the World is put into a capacity to try by that Touch-stone of what Metal the Gospel was A way of tryal it would never have â—ood to much less have called for had it been conscious to it self of the least Adulterate Mixtures Is it possible by false transcribing to put a cheat upon that man that has the Original in his custody Why the Old Testament is the Original draught of the Messiah The Gospel pretends it self to be the Transscript of that Original And therefore had the Serpent intended to have cheated the World by a false Copy he would have taken Pen in hand before the time of the Apostles before the Original Deed had come to its hands This Argument that never sufficiently praised Apologist for the Christian Faith Tertullian as his use is pithily and strenuously presseth to the Conscience of the Gentiles Apol. advers gentes cap. 18. Nec istae nunc latent Ptolemaeorum eruditissimus quem Philadelphum supranominant omnis literaturae sagacissimus cum studio bibliothecarum Pisistratum ut opinor aemularetur inter caetera memoriarum quibus aut vetustas aut curiositas aliqua ad famâ—m protrocinabatur ex suggestu Demetrii Phalerei grammaticorum tunc probatissimi cui praefecturam mandaverat libros ae Judaeis quoque postulavit proprias scilicet vernaculas literas quas soli habebant Sed ne notitia vacaret hoc quoque Ptolemaeo 〈◊〉 Judaeis subscriptum est sepâ—uaginta duobus interpretibus indultis quos Menedemus quoque Philosophus providentiae vindex de sententiae communione suspexit Affirmavit haec quoque vâ—bis Aristaeus ita in Graecum stilum ex aperto mâ—nimenta reliquit Hodie apud Serapaeum Ptolemaei bibliothecae cum ipsis Hebraicis literis exhibentur Sed Judaei palam lectitant vectigalis libertas vulgo aditur sabbatis omnibus qui audierit inveniet Deum qui etiam studuerit intelligere cogetur credere The Old Testament Scriptures wherein is laid up the treasure of the whole Jewish and from thence of our Religion Quibus the saurus totius Judaici sacramenti collocatus inde etiam nostri Id Ib. paulo inferius are now divulged For the most learned of the Ptolemy ' s Sur-named Philadelphus a diligent inquirer after all kind of literature emulating as I suppose Pisistratus his Library among other memorials which either their Antiquity or rareness commended to publick Fame upon the suggestion of Demetrius Phaleraeus whom he appointed Library-keeper required of the Jews those Books that were writ in their Mother Tongue and no where extant but in their own custody alone But that the World might no longer be destitute of the knowledge of them the Jews yield to Ptolemy ' s request and give Licence to Seventy two Interpreters to translate their Bible for whom Menedemus the Philosopher Menedemus non ille Cynicus Coloti Lampsaceni Discipulus sed Socraticus Phaedonis filius Josep autiq 12. 3. Not the Cynick who was the Scholar of Colotus Lampsacenus but the Son of Phaedon and the Disciple of Socrates that defender of the Doctrine of Providence by reason of those Scriptures agreement with his Opinion had a very great respect Aristaeus also hath affirmed to you these things having left manifest Memorials thereof in Greek Hieron prefat in pentateucham Aristaeus Ptolemaei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the Procounaesian whom Strabo condemns as a fabulous and jugling Historian who lived in the Reign of Cyrus and in the fabulous age of Greece though Josephus Eusebius and others stile this man Aristeus Franc. Junii not in locum Tertulliani Ptolemy ' s Library together with the Hebrew Scripture which they translated is at this day to be seen in the Temple of Serapis Serapium templum it a exornatum ut post capitolium nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosues cernat in quo bibliothecae fuerunt inaestimabiles septuaginta voluminum millia Ptolemaeis regibus vigiliis intentis composita bello Alexandrino dum diripitur civitas sub Dictatore Caesare conflagrasse Am. Marcellin lib. 22. The Temple of Serapis so beautified as next to the Capitol the whole world affords not a more stately Piece wherein were Libraries of inestimable value and 70000. Volumes gather'd together by the two Ptolemies was burnt in the Alexandrian War when Caesar was Dictator yet through special Providence if not the whole Library yet at least the Hebrew Testament which the Seventy translated into Greek escaped the fire as is manifest from this Appeal of Tertullian to that Hebrew Copy And if you be unwilling to go so far to inform your selves in the truth of these things 〈◊〉 you may have assurance of it at home for in Rome the Jews read this Translation publickly and as long as they pay their Composition for enjoying this liberty the Vulgar repair every Sabbath to their Synagogues where he that hears may find the true God and he that labours to understand what he hears cannot chuse but become a Christian. § 2. The learned Scaliger with-holds assent to this so currant Story of the Ptolemaean Version conceiving that book of Aristaeus out of which Josephus and from him the Fathers borrowed that story to have been feigned by some Grecizing Jew to get the greater Reverence and Authority to that Translation Scalig. animadvers in Eusebium ad an 1234. We will consider his reasons not so much for the weight of them as for the esteem of the Author to whose inestimable parts some perhaps may not think fit to cast in that Allay which the judicious and impartial
at the close of the Jewish Wars Touching the truth of this History it will never repent me confidently to affirm that that alone hath been the mark I aimed at in all my Writings Nor that he overshot himself in that bold assertion at the end of his Antiquities I dare add that no other Writer Jewish or Forreign could have prosecuted this Argument more faithfully than I have done 2. If Aristaeus had no other Second but Josephus his credit would be stronger back'd than Hermippus's is by Laertius how much better armed then is he than his Antagonist since Josephus brings with him the Jewish Archives and makes himself a Principal in this Combat by producing out of them the same Circumstances that Aristaeus relates for thence he bringeth the Epistle of Ptolemy to Eleazar the High Priest and Eleazar's to Ptolemy wherein are contained the substance of what he quotes Aristaeus for and therefore imputes it to Apion's want of reading if he knew not of those Letters Joseph cont Ap. 2. Is it not strange that the Chambers of the Jerusalomitan Temple should be the Receptacle of those Alexandrian Records that were forged in favour of the Greecizing Jews 3. Add to this that as Josephus is not only a Second to but a Principal with Aristaeus so he is not his only Second but with him appear on Aristaeus his side of Jewish Writers Philo Judaeus who gives the same account of this Seventie's Translation in his Book 2. De Vita Mosis cirea initium And of Christian Doctors Eusebius Justin Martyr and Tertullian of the Validity of whose Judgments to discourse severally would take up too much time I shall therefore confine my self to Tertullian who had there been any weight in Hermippus as Laertius reports him to counter-ballance Aristaeus his Testimony would have as soon discerned it as the Eagle-eyed Scaliger or at least suspected it and that suspicion had been a caution to him to forbear all edging an Author of a crack'd credit to such circumspect Adversaries as he had to deal with who could they have found this flaw in Aristaeus Tertullian would quickly have had it on both sides of his ears and have been told with a witness what kind of fellow that Aristaeus was whose Memorials communicated to the Gentiles for so I interpret his vobis he had quoted for the proof of the Ptolemean Version Besides all this Tertullian mentions Menedemus and therein confirms the story of Josephus touching him and appeals for the truth of the whole story to that very Hebrew Bible which the Seventy brought with them to Alexandria as being then to be seen in the Temple of Serapis when he writ his Apology and those many Greek Copies of the Translatours at that day openly in the Jewish Synagogues which any man that pleased might go and hear read and lastly refer all this but especially the preserving of the Hebrew Copy out of which the Translation was made when so many Thousands of Secular Books were consumed by fire to a gracious purpose in God to make his saving health known among all Nations The Tradition then of the Septuagint is strengthened with such Authority as whatever is brought against it by way of inartificial Argument is less considerable than the dust upon the Ballances We will therefore proceed to his Artificial ones and to § 3. His Second Objection Drawn from the unlikelihood of every Tribe's yielding six men apiece so well skill'd both in the Hebrew Text and Greek Tongue as to be able to translate the one into the other and of Eleazar's being in a Capacity to summon every Tribe ten of them being so long before dispers'd and not under the High-Priests Jurisdiction A Stone which also the learned Junius stumbles at and is forc'd by out of the Road of the common Tradition to an opinion that the number of those Translators was not proportioned to the Tribes but the great Sanhedrim To the later Branch of this Argument I answer that the dispersion was as much at the disposal and devotion of the great Council at Jerusalem as the Inhabitants of Judaea not so much out of awe of its power which could not reach so far as out of an innate and inbred Ambition to be held and kept a peculiar and distinct people from the Gentiles among whom they convers'd and out of their devotedness to their Law and worship Lightfoot Har. in act 9. Nay in all probability there was a better correspondency betwixt Judah and Israel after the scattering of Israel than when they continued two distinct Kingdoms in their own Land as having then no shadow of Authority wherein they could center but that Council to whom they made application and whose determination they followed in all dubious and adiaphorous Cases So as nothing more frequently occurrs in the Jewish stories than Communications of Intelligence and Counsel betwixt them of Judaea and other Countreys than Letters missive from the High Priest and Estate of Elders upon all emergencies to the brethren of the twelve Tribes dispersed for there was a dispersion of the two as well as the ten Tribes James cap. 1. 1. in such forms as these To our brethren that dwell in the upper South-Countrey to our brethren that dwell in the lower South-Countrey peace be unto you We give you to understand To our brethren of the Captivity of Babilon of Media of Greece and to the whole Captivity of Israel peace be unto you We give you to understand that since the Lambs are yet little and the time of the first ripe Ears is not yet come that it seemeth good to me and my fellows to add thirty days unto this Year Lightfoot harm on act 9. and if they kept a correspondency in such trivial things can we think they had not communication together in a business of so great and general concernment to the whole Nation as was the translating of their Scripture into a foreign Language The sound then of Aaron's Bells rang in the ears of the dispersion and Eleazar power to cluck his farthest scatter'd Chickens under his Wings whether in probability six of them in every Tribe were sufficiently feather'd for such a flight abilitated for such a work comes next to be considered as being the first branch of Scaliger's second Exception Now that every Tribe was able to set out six men a piece furnish'd with ability to translate their Mother-Tongue which Religion constrained them to retain into the Greek which their Secular Necessities forced them to learn seems to me a far less wonder than that a man of so large an heart as he should strain at it Hebrew out of which Language the Translation was made is the Tongue which that whole Nation speak among themselves to this day Hammond An. in Mat. 12. 27. For although the Vulgar at their return from the Captivity had forgot the old Character and therefore Ezra was fain to turn them to their A B C to teach them to spell and understand
the reading wherein was fulfilled that Prophecy Give the Book to him and he shall say I am unlearned and cannot read it A thing no more strange than that many among us that can read Latine exactly in the usual Roman Letter when they are put to read their Neck-verse in an old Print would lose the benefit of the Clergy did they not beforehand con their lesson yet to the end the book might not continually be lock'd up from vulgar knowledge under a strange Character It pleased God when the affairs of that People were come to that settlement as to allow time for that work to stir up the great Council by the appointment and with the conduct of Ezra to transcribe the Bible into those Characters that were then and are now vulgarly known From whence arose that dangerous opinion of some unheedful both Jews and Christians that Ezra restored the Old Testament by a spirit of Prophecy after it had been quite lost and no where to be found Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 25. Cont. haer upon the same Stone stumbled Clemens Alexandrinus speaking of Ezra Per quem divinitus inspiratorum eloquiorum facta est recensio renovatio pascha salutare celebratum Strom. lib. 1. pag. 107. I call this a dangerous Opinion truly it deserves a worse Epithite as that which wholly gives up the strength of Israel into the Enemies hand and absolutely deprives us of the benefit of pleading in evidence to the supernaturalness of those Revelations the wonders that Moses wrought And that the vulgar Jews after the Captivity spake Hebrew is manifest from the Testimony of Josephus in his Antiq. Judaic lib. 11. 5. where he hath this story that Nehemiah as he was walking before Susa the Metropolis of Persia overheard certain Strangers as they were travelling towards the City discoursing among themselves in Hebrew and drawing towards them he asked from whence they came they answered him from Judaea and inform'd him in what bad state the Jewish Affairs were which bad News was the occasion of his looking so heavily as the King took notice of it Yea that the Vulgar understood it at their Conquest by Titus is manifest from Josephus's speaking to them in the name of Caesar in Hebrew that not only the Captain of the Rebels but the vulgar might understand him Bel. Jud. 7. 4 Itaque Josephus ne soli Joanni haec intimarentur sed pluribus constitit ubi exaudiri possit mandata Caesaris Hebraico Sermone disseruit 2 The Greek into which the Hebrew Text was translated was the common Tongue of most of those Nations into which the Jews were dispersed and to all of them the badge of their subjection to the Grecian Empire and the then common Key as Latin was afterwards and is now in the Western part of the World to all Provinces to unlock their minds to one another in natural commerce so that without the knowledg of that they must have interdicted themselves of Fire and Water That the Jews by that time the Law was translated had upon this account gained the knowledg of the Greek appears from the so commonness of that Language amongst them for a while after as it is stiled by their own Rabbies their vulgar Tongue in the Babilon Gomara in Megilla fol. 9. Col. 2. They say there are four Languages brave for the World to use the Vulgar the Syrian the Roman and the Hebrew and some add the Asserian and that by vulgar they here mean the Greek is clear from Midras Tillius fol. 25. Col. 4. where speaking of this passage the Greek is named in room of the Vulgar and from their interpreting that Prophecy of Noah Japhet shall dwell in the Tents of Sem. by they shall speak the Language of Japhet that is the Greecian in the Land of Judea read Dr. Lightfoot Harmon anno Christi 62. Nero. 8. pag. 141. To bring this so much disputed Point among those whom too much or too little Learning makes mad to the capacity even of Idiots the Belgick Churches in England express to the life the state of the Jewish in the dispersion as to their perfect understanding their own and our Tongue what Dutch is to them Hebrew was yea is to the Jews and what Greek was to the Jews inhabiting the Siro-Grecian Empire that is English to the Dutch with us And I think it were an easie thing out of one Congregation of them to single out more than Aristaeus reports Eleazar to have cull'd out of one whole Tribe able without Hesitancy Variance or Mistake to turn their Belgick Bible into English and in as short a time as that Translation was compleated in viz. 72. Days without administring occasion of Wonder to a man less seen in the nature of things than the excellent Scaliger how that place Exodus 24. 9. Of the chosen of Israel none did disagree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could be applyed to the Translators for indeed it must have been through God's laying a judicial hand upon them had they varied one from another in translating out of and into those Lingua's they had at their Fingers ends § 4. Scaliger's Third Exception Against the common story of the Seventy is that it stands not with reason that Ptolemy should have been so ready in propounding that Scripture form of Execration If any man shall add or take from this Book let him be accursed Answer What improbability can this be burden'd with seeing as Aristaeus there saith this Form of cursing was common to Greeks and Romans as well as Jews and if it had not yet Ptolemy might have learnt it out of Scripture for he did not pronounce this Curse till he had heard the Law read to him out of the Greek Translation by Demetrius and had expressed how exceedingly he admired the Wisdom of the Lawgiver and enquired of Demetrius how it came to pass that neither any Historian nor Poet had made mention of so admirable a Law and received from him this satisfactory Answer that this Law was so divine and worthy of such Veneration as none of them durst meddle with it and if any had been so venturous as to lay unwashen hands upon it they were sure not to escape the revenging hand of Heaven for Theopompus the Poet being minded to insert some passages out of this Law into his Poems was struck with madness for thirty days that is till in some lucid Intervals suspecting what was the cause of that divine displeasure against him he retracted his purpose by repentance and cryed Peccavi in his humble addresses to God for approaching that holy place with his shooes on And Theodectes intending to transplant some Slips out of that inclosed Garden into his Tragick Scenes was afflicted in his eye till he had acknowledged his Errour and begged the restoring of his sight Can it then seem strange that Ptolemy's ears being filled with such like discourse his mouth should be filled with that Execration against them that should add Prophane
praemio 7. 7. If the Truth dispers'd among several Persons and scatter'd among several Sects were by any man collected into one and digested into a body it would without doubt not dissent from us When Apollodorus offer'd to Socrates a precious and gorgeous Tunick and Pall to put on when he drank the poyson and to be wrapped in when he was dead Socrates turning to Crito Simacus and Phaedo what an honourable opinion saith he hath Apollodorus of me if he think to see Socrates in this Robe after I am dead if he think that that which will then lay at his feet is Socrates I know not my self who I am Aelian var. hist. 1. 16. This Socratical Aphorism Tully expresseth thus Mens cujusque is est quisque Is one Egg more like another than this of the Schools to that of the Gospel where Jesus concludes Abraham to be still living from Moses his stiling God the God of Abraham so many years after his decease That of Abraham he left behind him in his Sepulchre is not Abraham but that of him that still lives But it would require an Age to transcribe by retail those numerous Philosophical Axioms which speak the Language of Scripture so perfectly as the whole matter of controversie betwixt the Fathers Apologizing for and the Philosophers contending against our Religion was brought by mutual consent to this point Whether the wise men of the World receiv'd those Doctrines from our Scriptures or the Pen-men of the Scripture from their Schools Celsus in Origen contends earnestly that whatsoever was solid in the Christian Religion was borrowed from the Philosophers by whom it was better and clearlier delivered He instanceth in our affirming God to dwell in light inaccessible this saith he is no more than what Plato teacheth in his Epistles that the first Good is ineffable In our Saviour's commending Humility This is Plato's Doctrine saith Celsus teaching in his Book of Laws that He who would be happy must be a follower of Justice with an humble and well-composed mind In Christ's saying 'T is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven what is this saith he other than that of Plato It is not possible that a man can be very rich and very good From the fame Fountain Celsus will have Christ to draw that saying Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadunto life and few there be that find it and that our Doctrine of the fall of Angels and their being reserved in chains was derived from the Poet Pherecides and Homer vide l. 4. col 9. The Patrons of the Christian Cause on the other hand contended that the waters of the Academy were drawn from the wells of the Sanctuary that the Sun of knowledg arose in the East and thence displayed its Beams over the World St. Ambrose proves that Plato borrowed of David in Psalm 35. And upon that in Isaiah 40. For she hath received at the Lords hand double to her iniquity saith he Plato eruditionis gratiâ in Aegyptum profectus ut Mosis gesta Legis praecepta Prophetarum dicteria cognosceret c. in psalm 118. serm 18. St. Austin quotes St. Ambrose proving from Chronology that the Grecians borrowed of the Jews not è contrà and thence commends the reading of Secular History de Christiana Doct. lib. 2. cap. 28. and in his Epistle to Polinus and Therasias writes thus Libros Ambrosii multùm desidero quos adversùs nonnullos imperitissimos superbissimos qui de Platonis libris Dominum profecisse contendunt dilligentissimè copios ssimè scripsit Aug. Epist. 34. And not barely affirm'd it but brought in evidence for the proof of it either from common Principles of Reason or the Authority of heathen Chronologers St. Origen thus Contra Cels. lib. 6. cal 1 2 3 c. Moses was long before the most ancient of your Philosophers and therefore they must borrow light from him but it was impossible he could light his Candle at theirs before they were lighted and the Apostles were the unlikeliest men in the World to understand your Philosophers The same Father Origen contrà Celsum lib. 1. cal 13. in answer to Celsus objecting Moses his Juniority to the Heathen Theologues saith that Hermippus in his first Book of Lawgivers declared how Pythagoras translated his Discipline from the Jews into Greece and that there was extant a Book of Haecateus in which he so approves of the Jewish Philosophy as Herennus Philo in his Commentar de Judaeis questions whether it be the genuine Book of Haecateus whose name it bears it seeming to him improbable that an Heathen Philologer would write so much in their commendation St. Austin in his eighteenth Book de Civitate from Chap. 2. to the end of that Book demonstrates by Chronology that our Prophets were elder than their Philosophers And in his 8. 11. de Civitate Dei affirms Plato to have transcribed the description of the first matter in his Timaeus mentioned also by Cicero and thus translated Mundum efficere volens Deus terram primo ignemque jungebat When God was about to frame the World he first joyntly made the matter of Fire and Earth from that of Moses In the beginning God made the Heaven and Earth Gen. 1. 1. Plato by Fire understanding Heaven And his notion of the Air upon the Water to have been Plato's mis-conception of that of Moses The Spirit moved upon the Waters And his Dogma in Phaedone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Every right Philosopher is a lover of God to have been derived from the sacred Fountains where nothing flows more plentifully than such like Doctrine But that which made this most learned Father almost believe altogether that Plato had read Moses was his observing Plato to have been the first Philosopher who called God by that name which God reveal'd himself by to Moses in his Embassy to Pharaoh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am that I am or That that is A name appropriated to God by Plato in his Timeus calling God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ever-being and so familiar with the Platonicks as in their Master's stile they superscribed their Treatises concerning God with this Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of him that is A name saith St. Austin I find in no Books before Plato save in those where it is said I am that I am This was modestly said of that cautious Divine for the truth is Alcimus writes to Amynthas that some Philosophers had got that Notion by the end before Plato naming Epicharmus and quoting those words of his at which Plato lighted his Candle and Plato himself in his Sophista confesseth little less But it comes all to one as to our Argument for Epicharmus was a Pythagorian and that Pythagoras the circumcised Philosopher received that and all his other refined Notions from Moses his Writings or by discourse from the Jewish
inflam'd with desire to understand how he may be happy in this Life and the future As to the Third Principle he saith he knows not what Name to give it except he should call it the Soul of the World because it gives Life and Being to all Creatures And in his Epistle to Dionysius he tells him that he writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Trine Divinity that is as Porphyry alledged by St. Cyril against Julian expounds him Three Subsistances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Essence of the Divinity Consonant to which Platonick Dictate is that Respond which the Oracle of Serapis gave to Thales King of Aegypt at the time of the Trojan War inquiring who was happier than he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus Macrobius stiles the First Person The truly chief God the Second the Mind or Thinking of that God the Third The Soul or Spirit proceeding from that Mind Anima ex Mente processerat Mens ex Deo procreata est Macrob. in som. Scip. 1. 17. These Allegations bid fair for the proof of this Opinion That the Philosophers were not wholly strangers to the Mystery of the Trinity And in the last of them Macrobius makes confession of the Trinity in as plain terms as we Christians do and of the Order and Manner of the Procedure of the divine Persons plainer than the Grecian Church would yield or the Latin Church could prove the sacred Scriptures to declare I appeal to their Contests about the word Proceeding and the Clause de Filióque And to Macrobius a Greco-latin Platonick his so clearly asserting That the Mind was begotten of God the First Person and the Spirit proceeded from the Mind But that 's more than I do or need to produce them for the use that I have for them is only to give testimony that the Platonicks vouchsafed the name of a Principle to nothing but God the Father God the Word and God the Spirit and therefore it is not even by their Principles in the power of any other God by his Mediation to bring the Soul by Purgation into Conformity to or Communion with God nothing but a Principle can effect that and there are but three Principles Father Son and Spirit say the Platonicks To this Platonick Notion of a Principle our Saviour seems to allude John 8. 25. where to the Jews asking who he was he answers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in St. Austin's de Civitate 10. 24. and others St. Ambros. Hexameron lib. 1. cap. 4. of the Fathers judgment That he was the Beginning respondit se esse Principium To be sure the Platonicks did in a peculiar Notion denominate God the Word the Principle Which made Amelius when he read the Beginning of St. John's Gospel In the beginning was the Word apud Deum esse Deum esse per ipsum omnia facta esse the Word was with God and was God and by him were all things made cry out Per Jovem barbarus iste cum nostro Platone sentit Verbum Dei in ordine Principii esse This Barbarian is of our Plato ' s Opinion that the Word of God is in the rank of Principles c. And that other Philosopher whom Simplicianus B. of Millain informs St. Austin of de civitate 10. 29. to protest Those words of St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deserved to be writ in Letters of Gold and to he hung up in the most conspicuous places in all Churches and St. Austin in his Confessions say that he had read the beginning of St. John's Gospel in the Platonick Books in sence though not in the very same words lib. Confess 7. cap. 9. procurasti mihi quosdam Platonicorum libros ibi legi non quidem his verbis sed hoc idem omninò There I read saith he and found proved by various Reasons That in the beginnning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God that by it all things were made Multis multiplicibus suaderi rationibus quòd in principio erat Verbum Verbum erat apud Deum There in the Platonick Writings I read That the Soul of man though it bear testimony of the Light is not the Light but God the Word of God is that true Light that Et quòd hominis anima quamvis testimonium perhibeat de lumine non est tamen ipsa lumen sed Verbum Dei Deus est lumen verum quod illuminat omnem hominem And that he was in this World and the World was made by him and that the World knew him not quia in hoc mundo erat mundus per eum factus est mundus eum non cognovit But that he came unto his own and his own received him not I did not read there Quià verò in suos venit sui eum non reciperunt quotquot autem receperunt eum dedit illis potestatem filios Dei non legi ibi There also I read that God the Word was not born of flesh or blood nor of the will of man or the will of the flesh but of God Item ibi legi quià Deus Verbum non ex carne non ex sanguine non ex voluntate viri neque ex voluntate carnis sed ex Deo natus est But that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us I did not read there Sed quià Verbum caro factus est habitavit in nobis non ibi legi In those Platonick Writings I found it said in various and many forms of speech That the Word the Son is in the form of the Father counting it no robbery to be equal to God because he is by nature God Indagavi quippe in illis Platonicis literis variè dictum multis modis quòd sit Filius in forma Patris non rapinam arbitratus esse aequalis Deo quià naturaliter id ipsum est But that he emptied himself taking the form of a servant to the death of the Cross is not mentioned in those Books Sed quià seipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens in similitudinem hominum factus c. non habent illi libri Indeed that before and beyond all thine only begotten Son incommutably continueth coeternal with thy self and that mens Souls do out of his fulness receive what makes them happy and by participation of that wisdom that rests in him are made wise is affirmed in those Platonick Books Quòd enim ante omnia tempora suprà omnia tempora incommutabiliter manet unigenitus Filius tuus coaeternus tibi quia de plenitudine ejus accipiunt animae ut beatae sint quia participatione manentis in se sapientiae renovantur ut Sapientes sint est ibi c. This is a Testimony so weighty as we cannot question the truth of it being given in his Confessions made to God and so full as it not only proves this Particular That the Platonicks conceived
to be not of God's Will as St. Austin de haeresibus affirms Hermes to have thought the ineffable Word to be Filius benedicti Dei bonae voluntatis The Son of the blessed God and his good Will upon which St. Austin thus flouts the Pagan Quaerebas Pagane conjugem Dei audi Mercurium Abjiciatur quaeso ex corde tuo impura pravitas Conjux Dei bona voluntas est Thou demandest of what Wife God begat his Son Let Mercury answer thee Cast I pray thee impure pravity out of thine heart The wife of God is his own good Will of that he begat his Son In the expressing of whose Eternal Generation though the Gentiles spake not by Rule as we do yet they blunder'd out our sence and communicated the Reliques of the Old Tradition of the eldest Nations in such Terms as they could Trismegistus referente Lactantio de vera Religione 4. 6. in his Book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfect Word The Lord and Creator of all things whom we usually call God begat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the second Person visible and sensible I call him sensible not saith Trismegistus because he hath sence that 's not our business now to resolve but because the Father sends him to reveal himself to the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 parallel to St. Paul's God manifest in the flesh to our Saviours He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also and to St. John's No man hath seen God at any time but the only begotten son who is in the bosom of God he hath reveil'd him Hermes proceeds because therefore he produced him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first and one and alone and because he was pleasing in his sight and full of Grace of all truly good things he sanctified him and loved him exceedingly as his own proper Son Upon which St. Austin hath this Observation Quem primò factum dixit poste à unigenitum appellavit Augustin de 5. haeresibus him whom before he said God made he afterwards calls his Son and begotten This Son of God Trismegistus as he is there quoted by Lactantius de vera Religione l. 4. c. 6. stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Workman and Sibyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Counceller because by his Councel and Hand he fram'd the World These passages in truth as well in the judgement of Lactantius and St. Austin for he makes the same both quotations and applications of Hermes and the Sibyllines tom 6. de quinque haeresibus are a Transcript of that divine Discourse of Solomon touching Wisdom Prov. 8. 22. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old when he prepared the heavens I was there then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight Trismegistus referent Lactant. l. 4. c. 7. affirms That the Cause of this Cause is the Will of the sacred Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which produced that God God the Son whose name it is not possible for humane mouth to express and a little after speaking to his Son saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a certain ineffable word of Wisdom of that Lord of all of whom we have preoccupations or preconceptions which to expressis above the power of man This ineffable word Zeno asserts to be the Maker and Governour of the whole World Id. ib. cap. 9. item Tertual apolog contragentes cap. 21. Apud vestros quoque sapientes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est sermonem atque rationem constat artificem videri universitatis Hunc enim Zeno determinat factorem qui cuncta in dispositione formaverit c. § 3. Now that he who is this Light of Light this God-born of the Essence of his Father before all Worlds was in the opinion of the wisest Heathens to become Man for the Redemption of the World to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mortal in regard of his assumed humane Nature as the Milesian Oracle answered those that enquired whether he were God or man may be evident from the Testimony of the Sibyls and indeed was from thence so clearly evinc'd by the Patriarchs of the Christian Cause as the Adversaries had no place of refuge left but this sorry one That the Verses alledged were not Sibylline but forged by the Christians as long since complain'd St. Austin Quod à sanctis Angelis vel ab ipsis Prophetis nostris habere poterunt quae cùm proferimus à nostris ficta esse contendunt August de consens Evangel lib. 1. c. 20. Tom. 4. pag. 164. b. That which the Sibyls sing touching Christ They might learn either of the holy Angels or the Writings of the Prophets but when we urge Pagans with their Verses they contend that we Christians forged them And before him Constantine in his Oration cap. 19. where he mentions and answers that Calumny In which way of calumniating that most immaculate Spouse of Christ the Primitive Church with a suspicion of the most damnable Adulterations that any Society can be guilty of some of our Modern Criticks have not been afraid nor asham'd to run with the Pagan Wits but with far more excess of impious scorn and to the utter subversion of all rational Belief for if that Church was so far deserted not only of Grace but common Honesty as to forge Sibylline what assurance can we have that she did not forge Divine Oracles I shall therefore first for the preventing of an inundation of Irreligion make up the Bank that has been cut by those too sharp Wits to whom nothing was wanting to render them absolutely and without exception judicious save the learning of the first Lesson in that Science To be wise with Sobriety 1. Lactanctius de vera sapientia 4. 15. would tell these Calumniators that were they as well read as they pretend themselves to be they would never have made this Objection Quod profectò non putabit qui Ciceronem Varronémque legerint aliósque veteres qui Erythraeam Sibyllam caeterásque commemorant quarum exempla proferrimus qui Authores autè obierunt quà m Christus secundùm carnem nasceretur The Verses of the Sibyls which the Church alledged she found quoted in the writings of Tully Varro and other old Writers who were in their Graves before the blessed Babe lay in the Manger Touching Varro the same Father de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 6. gives us this account and therein resolves the Question of Tacitus whether there were more Sibyls than one Annal. 6. An una seu plures fuerint Sibyllae M. Varro than whom never man was more learned either among the Greeks or Latins in those Books which he writ to Caesar the Great Pontiff speaking of the Quindecimviri saith that the Sibylline Books were not the Works of any one Sibyl though they were all called Sibylline because all Women-prophetesses were of the ancients called Sibyls either from the Delphick Prophetess of that name or from their
the Empire from a perfect settlement Upon the same account Agrippa in his Edileship the year before M. Anthony's overthrow banished Astrologers and Prestigiators Dion 49. perhaps because upon their instigation Anthony had caused the Alexandrians to give to Caesarion the Title of King of Kings Yet notwithstanding the Manuscripts out of which the copies were transcribed were still in Being To that Objection from the burning of the Capitol in the Social War c and therewith all the Sibylline Oracles there deposited no more need be said but this That the Fathers made no quotations out of those Books of Cumena which Tarquin bought the only Books there laid up and into which alone it was not lawful for any to look but the Quindecim-viri to whose custody they were committed and had they been as common and vulgar as the rest were out of which the Fathers made their allegations it is like the Church would have made little or no use of them For from the time wherein that Prophetess liv'd and the use which the Romans made of them I guess she wrote in another strain and by another spirit than Cumaea and the rest did Quod ex Cumaeo carmine se fassus est transtulisse Virgilius quoniam fortassis etiam ista vates eliquid de unico Salvatore in spiritu audierat quod necesse habuit confiteri August Epist. 156. Virgil saith that he translated this Poem out of Cumeas because perhaps this Prophetess had received something in the spirit concerning the one Saviour which she was necessitated to confess And that Tarquin's Cumena wrote the Epilogue to Numa's Aegeria being that to her which the Prophets were to Moses an Interpretess who taught them to apply Numa's general Laws touching Religion to particular occasions and contingencies For all I find produc'd out of her Oracles are certain Directories in such cases as they could not resolve by the help of Numa's Rubrick 2. As for other Sibyllines they were burnt afterwards indeed by the Arch-traytor Stilico but before that time the best part of them had been quoted by and transcribed into other Authors out of which what is now extant of the Sibyls is for the most part gathered Heylin Geogr. Armoricâ And yet 3. Even Cumenas were in being and escaped burning in the Reign of Julian when the Temple of Palatine Apollo was consumed by fire Ubi ni multiplex juvisset auxilium etiam Cumaena carmina consumpserat magnitude flammarum Ammian Marcellin Julian l. 23. cap. 2. Where if there had not been a great deal of help the violence of the flames had consumed the Verses of Cumena A Testimony beyond all exception given by one of Julian's Military Commanders and an Eye-witness § 4. But to put it beyond all possibility of a rational Doubt That the Sibyls were preexistent to the Apostles as to those their Oracles which the Church made use of Virgil had out of them before our Saviour's Birth composed his Genethliacon wherein as he interprets them to portend the greatest change and restoration of the World by the procurement of one to be born about that time so he comprehends all in effect which the Fathers quoted the Sibyls for all which are not applicable to any person that has yet appeared in the World save the blessed Jesus So that both Song and Descant mutato nomine were made to the Churches hand See Constantine's Speech in Eusebius chap. 20. where that religious Emperour comments upon Virgil's 4. Eclog and shews That he who was contemporary with Augustus in that Oracle translated out of Sibyl wrote so truly and aptly of Christ Ut nec his veriùs quicquam nec ad Servatoris virtutem aptiùs dici poterit That nothing could be said either more truly or more properly of our Saviour than the contents of that Poem Add to this the diligence used by the Romans to prevent the taking of forged Oracles into the Sibylline Canon exprest by Tacitus Annal. 6. in the case of Quintilianus the Tribune his putting it to the Senat 's Vote whether a certain Book of Sibyl which Caninius Gallus the Quindecim-vir had requested might be received into the number of the Sibyllines should be put into the Canon Of which Tiberius hearing chides the Tribune as too young to understand how business of that consequence ought to be managed but severely rebukes Gallus for that he being an old Master of Ceremonies should so much as put it to the question before he had as the manner was caused the Book to be read and canvas'd by his Colleagues and other persons skill'd in such Affairs withal admonishing him how Augustus for that many vain things went under the famous name of Sybyl had decreed That it was insufferable that those Verses should pass though but in private hands for Sibyls that had not been first legally examin'd The like caution our Forefathers used saith he after the burning of the Capitol in the Social war making search in Samos Ilium Erythrae through Africk also and Sicily and the Italick Colonies for the Verses of Sibyl dato Sacerdotibus negotio quantum humana ope potuissent vera discernere Tacit. ib. and committing to the Priests the charge of discerning which were true as far as by humane strength it was possible I observe here by the way that no Sibylline Verses were permitted to be even in private hands but such as were approved to be such and that therefore those Sibylline Oracles which the Quindecimviri after approbation had received into their custody remained in other Copies in private hands and were not as those of Cumena lock'd up from vulgar inspection But that for which I directly alledge this discourse of Tacitus is to prove that the Romon State would allow nothing for Sibylline that would not endure the severest scrutiny And therefore had those Verses which the Church quoted as such been spurious or but under the least suspicion thereof we should have heard of it by otherwise Persons than Celsus we should have heard not only the Epicurean Hogs grunting it but the Lions roaring it against us Cicero indeed excepts against the divine Original of those Acrostick Sibyllines out of which Caesar procured some body to pick the name of a King as a Title which the Universal Monarch should assume which Title he therefore would have had the Senate to confer upon himself for that such curious versifying savour'd too much of the Lamp and father'd those Poems rather upon humane Industry than divine Inspiration But first this Reason can be of no force with us who know what excellent Poems Moses Deborah David Solomon Hannah c. made by divine Inspiration Nor with those eminent Philosophers who queried how Apollo came to lose his versifying Vein of which they could not have had any scruple if they had not believed his Oracles were at first given out in Verse nor with himself if he had not forgot since the Father whipt the Son for extemporizing in that Vein Parce precor
lost two Sons but lost them by the hands of Ophella's Souldiers In which passage my Author seems to compare Agathocles his Immolation of Ophella to his own lusts with the Carthaginians Oblation of their Children to Saturn that the meritorious cause of his ruine this of their deliverance Hence Philo immolandos exhibuisse filios vel pro incolumitate patriae velut averterent bella siccitates inundationes pestilentias de Abrahamo 243. the Gentiles sacrificed children for the common safety for the averting of War Plague drought c. Hyginus Poetic Astronom tit Hydra reports that the Plague raging at Phlagusa near Troy Demiphon enquired of the Oracle what course he should take to pacifie the incensed Deity Apollo commands they should every year sacria Virgin of noble Parentage Petronius Arbiter amongst the most trite and obvious things in Classick Authors reckons responsa in pestellentiam data ut virgines tres aut plures immolentur Satyric pag. 1. Responds given for the removal of the Pestilence that two or three or more Virgins should be sacrificed If we review those Instances of humane Victimes that have already been quoted we shall find they were applyed to as their sacred Anker when all other ways of supplications were found inavailable and their distress such as required immediate redress and would admit of no delay Thus when the Priests of Baal found their God to lend a deaf ear to their Prayers they invoke him with the voice of their own Blood When the Grecians in their expedition to Troy at Aulis cannot by their Hecatombs of bestial Victims obtain the favour of their angry Goddess they immolate Iphigenia and when in their return home at the Taurick Chersonesus they cannot by any other means attone Achilles's Ghost or engage a fair wind homeward they with joynt consent sacrifice Polixena When the Marcomanni invaded the Empire an Christi 271. Fulvius Sabinus made a motion in the Senate by the Emperour's Order that the Sybil's Books might be consulted and such Sacrifices offered as they appointed for so great an Exigent to the which he instigates them in these words Serò nimis P. C. de reipublicae salute consulimus serò ad fatalia jussa respicimus more languentium qui ad summos medicos nisi in summa desperatione non mittunt we consult too late oh ye conscript Fathers about the safety of the Commonwealth we look too late to the fatal Commands after the manner of languishing persons who send not for the best Physicians but in greatest Extremity Now what these fatalia jussa were appears from the Emp. Aurelian's letter to the Senate Miror vos patres sancti tamdiu de aperiendis Sibyllinis dubitasse libris quasi in Christianorum Ecclesia non in templo deorum omnium tractaretis Agite igitur ceremoniisque solennibus juvate principem Necessitate publica laborantem inspiciantur libri quae facienda fuerint celebrentur quemlibet sumptum cujuslibet gentis Captivos quaelibet animalia regia non abnuo sed libens offero Vopiscus in Aureliano pag. 100 102. I wonder holy Fathers that you should thus long dwell upon the question whether the Sibylline Oracles are to be consulted or no as if you handled this question in a Church of Christians and not in the Temple of all the Gods Go to therefore and with solemn Ceremonies aid Prince labouring under the publick necessity Let the books be looked into and whatsoever they appoint to be done be it to sacrifice Cattel Captives or whomsoever it shall be observed § 5. But we need no better evidence that men fled to humane Blood in those extremities out of which they found no exit any other way than what the sacred Scriptures afford where it is recorded that the King of Moab being besieged in Kirharraseth seeing that he could neither hold out against the assaults nor with his select band make his way through the Forces of his Enemies and being resolv'd not to yield till he had tryed the last means of invoking and engaging the divine aid took his eldest Son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him up for a Burnt-offering upon the wall 2. Reg. 3. 26. And when the King of Moab saw that the battel was too sore for him he took with him seven hundred men to break through even to the King of Edom but they could not Then he took his eldest Son c. And there was great indignation against Israel and they departed from him and returned to their own Land I shall not here dispute whether Junius Tremelius their first or second thoughts are soundest It will be sufficient for my turn to prove their second not overwise except in St. Paul's sence being part of them grounded upon their correcting the Text as themselves translate it the Text Accepit filium suum primogenitum The Margin Corrigendum Ejus id est Regis Edomoeorum Such is their conceipt that the King of Moab sacrificed the King of Edom's Son for the framing of which they turn Suum which clearly carries it to the King of Moab into Ejus to which they make the King of Edom the antecedent whose Son they would make us believe the King of Moab took Prisoner in that fruitless sally he made to break through the King of Edom's Forces a thing in its self 't is true possible though very improbable that he who could not break through to the King of Edom's Forces sor the safety of his life by flight should be able to carry off such a Prisoner who doubtless was near his father's Standard in his retreat to the City through the Forces of the Kings of Judah and Israel which lay betwixt the City and the King of Edom as that expression does more then imply to break through even unto the King of Edom strange that he should venture back again through two Armies with the incumbrance of a Prisoner rather than through one for his own safety However the Argument à posse ad esse can be of no validity here where the consequence is as manifestly impossible as it is for God to lye for the Text saith the King of Moab took suum primogenitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septuagint he took his own first begotten son his own first begotten son in which relative there can be no ambiguity though the Ejus which they foist into the Margin and the his which stands in our English Text may in Grammar refer indifferently to either the King of Edom or of Moab and therefore I am more scandalized with these learned men's turning of suum into ejus than I am with the Collecters of the Contents of our English Bibles for applying that relative to the King of Edom Eng. contents of 2 Reg. 3. the King of Moab sacrificing the King of Edom ' s son To return to Junius and Tremelius their opinion touching this subject expressed in their notes on Amos 1. 16. filium Edomaei captivum in holacaustum absolutissimè
put upon them are a pack of as palpable Untruths as ever were asserted Not one of them wants its mate as we apply them to the blessed Jesus and the things appertaining to his Kingdom But they are barren of Effect and most of them past Child-bearing if they have not brought forth allready those Children which the Christian Church fathers upon them If their Messias be not already exhibited he can never be exhibited in that place at that time and with such other Circumstances as the Prophets assign The Temple which he was to fill with Glory is demolish'd the Polity during the standing whereof Shilo was to come is dissolv'd the Weeks within the compass whereof Messias was to make attonement for sin at the end whereof desolation was to come in like a flood are long since expired The Idols which at the appearance of his glorious Majesty were to creep into holes are already exterminated from off the face of this Earth so that if he has not already appeared it is impossible that at his appearance he should find any Gentile Idols to abolish from off this Earth and from under those Heavens which the Prophet pointed at and taught the Jews to point at during the Babilonian Captivity in making this profession Jer. 10. 11. Thus shall ye say unto them the Gods shall perish from under those Heavens that is which are over Chaldea Let the Atheist search if he can find in all that Tract one Heathen Idol CHAP. X. The Demonstration of Power § 1. Christians Gleanings exceed Pagans Vintage § 2. Christian stories of undoubted Pagan of dubious Credit § 3. Pagan Miracles mis-father'd § 4. Rome ' s Prosperity whence § 5. Wonders among Gentiles for the fulfilling of Prophecies § 6. For the punishment of Nations ripe for Excision § 7. Empires raised miraculously for the common good § 1. VVE have seen the Prints of incomprehensible Wisdom upon the Creatures and thence demonstrated the Being of a God we have seen the like impresses upon the Sacred Scriptures and thence proved that God to be the Author of them who contrived the Universe The next demonstration of a Deity is the impressions of infinite Power stampt upon his Works those Rhetorical Figures sprinkled in the Book of Providence which render the Contents of it more illustrious the divine Eloquence of it more august and specious For as in humane speech the moderate and decent aspersion of new and unusual words add a splendour to it so Miracles add a grace to the divine Eloquence and an Emphasis to that discourse God entertains the World with while he speaks to it by the Dumb Creature Sicut humana consuetudo verbis ità divina potentia etiam factis loquitur sicut sermone humano verba nova vel minus usitata moderate decenter aspersa splendorem addunt ita in factis mirabilibus quodammodo luculentior est divina eloquentia August ep 49. quest 6. In which strain the God of Israel the Father of the blessed Jesus hath as far out-stript all other pretenders to Divinity and Authors of Religions as the Feates of the Artillery Garden are exceeded by the wisest Stratagems of the greatest Captains the products of a Wheel-wright by Archimedes his Engines A blind mans catching an Hare by chance by the success and Achievements of Diana and her Quire of Huntresses or Don Quixots Windmill engagements by the Exploits of Caesar or the Sorcerers Serpents by that of Moses which if we compare together we shall find the stupendious Effects wrought by the Heathen Gods to have been 1. So few as an hundred of those Deities may be allowed to club for the production of one Miracle though no greater than the swelling of a Lake while the Romans besieged the Vejentes Exoptatae victoriae iter miro prodigio Dii immortales patefecerunt Val. Max. 1. 6. 3. a multitude of Gods are fain to joyn hands to open this light door What is this in comparison of the way through the red Sea No less than two durst venture to cast the scales at the Regil-lake on the Romans hands when their Army and the Tusculancs were so equally pois'd as neither would give one foot back It was as much as two of them could do and that on horse back to bring P. Vatinius word to Rome in a whole day of King Perses his overthrow in Macedonia Briefly put together all the miracles that Authors of any credit have father'd upon all their Gods or have reported to have been done in their names and the Miracles wrought by Moses alone in the Name of the God of Israel to prove that he was his Messenger the Miracles wrought by Christ alone in his own Name and Person to prove that he was the eternal Son of Israels God the Miracles wrought by St. Peter alone in the name of Christ to prove his Masters Resurrection and his own Delegation will far out-vie them Nay the after gleaning of Christs Miracles I mean those which were wrought at the Memories of Martyrs as low as the third and fourth Centuries are more than the whole Vintage of Pagan Prodigies deposited in Authors of undoubted credit as in Barnes Cypriani tract 1. cont Demetrianum O si audire eos velles videre quando à nobis adjurantur torquentur spiritualibus flagris verborum tormentis de obsessis corporibus ejiciuntur quando ejulantes gementes voce humanà potestate divina flagella verbera sentientes venturum judicium confitentur Veni cognosce esse vera quae dicimus Et quia sic Deos colere te dicis vel ipsis quos colis crede aut si volueris tibi credere de teipso loquetur audiente te qui nunc tuum pectus obsedit qui nuno mentem tuam ignorantiae nocte caecavit Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas timeri ab eis quos tu times quos tu adoras videbis sub manus nostras stare vinctos tremere captivos quos tu suspicis veneraris ut dominos Certe vel sic confundi in istis erroribus tuis poteris cùm conspexeris audieris Deos tuo's quid sint ad interrogationes nostras statim prodere praesentibus licèt vobis praestigias fallacias suas non posse caelare So plentifully was this sweet and powerful savour of the Ointment of Christs Name poured out in the Age of St. Austin as that Learned Father having in his Book de vera Religione given Reasons why Miracles were not then so frequent as formerly lest he might thereby be understood to deny that the Church retain'd the gift of Miracles in his time upon second thoughts dares not commit that Tractate to the hands of Posterity without this animadversion upon it in the unparallel'd Books of his Retractations lib. 1. cap. 13. I argued indeed saith he in that Book of the true Religion that the Pagans had no reason to expect Miracles now but I never
affirmed that no miracles are wrought now for even then when I writ that Treatise I knew a blind man who was cur'd at Millain and several others nay there are now so many Examples of the like miraculous Cures wrought in these times as I cannot possibly know them all and yet I know more than I am able to reckon up And the same Father epist. 137. tells us that at the memory of St. Felix at Nola Miracles were then so usually wrought by Invocation of Christs Name as he purposed thither to send Boniface a Priest of his Church and one who accused him of Incontinency the one firmly attesting the other as peremptorily denying conceiving that though in Africa where no Miracles were wrought A thing which he wonders at seeing that Climate abounded more with Religious persons than Italie and I wonder as much at his wondring for that which he alledges as the reason of his astonishment was the reason of the thing he admires and therefore should have put a stop to it because Italy swarm'd more with Pagans than those parts of Africk therefore was that power of working Miracles continued there Tongues and all other supernatural Gifts being not for those that believe but for Infidels One of them might persist in their lie against Conscience yet that the reverence of the very place where the power of Christ had been so manifestly seen would extort from them the confession of the Truth To which he was encouraged by what had happen'd at Millan in the like case where a Thief who strongly denyed he was guilty of a Theft that was laid to his charge when he came to the Church there to swear in the presence of that God in whose Name so many Miracles had been wrought in that very place durst not swear as he had boasted he would but confessed the Fact and restored the goods he had stoln Before I close this point I will give one Instance more of the multitude of Miracles wrought for the Conversion of one peevish Heathen reported by this great Light of the Church who for Learning Judgment and Integrity deserves more credit than the whole Tribe of Pagan Scriblers who in his 67. Epistle gives this account of the Conversion of Dioscorus the Architheater It was not like that this mans stiff neck would be bowed nor his petulant Tongue tamed without a Prodigie It pleased God therefore to smite his only and exceedingly beloved Daughter with a dangerous sickness of whose recovery without Miracle he despairing implores the aid of Christ promising if he might see his Daughter restor'd he would embrace the Christian Faith his request is granted his Daughter recovers but he procrastinates the payment of his vow he hath not long seen her restored to health when Christ retracts the benefit and strikes him blind He vows the second time to become a Christian if he might recover his sight he obtains his sute regains his sight and sets forward toward the receiving of Baptism but they could not get him to learn the Creed till he is surprized with such a Palsey as deprives him of the use of his Tongue upon this he betakes himself to his Pen and writes the Confession of his former Hypocrisie and subscribes to the Confession of the Christian Faith upon which he is restored to the use of his Tongue and to perfect health I am perswaded upon an impartial search here are more indications of a Supernatural power made out for the conversion of this one man than ever God permitted all the Heathen Daemons to shew in proof of all false religions Of which perswasion I make no question but my Reader will be by that time he hath well weighed this example and studied an Answer to that Question of Arnobius To what purpose is it for the Defenders of the Pagan Impiety to shew one or perhaps two cured by Esculapius when none of their Gods relieve so many millions and all their Temples are throng'd with wretched and unhappy Patients who tire Esculapius himself with their Prayers and invite him with their most miserable vowes to help them Quid prodest ostendere unum vel alterum fortasse curatos cum tot millibus subvenerit nemo plena sint omnia miserorum infeliciúmque delubra qui Aesculapium ipsum precibus fatigare invitare miserrimis votis Arnobius And that by that time I have laid down the rest of the differences betwixt those which occur in prophane Authors and those reported in the Sacred Scriptures § 2. 2. For as to the Miracles reported to have been wrought by the God of Israel or by his servants in his name and power they are reported with the greatest Evidence of Truth that matters of Fact are capable of as hath already been demonstrated But the Prodigies said to be done in confirmation of Paganism labour under the burden of a very great suspicion that they are most of them lying Miracles Not one hath been found among the various Sects of Christians or Jews that ever question'd the Truth those of the Old those of either Old or New Testament-relations Though some of their Principles had they seen the tendency of them would have necessitated them to it The Manichees who denied the God of Israel to be the best and greatest God did yet believe that the History of the Old Testament was true The Sadducees who denied the Existency of Angels or Spirits yet owned the Books of Moses wherein the God of Israel is declared to be both great and good by the merciful wonders he wrought by the Ministry of Angels The Arrians denied Christ to be the Eternal God yet confest he did those stupendious works which none but God can do some whereof he professedly did on purpose to manifest himself to be equal to his Eternal Father Monsters of men they deny the Conclusions and yet grant Premisses most necessarily and demonstratively proving those Conclusions But of all those Pagan Writers that have escaped the Teeth of time and made mention of Pagan Prodigies there is not one but hath question'd the Truth of their own Legends so far as by the diligent reading of them I can find To the many instances that have allready been produc'd in my First Book Sect. 3. chap. 5. I shall here add the Censure of that Famous Critick Agellius who in his 9. 4. noct Attic. telling a story how that upon his coming to Brundusium he heard a fellow crying Books to whom he repairing bought the works of Aristaeus Proconnesius Isagonus Nicaeensis Ctesias Onesicritus Polystephanus and Hegesius Authors of great Authority as he stiles them and yet he calleth their Histories of such miraculous Accidents as made most noise and had been most universally believ'd in the Age of Paganism Books full of Miracles and Fables out of which repeating those that had best born up their credit unto his Age he mentions none but such stories of men with one eye of Pigmeis c. as there is no man
vers'd in the Affairs of the World but knows to be as meer Fictions as any of the Poets Fables And of that greatest of Humanists Plutarch who in his Book de Pythiae oraculis brings in Diogenianus suspecting that Apollo's Oracles were meer forgeries because they were given out in such beggarly Verses when he himself upon whom they were father'd was the God of the Poets and in Eloquence did far excel Homer and Hesiod and Boethus comparing those over-religious persons who in spight of their native Draught would invert those Oracles into good and plausible Poetry unto Pauson the Painter who being hired to draw the Picture of an Horse tumbling on his back painted one running at which he storming who had fore spoke that Picture Pauson turns the Table so as presented the heels of the Horse upwards and Bio thus concluding that Argument We ought therefore not to conclude they are good Verses because of Apollo's making but that they are not of Apollo's making because they are naught To these I might add Herodotus the Collector of all such strange stories who gives his Reader a caution not to be over hasty of belief by his stiling his Books by the Names of the Muses and by his frequent sorting such passages as that which he subjoynes to his stories of Rampsinitus whosoever thinks them credible may believe them Euterp and that wherewith he concludes the disapparition of Zamolxis ego autem de hoc neque non credo neque valde non credo Melpomene And Pausanias who in his Corinthiacis makes the same of Aesculapius his raising of men from the dead upon account whereof he was deified dwindle into the pittiful story of his bringing Archias out of a Convulsion Fit which took him as he was hunting for which cure Archias bestowed Divine Honours upon him and built him a Temple at Pergamus But it would be endless to number particulars and it may be enough to invalidate all strange Pagan Stories that the most antient and authentick History in the Gentile World which was thought worthy to be hung up in Apollo's Temple Henry Stephens Fragments of Stesichorus out of Athenaeus the Homerial History of Troy is confuted by Herodotus in his Euterpe § 3. 3. A great part of the Miracles father'd upon Demons are manifestly mis-father'd they are made gay with the Lambs-wool and trick themselves with the Feathers which the eternal Word of the ever-blessed God made to grow For all forreign Miracles that have been delivered by indubitable Tradition and were really such as exceeded the whole power of the Creature were not effected by those Heathen Deities that bare away the praise of them but the products of Israels God To instance in the most eminent of them Diod. Sicul. Bib. 16. reports that the Phocians after they had rob'd the Temple of Delphos discumfited by the Beotians 500 of them took Sanctuary in a Temple of Apollo where by a fire by accident they were all burnt alive and the Temple it self consumed had this been Apollo's doing and not that Gods who equally abhors Sacrilege and such Idols as that sacrilege was committed against he would sure in punishing the Sacrilegious have had a care of his own Temple and not have punish'd it with a greater Sacrilege than they committed When the Ship wherein the Mother of the Gods was was brought from Phrygia and was so stranded in Tyber as all the strength of Men and Oxen that they applied thereto could not make it stir Claudia the Vestal Nun being suspected of Incontinency tying her Girdle to the Ship and praying the Goddess that if she were an immaculate Virgin she would follow her forthwith haled the Vessel to shore this Virgins Statue in memorial of this was erected in Cybel's Temple and stood firm and perfect upon its own base after the Temple had been twice consumed with fire Livii 2. de bello Punico He must be wholly unacquainted with the Legend of this salacious Goddess that can think she had any hand in vindicating the innocency of this Virgin who her self was the veryest Strumpet and impure Drabb that ever liv'd and whose Mysteries wherein her story was represented were so obscene as common Harlots would have blusht to have such obscenities laid to their charge Aust. de Civit. cap. 4. lib. 2. as Cybeles Priests celebrated her memory with It was not therefore through her procuration that Claudia's Chastity was thus miraculously vindicated but by his Providence who hath declared himself the Advocate of oppressed Innocency that filthy Goddess was forc'd contrary to her own Genius to follow the halings of that unjustly accused Vestal who had made her appeal to the Tribunal of the Deity generali complexione in an interpretive and general sence though she mist it in the application Grotius de jure 2. 13. 12. Quia quanquam sub falsis notis generali tamen complexione numen intuetur The same only true God who divides the Flames of Fire protected the Image of Claudia when the Temple of Cybele wherein it stood was consumed with Fire the Goddess not able to secure her own Image and sacred Utensils The greatest part of the Victories the ancient Romans obtain'd were imputed to the favour of this unclean Goddess to whom thanks were return'd when any notable and extraordinary emergent fell out contributing to their advantage Val. Max. lib. 1. cap 1. Matri Deûm â—saepenumerò Imperatores nostri compotes victoriarum suscepta vota Possinuntem profecti solverent It is like that such a Deity who could not endure that any should touch her Mysteries but Gelt Priests would take care of the concerns of that Masculine State and those virile Roman spirits The Army which Xerxes sent to burn and rifle Apollo's Temple was destroyed with Thunder Tempest and Stones rent by the Tempest Diodor. Sicul. Bibl. l. 11. lib. 13. The Athenians having rob'd the Temple at Delos of ten thousand Talents fail'd into Sicily with 200 Triremes and an Army of aboue 40000 fighting men where they were beset with those calamities and so utterly overthrown as not so much as one Vessel escap'd nor not one man to tell those sad news Brennus making the like attempt met with that overthrow of his Army as forc'd him in a desperate mood to fall upon his own Sword The Romans who at the taking of Carthage disrob'd the Image of Apollo of its golden Vest left their hands among the Fragments of the Image Acer sui numinis vindex Apollo Apollo severely vindicated his own Divinity saith Valerius Max. l. 1. c. 1. But with what face could that pilfring God punish so severely that crime whereof himself was more guilty than any man If Apollo and Hercules be all one as Macrobius in Sat. 1. 20. affirms them to be Hercules quid aliud est quam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aeris spendor c. And Porphiry confesseth in Euseb. praep 3. 4. Briefly for it would be an endless labour to enumerate all particulars How
to this holy Book or take from it to add to the Prophane Surely no if we take in one thing more out of Josephus preceding this fact of Ptolemy viz. that Demetrius summoning all the Jews of Alexandria read to them the Translation in the presence of the Translators and yet the whole Assembly approved it with one voice making suit to the King that he would with his Royal Sanction ratifie the unalterableness of it could he have devised a form of Sanction more Royal and Obliging than this Scaliger's Fourth Objection If Eleazar and the Jerusalem Sanhedrim had approved this Translation why did the Hebraizing Jews so hate it as to keep an Annual Fast and day of afflicting their Souls in remembrance of it why did they say there was three days of darkness when the Law was translated and apply to this time and action that of Solomon Eccl. 3. There is a time to rent Thus proceeds that learned Man to Catechise his Readers If a Puny whose ambition it is to sit at the feet of that great Oracle may have leave to solve these queries I would thus unty these knots with which he snarles this story The great Council appointed the Seventy to translate the Bible to gratifie Ptolemy but never intended that Translation should be used in Synagogues Neither does Josephus Antiq. 12. 2. assert any thing of that tendency but that the whole Assembly of the Jews of Aegypt with their Magistrates and Elders passed their joynt Vote that it should be allowed to be read in their publick Assemblies Now it was this Vote which the Hebrews abominated it was not to the Translation it self but what past towards the ratifying of it for this use in those three days of darkness wherein it was read to the Jews of Aegypt and obtained this approbation to which they applyed that Sentence of the Royal Preacher There is a time to rent the Aegyptian Jews giving hereby to their Brethren of Judaea the like scandal to that which the Latines gave the Greeks by inserting de filioque into the common Creed without common consent and laying a Foundation for that Schism which about an hundred Years after this was perfected by Onias who with the consent of Ptolemy Philometor Jos. Antiq. 13. 6. in pretence of fulfilling that Prophesie Isaiah 19. 18. There shall five Cities in Aegypt speak the Language of Canaan and one of them shall be the City of the Sun erected at Heliopolis a Temple after the similitude of that at Jerusalem and a Church of Jews there whereof he became High Priest distinct from that in Judaea whereof Alcimus was his Priest by the name of Helenists or Grecians as Scaliger observes and Doctor Hammond demonstrates from Act. 11. 20. where they that upon St. Steven's Martyrdom travell'd to Antioch are said To preach the Lord Jesus to the Greeks that is to the Grecizing Jews for it is said of the same men in the preceding verse that in that their Perambulation they preached to the Jews only A plain proof that the compellation of Greeks was not imposed upon them from their living in Greece but their holding of that Church which used the Greek Translation of the Seventy § 5. Scaliger's Fifth Objection His objecting the Story of some Neoterick Jews touching their razing out the Golden Letters of the Name Jehovah in that Copy which was presented to Alexander the Great and writing them with Ink as an Argument that Josephus is lead by Aristaeus beside the way of Truth when he saith that the Copy of the Law which Eleazar sent to Ptolemy was writ in Golden Letters had never been raised by him upon so Sandy a Foundation neither had such Rabbinical Fables obtained that High Place among his Golden Lines as he here assigns them had he call'd to mind either what St. Origen writes in answer to Celsus In Cels. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Writings of Modern Jews are mere Fables and Trifles Or what sometimes dropp'd from his own Pen. de em temp l. 6. Manifesta est Judaeorum inscitia multa quae ad eorum Sacra Historiam pertinent nos melius tenemus quam ipsi The Ignorance of the Jews is most manifest we are better acquainted with their Religious Customs and the Histories of their Affairs than the Jews themselves are Josephus his single word hath more weight with me than hundreds of Modern Rabbies Scaliger's Sixth Objection The last Stone which Scaliger turns is Ptolemy himself under this indeed he finds those Worms of Parricides committed upon his Brethren those Moths of Incest committed with his Sister as fret his Surname Philadelphus till they change it from its natural Gloss and make it look as imposed upon him abusively but not Aristaeus his Credit For first these Immoralities hinder not but that he might be ambitious to have his famous Library grac'd with Books so much commended not only by publick fame and inkling of the Nations speaking in the language of that Prophecy Deut. 4. 6. What Nation is there so great that hath statutes and Judgments so righteous as this Law but by the suggestions of Demetrius that the Jewish Scriptures contein'd a most wise sincere and divinely-inspired Law and that Hecataeus Abderita assigned that as the reason why neither any Poet nor Historian made mention thereof because 't is sacred and not to be taken into a prophane mouth How must this set an edge upon his curiosity and incite him after the obtaining a sight and coming within view of those Books which at a distance cast so alluring a smell into his quick-scented nostrils Ptolemy was in Tertullian's Judgment Omni literaturâ sagacissimus Apol. cap. 18. Secondly had we learnt to extend the line of Christian Charity but half as far as it will reach we should pass a milder sentence than that of Scaliger and Weenobus upon him whom God anointed to be his Servant to bring his Law from Jewish Captivity and conceive him to have been almost if not altogether a Proselyte for upon the assurance that Aristaeus gave him that so far as he could find by most diligent enquiry the best and highest God the Maker of the World whom he worship'd under the name of Jupiter was worshipped among the Jews after a more excellent rite and form of Divine Service than among any other people upon earth that that God who gave to him his Kingdom had given to them their Law he presently ordered the Manumission of all the Jews in his Dominion at his own vast charge in redeeming above 120000 out of the hands of those they were Vassals to And upon Demetrius his suggesting to him that the Jewish Scriptures contein'd a most wise sincere and divine Law he ordered Embassadors to be sent to Eleazar the High Priest with Letters after this Tenure After I had obtained the Principality I set at liberty above an hundred thousand Jews c. thinking that this would be an acceptable thank-offering to God for that providence