one compare Job xxviii 20. Psal xxxiii 6. Prov. viii 12 22. with what is written Wisdom vi 24 22. and so on till Chap. viii 11. and he will find a great likeness if not the very same Notions and words 4. Through the same neglect they have quite lost the Works of other ancient and famous Jews as namely of Philo the Jew who was in such reputation amongst them as to be chosen the Agent or Deputy of the Alexandrian Jews in their Embassy to the Roman Emperour and of Aristobulus who lived in the time of the Ptolomees and Dedicated to one of them his Explication of the Law of which we have a fragment in Eusebius which shews that his Notions were the same with Philo's and that they did generally prevail in Egypt before Christ's Incarnation as well in the time of Philo. It is no hard matter to give some reasons of this neglect For 1. their first destruction by Titus and after by Hadrian involved with it a great part of their Books They thought then only of saving their Bibles with which it seems their Targum was joined and so this came to be preserved with the Scriptures This was by the great care of Josephus as he himself relates desiring of Titus this favour alone that he might preserve the Sacred Books 2. After their second destruction by Hadrian they applied themselves straight to gather their Traditions and Customs which now make the Body of their Misna or Second Law as they call it This spent them a deal of time For to compose such a work it was necessary to collect the several pieces in the hands of several men who had drawn certain Memoirs for the observation of every Law that did more immediately concern them 3. They then began to increase their hatred for the study of the Greek Tongue abandoning themselves wholly to the study of their Traditions This we see in the Misna Mas sota c. 9. § 14. 4. About this time being pressed with Arguments out of these Books by the Christians that disputed against them they thought best to reject the Works themselves And because the Christians used the LXX Version against them they invented several Lyes to discredit it as we see in the Gemara of Megilla and lest that should not do they made it their business to find out some that were able to make a new Version such as Aquila in the time of Hadrian and Symmachus and Theodotion who turn'd Jews toward the end of the Second Century These Three Interpreters were designed to change the Sense of those Texts which the Christians according to the Old Jewish Traditions did refer to the Messias Of this Justin Martyr has given some Instances in his Dialogue with Trypho R. Akiba's great Friend and we see that St. Jerom Ep. 89. complains of the same And now what wonder is it if the Jews in this humour did neglect or rather rejected those Apocryphal Books whose Authority in some points were set up against them by the Christians as were the Books of Baruch Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus As for Philo tho he wrote in a lofty Stile and after an Allegorical way and therefore we find in the Rabboth several Thoughts common to him and the Cabalists and other Allegorical Authors whose Notions are gathered in the Rabboth yet the Jews soon lost all esteem for his Works First Because he writ in Greek which was a Language most despised by them at this time they having establish'd it as a Maxim That he who brought up his Children in the Greek Tongue was cursed as he who fed Swine Bava kama fol. 82. col 1. Sota fol. 49. col 2. Secondly Because some Christians challenged him for their own For finding some of his Principles to be agreeable to those of the Christian Religion it came into their head tho it is a Fancy without any Foundation that he while he was at Rome was converted by St. Peter The same thing befel Josephus as soon as the Christians began to use his Authority against the Jews notwithstanding that the Jews have no better Historian than Josephus Thirdly Because the Jews had then almost forsaken the study of the Holy Scriptures and given themselves up entirely to the study of their Traditions or Second Law as they call it The Catalogue of their Ancient Commentators is very small Their first literal Commentator is R. Saadiah who writ his Comments on the Scripture in the beginning of the Tenth Century As for the others that were long before him as Zohar Siphre and Siphri Siphra Mechilta Tanchuma and the Rabboth they all make it their business to explain allegorically or to establish their Traditions As to the Targum we see how heat of Dispute hath carried the Jews to such strange extremities that now they reject no small part of those Interpretations that were Authentick with their Forefathers It may not be amiss to give some Proofs of this to shew that we do not accuse them without cause And in general there is not a more idle Romance than that which the Jews have devised touching two Messias's that are to come unto the World One must be of the Race of Joseph by Ephraim and called Nehemiah the Son of Husiel who as they will have it after a Reign of many Years at Jerusalem and after having sack'd Rome is at last to be killed himself at Jerusalem by a King of Persia The other Messias is to be Menahem the Son of Hammiel who is to appear for the delivery of the Jews being sent from God on that Errand according to Moses's Prayer Exod. iv 13. For the time of this second Messias's coming shall be when the Mother of the deceased Messias the Son of Joseph having gathered the Jews dispersed from Galilee to Jerusalem shall be there besieged by one Armillus the Son of Satan who is to proceed out of a Marble Statue in Rome and who in this close Siege shall be at the very point of destroying them Then they say Messias the Son of David shall come with seven Shepherds to wit the Three Patriarchs Moses David and Elias and eight of the principal Fathers or Prophets who are to rise before the rest They say That Moses at the head of them shall convert the Jews without working any Miracle and then all the Jews shall rise at the sound of a Trumpet passing under ground till they come to Mount Olivet which shall cleave in two to let them out Then the Jews shall come from all Quarters to form the Messias's Army and the Messias the Son of Joseph shall be raised from the dead to come in among the rest and so the two Messias's shall reign without jealousy of one another only the Son of David shall have the chief Power reigning from one end of the Earth to the other and that for Forty Years All this time the Jews shall continue in Feasting and Jollity using the other Nations as Slaves And then Gog the King of
Exposition Page 52. Chap. V. Of the Authority of the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament Page 66. Chap. VI. That the Works which go under the Name of Philo the Jew are truly his and that he writ them a long while before the time of Christ's Preaching the Gospel and that it does not appear in any of his Works that ever he had heard of Christ or of the Christian Religion Page 75. Chap. VII Of the Authority and Antiquity of the Chaldee Paraphrases Page 84. Chap. VIII That the Authors of the Apocryphal Books did acknowledge a Plurality and a Trinity in the Divine Nature Page 99. Chap. IX That the Jews had Good Grounds to acknowledge some kind of Plurality in the Divine Nature Page 115. Chap. X. That the Jews did acknowledge the Foundations of the Belief of the Trinity in the Divine Nature and that they had the Notion of it Page 138. Chap XI That this Notion of a Trinity in the Divine Nature has continued among the Jews since the time of our Lord Jesus Christ Page 158. Chap. XII That the Jews had a distinct Notion of the Word as a Person and of a Divine Person too Page 181. Chap. XIII That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken of in the Books of Moses have been referred to the Word by the Jews before Christ's Incarnation Page 201. Chap. XIV That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken of in Moses have been referred to the Word of God by the ancient Jewish Church Page 214. Chap. XV. That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken after Moses his time in the Books of the Old Testament have been referred to the Word of God by the Jews before Christ's Incarnation Page 233. Chap. XVI That the ancient Jews did often use the Notion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word in speaking of the Messias Page 253. Chap. XVII That the Jews did acknowledge the Messias should be the Son of God Page 265. Chap. XVIII That the Messias was represented in the Old Testament as being Jehovah that should come and that the ancient Synagogue did believe him to be so Page 278. Chap. XIX That the New Testament does exactly follow the Notions which the Old Jews had of the Trinity and of the Divinity of the Messias Page 293 Chap. XX. That both the Apostles and the first Christians speaking of the Messias did exactly follow the Notions of the Old Jews as the Jews themselves did acknowledge Page 313. Chap. XXI That we find in the Jewish Authors after the time of Jesus Christ the same Notions which Jesus Christ and his Apostles Grounded their Discourses on to the Jews Page 327. Chap. XXII An Answer to some Exceptions taken from Expressions used in the Gospel Page 339. Chap. XXIII That neither Philo nor the Chaldee Paraphrases nor the Christians have borrowed from the Platonick Philosophers their Notions about the Trinity But that Plato should have more probably borrowed his Notions from the Books of Moses and the Prophets which he was acquainted with Page 413. Chap. XXIV An Answer to some Objections of the Modern Jews and of the Unitarians Page 365. Chap. XXV An Answer to an Objection against the Notions of the Old Jews compared with those of the new Ones Page 380. Chap. XXVI That the Jews have laid aside the Old Explications of their Forefathers the better to defend themselves in their Disputes with the Christians Page 392. Chap. XXVII That the Unitarians in opposing the Doctrines of the Trinity and our Lord's Divinity do go much further than the Modern Jews and that they are not fit Persons to Convert the Jews Page 413. A Dissertation concerning the Angel who is called the Redeemer Gen. XLVIII Page 433. THE JUDGMENT OF THE Ancient JEWISH Church Against the VNITARIANS c. CHAP. I. The Design of this Book and what Matters it treats of IF the Doctrines of the Ever-Blessed Trinity and of the Promised Messias being very God had been altogether unknown to the Jews before Jesus Christ began to preach the Gospel it would be a great prejudice against the Christian Religion But the contrary being once satisfactorily made out will go a great way towards proving those Doctrines among Christians The Socinians are so sensible of this that they give their Cause for lost if this be admitted And therefore they have used their utmost Endeavours to weaken or at least to bring under suspicion the Arguments by which this may be proved It is now about sixty years ago since one of that Sect writ a Latin Tract about the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Chaldee Paraphrases in Answer to Wechner who had proved that St. John used this word in the first Chapter of his Gospel in the same sense that the Chaldee Paraphrases had used it before Christ's time and consequently that it is to be understood of a Person properly so called in the Blessed Trinity which way of interpreting that word because it directly overthrew the Socinian Doctrine which was then that St. John by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood no other than Christ as Man it is no wonder that this Author used all his Wit and Learning to evade it The Construction which Socinus put upon the first Chapter of the Gospel of St. John was then followed generally by his Disciples But some years since they have set it aside here as being absurd and impertinent And they now freely own what that Socinian Author strongly opposed That the Word mentioned by St. John is the eternal and essential Vertue of God by which he made the World and operated in the Person of Christ Only they deny that Word to be a Person distinct from the Father as we do affirm And whereas Socinus taught That Christ was made God and therefore is a proper Object of religious Worship now the Unitarians who believe him to be no other than a meer human Creature following the Principles of Christianity better than Socinus condemn the Religious Worship which is paid to him As they do believe that the Jews had the same Notions of the Godhead and Person of the Messias which they have themselves so they think they have done the Christian Religion an extraordinary service in thus ridding it of this double Difficulty which hinders the Conversion of the Jews Mr. N. one of their ablest Men having read Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho in which Trypho says that he did not believe that the Messias was to be other than Man makes use of this Passage of Trypho for proof that the Doctrines of the Divinity of the Messias and by consequence of the Trinity were never acknowledged by the Jews This he does in a Book the Title whereof is The Judgment of the Fathers against Dr. Bull. His design being to prove that Justin Martyr about 140 years after Christ was
those which Christ so severely condemned And these I shall explain more particularly giving some examples of their use and also of their Authority 1. They had by Tradition the knowledge of some Matters of fact which are not recorded in their Scriptures and of other things they had more perfect and minute accounts than are recorded in the Writings of Moses and the Prophets Particularly Philo the Jew writing of the Life of Moses declares that what he had to say of him was taken partly out of Scripture and partly received by Tradition from their Forefathers * De vita Mosis pag. 468. Edit Genev. Ib. p 470. F. Of this latter sort was the long account he there gives of Moses being brought up in all the Learning of the Egyptians for there is nothing of this in the Old Testament Therefore when St. Stephen says the same thing Act. VII 22. we know that he also had it not from Scripture but from Tradition Hence also it is that St. Paul has gathered the names of Jannes and Jambres Magicians that resisted Moses and the Truth 2 Tim. iv 8. for their names are no where in Scripture but they are in Jonathan's Targum on Exod. i. 15. vii 11. from whence also they are taken into Talmud Sanhedrin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 9. Hence also St. Paul knew that the Pot wherein Moses laid up the Manna was made of Gold Heb. ix 4. which also the Seventy and Philo the Jew de congr quaer er gr pag. 375. Ed. Gen. do assure us of Mechil fol. 20. Col. 1. Tanchumah fol. 29. Col. 4. And tho' the Modern Jews deny this and say the Pot was of Earth yet it is acknowledg'd by the Samaritans that is was Golden This must have been from Tradition because there is no such thing said in Scripture It was from hence that the Apostle had that saying of Moses when he saw the dreadful appearance of God upon Mount Sinai Heb. xii 21. So terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake And another that writ soon after Paul's death namely Clemens Bishop of Rome in his Epistle to the Corinthians cap. 17. has other like words that Moses said I am the Steam upon the Pot. Both these sayings being no where in Scripture they could not have known them otherwise than from the Jewish Tradition From hence also St. Jude ver 9. had that passage of the dispute that Michael the Arch-Angel had with the Devil about the Body of Moses Which Body as Josephus probably says Ant. iv 8. if any Relick of it had been kept would have drawn the people into Idolatry That passage we are told by some of the Fathers was taken out of an Apocryphal Book call'd the Analepsis of Moses Clem. Alex. in Jud. Origen peri Archon iii. 2. Grotius tells us the Jews have the like things in their Midrash on Deut. in the Aboth of R. Nathan and in other of their Books It was from hence that St. Paul understood that some of the Prophets were sawn asunder Origen Respons ad African Heb. xi 37. though he spoke in the Plural he meant it only of one saith Origen namely of the Prophet Esay who was Sawed asunder by the Command of Manasses according to the Jewish Tradition Which also is mentioned by Justin Martyr as a thing out of dispute between him and Tryphon the Jew and it is taken notice of in the Gemara tr Jevamot Ch. iv It was from hence that Christ took what he said of the Martyrdom of Zechary the Son of Berachiah who was killed between the Temple and the Altar Orig. Ib. p. 232 c. Mat. xxiii 35. which Origen there also mentions as a Jewish Tradition tho' he says they supprest it as being not for the Honour of their Nation I do not deny but that there might be some ancient Authors besides the Canonical Writers to keep up the memory of these names of Persons and other matters of fact As for example Joseph Ans. l. 10. c. â—â— that there were eighteen High Priests who Officiated in the first Temple although they are not all mention'd in Scripture But if there were any such Authors it is very probable that they were lost in the Captivity or in the bloody Persecutions of the Jewish Church long before the time of our Blessed Saviour and his Holy Apostles Josephus who lived in that Age and writ the History of the Jews makes no mention of them and gives a very lame account of the things which passed under several Kings of Persia 2. Besides the Canonical Books they had Writings of a less Authority wherein were inserted by the great Men of their Nation several Doctrines that came from the Prophets which were in very high esteem and veneration though not regarded as of equal Authority with the Writings of the Prophets It is not improbable that St. Matthew had respect to some Book of this nature when he quoted that which is not found in express words in any of the Writings of the Prophets That the Messias should be called a Nazarene Mat. ii 23. if he doth not allude to the Idea of the Jews who referred to the Messias the Netzer or Branch spoken of by Isa xi 1. So Christ himself may seem to have alluded to a passage in one of these Books Joh. vii 38. where he saith He that believeth on me as saith the Scripture out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water for there is nothing perfectly like this in any of the Canonical Books that are come to our hands St. Paul the Apostle as Jerom in Ephes v. 14. observes has cited divers such Apocryphal Books accommodating himself no doubt to the Jews who gave much deference to their Authority Thus he did Rom. ix 21. and perhaps in some other places of his Epistles from the Book of Wisdom which is still extant in our Bibles Elsewhere he has Quotations out of Books that are lost as 1 Cor. ii 9. out of an Apocryphal Book that went under the name of the Prophet Elias and Ephes v. 14. out of an Apocryphal piece of the Prophet Jeremy as we are told by Georgius Syncellus in his Chron. p. 27. A. But the most express Quotation of this kind is that which is alledged by St. James iv 5 6. For these words The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to Envy are not in any Books of the Old Testament nor are the following words God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble And yet both these sayings are quoted as Scripture by the Holy Apostle Of the first he saith plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scripture saith Then he goes on to the other and of that he saith also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any Nominative Case but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before mentioned which implies that the Scripture saith this also Now what Scripture could he mean for it is certain that neither of these
sayings is any where else in our Scriptures He must therefore mean it of one or other of the Apocryphal Books And one of the Fathers that was born within a hundred years after his death gives us a very probable guess at the Book that he intended It is Clement of Alexandria who saith of the latter Quotation These are the words of Moses Strom. iv p. 376. meaning in all likelihood of the Analepsis of Moses which Book is mentioned by the same Clement elsewhere on Jude v. 9. as a Book well known in those times in which he lived Therefore in all likelihood the words also of the former Quotation were taken from the Analepsis of Moses and it was that Apocryphal Book that S. James quoted and called it Scripture This can be no strange thing to him that considers what was intimated before that the Jews had probably these Books join'd to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hagiographa and therefore they might well be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any addition The Apocryphal Books that are in our Bibles were commonly call'd so by the Primitive Fathers Thus Clement before mention'd Strom. v. p. 431. B. quotes the words that we read in Wisdom vii 24. from Sophia in the Scriptures And the Book of Ecclesiasticus is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seven or eight times in his writings Paed. i. 10. ii 5. ver 8 vis 10 vis iii. 3. 11. So it is quoted by Origen with the same Title Orig. in Jerem. Hom. 16. p. 155. D. There are many the like Instances to be found in the writings of the Ancientest Fathers They familiarly called such Books The Scriptures and sometimes The Holy Scriptures and yet they never attributed the same Authority to them as to the Books that were received into the Canon of the Old Testament which as the Apostle saith were written by Divine Inspiration 2 Tim. 3.16 The same is to be said of the Prophecy of Enoch out of which St. Jude brings a Quotation in his Epistle vers 14 15. Grotius in his Annotations on the place saith This Prophecy was extant in the Apostles times in a Book that went under the name of the Revelation of Enoch and was a Book of great credit among the Jews for it is cited in their Zohar and was not unknown to Celsus the Heathen Philosopher for he also cited is as appears by Origen's Answer to him Orig. in Cels lib. V. Grotius also shews that this Book is often cited by the Primitive Fathers and he takes notice of a large piece of it that is preserved by Georg. Syncellus in his Chronicon And whereas in this piece there are many fabulous things he very well judges that they might be foisted in as many such things have been thrust into very Ancient Books But whether his Conjecture in this be true or no it is certain that the piece which is quoted by St. Jude was truly the Prophecy of Enoch because we have the Apostle's Authority to assure us of the Historical truth of it 3. It is clear that the Jews had very good and authentic Traditions concerning the Authors the Use and the Sence of divers parts of the Old Testament For Example St. Mat. Chap. xxvii 9. quotes Jeremy for the Author of a passage which he there transcribes and which we find in Zechary xi 12. How could this be but that it was a thing known among the Jews that the four last Chapters of the Book of Zechary were written by Jeremy Medes Works p. 709. and 963. and 1022. as Mr. Mede has proved by many Arguments It is by the help of this Tradition that the Ancient Interpreters have added to the Psalms such Titles as express their design and their usage in the Synagogue Certainly these Titles which shew the design of many of the Psalms contribute much to make us understand the sense of those Psalms which a man that knows the occasion of their Composing will apprehend more perfectly than he can do that reads the Psalms without these Assistances And for the Titles of several Psalms in the Septuagint and other of the Ancient Translations which shew on what days they were sung in the publick Worship of the Jews as Ps xxiv 48 81 82 93 94 c. tho' these Titles are not in the Hebrew and therefore are not part of the Jews Scripture yet that they had the knowledge of this by Tradition we find by Maimonides who tho' a stranger to those Translations De cultu divino tract de sacrificiis jugibus c. 6. Sect. 9. yet affirms that those several Psalms were sung on such and such days and he names the very days that are prefixt to them in the said Titles It is from the same Tradition that they have these Rules concerning the Psalms I. This Rule to know the Authors of them namely that all Psalms that are not inscribed with some other name are David's Psalms although they bear not his name a Maxim owned by Aben-Ezra Praefat. in Psalmos and David Kimchi and we see an Instance of this Rule in that Quotation of Ps xcv 7. which is ascribed to David in Heb. iv 7. II. From hence they have learnt also another Rule by which they distinguish between the Psalms spoken by David in his own name Tehillim Rabbat in Ps 24. Fol. 22. col 2. and as King of Israel and those which he spoke in the name of the Synagogue without any particular respect to his own time but in a prospect of the remotest future times Tehillim Rab. Ib. From thence they have learned to distinguish between the Psalms in which the Holy Ghost spoke of the present times and those in which he speaks of the times to come viz. of the time of the Messias So R. David Kimchi and others agree that the Psalms 93 94. till the Psalm 101. speak of the days of the Messias So they remark upon Ps 92. whose Title is for the Sabbath-day that it is for the time to come which shall be all Sabbath Manasseh Ben. Is in Exod. q. 102. By the help of Tradition also they clear the Text Ex. xii 40. where it is said That the sojourning of the Children of Israel who dwelt in Aegypt was 430 years It would be a great mistake of these words to think the meaning of them should be that the Children of Israel dwelled in Aegypt 430 years For in truth they dwelled there but half the time as the Jews themselves reckon and all Learned men do agree to it But the Jews understand by these words that the sojourning of the Children of Israel all the while they dwelled in Aegypt and in the Land of Canaan they and their Fathers was 430 years Thus all the Rabbins do understand it and thus it was anciently explained by putting in words to this sense in the Samaritan Text and in the Alexandrian LXX That they were in the right we see by the Apostle's reckoning
brought a force upon others by which many were driven to Idolatry But some chose rather to die than to yield to it 1 Mac. i. 62 63. ii 29 30 37 38. Which is an argument that the Rebukes of the Prophets had made great Impression on their Minds and raised a great Concern in them for their Religion and for the study of the Scripture which contained the Precepts of it But it was impossible that in reading the Writings of the Prophets and hearing them explained by their Doctors they should give no attention to the great Promises of the Messias whose Coming was spoken of by some of the Prophets as being very near at hand See Dan. ix Hag. ii Malach iii. The Second is That their Zeal for the Scriptures and their Religion was really much quickned by the cruel Persecution which they suffered from Antiochus Epiphanes whose Tyrannical Fury did particularly extend to the Holy Scriptures 1 Mac. i. 56 57. and to whatever else did contribute to the maintenance of their Religion The Third is That it appears from History that there were more Writers of their Nation since the Captivity than we read of at any time before so saith Josephus lib. I. contr Appion Especially since they came under the Power of the Ptolomeys and the Seleucidae who being Princes of a Greek Original were great Lovers of Learning and did much for the improving of good Letters The Fourth is That learned Men among the Jews applying themselves to this business did write either at Jerusalem at Babylon or at Alexandria several Extracts of ancient Books of Morality for the instruction of their People Such were the Books of Baruch and Esdras which seem to have been written in Chaldee and those of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus which were written in Greek The Fifth is That the great Business of the Jews in their Synagogues and in their Schools hath been ever since to understand the Books of the Prophets and to explain them in a Language intelligible to the People the Knowledge of the Hebrew being in great part lost during the time of the Babylonian Captivity The Sixth is That it does indeed appear that this was the proper time in which the Jewish Paraphrases began first to be formed They were began and carried on insensibly One adding some Chaldee Words in the Margin of his Book opposite to the Text which the People did not understand so well Another adding to these some Notes in another place till at length Jonathan and Onkelos or some other Doctor of Jerusalem gathered together all these Observations and made thence those Paraphrases which we have under their Name For the Confirmation of this Conjecture consider 1. That we find in these Paraphrases very many Explications which by no means agree with the Ideas that the Jews have framed to themselves since the Propagation of Christianity For since their Disputes with the Christians they found themselves obliged in many particulars to reject the Opinions and refute the Confessions of their Ancestors 2. We see the very same thing has happened among the Christians and among the Greeks that set themselves to write Scholia or Notes on the Scriptures which are only Abstracts of Authors who have written or preacht more at large on these Books The same thing I say hapned among Christians in the VIIIth Century and the following Ages when most of their Learning was reduced within this compass To compile Glosses and to collect the Opinion of those that went before them upon difficult places and after that to form out of all these Glosses one continued Paraphrase upon the whole Book as if it had been the Judgment and Work of one and the same Author It 's the Character of all the Books which they call Catenae upon Scripture I know well that some Criticks call in question the Antiquity of these Paraphrases and have remarked how ridiculous the Miracles are which the Jews say were wrought in favour of Jonathan the Son of Uzziel But what does this make for their doubting the Antiquity of these pieces Do we question whether there was a Greek Version of the Old Testament before Christ's time because we can hardly believe Aristaeas's History to be true or because we cannot say that the Greek Version is deliver'd down to us in the same purity as it was at first written Ought we to suspect St. Chrysostom's Homilies on St. Paul's Epistles or those of Pope Gregory the First because the Greeks have storied that St. Paul came to inspire St. Chrysostom with the Sense of his Epistles while he was meditating an Exposition of them and because the Latins do relate the like Fable in favour of Gregory the First After all the Authority of these Paraphrases does still further appear in that the Works themselves are spread almost as far as there are Jews in the World and are highly esteem'd in all places of their Dispersion Some may perhaps imagin that the Jews being fallen into great Corruptions about the time of our Blessed Saviour's coming into the World must necessarily at that time have lost much of that Light which their Ancestors received of the Prophets and of those that succeeded the Prophets They may think it may be that their Nation being become subject to the Greeks did by insensible degrees change their Principles and alter their Expositions of the Scripture as they adopted the Ideas of the Greek Philosophers whose Opinions they then began to borrow In short it may be conceived by some that the several Sects which arose among the Jews long before Christ's time did considerably alter the Opinions of the Synagogue and did corrupt their Tradition and the Notions they had received from the most ancient Doctors of their Schools In answer to all this It is certain the Corruption among the Jews was principally of their Morals for which though they had very good Precepts in their Law yet the true meaning of them was spoiled and corrupted with Glosses which were devised as I have shewn in later times and with these being stampt with the Name of Tradition they evaded the force of the Laws There were then but very few that had not an aversion to the Greek Learning and those few applied themselves to it while they were in Judaea with great Caution and Secrecy lest they should be lookt upon as Heathens Josephus witnesseth of that Antiq. l. 20. c. ult As to what is inferred from the many Sects among the Jews the quite contrary is clear For the opposition of one Sect to the other hindred any one of them from becoming Masters of the People and their Faith in so general a manner as to be able to corrupt absolutely their Traditional Notions of Religion Moreover these Sects all but the Sadducees who were abhorred by the People knew no other way to distinguish themselves and draw esteem but by a strict Observation of the Law and its Ceremonies to which they pretended that the Rules they gave their Disciples
some of the Jews that held the Transmigration of Souls and say particularly That the Soul of Adam went into David and the Soul of David was the same with that of the Messias I say to pass by that the true Reason of such use of the Names of David and Elias is this because David was an excellent Type of the Messias that was to come out of his Loins Act. ii 30 31. And for John Baptist he came in the Spirit and Power of Elias Luk. 1.17 That is he was inspired with the same Spirit of Zeal and holy Courage that Elias was formerly acted with and employ'd it as Elias did in bringing his People to Repentance and Reformation 5. We ought to do the Jews that Justice as to acknowledge that from them it is that we know the true sense of all the Prophecies concerning the Messias in the Old Testament Which sense some Criticks seem not to be satisfied with seeking for a first accomplishment in other persons than in the Messias The Jews meaning and applying those Prophecies to the Messias in a mystical or a spiritual sense is founded upon a Reason that offers it self to the Mind of those that study Scripture with attention Before Jacob's Prophecy there was no time fixed for the Coming of the Messias but after the giving of that Prophecy Gen. xlix 10. there was no possibility of being deceived in the sense of those Prophecies which God gave from time to time full of the Characters of the Messias It was necessary 1. That the Kingdom should be in Judah and not cease till the time about which they expected the Coming of the Messias 2. That the lesser Authority called here the Law-giver should be also established in Judah and destroyed before the Coming of the Messias which we knew came to pass by the Reign of Herod the Great and some years before the Death of our Saviour And indeed the Talmudist say that forty years before the Desolation of the House of the Sanctuary Judgments of Blood were taken away from Israel Talm. Jerus l. Sanhedr c. dine mammonoth Talm. Bab. C. Sanhedr c. Hajou Bodekim And Raymondus Martini who writ this Pugio at the end of the XIIIth Century quotes Part III. Dist 3. c. 16. § 46. One R. Rachmon who says that when this happened they put on sackcloth and pull'd off their hair and said Wo unto us the Scepter is departed from Israel and yet the Messias is not come And therefore they who had this Prophecy before them could not mistake David nor Solomon nor Hezekiah for the Messias Nor could they deceive themselves so far as to think this Title was applicable to Zorobabel or any of his Successors In short there appeared not any one among the Jews before the Times of our Blessed Saviour that dared assume this Title of Messias although the Name of Anointed which the word Messias signifies had been given to several of their Kings as to David in particular But since Jesus Christ's coming many have pretended to it These things being so it is clear that the Prophecies which had not and could not have their accomplishment in those upon whose occasion they were first delivered were to receive their accomplishment in the Messias and consequently those Prophecies ought necessarily to be referred to him We ought by all means to be perswaded of this For we cannot think the Jews were so void of Judgment as to imagine that the Apostles or any one else in the World had a right to produce the simple words of the Old Testament and to urge them in any other sense than what was intended by the Writer directed by the Holy Ghost It must be his Sense as well as his Words that should be offered for proof to convince reasonable Men. But we see that the Jews did yield to such Proofs out of Scripture concerning the Messias in which some Criticks do not see the force of those Arguments that were convincing to the Jews They must then have believed that the true sense of such places was the literal sense in regard of the Messias whom God had then in view at his inditing of these Books and that it was not literal in respect of him who seems at first-sight to have been intended by the Prophecy And now I leave it to the Consideration of any unprejudiced Reader that is able to judge Whether if these Principles and Maxims I have treated of were unknown to the Jews the Apostles could have made any use of the Books of the Old Testament for their Conviction either as to the Coming of the Messias or the Marks by which he was distinguishable from all others or as to the several parts of his Ministry But this is a matter of so great importance as to deserve more pains to shew that Jesus Christ and his Apostles did build upon such Maxims as I have mentioned And therefore any that call themselves Christians should take heed how they deny the force and authority of that way of Traditional interpretation which has been anciently received in the Jewish Church CHAP. IV. That Jesus Christ and his Apostles proved divers points of the Christian Doctrine by this common Traditional Exposition received among the Jews which they could not have done at least not so well had there been only such a Literal Sense of those Texts which they alledged as we can find without the help of such Exposition IF we make some reflections which do not require a great deal of Meditation it is clear that Jesus Christ was to prove to the Jews that he was the Messias which they did expect many Ages ago and whose Coming they look'd on as very near He could not have done so if they had not been acquainted with their Prophetical Books and with those several Oracles which were contained in them Perhaps there might have been some difference amongst them concerning some of those Oracles because there were in many of them some Ideas which seem contrary one to another And that was almost unavoidable because the Holy Ghost was to represent the Messias in a deep humiliation and great suffering and in a great height of Glory But after all the method of calling the Jews was quite different from the method of calling the Gentiles They had the distinct knowledge of the chief Articles of Religion which the Heathen had not They had all preparations necessary for the deciding this great question Whether Jesus of Nazareth was the Messias or not They had the Sacred Books of the Old Testament they were acquainted with the Oracles as well as with the Law They longed after the coming of the Messias They had been educated all along and trained up in the expectation of him They had not only those Sacred Books in which the Messias was spoken of but many among them had gathered the Ideas of the Prophets upon that subject as we see by the Books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus And indeed we see that Jesus
the Son of the Free-woman and Israel according to the Flesh by Ishmael the Son of the Bond-woman and having thus brought unbelieving Israel into Ishmael's place he proceeds upon the Old Jewish Nation recited in Baal-Hatturim that Ishmael should pierce Isaac with an Arrow which they illustrate by Gen. xvi 12. instead whereof the Text saith only that he laughed at or mocked Isaac We see St. Paul Rom. x. 6. applies to the Gospel those words of Deut. xxx 11 12 13 14. which seem to be spoken of the Law given by Moses to the Jews But then the Old Synagogue applied these words of Moses to the times of the Messias as is clear from Jonathan's Targum on the place which is enough to justify St. Paul's Usage of the words We read in the Song of Zacharias Luk. 1.69 that these words are referred to the Messias he hath exalted the horn of his Anointed The very same words are pronounced by Hannah the Mother of Samuel 1 Sam. ii 10. where the Targum referrs them in like manner as the sense of the Synagogue The same Targum understands of the Messias that passage 2 Sam. xxiii 3. And the lxx have the like Idea with the Targum which is a farther Confirmation of the Tradition of the Synagogue It is certain this Notion of the Messias was very common among the Jews otherwise they would not have thrust it into their Targums on places where naturally it ought not to come in For instance It is said 1 Kings iv 33. That Solomon discoursed of all the Trees from the Cedar of Libanus even to the Hyssop that springeth out of the Wall Now the Remark of the Targum hereupon is this And he prophecied touching the Kings of the House of David which should rule in this present World as also in the World to come of the Messias 6. We see our Lord Jesus Christ was careful to instruct the Pharisees of the two different Characters of the Coming of the Messias Luk. xvii 20. Of which the one was to be obscure and followed with the Death of the Messias the other was to be glorious and acknowledged by the whole World Christ instructed them in this the rather to remove their mistakes through which they confounded his two Comings Though in truth they were both of them confessed by the Jews for some time after Christ's ascension into Heaven 7. We see that Christ himself Matth. xxi 16. and also his Apostle St. Paul 1 Cor. xv 27. Eph. i. 21. Heb. ii 6 7 8. apply the words of Psal viii to the Messias How could they do it were it not before the sense of the Synagogue Now that such was the sense of the Synagogue ye see till this day if we read what they say in their Rabboth upon the Song of Songs ch iv 1. and upon Ecclesiastes ch ix 1. that the Children were to make Acclamations at the Coming in of the Messias the second Redeemer according to those words of Psal viii 3. Ex ore infantium c. Lastly We see St. Paul Rom. x. 18. does refer the words of Psal xix 4. to the Preaching of the Apostles and saith Their sound went over all the Earth and their words to the end of the World What would an unbelieving Jew have said to this that Paul should apply the Psalmist's words in this manner But the Apostle was secure against this or any other Objection from the Jews if he used the words in the sense of their Synagogue And that he did so there is little reason to doubt The Encomiums which David gave to the Law of Moses they would most readily apply to the Law of the Messias And they expected he should have his Apostles to carry his Law throughout the World To this expectation of theirs the Psalmist's words were very applicable That the Divine Word is called the Sun Philo plainly affirms and if I take R. Tanchum aright he understands that it was the Messias that was called the Sun of Righteousness Mal. iv 2. St. John saw Christ in that figure of the Sun and his Apostles as twelve Stars and that in Heaven which to him is the state of the Gospel Rev. xxi 1. According to this figure in this Psalm the Sun of Righteousness is described as a Giant which rejoyceth to run a Race v. 5. And here is a description of his Course together with that of his Disciples and of the manner by which they made their Voices to be heard This Idea shocked R. Samuel in a Book he writ before his Conversion ch 18. which he communicated with a Rabin of Morocco And whoever considers that Idea of the Writer of the Book of Wisdom xviii 5. shall find it is no other than that of this xixth Psalm mixed a little with that Idea in the Canticles which the Old Jews refer to the Messias and with that of the Song of Isaiah v. touching the Messias which served the Jews for a Commentary to understand the Song of Solomon by I could gather a much greater number of Remarks on this Head but having brought as many here together as I take to be sufficient for the proving of what I have said I think I ought not to enlarge any further So I come next to search out the Store-house where we may find these Traditions of the Jews which Jesus Christ and his Apostles made use of either in explaining or confirming the Doctrines of the Gospel They must be found in the ancient Books of the Jews which remain among us such as the Apocryphal Books the Books of Philo the Jew and the Chaldee Paraphrases on the Old Testament The Authority of all these ought to be well established Let us begin by the Apocryphal Books some of which Mr. N. hath ridiculed very boldly Then we shall consider what he has said to Philo whose Writings Mr. N. hath endeavoured to render useless in this Controversy How justly we shall consider in the next Chapters CHAP. V. Of the Authority of the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament ALthough the Protestants have absolutely rejected the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament which the Church of Rome make use of in Controversies as if they were of the same authority with the Books of the Law and Prophets notwithstanding they keep them as Books of a great antiquity And we make use of their authority not to prove any Doctrine which is in dispute as if they contained a Divine Revelation and a decision of an inspired Writer but to witness what was the Faith of the Jewish Church in the time when the Authors of those Apocryphal Books did flourish Any body who sees the Socinians making use of the Authorities of Artemas or of Paulus Samosatenus to prove that the Christian Church was in their opinion must grant the same authority to the Books of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the like touching the Sentiment of the Jewish Church in the age of those Writers Grotius a great Author for the Socinians was
so well satisfied of the truth of what I advance that he thought fit to Comment those very Apocryphal Books and to shew that they followed almost always the Ideas and the very words of the Authors of the Old Testament But as he was a Man of a deep sense seeing that they might be turned against the Socinian cause which he favoured too much he did things which he judged fit to make their authority useless against the Socinians And first he advanced without any proof that those things which were so like to the Ideas of the New Testament had been inserted in those Books by Christians according to their notions and not according to the notions of the Synagogue 2ly He endeavoured to give another sense to the places which some Fathers in the second and third Century had quoted from these Books to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour Now since the Socinian Authors have employed against the authority of these Apocryphal Books the very Solutions which Grotius made use of to lessen their authority it is necessary being resolved to quote them for the settling of the Jewish Tradition to shew how much Grotius whose steps the Socinians trod in was out in his Judgment 1. Then I suppose with Grotius that those Apocryphal Books were written by several Jewish Authors many years before Jesus Christ appeared The third Book of the Macchabees which is indeed the first hath been written by a Jew of Egypt under Ptolomaeus Philopater that is about two hundred years before the Birth of our Saviour It contains the History of the Persecution of the Jews in Egypt and was cited by Josephus in his Book de Macchabaeis The first Book of Macchabees as we call it now hath been written in Judea by a Jew and originally in Hebrew which is lost many Centuries ago We have the translation of it which hath been quoted by Josephus who gives often the same acccount of things as we have in that Book It hath been written probably 150. years before the Birth of our Saviour The second Book of Macchabees hath originally been written in Greek in Egypt and is but an extract of the four Books of Jason the Grecian a Jew of Egypt who had writ the History of the Persecutions which the Jews of Palestina suffered under the Reign of Antiochus Epiphanés and his Successors The Book of Ecclesiasticus hath been written Originally in Hebrew by Jesus the Son of Syrac about the time of Ptolomy Philadelphus that is about 280. years before Jesus Christ and was Translated in Greek by the Grandson of Jesus the Son of Syrac under Ptolomy Euergetes Some dispute if that Ptolomy is the first or the second which is not very material since there is but a difference of 100. years R. Azaria de Rubeis in his Book Meor Enaiim ch 22. witnesseth that Ecclesiasticus is not rejected now by the Jews but is received among them with an unanimous consent and David Ganz saith that they put it in old times among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Hagiographes So in his Tsemac David ad A. 3448. The Book of Wisdom according to Grotius his Judgment is more ancient having been written in Hebrew under Simon the High-Priest who flourished under Ptolomeus Lagus Grotius thinks that the Greek Translation we have of that Book was made by some Christian who hath foisted into that Book many things which belong more to a Christian Writer than a Jew He raises such an accusation against the Translator of Ecclesiasticus But it is very easie to confute such a bold Conjecture First because that Book was in Chaldaick among the Jews till the Thirteenth Century as we see by Ramban in his Preface upon the Pentateuch and they never objected such an Interpolation but lookt upon it as a Book that was worthy of Salomon and probably his Works It was the Judgment of R. Azarias de Rubeis in the last Century Imre bina ch 57. The Epistle of Baruch and of Jeremy seem to Grotius the Writings of a Pious Jew who had a mind to exhort his People to avoid Idolatry And 't is very probable that it was Penned under the Persecutions of Antiochus when it was not sure to any to write in favour of the Jewish Religion under his own name The Book of Tobith seems to have been writ originally in Chaldaick and was among the Jews in St. Jerom's time who knowing not the Chaldaick Tongue called for a Jew to his assistance to render it into Hebrew that so he might render it in Latin as he saith in his Preface to Chromatius and Heliodorus Grotius supposes the Book to be very ancient Others believe but without any ground that it was Translated into Greek by the Seventy So that it would have been writ more than 250. years before Jesus Christ Whatsoever Conjecture we may form upon the Antiquity of it it is certain it was in great esteem among Christians in the second Century since we see that Clemens Alexandrinus and Irenaeus have followed his fancy of seven created Angels about the Throne of God and took that Doctrine for a Truth although we see no such Idea among the Jews who have the Translation of that Book but do not now consider it very much Grotius thinks that the Book of Judith contains not a true History but an Ingenious Comment of the Author who lived under Antiochus Epiphanés before the Profanation of the Temple by that Tyrant to exhort the Jewish Nation to expect a wonderful Deliverance from such a Tyranny which they groaned under And we see no reason to discard such a Conjecture although R. Azarias thinks Imre bina ch 51. that this History was alluded to in the Book of Esdras ch 4.15 He judges the same of the Additions to the Book of Daniel viz. the Prayer of Azaria the Song of the Three Children in the Furnace and of the History of Susanna he looks upon them as written by some Hellenist Jew So the Additions to the Book of Esther he judges to be the work of some Hellenist who invented the Story which were afterwards admitted among the Holy Writings because they were Pious and had nothing which could be lookt upon as contrary to the Jewish Religion Grotius saith nothing of the third and fourth of Esdras and hath not judged them fit to be Commented probably because they are not accounted in the Canon of the Church of Rome And indeed the fourth is only extant in Latin But after all a Man must have viewed the third with very little judgment who cannot perceive first that it is certainly the work of an ancient Jew before Jesus Christ his time 2ly That it was among the Jews as a Book of great Authority Josephus p. 362. follows the Authority of that third Book of Esdras in the History of Zorobabel We have not ancienter Writers than Clemens Alexandrinus St. Cyprian and St. Ambrose who have quoted the 4th Book of
Esdras so I am resolved not to make any use of it The Antiquity and the Jewish Origin of all these Books that we call Apocryphal being so settled there is nothing to be done but to consider what is the ground of the Conjecture of Grotius who pronounces boldly in his Preface to the Book of Wisdom Eum librum nactus Christianus aliquis Graecè non indoctus in Graecum vertit libero nec ineleganti dicendi genere Christiana quaedam commodis locis addidit quod libro Syracidae quem dixi evenit sed in Latino huic magis quam in Graeco non quod nesciam post Esdram explicatius proponi caepisse patientiam piorum judicium universale vitam aeternam supplicia gehennae sed quia locutiones quaedam magis Evangelium sapiunt quam vetustiora tempora But to speak my mind plainly this Conjecture of Grotius is absolutely false and without any ground 1. Whence had he this particular account of the Jewish Faith and Religion in the time of Esdras so as to be able to judge by it which was written long after Esdras and to shew that the Notions of these Books are clearer than the Ideas which were among the Jews before Jesus Christ He goes only upon that Principle that the Jews since they were under the Greek Empire began to be more acquainted with the Ideas of the Eternal Life and of Eternal Punishment and of the last Judgment than they were before which is the Principle of Socinus and of his Followers but that Christians had much clearer Ideas of those Notions than the Jews had since Esdras his time 2ly Is it not an intolerable boldness to accuse those Books of having been so interpolated without giving any proof of it but his meer Conjecture I confess there are several various Readings in those Books as there are in Books which having been of a general use were transcribed many times by Copists of different industry one more exact and more learned than the other But to say that a Christian hath interpolated them designedly is a thing which can no more be admitted than to suppose that they have corrupted the Greek Version of the Books of the Old Testament to which those Books were joined in the Greek Bible as soon as it came into the hands of the Christians 3ly To suppose that a Christian hath been the Author of the Translation of some of those Books is a thing advanced with great absurdity since there was a Translation of these Books quoted by Philo and by St. Paul in his Epistles Now I would ask from Grotius how he can prove that there was a second Version of the Book of Wisdom made by a Christian after Jesus Christ what was the need of it since there was one before Jesus Christ And if any Christian did undertake such a new one without necessity how it came to pass that it was received instead of the Version which was in use amongst the Jews and was added to the Books of Scripture and of the Copies which were in the hands of Christians I need not to urge many other absurdities against Grotius his Conjecture I take notice only 1. That Grotius was far from ridiculing the Book of Wisdom as the Socinian Author of the Book against Dr. Bull hath done in his Judgment of the Fathers 2ly That the ridiculing of such an Author as the Book of Wisdom sheweth very little Judgment in Mr. N. He had better have made use of the Glosses of Grotius than to venture upon such rough handling of an Author quoted by St. Paul whose quoting him giveth him more credit than he can lose by a thousand censures of a Man who writes so injudiciously 3ly That the very place which Mr. N. ridicules is so manifestly taken from the Psalm xix which contains a Prophecy touching the Messias and from the Song of Isaiah ch 5. that whosoever reflects seriously upon such a ridiculing of the Book of Wisdom made by Mr. N. can 't but have a mean notion of his sense of Religion After all let Mr. N. do what he can with the Conjecture of Grotius I am very little concerned in his Judgment First because the matter which we are to handle is not the matter which Grotius suspects to have been foisted in by some Christian Interpreter 2ly Because I am resolved to make use in this Controversie only of those places of the Apocryphal Books in which they express the sense of the Old Synagogue before Jesus Christ as I shall justifie they have done by the consent of the same Synagogue after Jesus Christ and no body can suspect with any probability of the Old Synagogue that they have borrowed the Ideas of Christians and have inserted them in their ancient Books written so long time before Jesus Christ's Birth CHAP. VI. That the Works which go under the name of Philo the Jew are truly his and that he writ them a long while before the time of Christ's Preaching the Gospel and that it does not appear in any of his Works that ever he had heard of Christ or of the Christian Religion TO shew the Judgment of the Ancient Synagogue in the Points controverted between us and the Unitarians we make great use of the Writings of Philo the Jew which if they are his it cannot be denied do put this matter out of Question Our Adversaries therefore as it greatly concerns them do deny that those Works which bear his name were written by Philo the Jew By whom then were they written They say by another Philo a Christian who lived toward the end of the second Century and who as Mr. N. saith counterfeited the Writings of the famous Philo of Alexandria who was sent Embassadour to Caligula by those of his own Nation in the year of Christ 40. It is easie to refute this Suggestion of theirs And yet I cannot but acknowledge it has some kind of colour from that which we read in Eusebius and Jerome who tell us that Philo has given a Character of the Apostolick Christians in his Book de Therapeutis To which some have added that at his second coming to Rome under Claudius to be Embassadour at his Court as he was before at Caligula's he then became acquainted with St. Peter the Apostle of Christ I am therefore to prove these Propositions 1. That those Books we have under the name of Philo are the Works of a Jew of whom there is not the least appearance in his Writings that he knew any thing of Christianity nor that he ever heard of Jesus Christ or his Apostles 2. That it appears by the Books themselves that they were written before Jesus Christ began to Preach 3. That there is no foundation for what Eusebius says and also St. Jerome who Copied from Eusebius concerning Philo's account of a sort of Christians whom he describes under the name of Therapeutae 4. That the History of the Conversation between St. Peter and Philo is a ridiculous Fable which
Eusebius took upon hear-say from he knew not whom or from an Author whom he did not think fit to name for fear it should give no credit to his Story The first Proposition namely That these Pieces were written by one that was a Jew by Religion this one cannot doubt of if he considers these following things 1. That in all these Pieces of Philo where-ever he has occasion to make use of Authority he fetches it only out of the Jewish Scriptures And those are the only Scriptures that he takes upon him to explain He quotes Moses whom he usually calls the Law-giver as we do the Sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ And sometimes tho very rarely he quotes other Writings of the Old Testament But I dare affirm that in all his Treatises he cites not one passage from the New Testament which thing alone is sufficient to prove that he was no Christian For the first Christians used to cite the New Testament with as much care and even affection as the Jews did the Old But Secondly one had need have an Imagination as strong as Mr. N. to fancy that a Christian Author in the end of the Second Century could write as Philo does upon most part of the Books of Moses without mixing some touches at least at the Christian Religion And yet there is no such thing in all Philo's Works He takes it for his business to make the Jews understand their Law according to their Midrashim in an Allegorical way and to teach the Heathens that their prejudices against the Law of Moses were unjust and that they ought to acknowledg the Divinity of this Law which he explained to them This is the end or design of this Author in all his Works 3dly It appears that he according to the opinion of the Jewish Nation did expect the Messias as a great Temporal King yet to come as is evident from the Interpretation he gives of Balaam's Prophecy touching the Messias in his Book de Praemiis p. 716. 4thly In all his Works there is nothing peculiar to Christ that Mr. N. can alledg except in what is written of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very thing in dispute between us and him but even that doth not hinder but that the Jews themselves finding every thing in Philo so agreeable to the Notions that their Ancestors had in his Age do own them to be the Writings of a Jew and of Philo in particular As we see in Manasseh ben Israel who in many places alledges his Authority In Exod. p. 137. and shews that his Opinions do generally agree with those of their most ancient Authors The second thing I have to shew is that it appears from the Books themselves and other wise that many of them were composed before Jesus Christ began to Preach the Gospel Christ's Preaching began in Palestine in the year of the Building of Rome 783. But the Author of the Book Quod omnis probus sit Liber which has always been accounted undoubtely Philo's does note that the obstinate resistance of those of Xanthus in Lycia against M. Brutus was an affair fresh in memory as having happened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not much before the writing of that Book Now this which he tells us of the Xanthians happened not long after the death of Julius Caesar who was killed on the 13th of March in the year of Rome 709 for Brutus himself was kill'd at the time of the Battel of Philippi which was in Autumn in the year 712. Therefore Philo could not say it happened not long since if he writ so long after as in the year Urb. Con. 783. when Christ began to Preach for according to the common manner of speaking no man could say a thing happened not long since that happened before the remembrance of any man then living But if that Book was writ before Christ began to preach the Gospel much more were all those Books which we make use of against the Unitarians for according to the Order in which these Books are rankt by Eusebius this Book Quod omnis probus est Liber was one of the last that Philo writ The first that Eusebius names were the Three Books of Allegories after which he goes on to the Books of Questions and Answers upon Genesis and upon Exodus he tells us besides That Philo took pains to examine particular difficulties which might arise from several Histories in those Books and names the several Books that Philo writ of this sort This Order of his Books was observed in the Manuscripts which Eusebius hath exactly followed and it is agreeable enough to the Jewish Method of handling the Scripture by way of Questions and Answers which is still the Title of many Jewish Books of this Nature We may gather the same truth from another part of Philo which tells us expresly that he studi'd the Scriptures Primâ aetate when he was young and he complains of being called afterwards to publick business and that he had not now leisure to attend to the study of the Scriptures as formerly Lib. de Leg. spec p. 599. Therefore all his Books before were written in his younger days and especially his Three Books of Allegories which Eusebius placeth first before any of the rest Josephus in his Antiq. Lib. xviii c. 10. assures us That Philo was the Chief and most considerable of the Jews employed by those of Alexandria in the Embassy to Caligula This man saith he eminent among those of his Nation appeared before Caligula his Death which was A. U. C. 793. That is to say in the 40th year of our Lord. Now Philo in the History of his Legation to Caligula says of himself That he was at that time all grey with Age that is 70 years old according to the Jewish Notion of a man with grey hair Pirke Avoth c. 5. Suppose then that he was 70 years old when he appeared before Caligula it follows that he was born in the year of Rome 723. Suppose also that he began to write at 30 years old it will fall in with the year of Rome 793. That is to say 30 years before Christ preach'd in Judaea For Jesus Christ began not to preach till the year of Rome 783. The Third Assertion is as easy to be justified For though Baronius makes much of that fancy of Eusebius who to prove the Antiquity of Monastic Life held that Philo's Therapeutae were Christians and who was herein followed by St. Hierom without Examination yet others of the most Learned Papists as particularly Lucas Holstenius and Hen. Valesius have confest that herein Eusebius was mistaken Indeed one need only read the Book de Therapeutis it self or even the first period of it to be convinced that those whom Philo there describes were the Jews of the Essen Sect and the Essens were as Josephus plainly shews in the account he gives of them as much Jews by Religion as the Pharisees were Photius who was a better
Critic than Eusebius has very well corrected his mistake and shewn That the Book de Therapeutis describes the Life of a Sect of the Jews and not of the Christians It is a surprizing thing that Eusebius should commit such a mistake because he himself in his Books de Praep. Evang. do's cite a long passage from Porphyry taken out of Josephus in the transcribing whereof Eusebius could not but see many thing related of the Essens such as Philo brought into his account of the Therapeutae But to this it may be Objected do's not Photius report that Philo being at Rome in Claudius his time met with St. Peter there and contracted a friendship with him which occasioned his writing that Book de Therapeutis as of the Disciples of St. Mark who was himself the Disciple of St. Peter Doth not Eusebius fix this meeting of Philo with St. Peter to the reign of Claudius when he saith he read in full Senate his Book Intituled The Virtues of Caius Caligula Tho it was the scope of that Book to shew the impiety of that Monster that would be worshipped as a God for which Philo was so much admired that not only this but his other pieces were ordered to be put into the publick Library as pieces of such great value that they were worthy to be preserved for ever I know all this and do believe that Eusebius did not invent all this History But if there be any truth in it they might be those Books of Philo which he writ against Flaccus who died A. D. 38. and the account of his Embassy to Caius with three other Treatises containing the Sufferings of the Jews under Caius now lost that were put in the Publick Library For I cannot imagine that the Roman Senate should lay up in their publick Archives his other pieces which regarded only the Laws of the Jews But as for that which he tells us that Philo saw St. Peter at Rome and there made an acquaintance with him it is a meer dream of Eusebius who fancying that his Book de Therapeutis was written in praise of the first Christians of Alexandria and that they were Disciples of St. Mark did go on to imagine that he might possibly have some conversation with St. Peter and St. Mark and so came to write in commendation of these first Christians This meeting of St. Peter and Philo at Rome in Claudius his time howsoever Eusebius fancied it as a thing that would give some colour to his Opinion concerning the Therapeutae could not be true because as it appears by the Writings of the New Testament St. Peter was as far from being at Rome in the 42d year of our Lord that is in the second year of Claudius who succeeded caligula that he did not leave Judaea or Syria till after the Death of Agrippa the same that imprisoned St. Peter and who died in the fourth of Claudius All the Learned now a days know that St. Peter came not to Rome before the first year of Nero if he came thither so early i. e. A. D. 55. at which time it is necessary that Philo who was all Grey A. D. 40. and consequently was then about seventy years of age should be full eighty five years old which is an age very unfit for travel or business or even for living so far from ones own home as Rome was from Alexandria This shews what credit may be given to this report in Photius that Philo was a Christian but afterward turned Apostate So it is all Errors are fruitful and from one Fable there uses to arise many more As for Eusebius he is the less to be excused for writing what he doth of St. Mark 's Gospel which he saith was first approved by St. Peter at this time of his being at Rome and then made use of by St. Mark at Alexandria for the converting of those Jews whom Philo describes under the name of Therapeutae When as Eusebius sheweth us himself elswhere in his History he had so great an Authority as that of Irenaeus to assure him that St. Mark 's Gospel was not written till after St. Peter's Death Euseb Hist v. 8. All that can be said for him is only this that when he was writing this passage of Philo he did not think of what he had writ before Indeed if he had thought of it he had not been that man we take him for if he had suffered it to pass as it stands now in his History I thought it was proper to enter into this disquisition concerning the Writings of Philo and the time when they were written that I might leave no doubt in the minds of my Readers concerning the Authority of Philo whom I intend to produce as an authentick Testimony of the Opinions of the Synagogue before our Lord in the matters disputed between us and the Unitarians Proceed we to the Chaldee Paraphrases CHAP. VII Of the Authority and Antiquity of the Chaldee Paraphrases I Shall have occasion in many points to cite the Paraphrases of the Jews upon the Books of the Old Testament and perhaps it may appear strange to some that I oftentimes cite them without distinguishing between those which pass for ancient and those which are reputed by Criticks altogether modern Therefore I think my self obliged once for all to give the reasons of my doing thus and to satisfie my Reader thereupon I shall not spend time to discover the Original of these Paraphrases It is enough to mind the Reader that the Jews having almost forgot their Hebrew in the Babylonian Captivity 't was needful for the People's understanding the Holy Scriptures which were read in the Synagogue every Sabbath-day that some persons skilful both in the Hebrew and Chaldee should explain to the People every Verse in Chaldee after that they had read it to them in Hebrew The Jews make this Practice as ancient as the times of their return from the Babylonian Captivity Neh. viii 8. as one may see in the Talmud Title Nedarim ch 4. The Jews all agree that this way of Translating the Scriptures was made by word of mouth only for a long time But it is hard to conceive that they which interpreted in that manner did write nothing for the use of Posterity It seems much more probable to believe that from time to time these Interpreters writ something especially on the most difficult places and those which were least understood The first according to the Jewish Writers Magill c. 3. who attempted to put into Writing his Chaldee Version of the Prophets first and last according to the Jewish distinction except Daniel or rather who interpreted the whole Text in order was Jonathan the Son of Uzziel who also not contenting himself always to render the Hebrew word for word into Chaldee does often mix the Traditional explication of the difficultest Prophecies with his simple Translation The Jews seem to agree that this Jonathan lived a 100. years before the destruction of Jerusalem
reasonable Reader that sticks at this difficulty by telling him First in few words that I will scarce ever cite any of these Targums but when they say the same thing that Onkelos doth And secondly that these as well as Onkelos are owned by the Jews And it cannot with any colour of reason be imagined that the Jews since Christ's time have adopted Books contrary to their Religion and used them in their common reading as true Versions of the Law and the Prophets It is certain that the Jews many Centuries ago have taken them for such And therefore these Books in whatsoever time they were written are sufficient testimonies of the Opinions of the Synagogue But I have something more considerable to offer for the establishing of the Authority of these Paraphrases as well as of that of Onkelos in our dispute with our Unitarians against whom we shall have occasion to make use of the Testimony of these Paraphrases For this one needs only examine these Paraphrases with an ordinary attention I pray therefore the Reader to consider 1. That whatsoever has been said in general for the necessity that there was for the making of these Chaldee Paraphrases the same does also confirm the antiquity of all these Paraphrases if not as to every part of them yet at least as to the main of these Paraphrases such as we now have them almost on every Book of the Old Testament 2ly We see in the Misna a clear mention made of some Targums upon the Law and the first Prophets Megillah cap. 4. Sect. 9 10. which must be Onkelos and Jonathan 3ly We read in the Gemarah of Sabbath cap. 16. fol. 115. col 1. an account of the Targum upon Job which Raban Gamaliel the Grand-father to R. Judah who compiled the Misna had read Now if the Paraphrase on the Books of Job was in common use so anciently who can doubt but that they had the like Versions also on the Books of Moses and on the Prophets Nay we see that Jesus Christ upon the Cross cites the xxii Psalm according to the Chaldee Paraphrase and not according to the Hebrew This he did that he might be understood by them that were present at that time from whence it follows that the Jews in Judea had a Paraphrase of the Book of Psalms and that that Paraphrase was already received among them before the time of our Blessed Saviour I know some Criticks will not allow the Misnah which speaks of the Targums to be so ancient as I do Their great reason is that this Book is cited by none of the Fathers who lived just after it was written and that it is mentioned by no body before Justinian the Emperour his time But this Objection proceeds only from an oversight of these Criticks who have not observed that although I should grant what they suppose to be true it would not weaken the Authority of the Misnah when the Author of the Misnah does witness the antiquity of the Targums because the Misnah is not a Book of a common form but a collection of many old Decisions as the Book of Justinian which is called Digestum which is not Justinian his work but his Collection or as the Book of Gratian which is called Decretum which is nothing but the Compilation of Canons or Decisions of Fathers who lived six or seven hundred years before Gratian. That hath been judiciously remark'd by Paul Archbishop of Burgos in the Preface to his Scrutinium and in this judgment he follows Maymonides in his Preface upon his Jad Kazaka And indeed we must observe that almost all the famous Rabins which are mentioned in the Misnah are the very Men which are mentioned by St. Com. on Isa 8.14 Jerome as the great Authors of the Judaick Traditions If the Learned Men do not like the Conjecture of R. Elias Levita upon the Targum of Jerusalem but would have it to be the rest of an entire work upon the Pentateuch Let them examine how it came to pass that the Jerusalem Paraphrase on the Pentateuch is almost all lost So that there remain only some few bits of it here and there on some Texts and then they will find that perhaps it is not lost but that it subsists in great measure in that which is under Jonathan his name on the Pentateuch Whence it is probably that in some MSS. it bears the name of the Targum of Jerusalem and in other 's the name of Jonathan's Targum It is easie to judge how this came to pass The Jerusalem Targum differed from that of Jonathan but in some places or perhaps it was the very Targum of Jonathan which was augmented from time to time by divers Explications Then when the Jews came to make their Paraphrase no longer than their Text that they might have the Text and the Paraphrase both together in their Bibles they did not give themselves the trouble to transcribe the Jerusalem Paraphrase all at length But they contented themselves with transcribing those parts where it appeared to have some difference from that of Jonathan and this they did after so scrupulous a manner that they transcribed the Passages of the Jerusalem Targum that agree in the sense and differ only in the words as well as those that have a different sense from that of Jonathan I know very well that the Jews speak of several Paraphrases besides that of Jonathan on the Prophets and that of Onkelos on the Books of Moses As for instance they speak of a Targum of R. Joseph who they say has translated the Books of the Prophets But as to this it ought to be considered 1. That it was the Jews Custom to teach their Scholars these Paraphrases not from a Book but from their memory and by heart and so the Scholars might very well ascribe to their Masters that which they had learnt from their mouths and their verbal instructions as well as if it had been delivered to them in writing 2. That the same places which are quoted from the Paraphrase of R. Joseph on some Books of the Prophets are to be found in express terms in Jonathan's Paraphrase which the Jews esteem more ancient than Onkelos who writ on the Law 3. R. Joseph whom they quote does himself cite the Chaldee Paraphrase as being of Authority in his time and therefore it was not his work And this appears from his Confession that he could never have understood the words of Isai viii 6. without the help of the Chaldee Paraphrase Gemara ch xi tit Sanbedr fol. 95. But notwithstanding the antiquity of these Paraphrases I own they contain Additions very new which shew that after they were written they were in such places enlarged with the Glosses of Doctors that applied themselves to the Study of the Law and took pains to shew how one part of it depended upon another of which we find nothing in Onkelos which is almost a verbal translation of the Hebrew Text into Chaldee And
thus 1. we find in many places the connexion of one History with another which is very often the imagination of a Rabbin who fancied what he pleased and fathered it upon Moses 2. We find Explications in these later Targums different from the former ones yet added to the former with an impudence not to be endured and this in several places 3. We there find long Narrations which have no other foundation than their method of explaining Scripture by the way of Notarikon as they call it as where we read of the five Sins of Esau which he committed on the same day in which he sold his birthright to Jacob and in pursuance of their manner of explaining Scripture by Gematria of which Rittangel on Jetzira has given some examples p. 31 32 33. But all this makes nothing against the authority of those places in the Paraphrase where they do little more than render the Text out of Hebrew into Chaldee In them there was no occasion to shew any more than the sense of the words such as the Paraphrasts had received by Tradition from their Forefathers Whereas the Authors of those Additions thereby made a shew of Learning out of the common road and gave themselves the pleasure to see their own fictions come into such credit that they were received as the Oracles of God But beyond that we must take notice that as on one hand those Targums have been enlarged by so many Additions so on the other hand they have been altered in many places and new Ideas substituted to the old To shew the alteration which was made in those Targums by Modern Jews we can remark a thing which hath been often taken notice of by Buxtorf in his Lexicon Talmud viz. that there are many places cited from those Targums 500 years ago by the Author of Aroule that are not to be found in them as they are now in Print So we can prove clearly that new Ideas have been put in instead of the old chiefly upon the points controverted between Jews and Christians For in many places where St. Jerome in his Comments upon the Prophets brings the common explication of the Jews as agreeing with the explication of Christians we find the Targum brings an explication quite different from what it was to be according to St. Jerome's account It appears by this the Jews have done in their Books the same thing which Papists have done in the Books of the Fathers They have added many things to help their Cause and they have cut out many places which might have done great service to Truth As for the Additions then I will scarce cite any of them but when it is evident that they speak the sense of the Ancients and truly whatever one may say of the Corruptions of these Jewish Paraphrases I will maintain that it is as easie for an attentive Reader to distinguish these Corruptions from the ancient Text which it seems Arias Montanus had a design to do in a particular Treatise as it is for one that looks on an old Pot or Kettle to tell where the Tinker has been at work and to distinguish his Clouts from the Original metal The ancient pieces have a sort of simplicity that makes them to be valued and which easily shews their antiquity The Additions are the rambling fancies of bold Commentators which they devised in later times as occasion required and thrust them upon the ancient Paraphrasts who lived in those times when there was no such occasion nor could they foresee that there would be any such in after-times As for example we do not find that the Jews before Christ's time ever spoke of two Messias the one the Son of David who was to reign gloriously the other a suffering Messias the Son of Joseph of the Tribe of Ephraim The reason is plain for they had no occasion for that fancy of a suffering Messias That arose upon their Disputes with the Christians who proved that the Sufferings of Christ were no other than what the Messias was to suffer according to the Prophecies of Scripture At first the Jews tried other ways to avoid the force of these Prophecies but when no other would do they came to this to devise another Messias the Son of Joseph and to give him the Sufferings which the Scripture attributes to the Messias the Son of David In a word all these Conceits of which the greatest part of these Additions do consist do so evidently demonstrate their Novelty that when one is acquainted with a little of the History of the World as well as that of the Jews it is scarce possible that he should take them for the Text of Jonathan or of the ancient Paraphrasts Besides all this in the Modern Paraphrases themselves we find very often these words Another Targum and sometimes yet Another Targum which shews that the following words are not the ancient Targum but are the Additions of some Modern Authors whom the Copyers of the Paraphrasts have joyned as a new light to the ancient Whether the Jews's inserting such things into their Paraphrases has been out of fondness of these Discoveries which appeared to them new or whether they have found it turn to account to insert these Additions in the Body of their ancient Paraphrases thereby to enhance the value of them or whether they thought by publishing them under the Names of those ancient Commentators whose Authority is so venerable to wrest from the Christians all the advantages they might draw from any thing in their Paraphrases the things that they added being oftentimes contrary to what the Ancients did teach is a secret among the Jews but a secret little worth since the Providence of God has preserved the Apocryphal Books and the Books of Philo which can give us so much light into the knowledg of what is ancient and what is modern in these Paraphrases I will add nothing upon this matter but this that we see in the most ancient Books of the Jews as in the Books call'd Rabboth Mechista and in their old Midrashim almost all composed before the 7th Century and in the Talmud of Babylon the same Ideas and the same Doctrine which we meet in the Apocryphal Books and in Philo's Writings And those Ideas have been constantly followed by the most considerable part of the Jews those very Men who have their name from their constant sticking to the old Tradition of their Forefathers CHAP. VIII That the Authors of the Apocryphal Books did acknowledg a Plurality and a Trinity in the Divine Nature HAving finished our General Reflexions on the Traditional Sense of the Scriptures which was receiv'd among the Jews before the time of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Books wherein we can find such a Tradition it is time we should come to the chief matter we designed to treat of The Question is Whether the Jews before Christ's time had any notion of a Trinity For the Socinians would make us believe that Justin
Martyr having been formerly a Platonist and then turning Christian was the first that invented this Doctrine or rather adopted it out of the Platonick into the Christian Divinity and that neither the Jewish nor the Christian Church had ever before conceived any Notion of a Trinity or of any Plurality in the Divine Essence The Doctrine of the Trinity supposes the Divine Essence to be common to three Persons distinguished from one another by incommunicable Properties These Persons are called by St. John 1 Joh. v. 7. the Father the Word and the Spirit There are Three saith he that bear Witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these Three are One. This Personal distinction supposes the Father not to be the Son nor the Holy Ghost and that the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit Revelation teaching that the Son is begotten of the Father and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or from the Father by the Son And this distinction is the foundation of their Order and of their Operations For although the Unity of the Divine Nature makes it necessary that these three Persons should all co-operate in the Works of God ad extra as we call them nevertheless there being a certain order among the Persons and a distinction founded in their Personal Properties the Holy Scripture mentioneth an Oeconomy in their Operations so that one work ad extra is ascribed to the Father another to the Son and a third to the Holy Spirit But this distinction of Persons all partaking of the same common Nature and Majesty hinders not their being equally the Object of that Worship which Religion commands us to pay to God I touch this matter but very briefly because my business is only to examine whether the Jews had any notion of this Doctrine And our Opinion is this that though the Gospel has proposed that Doctrine more clearly and distinctly yet there were in the Old Testament sufficient notices of it so that the Jews before Christ's time did draw from thence their Notions concerning it On the contrary the Socinians maintain that this Doctrine is not only alike foreign to the Books of the Old and New Testament but that it was altogether unknown to the Jews before and after Christ till Justin Martyr first brought it into the Church In opposition to which I affirm for truth 1. That the Jews before Jesus Christ had a notion of a Plurality in God following herein certain Traces of this Doctrine that are to be found in the Books of Moses and the Prophets 2. That the same Jews following the Scriptures of the Old Testament did acknowledg a Trinity in the Divine Nature I begin the Examination of this Subject by considering the Notions of the Authors of the Apocryphal Books Now one cannot expect that these Authors should have explained their mind with relation to the notions of a Plurality and of a Trinity in the Godhead as if they had been Interpreters of the Books of the Old Testament But they express it sufficiently without that and speak in such a manner that no body can deny that they must have had those very Notions when it appears that their Expressions in speaking of God supposes the Notions of a Plurality in the Godhead and of a Trinity in particular Let us consider some of those Expressions 1. They were so full of the notion of a Plurality which is expressed in Gen. i. 26. that the Author of Tobith hath used it as the Form of Marriage among the Jews of old Let us make unto him an aid So Chap. 8.6 Thou madest Man and gavest him Eve his Wife for an helper and stay of them came Mankind Thou hast said It is not good that Man should be alone Let us make unto him an aid like unto himself whereas in the Hebrew it is only I shall make 2ly We see that they acknowledg the Creation of the World by the Word of God and by the Holy Ghost as David Psal xxxiii 6. So the Book of Wisdom Ch. ix 1. O God of my Fathers and Lord of mercy who hath made all things with thy Word or more properly by thy Word as it is explained in the 2. vers and ver 4. he asketh Wisdom in these words Give me Wisdom that sitteth by thy Throne And v. 17. Thy counsel who hath known except thou give Wisdom and send thy Holy Spirit from above Where he distinguisheth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Wisdom and the Holy Spirit from God to whom he directs his Prayer And so the Book of Judith ch xvi 13 14. I will sing unto the Lord a new Song O Lord thou art great and glorious wonderful in strength and invincible Let all creatures serve thee for thou speakest and they were made thou didst send forth thy Spirit and it created them and there is none that can resist thy voice 3ly They speak of the Emanation of the Word from God Those are the words of the Book of Wisdom ch vii 25. For she is the breath of the power of God and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty therefore can no defiled thing fall into her That description of Wisdom deserves to be considered as we have it in the same place ver 22 23 24 25 26. For Wisdom which is the worker of All things taught me for in her is an understanding spirit holy one only manifold subtil lively clear undefiled plain not subject to hurt loving the thing that is good quick which cannot be letted ready to do good Kind to man stedfast sure free from care having all power over-seeing all things and going through all understanding pure and most subtil Spirits For Wisdom is more moving than any motion she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness For she is the brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the image of his Goodness And indeed St. Paul Heb. i. 3. hath borrowed from thence what we read touching the Son that he is the brightness of God's glory and the express Image of his Person So the Book of Ecclesiasticus saith ch xxv 3. That it is come out of the mouth of the most High 4ly There are several Names in Scripture which serve to express the second Person the Son the Word the Wisdom the Angel of the Lord but who is the Lord indeed Now those Authors use all these Names to express a second Person For they acknowledge a Father and a Son by a natural consequence Thus the Author of Ecclesiasticus ch li. 10. I called upon the Lord the father of my Lord in the same way as David speaks of the Messias Psal ii and Psal cx and as Solomon in his Proverbs ch viii 25. as of a Son in the bosom of his Father and ch xxx 4. What is his Sons name if thou canst tell They speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
Eminent Divines of the old Jewish Church and consequently as subject to several weaknesses and oversights which are common to the greatest as well as to the meanest men Even the most Learned Men in all Ages though they agree in the truth of certain Doctrines are yet often divided in their ways of expressing them and also in their grounding them on this or that place of Scripture For the Jews since Christ's time we are less concern'd what they say because when they had once rejected their Messias the Lord Jesus Christ they soon found that if they stood to their Traditional Expositions of Scripture it could not be denied but he whom they had rejected was the Word the Son of God whom their Fathers expected to come in our Flesh but rather than yield to that they would alter their Creed and either wholly throw out the Word the Son of God or bring him down to the state of a created Angel as we see some of them do now in their ordinary Comments on Scripture And so they deal with the Shekinah likewise confounding the Master with the Servant as we see that some few perhaps one or two Cabalists have done in their Books In consequence of this alteration they are forc'd to acknowledg the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob worshipped a created Angel and have left themselves no way to excuse them from Idolatry therein but by corrupting their Doctrine concerning Religious Worship and teaching that it is lawful to pray to these Ministring Spirits which is effectually the setting up of other Gods plainly contrary to the first Commandment of their Law Some of themselves are so sensible of this that they cannot deny it to be Idolatry Which is certainly the more inexcusable in the Jews because on other occasions they constantly affirm that when God charged the Angels with the care of other Nations he reserved to himself the sole Government of his people Israel Deut. xxxii 8 9. And therefore it must be a grievous sin in them to worship Angels howsoever they should imagin it might be permitted to other Nations After all this they have not been able so totally to suppress the ancient Tradition but that in their Writers since Christ's time there appear some footsteps of it still And that it is so I am next to shew that notwithstanding their aversness to the Christian Doctrine they yet have a Notion distinct enough both of a Plurality and Trinity in the Divine Nature which will be the whole business of my next Chapter CHAP. XI That this Notion of a Trinity in the Divine Nature has continued among the Jews since the time of our Lord Jesus Christ TO begin with the Jewish Authors who have writ Medrashim that is a sort of Allegorical Commentaries upon Scripture and the Cabalistical Jews whom their people look upon as the wisest Men of their Nation viz. those that know the truth more than all others among them this truth passes for undoubted I know very well that the method of those Cabalistical Men who seek for Mysteries almost in every Letter of the words of Scripture hath made them justly ridiculous And indeed one cannot imagin an occupation more vain or useless than the prodigious labour which they undergo in their way of Gematria Notarikon and Tsirouph But besides that Vice is not so general among the Jews I am fully resolved to lay aside in this Controversie all such remarks my design being only to shew that the ancient Tradition hath been kept among those Authors who have their Name from their firm adherence to the Tradition of their Forefathers So I am not willing to deny that some of the Books of those Cabalistical Authors which the Jews who are not great Criticks look upon as very ancient are not as to all their parts of such an antiquity as the Jews suppose them to be But I take notice that those who attack the antiquity of those Books are not aware that notwithstanding some additions which are in those Books as for example in the Zohar and in the Rabboth the very Doctrine of the Synagogue is to be found there and the same as it is represented to us by the Apocryphal Authors by Philo or those who had occasion to mention the Doctrine of the Jews After all let us suppose that almost all those Books have been written since the Talmud and that the Talmud was written since the beginning of the seventh Century that could not be a prejudice against the Doctrine which the Jews propose as the ancient Doctrine of the Synagogue But to the contrary it would be a strong proof of the constancy of those Authors in keeping the Tradition of their Ancestors in so strange a dispersion and among so many Nations chiefly since in the Articles upon which I shall quote their Authorities they so exactly follow the steps of the Authors of the Apocryphal Books of Philo the Jew and of their ancient Paraphrast who had more penetrated into the sense of Scripture I say then that both the Authors of the Midrashim and the Cabalistical Authors agree exactly in this that they acknowledg a Plurality in the Divine Essence and that they reduce such a Plurality to three Persons as we do To prove such an assertion I take notice first That the Jews do judg as we do that the word Elohim which is Plural expresses a Plurality Their ordinary remark upon that word is this that Elohim is as if one did read El hem that is They are God Bachajè a famous Commentator of the Pentateuch who brings in his work all the senses of the four sorts of Interpreters among the Jews speaks to this purpose upon the Parascha Breschit fol. 2. col 3. 2ly It is certain that they make use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to express those Persons as they use to express the two first human Persons viz. Adam and Eve Thus speaks of them the same Bachaje Ibid. fol. 13. col 2. 3ly They fix the number of three Persons in the Divine Essence distinguishing their Personal Characters and Actions which serve to make them known 4ly They speak of the emanation of the two last from the first and that the last proceeds by the second 5ly They declare that this Doctrine contains a Mystery that is incomprehensible and above human reason and that in such an unsearchable secret we must acquiesce with the Authority of the Divine Revelation 6ly They ground this Doctrine upon the very same Texts of Scripture which we alledg to prove the several Positions of ours which deserves a great deal of consideration And indeed those things being so we must necessarily conclude either that they mock their Readers or that they do not understand what they say or one must acknowledg that the consequences and conclusions which Christians draw from the Scriptures to this subject of Trinity are not so easie to be avoided as the Socinians believe Let the Reader reflect upon each of those Articles while I
choice of Three Punishments either Three Years Famine or Three Months Destruction by Enemies or Three Days Pestilence throughout all the Coast of Israel This last being a Judgment from Heaven that falls as soon upon the Prince as the Peasant David made choice of it rather than either of the other saying withal Let me not fall into the hands of Man but into the hands of the Lord for great are his Mercies 1 Chron. xxi 13. Thereupon God sent a Pestilence upon all the Coasts of Israel by which there fell Seventy thousand Men 2 Sam. xxiv 15. And to represent to David's Bodily Eyes an extraordinary Instance as well of God's Justice in punishing Sinners as of his Mercy to them upon their Repentance and Prayer God made him see an Angel standing between the Earth and the Heaven having a drawn Sword in his hand stretch'd out over Jerusalem to destroy it 2 Sam. xxiv 16 17. And 1 Chron. xxi 16. And when at this Sight David fell upon his face and prayed as it followeth ver 17. God said to the destroying Angel It is enough stay now thy hand Then the Angel came down and stood by the Floor of Ornan the Jebusite on which Place God designed that Solomon should build his Temple and declared it to David upon this occasion There according to the Angel's Order by the Prophet Gad David now built an Altar and sacrificed thereon upon which the Lord commanded the Angel and he put up his Sword into his sheath 2 Sam. xxiv 17. This was no other than a Created Angel whom God that employ'd him in that Service appointed to appear in that manner for all those purposes before-mentioned What the Ancient Church thought of all this Passage of History we may easily guess by what has been already shewn of their ascribing all Rewards and Punishments to the Word that had the Conduct and Government over God's People And though it seems that Care has been taken to conceal this Notion of theirs as much as was possible in the Targums of the Books now before us yet here is a Passage that seems to have escaped the Correctors by which we may perceive the Church's Sense here was agreeable to what we find of it in all other places For in 2 Sam. xxiv 14. where we find in the Text that David said ver 6. Let us fall now into the â—â—nd of the Lord for his Mercies are great the Targum thus renders these words Let me be delivered into the hand of the Word of the Lord for great are his Mercies It was therefore the Word of the Lord into whose hands David fell It was his Angel by whom the Judgment was executed And it was also his Mercy by which the Judgment was suspended and revoked The Targum on this Text sufficiently shews that all this was the Sense of the Jewish Church In short the Ancient Church considered the Word as being their Sovereign Lord and King of the People of Israel All those Kings whose Acts are described in the Two Books of Kings they look'd upon as his Lieutenants or Deputies that held their Title from and under him by his Covenant with David their Father This Solomon declared in these words 1 Kings viii 15. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who by his Word made a Covenant with David my Father Whatsoever God did for his People under their Government in protecting and delivering them from their Enemies they own'd that it was for his Word's sake and for his Servant David's sake 2 Kings xix 34. xx 6. When they had quite broken his Covenant then God removed them from before his Word and gave them up to be a Scorn to all Nations as he threatned he would 1 Kings ix 7. according to their Targum In these Books we read of no more but Two Divine Appearances in Solomon's time and both these were made to Solomon himself 1 Kings ix 2. The first was at Gibeon chap. iii. 5. where the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and said to him Ask what I shall give thee He asked nothing but Wisdom which so pleased the Lord that he gave him not only that but also Riches and Honour above all the Kings then in the Word The Targum as it is come to our hands doth not say It was the Word of the Lord that appeared to him and that gave him all this But that it was so according to the Sense of their Church may be gathered from the Text which tells us ver 15. That as soon as Solomon was awake he went presently to Jerusalem which was about seven Miles distant and there he stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord which was there in the Tabernacle set up by David his Father and he offered up both Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings and made a Feast to all his Servants The haste in which all this was done brings us presently to the Occasion of it for of all Peace-Offerings for Thanksgiving to God the same day that they were offered the Flesh must be eaten Lev. vii 15. the Breast and Right Shoulder by the Priests all the rest by the Offerer and those that he had to eat with him It is plain therefore that this was a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God But why should not Solomon have staid at Gibeon and there paid this Duty where he had received the Obligation Especially since there at Gibeon was the Tabernacle which Moses made by God's Command and there was the Brazen Altar which Bezaleel made 2 Chron. i. 2 3 4. and Solomon had come on purpose to Gibeon to sacrifice upon that Altar at that time The very day before this Appearance of God he had offered a thousand Burnt-Offerings upon it ver 6. and in that very night did God appear to him ver 7. Now Solomon having found that good Success of his sacrificing at Gibeon that presently God appeared to him and gave him so great a Boon would certainly have staid there to have paid his Thanksgiving in that Place but that he understood that he that appeared to him was the Word whose especial Presence was with the Ark at Jerusalem as we have abundantly proved To Him therefore he hasten'd immediately to pay his Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings of Thanksgiving to the Word of the Lord. This we cannot doubt was the Sense of the Ancient Jewish Church though it doth not appear now in their Targums And if it was the Word that made that first Appearance to Solomon then it must be He that made the second also for both these Appearances were of the same Person So it is said expresly in the Text 1 Kings ix 2. The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he had appeared to him at Gibeon But of this second Appearance that it was of the Word of the Lord there is a clearer Proof than of the former as the Reader will certainly judge if he considers the Circumstances of this second Appearance and the
the Son of God in time Quod Deus sit immut p. 232. that his Word is his Image and his First-born De confus ling. p. 266. 267. B. that the Word is the Son of God before the Angels Quis rer div h. p. 397. F. G. that the Unity of God is not to be reduced to number that God is unus non unicus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews say in their Book of Prayers which are the very steps we take to shew that an Eternal Generation in the Divine Nature is no contradiction Nothing can be more express for to prove that there is a Son in the Godhead than what we read in the Targum of Jerusalem Gen. iii. 22. The Word of Jehovah said Here Adam whom I created is the only begotten Son in the World as I am the only begotten Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the high Heaven 3. The Prophets positively teach the Son of God who the Jews thought as under the former Head appears was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Wisdom of God to be the Messiah Thus David Psalm ii brings in God speaking of the Messiah Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee 6. V. 8. Kiss the son lest he be angry and lest you perish For thus it ought to be rendred according to Aben-Ezra and the Midrash on this Psalm and the Zohar in the place I have quoted just now which Expression is also used by Solomon Cant. i. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth which the old Jews refer to the Messias in Shir hashirim Rabba fol. 5. Col. 2 3. and in Midrash Tehillim ad Ps lxviii v. 4. I confess that we read in Tehillim Rabbathi upon this iid Psalm a kind of answer to this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth not say thou art a Son to me but thou art my Son and they pretend that God speaks to the Messias as a Master to his Servant The Inquisitors of Italy take great care to blot out that Answer in the Books which they give leave to the Jews to keep in their Houses But it is a ridiculous fear for the solution is so absurd that it is exploded as soon as you look upon the description of that Son which is in the Book of Proverbs Chap. xxx 4. I own also that we find not in the body of Philo's Works any formal Explication of these words This day have I begotten thee from whence we can directly conclude that he understood them of an Eternal Generation But we find something equivalent to it For speaking of these words You who were obedient to the Lord are alive this day he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De profug p. 358. E. That this is not a simple Conjecture appears from the manner of Philo's explicating of himself as he speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in two places cited by Eus Praep. Ev. vii p. 323. out of Phil. de Agric. 1 11. For in the first place he calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the First-born of God And in the other the Eternal Word of the Eternal God begotten by the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same Title of Son is given to the Messias Psal lxxii 17. That this Psalm was understood of the Messias by the Ancient Jews 't is acknowledged by Raschi who against their unanimous Consent thinks fit to apply it to Solomon now the Hebrew word there is Innon being formed from Nin which signifies a Son Hence it is that the Jews make Innon one of the Titles of the Messias in Midrash Tillim on Psalm xciii and in the Talmud Sanhedrim c. 11. fol. 98. col 2. and in Rabboth fol. 1. col 3. And it follows in the Text that he had this Name before the Son that is before the Creation as Eternity is described Psal xc 2. Prov. viii 22 29. Again Psal lxxx 15. where the Psalmist prays God to look down and visit his Vine and the Vineyard which his right hand hath planted the Targum renders these last words and the Plant which thy right hand hath planted that is King Messias The Psalmist goes on in these words and the Branch which thou madest strong for thy self The Targum reads them even for thy Son's sake and interprets them even for the sake of King Messias So likewise in v. 17. where we render the words Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thy self the LXX have only on the Son and the Targum interprets them of King Messias God saith Psal lxxxix 25 26. I will set his hand in the sea and his right hand in the rivers He shall cry unto me thou art my father The Ancient Jews refer this to the Messias and also many of the Modern Jews finding such difficulty in applying to Solomon many of the Characters in this Psalm agree with the Ancients in their Interpretation The following Writers of the Holy Scriptures are as express as David is in this matter Prov. viii 22 23 24 25. is well worth perusing principally for this Title given Wisdom of a Son in the bosom of her Father Upon which take Philo's Reflection de Profug p. 358. A. To the Question Why is Wisdom spoken of in the Feminine he Answers it is to preserve to God the Character of a Father from whom he thought the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drew his Nature as being as he elsewhere de Agric. calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Son of the Everlasting Father And nothing is more common amongst the Jewish Writers than 1. To maintain that the Shekinah the Wisdom and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the same 2dly To refer to the Messias as being the same with the Shekinah those very Places which are to be understood of the Shekinah and to the Shekinah those Places which are to be understood of the Messias If any man cast his eyes upon Jonathan Targum and the Targum Jerusalami commented by R. Mardochay and printed lately at Amsterdam he shall find that by the common consent of the Jewish Interpreters whose words he fully relates the Wisdom which is spoken Prov. iii. and Prov. viii is the same by which the World hath been created 2dly That this Wisdom is the same which is called the Shekinah the Memra it is called by Philo the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him now look upon the Places of the Prophets which are constantly spoken of the Messias and he shall find that they are referred by the best Authors of the Synagogue to the Shekinah so that it is clear they had the same Idea of the Shekinah and of the Messias and must have lookt upon the Messias as he that must have been the proper Son of God I will shew some Instances of what I advance to spare the trouble to my Reader 1st They maintain that this Wisdom by
above the Heathens both as to Virtue and Knowledge In which he followed Aristobulus's Notions who had writ long before him and was a Jewish Philosopher And of this Opinion the Jews are to this day as may be seen in Cozri p. 29 and p. 131. And as the Egyptians lookt upon the Greeks as Children in learning which they were fain to fetch from Egypt so Philo calls often the Egyptians even of the most ancient times a heavy People and who wanted common Sense by reason of the many gross Errors they entertain'd unworthy of rational Creatures In a word I affirm that if Plato had any distinct Notions in Religion he most certainly had them from the Jews while he sojourned in Egypt as it is maintained by Josephus in his first Book against Appion As for the Chaldee Paraphrasts I do not see how they can be suspected to have had a Tincture of Plato's Doctrine It must be a mere Fancy to suppose it Let those Gentlemen read exactly the Books of Philo and find therein if they can such an Expression as we have in the Targum upon Hag. ii 4 5. I am with you saith the Lord of Hosts with the Word which covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt and my Spirit which abideth in the midst of you M. N. hath been sensible of that and therefore he does not accuse them of having been Platonists but he accuses the Orthodox Christians in general to have inserted in the Jewish Books whatever in them is favourable to the Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Divinity of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But certainly the Unitarians must have very little Correspondence with the Jews to fancy that they are so simple as to be thus abused How can it be imagined that the Jews should be such Friends to Christians as to trust them with their Books in order to falsify them And afterwards so sottish as to spread every where their Books and their Targums which they falsified This Supposition is so ridiculous that I cannot imagine how any Author can write such a thing or even conceive and suppose it What I said of the Gospel Notions in the 15th Chapter shews plainly that neither Christ nor his Apostles did adopt the System of Philosophy which was taught by the Platonists The Angel who declared his Conception used the word Lord or Jehovah to denote his being God But when he named him Jesus because he was to save his People from their sins which no other could do but God he intimated that it was he who was foretold not by Plato but by Habakkuk chap. iii. 8 13 18. I will rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation In which place the Prophet expresly calls God Saviour or Jesus by which Name Christ by Divine Appointment was named In short a man must be out of his Senses to find any thing in the Gospel that savours of Plato's Hypothesis When the Devils own Christ to be the Son of God were they Platonists When St. Peter owns him to be the Son of God had Plato told him this When he was ask'd in the Council of the Jews whether he was the Son of God was the question made in a Platonick sense It is true St. Paul has sometimes quoted Heathenish Authors he was brought up at Tarsus amongst Heathens he had read Aratus whom he quotes against the Epicurean Philosophers at Athens and he quotes a place out of the Cretan Epimenides in his Epistle to Titus who was Bishop of Crete But we never find that he quoted Plato or used his Testimony Christ chose illiterate men for his Apostles St. John who speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been a Fisherman about the Lake of Tiberias St. Paul only and St. Luke were Scholars St. Paul was brought up under Gamaliel a Doctor of the Law and St. Luke who had been a Physician and was a Learned Man followed St. Paul in his Travels and by his directions writ his Gospel But it does not appear that our Saviour taught his ignorant Disciples the Notions of Plato nor that the Learned ones as St. Paul and St. Luke ever used Plato's Authority in their Preaching This appears plainly in the Book of the Acts in which St. Luke gives an account of it If at any time St. Paul had a fair opportunity to make use of Plato's Testimony it was when he disputed at Athens against the Stoicks and the Epicureans These last laughing at Miracles St. Paul wrought none there to convince them But he might have quoted places out of Plato's Republick to prove the Resurrection and a Judgment in the Life to come yet he quotes never an Author and was contented to argue the Case by strength of Reason and this he did with that force that he converted one of the Judges of Areopagus who probably was an Epicurean and knew what Plato said in his Books and did laugh at it This Method of the Apostles was followed by the first Christians Plato was not mentioned amongst them till some Philosophers turned Christians Justin Martyr amongst others This Justin scorned all other Philosophers as mean-spirited Teachers but commended Plato as being one of a great Genius that made him think of God and the Immortality of the Soul in a more elevated manner than other Philosophers But when all is done How much did he value Plato But indifferently He declares that it was from the Gospel together with the Law and the Prophets that he had the true Notions of the Christian Religion He quotes Plato neither against the Heathens nor against the Jews If we had the Book he writ against Marcion who out of Plato's Writings had broach'd his detestable Opinions we might very probably have seen how little he valued Plato's Authority Tertullian who had read Justin's Book and who saw that both the Gnosticks and the Valentinians made much of Plato's Authority shews plainly how little he valued Plato when he says he was grown omnium haereticorum condimentarium the sawce which all Hereticks used to propagate their Doctrines by which they corrupted the Purity of the Christian Religion And much the same Opinion of Plato had they that opposed the Arian Heresy of which it is thought Origen was the first Broacher However I aver First That the first Christians were no more Platonists than the Jews that is did not use Plato's Notions in their System of Divinity They were so far from it that they declared that what they believed about the Trinity they had it from the Holy Writers Justin Apol. 2. Athenagoras p. 8 9. Theophilus of Antioch p. 100. Secondly It is false that any of the Ancient Christians made any other use of Plato than by shewing that Plato had borrowed from Moses the Doctrine he taught Justin in his Exhortation to the Greeks p. 18 22 24. Clemens of Alexandria Strom. l. 4. p. 517. and l. 5. p. 598. Paedag. l. 1. c. 6. Origen against Celsus l.
1. p. 16. l. 4. p. 198. l. 6. p. 275 279 308. l. 7. p. 351 and 371. Thirdly The very Heathen Authors own that Plato borrowed his Notions from Moses as Numenius who as Theodoret tells us did acknowledge that Plato had learnt in Egypt the Doctrine of the Hebrews during his stay there for 13 years Theod. Serm. 1. If any of the Ancient Fathers have quoted any thing out of Plato concerning the Trinity they look'd upon it not as Plato's Invention but as a Doctrine which he had either from Moses or from those who had it from him Not to say That in what manner soever Plato proposed this Doctrine it is much at one For his Notions about it are not very exact and no wonder since it was natural enough for a Greek to mix fabulous Notions with what he had from others and they to adulterate it The truth which we profess and draw from a Divine Original in this matter is not at all concerned with Plato's Visions And yet since the Notion of the Trinity could not possibly be framed by any mortal Man Two considerable Uses may be made of Plato's Notion about it First To shew That this Doctrine is not of Justin Martyr's Invention since Plato who lived five hundred Years before Justin had scattered some Notions of it in his Books which he had probably learned from the Jews or from some other Philosophers who conversed with the Jews And Secondly To make Men sensible that the greatest Scholars among the Heathens did not find so many Absurdities in it as the now Socinians do There is an Objection of greater moment than all the Objections which the Unitarian Authors can oppose to my using the Authority of the Judgment of the Old Synagogue and I will not dissemble it although they have not been sensible of it It is the Authority of St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy and Titus where he rejects with an abhorrence the Jewish Fables and Genealogies as the fruits of the falsly named Knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. vi 20 21. which he compares with a Cancer I acknowledg freely that Ireneus Lib. 1. c. 20. and Tertul. adv Valentin understood those expressions of St. Paul against the Gnosticks of their time who were come from Simon Magus And I acknowledge with Grotius upon 1 Tim. i. 4. that by those infinite Genealogies which are spoken of by St. Paul as coming from a vain Philosophy and controverted by some of the Heretick Jews Saint Paul had a mind to speak against several Notions of the then new Jewish Cabbala which was in truth a mixture of the true Tradition of the Synagogue and of the Notions of the Platonists and Pythagoreans who had borrowed their Notions from the Egyptians And I will not insist now too much upon the judgment of those who think probably enough that the Egyptians had borrowed their Notions from the Jews But after all I maintain that this Objection against this part of the new Jewish Cabala which I mention as having such an impure birth and having been corrupted amongst the Jews doth not abate the authority of the proofs of the Trinity and of the Notions of the Messias which I have brought from all the Jewish Writers and which hath nothing common with those innumerable aeones which are mention'd by Ireneus and Tertullian as received by the Valentinians and which the Apostle St. Paul hath condemned in some of the Doctors of the Synagogue Let us suppose that there had been in the Body of the Synagogue before Jesus Christ some Sadducees and some Baithusaei whose Birth the Jews say was as old as that of the Sadducees but who seem not so ancient but to have their Origin from one Simon Boethus an Alexandrian Jew mentioned by Josephus Let us suppose that from the time of the Persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes some amongst the Jews had adopted some Platonick or Pythagorean Notions What is that to the Body of the Jewish Nation which was not included in Palestina or Egypt but spread every where To the contrary I maintain justly that when Saint Paul condemns the Jewish Genealogies he confirms all my Proofs from the Jewish Writers who did not ground their Ideas upon the Doctrine of Pythagoras or Plato but upon the Text of the Old Testament When St. Paul hath used the same Notions which are in the Apocryphal Books in Philo and in the Chaldee Paraphrases which no body accuses to have used those foolish Genealogies which were found amongst the Valentinians and are to be found now amongst some of the Cabbalists he hath secured my Argument taken from the pure Traditional Exposition of the Ancient Jews this is all I have a mind to contend for in this matter leaving those Cabbalists who have mixed some heathenish Notions with the Ancient Divinity of the Fathers to shift for themselves and being not concerned in all their other Speculations although since they have quite forgot this impure Origin they have very much laboured to uphold them upon some Texts of Scripture but not well understood and taken in another sense CHAP. XXIV An Answer to some Objections of the Modern Jews and of the Unitarians THAT the Reader may be fully satisfied of the Truth which I have asserted by so many proofs taken out of the Apocryphal Books of the Chaldee Paraphrasts and out of Philo the most ancient Jewish Author we have as to expounding the Scripture I must solve some difficulties made by the Modern Jews and Socinians about the use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so frequent amongst the ancient Interpreters of Scripture Moses Maimonides who lived about the end of the Twelfth Century affirms that the word Memra which in Chaldaick is the same as that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek was made use of by the ancient Paraphrasts on purpose to prevent Peoples thinking God had a Body More Nevoch Lib. 1. c. 21. He says also that for the same reason they often used the words Jekara Glory Shekinah Majesty or habitation But he does manifestly wrong them For if it had been so they would have used that caution on other occasions whereas they often render places of Scripture where mention is made only of the Lord by these words before the face of the Lord which are apt to make people fancy God as being Corporeal Besides if what he says were true they would have used the same caution where ever the Notion of his being Corporeal might be attributed to God But it is certain that in many places as apt to give that Notion of God they do not use the word Memra or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as certain that in many others they use it where there is no danger of fancying God as having a Body As Gen. xx 21. Exod. ii 25. Exod. vi 8. Exod. xix 17. Lev. xxvi 46. Numb xi 20. Numb xxiii 21. and in many more quoted by Rittangel on Jetzira pag. 96. and in his Book Libra
than he usually rendered which yet he did for great reasons One great Objection of the Socinian Author which he much insists upon is that the Christians never quoted the Authority of the Targum against the Jews before Galatinus who lived at the beginning of the 16th Century But that since him Heinsius Vechnerus and some others followed him in that fancy Supposing this to be true I cannot see what advantage it would be to him Put case the Ancients were not capable Scholars enough to peruse the Jewish Books can this ever prejudice truth And ought not they to be received how late soever they come by whose care soever they be vindicated and asserted But it is absolutely false that Christians before Galatinus have nothing of the Jewish Opinions about this matter I shewed in the vii Chap. of this Book that Ribera and others which would have these Paraphrases to be written after St. Jerome are much mistaken And consequently this Socinian Author who followed them and Vorstius in his Notes on Tsemach David was also mistaken about the Antiquity of the Targums But our Socinian says if they are so ancient how comes it to pass that they have not been quoted by the Christians that disputed against the Jews in ancienter Times They were very few of ancient Christians that writ upon these matters And of them yet fewer understood the Chaldee or even the Hebrew Tongue most of them rested upon the Authority of Philo of the Book of Wisdom and of other Authors who were famous among the Jews before Christ and who had writ full enough upon this Subject as may be seen by what Eusebius quotes out of them And no doubt those places of Philo and those other Jewish Writers were well known to Clemens of Alexandria and to Origen whose Work Eusebius much followed as appears by reading his Books and as he himself does acknowledge The Socinian Author affirms too positively that Galatinus is the first that used that Authority of the Targums He must not suppose a thing which is absolutely false Origin lib. 4. in Celsum speaks of a Dispute between Jason and Papiscus in which saith Origin Christianus ex Judaicis Scriptoribus cum Judaeo describitur disputans plane demonstrans quae de Christo extant vaticinia Jesu ipsi congruere c. What were those Writings of the Jews but the Targums who had translated Becocma for Breschith according to the Jewish Notion which I have explained so many times and for which St. Jerome reflects upon Jason who hath quoted the Targums as if he hath read them in Hebrew Besides it appears by Justin the Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho That in his time some Jews had already endeavoured to invalidate the Proofs taken out of Scripture in their so frequent Stile about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we see them in the Targums For Justin undertakes to prove that the Word is not barely an Attribute in God nor an Angel but a Person and a true Principle of Action And this he proves by his Apparitions and by other Characters and Signs of a real Person such as are his executing his Father's Counsels his being his Off-spring and his Son properly so called Here I must add one thing which is that St. Jerome hath express'd the Sense of the Targum in many places especially upon the Prophets which Sense he had no doubt from the learned Jews whom he had consulted and they from the Targums I confess that Jerome never made his business to write against the Jews nor did any other Christian that was ever able to make use of the Targums Some indeed of the Fathers took the pains to learn Hebrew because the Old Testament was writ in that Language but those were very few and none of them ever troubled himself with the Chaldee St. Jerome himself how skilful soever in the Hebrew understood not the Chaldee as appears by his Writings The first that set himself to beat the Jews with their own Weapons was Raimundus Martini a convert Jew who lived about the Year of Christ 1260. He writ a Book against them call'd Pugio Fidei which shews he had well studied their Rabbins and he makes use of their Targums to very good purpose Out of this Book there was another compos'd and call'd Victoria adversus Judaeos by Porchetus Salvaticus that is said to have lived in the next Century Neither of their Books was much considered in those ignorant times wherein they lived So that when Learning came more in request one might venture to make use of their labours and set them forth as his own with little danger of being discover'd This very thing was done by Galatinus who lived about the end of the Fifteenth Century He did with great Impudence almost transcribe his Notions and the Arguments against the Jews out of that Work of Porchetus without so much as mentioning his Name That Socinian mentions the Pugio in the close of that Book against Vechner by which it may be supposed he read that Book of Raimundus above mentioned Which if he did and consider'd it with Galatinus he could not but see that this Work of Galatinus was as to the main of it a Stream from that Fountain of Raimund's Pugio And if he saw it he did very disingenuously in making Galatinus the first among Christians that made use of the Jewish Notions The last Objection of the Unitarians against what I have proved about the Word's being a Person from the consent of the Chaldee Paraphrases when they speak of the Memra of the Lord and his Actions is made by the same Socinian Author who affirms that in the Targums the Memra implies no more than that God works by himself because the word Memra is used of Men as well as of God I will not deny but that here and there in the Targums the word Memra has that Sense as Hacspan well observes in his Notes on Psalm cx and produces many Instances of it to which many more might be added But when all is done this Objection much the same with that of Moses Maimonides can't absolutely take away that force of those Texts where the Memra is used of God and to be satisfied of this it is but making the following Reflexions First That Philo one of the most famous Jews of Egypt very well apprehended and clearly declared That by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which answers to the Hebrew Memra the old Jews understood a real Principle of Action such as we call a Person Secondly That the Jewish Authors more ancient than Philo had the very same Notion of it as may be seen in the Book of Baruch and in that of Wisdom the Notions of which Philo has clearly followed in his Book de Agric. apud Euseb de Proepar Evang. pag. 323. And Lastly That even since Christ the Cabalistical Authors followed and to this day do follow the same Notion making use of those places where the Memra and the Cochma that is
him or which may not from the circumstances of the Text be well explained otherwise This is his Position in examination of Gen. xlix 10. where he doth his utmost to evade the Text v. 10. The Scepter shall not depart from Judah c. 3. He looks on the Article of the Messias's Coming to be a matter of that small importance to the Jews that he leaves it doubtful whether the Messias be come since the time of Onkelos their famous Paraphrast who expresses his expectation of this Promise in many places of the Books of Moses and if he be not already come whether he shall come in the Glory of the Clouds of Heaven or whether he shall come poor and riding on an Ass and because of Men's sins not distributing those great Blessings promised at his Coming nor Men on the other hand regarding him as the Messias Certainly R. Lipman in his Nitzachon where he examines the above mentioned Text Gen. xlix 10. advances a Rule which quite overthrows all Proofs from the Holy Scripture This Rabin seeing the Jews give such opposite Interpretations of Jacob's Prophecy concerning the Scepter 's continuance in Judah as were impossible to be reconciled some understanding Empire by the Scepter and some Slavery and oppression he lays this down for a Maxim That the Law was capable of divers Explications and all of them though never so incompatible and contradictory were nevertheless the words of the Living God This is very near the Sentiment of R. Menasseh Ben Israel in his Questions on Genesis where he collects the several Jewish Expositions of this Text. But granting this once for a Principle it is in vain to consult the Scriptures or to think of ever discovering the meaning of them The sense of them must absolutely depend on the Authority of the Rabins and what they teach must be all equally received as the Word of God though they teach things contradictory to one another Such Positions put one to a loss whether their blindness or their spite is therein most to be pitied CHAP. XXVII That the Unitarians in opposing the Doctrines of the Trinity and our Lord's Divinity do go much further than the Modern Jews and that they are not fit persons to convert the Jews WHAT I have observed of the alteration made by the Modern Jews in their Belief is enough to shew that they were forced to adopt new Notions because of the evident Proofs drawn from the Opinions of their Ancestors which the Christians used against them The very same prevarication may be charged on the Socinians in their Explications of those places of Scripture that prove the Blessed Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour And 1st They have borrowed many of the Jews answers to the Christians and often carried them much further than the Jews themselves did intend them 2dly They have invented the way of accommodation for the evading of those Quotations in the New Testament that are taken out of the Old Testament as finding this the most effectual means to escape those difficulties which they can no other way resolve 3dly The Unitarians especially those of England to make short work do not stick to assert that the Christians have foisted those Texts into the Gospel which speak of the Trinity and the Divinity of our Lord. It is fit I should give particular Instances of each of these in proof of what I say Smalcius * De Divin Chr. c. 10. maintains in the general That the Books of the Old Testament are of little use for the Conversion of the Jews He gives this reason for it That almost all that which is said to be spoken of the Messias in the Old Testament must be interpreted mystically before it can appear to be spoken of him and by consequence very remotely from what the words do naturally signify Then in particular When we would prove a Plurality of Persons in the Deity against the Jews from those Expressions of Scripture that speak of God in the Plural Number although the Jews as you may see in their Comments on Gen. i. 26. xi 7. and especially on Isa vi 8. are forced to own that a Plurality is imported in those Expressions and therefore pretend that the Number is Plural because God speaks of himself and the Angels his Counsellors yet the Socinians as Enjedinus witnesses for them do deny that these Plural Expressions do denote any Plurality in the Deity no more than Expressions in the Singular Number do As for Socinus he solves it by a Figure by which as he saith a single Person speaks plurally when he excites himself to do any thing A Figure of which we have no Example in the Writings of the Old Testament Socinus has followed the Jews Evasion on the words Gen. iii. 22. Behold the Man is as one of Us in maintaining that God does herein speak of himself and of the Angels And Smalcius has followed him in this Solution The very same Eplication they give of the words Gen. xi 7. Let us go down and confound their Language borrowing entirely the Subterfuge of the Jews who at this day teach that God spoke it to the Angels Crellius on Gal. iii. 8. espouses the Jewish Sense of the Text Gen. xii 3. In thee shall all the Families of the Earth be blessed by which he overthrows the force of St. Paul's Citation and makes it nothing to the purpose He supposes that St. Paul did herein allude only to the Passage in Genesis but on the contrary it appears that he followed the Literal Sense as we have it Gen. xii 3. xviii 18. xxii 18. xxvi 4. xxviii 14. and as the Ancient Cabalists do acknowledge at large in Reuchlin L. 1. Smalcius ch 2. Ib. asserts That the Promise of the Seed of the Woman Gen. iii. 5. can very hardly be understood of the Messias And yet the Ancient Jews acknowledged it in their Targum of Jerusalem and by the Cabalists Tikunzoh 21. fol. 52. col 2. Bachaie fol. 13. col 3. in Gen. Schlichtingius affirms that Psal xlv does literally relate to Solomon and that this is its first and principal sense Altho the Ancient Jews do all agree that it treats of the Messias and cannot be understood of Solomon Socinus persuading himself that St. Paul cites Heb. i. 6. from Psal xcvii 8. And let all the Angels of God worship him does maintain that he cites it in the mystical Sense because Jesus Christ could not be adored by the Angels before he was advanced to be their Head And yet the Jews of old did refer it to the Messias adding these words in the end of Moses's Song Deut. xxxii as we see there in the LXX Version from whence it was indeed that St. Paul took the words in Heb. i. 6. Again Socinus to rid himself of Psal xxiv where according to the Ancient Jews Opinion the Messias is spoken of does pretend that the Messias is not meant here in this Psalm or at least he is
but God only adding that the Holy Writers of the New Testament in applying them to Jesus Christ turned these Texts to quite another sense than was intended by the Holy Spirit at the inditing of them The Prophet Isaiah again has these words ch xxxv 4 5 6. Behold your God will come and save you c. Sal Jarchi and D. Kimchi expound them of the Deliverance from Babylon contrary to the ancient Jews opinion who as these Rabbins confess understood them of the Messias The Socinians will not deny that Jesus Christ assumed them to himself but to shew how little ground he had for so doing they insist on it that he only accommodated the words to himself The same Isaiah writes thus ch xli 4. I am the first and the last and Jesus Christ has the same expressions of himself Rev. i. 17. The Chaldee Paraphrast thought they belonged so properly to the True God as to Paraphrase them in this manner I am the Lord Jehovah who created the World in the beginning and the Ages to come are all mine Joseph Albo makes this Text a proof of the Eternity of God and notes that it is a parallel Text to Isa xliv 6. But if you 'l have Socinus opinion of the place when it is applied to our Lord Jesus Christ it does not at all regard his Eternity Once more we read Isa xlv 23. I have sworn by my self the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness that unto me every knee shall bow every tongue shall swear St. Paul refers these words to Jesus Christ Rom. xiv 11. nay he proves our standing before Christ's Judgment-seat by this Quotation Notwithstanding the Socinians believe them only a simple accommodation and not the prime scope of the Text. I know the Apostles have sometimes cited Texts from the Old Testament which have not their exact accomplishment in that sense wherein they are used As for example 2 Cor. viii 15. St. Paul exhorting the Corinthians to supply the wants of their Brethren with their abundance addeth As it is written He that had gathered much had nothing over and he that had gathered little had no lack Thus alluding to the History of the Manna Exod. xvi 18. it is plain that he accommodates that Story to the Beneficence of the Christians without any thing either from Letter or Allegory to justifie this accommodation They who think that John ch xix 37. does allude to Exod. xii 46. Neither shall you break a bone thereof go upon this ground that Christ was typified by the Paschal Lamb and therefore what was spoken of the Paschal Lamb is truly applicable to Christ But some others believe that St. John cited this passage from Psal xxxiv 21. and applies what David saith of all the just in general to the Messias who is often called the Just One as being eminently so I know that some think that a Prophecy which has been already accomplish'd literally was accommodated by the Holy Penmen to a like event And thus they think St. Matthew ch ii 17. applies the voice that was heard at Ramah and Rachel's weeping for her Children to those Expressions of sorrow used by the Women of Bethlehem when Herod slew their Children Although this Prophecy was before accomplished in the Captivity of Judah and Benjamin under Nebuchadnezzar But besides what I have said upon such places the Examples of this nature are but few and those may be easily discerned by a careful Reader from such Citations as are not Accommodations but Proofs and for the Texts which are commonly and generally quoted by the Holy Writers they expose the Books of the New Testament to the scorn and contempt of Jews who suppose that the Apostles went about to make Converts from the Synagogue by such passages of the Old Testament as had nothing of strength or reason to convince any Man for such are the places quoted by way of Accommodation and let any one but consult the Writings of the Jews against Christianity and he will find that the main Argument they make use of against the Proofs brought by the Apostles is that the passages they cite were never designed by the Spirit to that purpose Literally taken but were only made use of by them by way of Accommodation But the most wonderful thing of all in the Unitarians management of this Controversie especially in our English Unitarians is this that they do not only side with the Jews and dress up their sense of those Texts of the Old Testament which are cited in the New as Proofs of our Lords Divinity or which are objected in confirmation of the Holy Trinity and that they have not been content to bring in the Notion of Accommodation to elude the force of those Quotations on which the Apostles grounded several Doctrines but for the most part they give broad intimations as if the New Testament Writings were on purpose falsified by the Christians and many things there inserted which were never thought of by the Authors of those Writings If they could have made good this accusation it would have saved them a great deal of pains which it has cost them to find out Answers to the several Objections proposed to them 'T is the most easie natural and shortest way to joyn with the Deists in destroying the Authority of the Gospel and to endeavour to shew that nothing certain can be drawn from thence seeing that since the Apostles Times the Christian Faith hath been corrupted and new Doctrines have been foisted into their Books which from the beginning were not there For my part I see no other way left them for the defence of their bad Cause But by ill luck Socinus has stopped their retreat even to this last Refuge by the Treatise he writ concerning the Authority of the Holy Scriptures When they have solidly refuted this Book of their great Leader it will be then time to take their Charge against the Sacred Books into more particular consideration Let them do this when they will We promise them when they have done it to reproach them no more with Socinus's Authority in defence of the Integrity of the Scripture But for the present we refer them to the Book of a famous Mahometan called Hazzadaula who has handled this matter with length and force enough to confound both the Unitarians and Deists I mean his third Book of the comparison of the three Laws the Jewish Christian and Mahometan of which there is an Extract in Jos de Voisin de Lege Divina in a Letter from Gabriel Syonita It has been thought by some that Mahomet and his Followers did accuse the Jews and Christians of corrupting the Old and New Testament Writings But we see this Accusation is proved false by such as have managed the Controversie against Mahometanism And the more knowing Mahometans do insult the Christian Missionaries for charging it on them when Mahomet accused the Christians only for wresting several passages in Scripture and putting a false
and forced sense on them But with what face the Mahometans can object this I know not when they themselves do so grosly pervert the passages in Deut. xxxiii 33. Hab. iii. 3. Deut. xviii and xxxiv in favour of Mahomet and his Law and in favour of Mahomet only many Texts in Isaiah Ezekiel Zephany and other Prophets as you may see them alledged by Hazzadaula in his Fourth Book but especially when they urge all those places in St. John's Gospel where the Paraclete is spoken of as so many Promises of Mahomet's coming I must confess some warm indiscreet Mahometans in dispute with the Christians have given them occasion to believe that the Mahometans generally accused the Christians with falsifying their Scriptures Just as the petty Controvertists of the Church of Rome have impudently averred the Scripture to be corrupt in many places the better to establish their Church's Authority And thus we find Ahmed the Mahometan charging both Jews and Christians with altering of their Bibles Hotting Hist p. 364. But as there are in the Roman Church Men wiser and calmer that see the consequences of so rash an Accusation and have therefore proved unanswerably the Integrity of the Sacred Text so are there among the Mahometans more wary and cautious Disputants who despise and disallow those false Charges advanced by some of their party against the Jews and Christians Such a one was Hazzadaula in the Book before cited who solidly proves that by the care the Masorite Jews took to ascertain the Text of the Old Testament it was impossible they should be willing to corrupt it and that if they had been willing yet they were divided into so many Sects of unreconcileable hatred to one another as rendred it impossible for them to do it He then shews that the difference which is between the several Versions as between the Seventy and Syriack for Example was no prejudice to the Purity of the Text it self but that this arose from the several Views the Interpreters then had from the different Notions and senses they affixed to the Original words He then passes to the Examination of the various Readings which our Unitarians triumph in and shews that neither their number nor variety ought to diminish the Authority of the Originals He gives Reasons for his preference of the Jewish Bible to that of the Samaritans He proves the corruption of the Books of the Old Testament could not be made before Jesus Christ's time since he never reproached them for it which he would certainly have done had they been guilty of it nor could the corruption come in after Christ's time because the Jews and Christians who are such mortal Enemies have had these Books in keeping and daily read them though they interpret them very differently In a word we cannot easily meet with a more perfect Treatise on this Subject nor one more proper to refute the bold insinuations of some who under the name of Christians and Men skilled in Critical knowledg have undertaken to shake the Foundations of the Christian Religion and for this purpose would discredit the Authority of the Holy Scripture under the disguise of making it rest on the Authority of Tradition The Reader will I hope reflect on what I have said concerning the conduct of the Socinians in their Disputes with us relating to the Divinity of Christ To which I may add that some of them less modest though more sincere than Socinus being convinced that no Answer could be given to the Quotations from the Old Testament that were used in Proof of our Lord's Divinity thought fit to reject the Epistle to the Hebrews which contains those Quotations as an Apocryphal Piece This Enjedinus has done and thought it a quick way to deliver himself at once of many difficulties from which otherwise he could not extricate himself For had he believed Socinus's Answers Satisfactory he had never betaken himself to this last and desperate shift Others of whom Mr. N. is one do suppose that whatever makes for the advantage of the Trinitarians Cause is all forged And so they abandon the fanciful Explications Socinus has given of the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel as having no need of them so long as they can make one believe that the Trinitarians have foisted into the New Testament whatever they pleased This is still a shorter answer than the former The first rendred one particular Book only useless to the Trinitarians but this makes all those Books of the New Testament useless from whence any Objection may be drawn against the Unitarians What end the Socinians have in these dangerous attempts whether to facilitate the Conversion of the Jews as they pretend or to do service to the Atheists and Deists as it seems to be their real design is worthy every Christian 's serious enquiry If they intend the Conversion of the Jews we may well demand of them what way they will take to effect it Smalcius one of their chief Writers has affirmed that the Books of the Old Testament are of little use to convert the Jews De Div. Chr. c. x. already quoted His reason is because if we interpret any Text in the Old Testament of Jesus Christ we must interpret it Mystically that is according to quite another sense than that which the words do naturally import And now admitting this to be true what use can a Socinian make of the Old Testament against the Jews Sommerus and Francis David whose Opinions as to the denial of the Worship of Jesus Christ are embraced by Mr. N. being forced to own that the Author of the Book of Proverbs did ascribe a Son to God ch xxx 4. and yet being not willing to acknowledg it as a truth took the readiest way to defeat the Authority of this Book and placed it among the Apocryphal Writings One should wonder how such Socinians are like to be Converters who call the Jews Canon of the Scriptures into question and consequently leave no Books from whence as from a common Principle they may on each side deduce their reasonings As for the Books of the New Testament what use can they make of them Yes very great saith the Socinian If the Books of the New Testament were reformed and those Patches intirely taken from them which were never written by the Apostles though added under their Names such as the Epistle to the Hebrews which was brought in after the year 140. of Christ and stuffed with Doctrines of a Trinity and Christ's Divinity contrary to the Faith of Jesus Christ and his Apostles and the Primitive Christians then we might hope to have success in the Conversion of the Jews But in truth they are not likely to succeed with their reformed Socinian Gospel so well as they would have us believe For 't is reasonable to think that every Jew of common sense would retort the Book on themselves and tell them frankly This is not the Christians Gospel from whence you offer to convince me this
mouths and which was near really in their hearts Come let us kill him and let us seise on his inheritance And not only out of hatred but out of policy also they opposed him that they might keep themselves safe and quiet They lookt for a Conquering Messias who should subdue all Nations and bring all their Enemies under them But here they saw Christ a Man destitute of all human succours necessary to bring about so great a design They thought it therefore more advisable to set him aside without following his Doctrine than to espouse a Quarrel which might incense the Romans against them and cause the ruin of their Nation This they meant by saying The Romans shall come and take away both our place and Nation To be satisfied of this one ought to observe that Speculative Doctrines are not the common Rules of publick Deliberations and Counsels Let the Papists be an instance of it They proceed in their decisions upon the Principle of the Pope's Infallibility when at the same time hardly any one of them believes it and many do confute it both by reasons and matters of fact not to be answered The Jews likewise though they knew themselves to be fallible enough yet Papists like they acted in their publick Assembly as if they had been infallible And this was enough to satisfie those who could not distinguish or would not further inquire into the business which was the case of most ordinary people Accordingly of the two Thieves that were Crucifyed with Christ one had observed the Injustice of that violent hatred the Jews had for him But the other curs'd him looking on him as a false Prophet justly condemned by the greatest Authority known to him in the World Lastly It is certain that when a decision is once made the People for the most part do not much inquire into the justice or reasonableness of it but quietly acquiesce in it and relye upon the Authority of those who made it The Jews had a particular reason to do so being assured that their Religion came from God and not seeing any danger in professing it as it was delivered to them by their Forefathers And this is now the only reason they have for professing Judaism Neither is it to be wondered at that the Notions the old Jews had of it should make but little impression on their minds no more than the Doctrines of their Doctors which they call Cabalists because they follow the Traditions of the old Synagogue For their late Teachers moved by a spirit of contradiction have raised many new Questions about the Characters of the Messias and other like Articles of Religion controverted between them and the Christians by which they have plunged their People into inextricable difficulties and they are so exasperated now against us that they can hardly be calm enough to take notice of those visible Contradictions which may be seen between their ancient Writers and their now Doctors writing upon the same subject They deny now adays what the old Jews freely granted and their whole study is to keep their People in a blind submission to their Authority Insomuch that they have this Maxim amongst them that the People are obliged to believe that the right Hand is the left when their Rabbies have once so declared But I shall make some more particular Reflections upon the proceedings of the now Jews and shew that their obstinacy is altogether unreasonable and that there is no fairness at all in their way of disputing against Christians CHAP. XXIII That the Jews have laid aside the Old Explications of their Forefathers the better to defend themselves in their Disputes with the Christians Eus dem Ev. Lib. iv 1. IT hath been long since observed by Eusebius that the Jews have varied from the belief of their Fathers as to the sense of several places in the Old Testament and it is no more than they themselves freely own in their Disputes with us The spirit of Disputation hath wrought much the same effect among the Papists as Maldonat was not ashamed to confess on St. John ch vi Of this alteration in the Jewish Sentiments which is acknowledged by one of the Socinian Writers viz. Volzogeniùs in Luc. xxiv 27. R. Salomon Jarchi fully witnesses He was the most famous Commentator the Jews had about five hundred years ago yet he in his Exposition of Psal xxi 1. hath these words Our Masters did understand this Psalm of the Messias as indeed they did Gemar on Talm. tr Massechet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch v. Targ. on this Psalm ver 8 18. but it is better to understand it of David himself that we may the more easily reply to the Hereticks that abuse some passages in it But this is not the only place where the Jews have changed the faith of their ancient Masters There are many others examples of it some of the chief of which I shall produce after I have observed the several degrees by which they arrived to so wide a disagreement with their Ancestors 1. Their Doctors as I have already noted did early introduce new Notions of several Texts of the Old Testament I speak not now of their Fabulous fancies only such as that of Philo who Lib. de Septenar supposes the Voice of God uttered on Mount Sinai to have been heard in all parts of the World to which the Jews Pirke Eliez c. 41. Tankuma fol. 73. col 1. have added many more new conceits but I speak of such their Explications as were contrary to and in effect did overthrow the ancient Notions of the Prophets As for instance where Philo seems in some manner to maintain the Transmigration * Lib. de Somn. pag. 455. of Souls where he delivers the Doctrine of the Souls Preexistence before the Body †De Mund. p. 891. where he seems to hint the Eternity of Matter according to Plato * Mund. op p. 214. De mund Incor pag. 728. A. De Viat off p. 669. F. although it is certain in his Treatise of Providence he doth assert the Creation of Matter 2ly It is observable that after the Emperour Hadrian's time some of the Jews who expected the Messias according to Daniel's Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks but were out in their Accounts of those Weeks had almost intirely lost the hopes of his coming This we gather from the History of R. Hillel in Gemara tit Sanhed fol. 98. col 2. fol. 99. col 1. who maintained that the Promise of the Messias was accomplished in the Person of Hezekiah and that there was no more Messiah to be expected by the Jews Now they say that this Hillel was the Grandson to R. Juda the Compiler of the Misna 3. We see how careless they have been in preserving the Apocryphal Books formerly in esteem with them and which indeed but for the Christians had totally perished Philo has borrowed some of his Notions in his 2d Book of Agriculture and let any