Hugo Grotius · 21 of 132

SECT. XVI. From foreign testimonies.

TO these we may add the testimony of a great number, who were strangers to the Jewish religion, which shews 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 ancient Phœnician histories, which are translated by Philo Biblius from Sanchuniathon’s collection; and a good part of it is to be found among the Indians and Egyptians; whence it is that in Linus, Hesiod, and many other 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 in Ovid, who transcribed them from the Greek: That all things were made by the word of God, is asserted by Epicharmus, and the Platonists; and before them, by the most ancient writer, I do not mean of those hymns which go under his name, but of those verses which were of old called Orpheus’s; not because Orpheus composed them, but because they contained his doctrines. And Empedocles acknowledged, that the sun was not the original light, but the receptacle of light, the storehouse and vehicle of fire, as the ancient Christians express it. Aratus and Catullus thought the divine residence was above the starry orb; in which, Homer says, there is a continual light. Thales taught, from the ancient 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 in Orpheus’s verses, and Hesiod; whence it was, that the nations, who were most tenacious of ancient customs, reckoned the time by nights. Anaxagoras affirmed, that all things were regulated by the Supreme Mind: Aratus, that the stars were made by God; Virgil, from the Greeks, that life was infused into things by the Spirit of God; Hesiod, Homer, and Callimachus, that man was formed of clay; lastly, Maximus Tyrius asserts, that it was a constant tradition received by all nations, that there was one supreme God, the cause of all things. And we learn from Josephus, Philo, Tibullus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and 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 amongst the Celtæ and Indians, who all measured the time by weeks; as we learn from Philostratus, Dion Cassius, and Justin Martyr; and also the most ancient names of the days. The Egyptians tell us, that at first met led their lives in great simplicity, their bodies being naked; whence arose the poet’s fiction of the golden age, famous among the Indians, as Strabo remarks. Maimonides takes notice, that 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 witnesses in our age, who testify that the same is still to be found amongst the heathen dwelling in Peru, and the Philippine islands, people belonging to the same India; the name of Adam amongst the Brachmans; and that it was reckoned six thousand years since the creation of the world, by those of Siam. Berosus, in his history of Chaldea; Manethos, in his of Egypt; Hierom, in his of Phœnicia; Hestiæus, Hecatæus, 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 nations (particularly Pausanius and Philostratus amongst the Greeks, and Pliny amongst the Romans) relate, that men’s bodies, upon opening their sepulchres, were found to be much larger in old time. And Catullus, after many of the Greeks, relates, that divine visions were made to men before their great and manifold crimes did, as it were, hinder God, and those spirits that attend him, from holding any correspondence with men. We almost every where, in the Greek and 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: so that Varro calls all that the unknown time. And all those 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 history of Chaldea, Abydenus’s of Assyria, who mentions the dove that was sent out of the ark; and in Plutarch from the Greeks; and in Lucian, who says, that in Hierapolis of Syria there was remaining a most ancient 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 Molo, and in Nicolaus Damascenus; which latter names the ark, which we also find in the history of Deucalion in Apollodorus: and many Spaniards affirm, that in several parts of America, as Cuba, Mechoacana, Nicaraga, is preserved the memory of the deluge, the saving alive of animals, especially the raven and dove; and the deluge itself in that part called Golden Castile. That remark of Pliny’s, that Joppa was built before the flood, discovers what part of the earth men inhabited before the flood. The place where the ark rested after the deluge, on the Gordyæan mountains, is evident from the constant tradition of the Armenians, from all past ages, down to this very day. Japhet, the father of the Europeans, and, from him, Ion, or, as they formerly pronounced it, Javon of the Greeks, and Hammon of the Africans, are names to be seen in Moses; and Josephus and others observe the like footsteps in the names of other places and nations. And which of the poets is it, in which we do not find mention made of the attempt to climb the heavens? Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, Solinus, speak of the burning of Sodom. Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, Philo Biblius, testify the ancient custom of circumcision, which is confirmed by those nations descended from Abraham, not only Hebrews, but also Idumæans, Ismaelites, and others. The history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, agreeable with Moses, was extant of old in Philo Biblius out of Sanchuniathon, in Berosus, Hecatæus, Damascenus, Artapanus, Eupolemus, Demetrius, and partly in the ancient writers of the Orphic verses; and something of it is still extant in Justin, out of Trogus Pompeius. By almost all which is related also the history of Moses, and his principal acts. The Orphic verses expressly mention his being taken out of the water, and the two tables that were given him by God. To these we may add Polemon: and several things about his coming out of Egypt, from the Egyptian writers, Manetho, Lysimachus, Chæremon. Neither can any prudent man think it at all credible that Moses, who had so many enemies, not only of the Egyptians, but also of many other nations, as the Idumæans, Arabians, and Phœnicians, would venture to relate any thing concerning the creation of the world, or the original of things, which could be confuted by more ancient writings, or was contradictory to the ancient and received opinions; or that he would relate any thing of matters in his own time, that could be confuted by the testimony of many persons then alive. Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, and Pliny, Tacitus, and, after them, Dionysius Longinus, (concerning loftiness of speech), make mention of Moses. Besides the Talmudists, Pliny and Apulcius speak of Jamnes and Mambres, who resisted Moses in Egypt. Some things there are in other writers, and many things amongst the Pythagoreans, about the law and rites given by Moses. Strabo and Justin, out of Trogus, remarkably testify concerning the religion and righteousness of the ancient Jews: so that there seems to be no need of mentioning what is found, or has formerly been found, of Joshua and others, agreeable to the Hebrew books; seeing that whoever gives credit to Moses, (which it is a shame for any one to refuse), cannot but believe those famous miracles done by the hand of God; which is the principal thing here aimed at. Now, that the miracles of later date, such as those of Elijah, Elisha, and others, should not be counterfeit, there is this further argument; that in those times Judæa was become more known, and, because of the difference of religion, was bated by the neighbours, who could very easily confute the first rise of a lie. The history of Jonah’s being three days in the whale’s belly is in Lycophron and Æneas Gazeus, only under the name of Hercules; to advance whose fame, every thing that was great and noble used to be related of him, as Tacitus observes. Certainly nothing but the manifest evidence of the history could compel Julian (who was as great au enemy to the Jews as to the Christians) to confess that there were some men inspired by the Divine Spirit amongst the Jews, and that fire descended from heaven, and consumed the sacrifices of Moses and Elias. And here it is worthy of observation, that there were not only very severe punishments threatened amongst the Hebrews, to any who should falsely assume the gift of prophecy, but very many kings, who by that means might have procured great authority to themselves; and many learned men, such as Esdras and others, dared not to assume this honour to themselves; nay, some ages before Christ’s time, nobody dared to do it. Much less could so many thousand people be imposed upon, in avouching a constant and public miracle, I mean that of the oracle, which shined on the high priest’s breast, which is so firmly believed by all the Jews to have remained till the destruction of the first temple, that their ancestors must of necessity be well assured of the truth of it.