Hugo Grotius · 20 of 132

SECT. XV. From the truth and antiquity of Moses.

THIS also gives the greatest credit imaginable to the writings of Moses, in which these miracles are recorded to posterity; that there was not only a settled opinion and constant tradition amongst the Jews that this Moses was appointed by the express command of God himself to be the leader and captain of this people; but also because, as is very evident, he did not make his own glory and advantage his principal aim, but he himself relates those-errors of his own, which he could have concealed; and delivered the regal and sacerdotal dignity to others, (permitting his own posterity to be reduced only to common Levites). All which plainly shew, that he had no occasion to falsify in his history; as the style of it further evinces, it being free from that varnish and colour, which uses to give credit to romances; and is very natural and easy, and agreeable to the matter of which it treats. Moreover, another argument for the undoubted antiquity of Moses’s writings, which no other writings can pretend to, is this, that the Greeks (from whom all other nations derived their learning) own, that they had their letters from foreigners; which letters of theirs have the same order, name, and shape, as the Syriac or Hebrew: and further still, the most ancient Attic laws, from whence the Roman were afterwards taken, owe their original to the law of Moses.