A VINDICATION. OF THE SACRED BOOKS AND OF JOSEPHUS AGAINST MR. VOLTAIRE. PART I. OF MR. VOLTAIRE'S INJURIES TO JOSEPHUS. I BEGIN with the injuries done by Mr. Voltaire to the Jewish hiftorian, and I take them all from his Philofophy of Hiftory, though I bring my proofs of the fucceeding parts of my complaint against him, not only from this, but from several other of his literary compofitions. It requires greater pains to justify the reproach of difingenuity and bad faith against our author here, that he seldom obliges his readers with any direction in what book and chapter of Jofephus's works, the paffages are to be seen which he profeffes to cite or build on. But with chearfulness I submit to the additional trouble which this vague and loofe manner of reference creates, that I may convict him of unfair dealing, and furnish an effectual caveat against a A blind dependance upon him, and a precipitate refignation of the understanding to the light he hangs out about those antient facts which have any connection, more immediate or more remote, with divine revelation. Perhaps fome may examine the charge of fuch abuse of a writer merely human, and allowed by all to be under no fuperior guidance, more impartially; and by finding it made good against him, may be more difpofed to listen to the fame accufation of him, for trying to mislead the world by falfe accounts and explications of those authors, whom Christians maintain to have been favoured with infpiration more or lefs plenary. SECTION I. Of his faying in Chapter twenty-fourth of his PHI LOSOPHY OF HISTORY, that the Jews called their city HERSHALAÏM, and that the Greeks altered it to JERUSALEM, according to JOSEPHUS. T C xxiv. C O enter then upon this branch of my task, I will firft remark upon his detail in chapter Jofephus himself, in the book against Appion, acknowledges that the Greeks could not pronounce the barbarous name of Jerufalem, because the Jews pronounced it Herfhalaïm: this word < grated the throat of an Athenian, and it was changed by the Greeks from Herfhalaïm to Jerufa'lem.' But where hath Jofephus faid that the Jews Page 116 of English Translation, printed at Glasgow 1766, which I always quote. * called the metropolis of their country Herfhalaïm ? or that the Greeks, unable to pronounce fo harsh a word, altered it into Jerufalem? I find indeed, in his first book againft Appion, he quotes a paffage from a treatise upon flecp by Cleanthes, a famous peripatetic philofopher, where Ariftotle is introduced, faying, That the region which the Jews poffefs is called Judea, and that the name of their city is very crabbed or uncouth, for they call it Jerufalem." And this I fuppofe to be the place Voltaire had in his eye, as it is the only one which feems to have any relation to the matter. But how far is it from affording any fufficient handle for his ftory? The plain found of the Hebrew term is lerufhalaïm, or Ícrushelem, as it is variously pointed. Accordingly, all Greek writers, both those who are now loft, in their teftimonies produced by Jofephus, as Manetho, Dius, Menander, Berofus, Lyfimachus, Hecataeus, Agatharcides, and those who are still preferved, as Strabo, Diodorus, &c. call it Ierofolyma, without any intimation that they made fuch an alteration as he speaks of, to accommodate it to the ears and lips of thofe among whom they lived. Even Lyfimachus, who had said that the first settlers in Judea named the city which they built and inhabited, Ierofula, from their carrying thither the spoils of t the temples of the gods, which he makes them to have deftroyed in their retreat from Egypt, confeffes, that their pofterity, having waxed powerful there, in process of time changed the name of the *Edit. Hudfon, fect 22. p. 1347, Oroμx wavu OKONIOV ESIT, 'Is ρυσαλήμ γαρ αυτην καλύσι. tibid. fect. 34. Quod ¡epa ceovannari, fays Hudson. city into Ierofoluma, that they might not, in its appellation, furnish any handle to upbraid them for fuch facrilegious plunder. The falfhood of that tale however, is easily manifefted by repeating Jofephus's obfervation with a view to confute it: This fine 'writer*, fays he, through his too keen defire to calumniate us, did not confider that we Jews do ⚫ not exprefs robbing temples by the fame word as the Greeks, for what more need be faid against one "who lies fo impudently?' And, in like manner, another of these writers whom Jofephus quotes, Agatharcides, exprefsly affirms +, That the natives or ' inhabitants of the country, called the city Ierofolu'ma;' as the attentive reader must have obferved Aristotle say, that the Jews called the city Ierufalem, in the paffage itself which Voltaire is thought to allude to.. Sect. 35. Edit. Hudf. O de γενναίος ὑπο πολλης το λοιδορειν ακρασίας και συνηκεν ὅτι ἱεροσυλειν και κατα την αυτην φωνην Ιεδαίοι τοις ̔Ελλησιν ονομαζομεν, &c. + Ibid. feft. 22. Ην καλειν Ιεροσολυμα συμβαίνει τις εγχωριες. SECTION II. Of his faying in Chapter twenty-fifth of the fame, that JOSEPHUS owns MINOS received his Laws from a God, where alfo DR. MIDDLETON's Affection, that he does not infift on any divine Authority of MOSES, nay that he had no inward Conviction of it, is confidered. BUT < 6 UT let us now proceed to the detection of a falfhood more important. Says Voltaire, chap. xxv.* Flavian Jofephus does not hesitate saying, that Minos received his laws from a god. This is ⚫ a little strange in a Jew, who, it should seem, ought to allow no other god than his own, unless he thought like the Romans his masters, and like all the first people of antiquity, who allowed the exiftence of all the gods of other nations.' With the fentiments of the Romans, and other idolatrous nations, on this point, I have at prefent no concern. My business now is only to enquire, whether Josephus hath allowed fuch divine authority to the lawgiver of Crete. This I confefs would appear to me not a little ftrange, as Voltaire pronounces it: but altogether inconfiftent with his character as a Jew, who profeffed to believe that Jehovah, the God of Ifrael, was the God of the univerfe, and that there was none befides. But there is no reason for imputing fuch an abfurdity to him. What he fays is Our lawgiver, Mofes, was not a juggler or impoftor, as < they fay, reviling us unjustly, but fuch a one as the C • See page 118. |