The Truth of the Christian Religion with Jean Le Clerc's Notes and Additions. Hugo Grotius

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ antient (b) Attick Laws, from whence the <25> Roman were afterwards taken, owe their Original to the Law of Moses.

      [print edition page 49]

Sect. XVI. From Foreign Testimonies.

      To these we may add the Testimony of a great Number, who were Strangers to the Jewish Religion, which shows that the most ancient Tradition among all Nations, is exactly agreeable to the Relation of Moses. For his Description of the Original of the World, is almost the very same as in the (a) ancient Phoenician Histories which are tran-<26>slated by Philo Biblius

      [print edition page 50]

      [print edition page 51]

      from Sanchuniathon’s Col-<27><28>lection; and a good Part of it is to be found (a) among the Indians (b) and Egyptians; whence it is,

      [print edition page 52]

      <29><30> that, (a) in Linus, (b) Hesiod, and many other <31> Greek Writers, mention is made of a Chaos, (sig-<32>nified by some under the Name

      [print edition page 53]

      [print edition page 54]

      of an Egg,) and of the framing of Animals, and also of Man’s Formation after the Divine Image, and the Dominion given him over all living Creatures; which are to be seen in many Writers, particularly (a) in <33> Ovid,

      [print edition page 55]

      [print edition page 56]

      who transcribed them from the Greek. That <34> all Things were made by the Word of God, is <35> asserted by (a) Epicharmus, and (b) the

      [print edition page 57]

      Platonists; <36> and before them, by the most antient Writer, (I do not mean of those Hymns which go under his Name,) but of those Verses which were (a) of Old called Orpheus’s; not because Orpheus composed

      [print edition page 58]

      them, but because they contained his Doctrines. (a) And <37> Empedocles acknowledged, that the Sun was not the Original Light, but the Receptacle of Light, (the Storehouse and Vehicle of Fire, as the antient Christians express it.) (b) Aratus, and (c) Catullus thought the Divine Residence was above the starry Orb; in which, Homer says, there is a continual Light. (d) Thales taught from the antient Schools, That God was the oldest of Beings, because not Begotten; that the World was most beautiful, because the Workmanship of God; that Darkness was before Light, which latter we find (e) in Orpheus’s Verses, (f) and Hesiod; whence it was, that (g) the <38> Nations who were most tenacious of antient

      [print edition page 59]

      Customs, reckoned the Time by Nights. (a) Anaxagoras affirmed, that all Things were regulated by the Supreme Mind; (b) Aratus, that the <39> Stars were made by God; (c) Virgil, from the Greeks, that Life was infused

      [print edition page 60]

      into Things by the Spirit of God; (a) Hesiod, (b) Homer, <40> and (c)

      [print edition page 61]

      Callimachus, that Man was formed of Clay; lastly, (a) Maximus Tyrius asserts, that it <41> was a constant Tradition received by all Nations, that there was One Supreme God, the Cause of all Things. And we learn (b) from Josephus, (c) Philo, (d) Tibullus, (e) Clemens Alexandrinus, and (f)

      [print edition page 62]

      Lucian (for I need not mention the Hebrews) that the Memory of the Seven Days Work was preserved not only among the Greeks and Italians, by honouring the Seventh Day; but also (a) amongst the Celtae and Indians, who all measured the Time by Weeks; as we learn from (b) Philostratus, (c) Dion <42> Cassius, and Justin Martyr; and also (d) the most ancient Names of the Days. The Egyptians tell us, that at first Men led their Lives (e) in great Simplicity, (f) their Bodies being naked; whence arose the Poet’s Fiction of the Golden Age, famous among the Indians, (g)

      [print edition page 63]

      as Strabo remarks. (a) Mai-<43>monides takes notice, that (b) the History of Adam, of Eve, of the Tree, and of the Serpent, was extant amongst the idolatrous Indians in his Time: And there are many (c) Witnesses in our Age, who testify, that the same is still to be found amongst the Heathen dwelling in Peru, and the Phillippine Islands, People belonging to the same India; the Name of Adam amongst the Brachmans; and that it was reckoned (d) Six Thousand Years since the Creation of the World, by those of Siam. (e) Berosus in his History of Chaldea, Manethos in <44> his of Egypt, Hierom in his of Phoenicia, Hestiaeus, Hecataeus, Hillanicus in theirs of Greece; and Hesiod among the Poets; all assert, that the Lives of those who descended from the first Men, were almost a thousand Years in length; which is the less incredible, because the Historians of many

      [print edition page 64]

      Nations, (particularly (a) Pausanias and (b) Philostratus amongst the Greeks, and (c) Pliny amongst the <45> Romans) relate, that (d) Mens

      [print edition page 65]

      Bodies, upon opening their Sepulchres, were found to be much larger in old time. And (a) Catullus, after many of the <46> Greeks, relates, that divine Visions were made to Men before their great and manifold Crimes did as it were, hinder God and (b) those Spirits that attend him, from holding any Correspondence with Men. We almost every where (c) in the Greek and (d) Latin Historians, meet with the Savage Life of the Giants, mentioned by Moses. And it is very remarkable concerning the Deluge, that the Memory of almost all Nations ends in the History of it, even those Nations which were unknown till our Forefathers discovered them: (e) So that Varro calls all that the unknown Time. <47> And all those

      [print edition page 66]

      Things which we read in the Poets wrapped up in Fables, (a Liberty they allow themselves,) are delivered by the ancient Writers according to Truth and Reality, that is, agreeable to Moses; as you may see in Berosus’s (a) History of Chaldea, (b) Abydenus’s of <48><49> Assyria, (c) who mentions

      [print edition page 67]

      the Dove that was sent out of the Ark; and in Plutarch from the Greeks; (a) and in Lucian, who says, that in Hierapolis of <50> Syria, there

      [print edition page 68]

      was remaining a most antient History of the Ark, and of the preserving a few not only of Mankind, but also of other living Creatures. The same History was extant also in (a) СКАЧАТЬ