Theologoumena Pantodapa (Book V: De Theologiae Mosaicae Corruptione et Reparatione)

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On the Corruption and Restoration of Mosaic Theology

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The duration of the church before and after the Reformation — the state of the Reformed churches — the twofold defection of the Jewish church — the first, partial — its nature — the denial of the first foundation of Mosaic theology — the superstitious worship arising therefrom — this worship twofold, with respect to the object of worship and the means.

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I. This Mosaic worship, although it was not destined to be eternal, was nonetheless more permanent and stable than the condition of those drawing near to God through it. For just as we find that all others, from the laying of the world’s foundations, have fallen away in the course of time from the original divine institution and from the principles of theology with which they had been instructed, so we shall see this new nation of theologians entangled in the fellowship of the same wickedness. Now the theology of the Jewish church that made use of this worship had a twofold defection: a partial one, to be repaired by the renewal of God’s grace; and a final one, which the ultimate punishment in the complete destruction of the nation was destined to overtake. Moreover, since that church had once been divided into two parts — the one that embraced the ten tribes, and the other that had obtained the seat of the solemn worship of God as prescribed by God Himself — the former rushed into both kinds of defection more swiftly, and thus into perpetual ruin.

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II. The apostasy of the Jewish church took its beginning from some degree of defection from the divine truth as exhibited in those three theological foundations which we have set forth above. And there followed, as usually happens, a corruption of morals. For wherever men bind themselves by the wickedness of contemning divine truth, they immediately show themselves prone to all other crimes as well. For it is necessary that the morals of men collapse when every standard and foundation of true obedience lies cast aside and despised.

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III. Under the name of partial apostasy I reckon all errors, superstitions, idolatries, and other wickednesses of which the Jewish people were guilty from the first institution at various times up to the Babylonian captivity. From the Sinaitic institution to that captivity, that church had completed one thousand and seven years; and after being restored by the people returning from exile, it was destroyed by slaughter within six hundred years. It is generally the case that, just as no ecclesiastical reformation has perfectly expressed the original pattern, so no church will ever be found to have equaled the duration of its original constitution in a reformed state. I fear that the Reformed churches in Europe may serve as an example of this. We all acknowledge and lament that they never attained the perfection of the apostolic churches; for, hindered by very many earthly concerns, they have scarcely been able to extricate themselves successfully from those entanglements.

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[Running page header: 318 — Corruption of Mosaic Theology, Book V.] to extricate themselves. There are therefore many things that fill me with fear, lest they should continue adorned with that holiness and purity which they graciously attained for as great a span of time as those first churches endured — which we know nevertheless fell away. The causes and reasons for this fear we shall perhaps explain elsewhere. What we have said stands firm: entangled in the affairs and political conditions of nations and peoples, they were never able to drive far enough from themselves the morals, corruptions, and filth of the age. Hence in certain places not long ago illumined by divine truth, such confusion has now been reached that scarcely any semblance of an evangelical church remains; and to those whom it fell, by God’s gracious ordering, to pass their life under the discipline of the cross, the degenerate sons and grandsons of noble and heroic parents have long been nearly ruinous — men who, greedily gaping after the honors and riches of the age, by the most shameful defection from the profession of divine truth, have compelled very many to perish with them forever. I fear I speak all too truly:

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“Our fathers’ age, worse than our grandfathers’, has borne us, more wicked still, and soon to give forth offspring yet more vicious.” — Hor. Od. iii. 6, 46.

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IV. But to return from the digression. This partial defection had regard to those three foundations of Mosaic theology mentioned above. The first taught the complete fullness and perfection of the Holy Scriptures. This they sometimes either consigned to oblivion or counted as nothing. From that wickedness flowed all that infamous superstitious and arbitrary worship, so often most severely rebuked by the Holy Spirit on that account. For they deemed it right and lawful for themselves to devise whatever they most vainly supposed would serve to promote the worship of God — as though the glory of God were to be fashioned according to their own will and pleasure. The same madness still rages through the Christian world. Now to uproot this most pernicious error, God employed the extraordinary ministry of the prophets. And in order that the unmoved authority of that foundation of His worship, which they wickedly undermined, might stand firm — although there was no lack, as it may perhaps seem to us, of weightier charges He could bring against the idolatrous people — yet He presses them especially with this aggravation of impiety: that they observed in religious worship things “which He had not commanded, nor had they come up into His heart,” Jer. vii. 31, xix. 4, 5.

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V. Now the apostates defected from this theological foundation in two ways: first, with respect to the object of worship, and then with respect to the means. For, to speak of the first point, they adopted for their worship foreign gods besides the true God — together with Him, without Him, after Him. Now every worship of idols or foreign gods has joined to it either a tacit or an express denial of the true God. For however much idolaters may cloak His name, He does not wish to be counted among the number of gods. Since, moreover, the chief part of the initial defection of these theologians consisted in the wickedness of this foreign worship, it may not seem foreign to our purpose if I briefly enumerate the idols themselves which that people, subject to superstitions to a remarkable degree, worshipped in place of the living God — after I have first said a few things that must necessarily be premised.

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The idols of all nations worshipped by the Israelites — A brief survey of ancient Israelite geography — Which nations were known to them — Chaldea — Mesopotamia — Egypt — Arabia — Phoenicia — Syria — Canaan — The idols of those nations — The superstitious modes and means of worship. I. God most frequently complains through the prophets that His people wickedly worshipped the gods of all the nations everywhere, setting Him aside. It is evident, moreover, that this must be understood of the nations known to them; and the Holy Spirit Himself thus explains His meaning, 2 Reg. xvii. 15: "They followed," He says, "the nations that were round about them." It is fitting to set forth briefly in advance what those nations were, and how far the most ancient sacred geography extended. Abraham was originally from Ur of the Chaldeans. Chaldea has to the north Mesopotamia reaching to the Euphrates, to the east Susiana up to the Tigris, to the south the Persian Gulf, and to the west the Arabian Desert. There was no region they knew more thoroughly, especially since it was the capital of the Assyrian empire.

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II. From Chaldea, after crossing the river at God's command, the same Abraham withdrew to Aram Naharaim, that is, Mesopotamia. The region was most well-known by its situation between the most celebrated rivers, and was familiar to the Israelites for many reasons. From there Jacob had once taken his wives; and accordingly that people was the other branch of the nation's stock, to whose very borders the dominions of the Davidic empire once extended. They called Egypt Mitsraim, from the son of Ham, who occupied that land immediately after the Babylonian dispersion. A long servitude, while the nation was being formed, did not allow them to be ignorant of Ham; nor afterwards did the proximity of empire or commerce.

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III. They called Arabia in general Ereb; the Desert Arabia Kedar, Arabia Felix Seba, Arabia Petraea Aram Soba. In it the Ammonites, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, from their common ancestry, and the other inhabitants by reason of proximity and the wars waged against them, were well known to the Israelites. The Mediterranean Sea was to them the great sea; the western sea, and whatever lands lay beyond it, they called Tarshish, although the Seventy render that word variously, and in particular at Isa. xxiii. 1 as Carthage.

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IV. In the land of Canaan, knowledge of all the nations — both those that were either subjugated or destroyed by them in war, and those that survived that destruction and retained their own

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right — was most familiar to them. That all of Phoenicia, together with that part of Syria which borders on Arabia and is called Coele-Syria, which they scarcely distinguished from Arabia Petraea, became known to them is evident from the sacred

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histories. They did not come to know the Persians, or Elamites, until late, and that only very obscurely. Since, moreover, intercourse with the nations was forbidden to them, and they made use of navigation only very sparingly and for a century or two at most, it is no wonder that the remaining regions of the earth were unknown to them — just as they themselves were unknown to most peoples. They perhaps designated Eastern India by the name Ophir, all of Europe as Cethim, Greece as Phobel, Ionia as Javan, Media as Madai, Lydia as Lud, Africa as Put, Ethiopia as Lud, Spain as Cepharad, and Gaul as Sarphath. But of all these regions only a thin and obscure rumor reached them, so that what manner of life those peoples lived and what gods they worshipped remained entirely hidden from them. Therefore, being ignorant of Hellenism, that is, the superstition of Europe, they chose for themselves to worship and serve the gods, or idols, of the Eastern nations, as far as they knew them. For the Chaldeans were the originators of the cult of the Sun; the Teraphim came from Mesopotamia; they owed the Calves to Egypt. They were drawn into the wickedness of Baal-peor by the counsels of the Moabites and Midianites. Molech was the idol of the Ammonites. The Tyrians taught them the manifold worship of Baal; together with the Philistines they rendered religious honor to Beelzebub; ensnared by the wiles of the Syrians they learned the rites of Ashtaroth, or the queen of heaven; King Ahaz sacrificed to the unnamed gods of Damascus; and together with the Persians or others they began to mourn for Tammuz. And these things bring to light the true sense of very many passages in the prophets — especially Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Ezekiel — in which God complains that His people had defiled themselves with all the nations by spiritual adultery.

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V. Furthermore: they adopted all the superstitious rites which those nations employed in the worship of idols — however ridiculous, shameful, filthy, and abominable beyond what can be said or imagined — slavishly serving those very idols. They sacrificed horses to the Sun together with the Chaldeans and Persians; they worshipped the Hermetic Calf with dances and feasts, exactly as the Egyptians worshipped Apis. They imitated the Ammonites and Tyrians in the immolation of sons and daughters. They reproduced the Syrian libations made to Ashtaroth, with the wine and cakes which they offered to the queen of heaven. In a word: there was nothing so foolish or ridiculous, nothing so unspeakable or wicked, nothing so obscene or filthy that had ever been devised anywhere by the most senseless and accursed idolaters — or rather suggested to them by the prince of darkness — that they did not prefer it to the most holy and most pure worship of the living God.

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How false gods are appellatively called in Scripture — in the LXX: manufacta [things made by hand], abominationes [abominations], idola [idols], idola muta [mute idols], daemonia [demons], auguria [omens], vana [vanities], and others — with respect to their efficacy; with respect to their effects on the consciences of the superstitious; with respect to their material; with respect to their external form; material and

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I. The Old Testament sometimes expresses false gods collectively or appellatively; there are also places where it distinguishes them individually by their proper names. But collectively they are called by various names for various reasons. It is worthwhile to offer a sample of this variety.

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II. First, according to the truth of the matter, they are called gods that are not gods: 2 Chron. xiii. 9, "Whoever comes to consecrate himself shall be a priest to no-gods" — that is, to false gods, who are anything but God. And likewise: Jer. ii. 11, "Has a nation exchanged its gods, and they are no gods?" — that is, gods that are not gods. The same words are repeated, ch. xvi. 20, "Can a man make for himself gods? Yet they are no gods." These are those who are called gods

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— of whom the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. viii. 5. They are indeed called gods by many impiously, but they are not; that is, they are not, as he says elsewhere, Gal. iv. 8, gods by nature, but only gods by repute and in common estimation.

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III. Further, with respect to efficacy and outcome, they are called by various names; for example, elilim: Lev. xxvi. 1, "You shall not make for yourselves elilim." This word is applied to idols about twenty times. The LXX renders it variously. In the cited passage it is rendered manufacta [things made by hand]: "Gods fashioned by the hands of men," Esa. ii. 8; as bdelygmata [abominations], or things to be abominated. And likewise Ezech. xxx. 13; Lev. xix. 4, eidola [idols]; and Hab. ii. 18, eidola kopa [idols] and eidola muta [mute idols]. Also Ps. xcvii. 7, glypта [graven images], that is, "carved images"; Esa. xix. 3, theoi [gods] and agalmata [statues] — "gods and images"; Ps. xcvi. 5, daimonia [demons]; Jer. xiv. 14, oionismata [omens], that is, "auguries"; Zech. xi. 17, mataia [vanities], "vain things" — the only place where they render the sense of the word directly. The word elil can be taken as meaning "not God"; whatever it may be, it is not God. But it is more correctly derived from aven [vanity], "a thing of nothing" — which an idol truly is. Hence the apostle, 1 Cor. viii. 4: "We know that an idol is nothing in the world" — that is, it can do absolutely nothing by virtue or efficacy. Hence the false gods are called elilim; that is, vanities, nothings. And the apostle calls all the gods of the Gentiles mataia; that is, elilim, Acts xiv. 15. Our translators render this word almost everywhere as "idols."

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IV. With the same respect, idols are called aven: Esa. lxvi. 3, "As one who blesses aven." Our translators render it, "As he that blesseth an idol." The LXX, hōs eulogōn. For he who blesses an idol is cursing God. The same word occurs, Hos. vi. 8; Amos i. 5. Jerome translates it as "idol." The word itself properly signifies falsehood, and toil with weariness; also iniquity and vanity — all of which things converge as if by design in the worship of idols. For they are themselves lies, that is, they speak falsely, since they delude their worshipers — or rather delude themselves — with vain hope; and those who weary themselves in any superstitious worship will obtain nothing at all beyond vanity and misery.

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V. For the same reasons, namely with respect to efficacy and outcome, idols are called sheqer, "liars" or "lies": Esa. xliv. 20, "Is not sheqer" (LXX, pseudos) "in my right hand?" That is, an idol, which will be for me as a lie, providing nothing at all of those things it seems to promise. Hos. vii. 1, "They have worked sheqer" — a lie; Jerome translates it as "idol."

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VI. And from this same consideration idols are also called metim, "the dead": Ps. cvi. 28, "They joined themselves to Baal-peor, and ate sacrifices of metim." "Sacrifices of the dead" is an objective genitive: sacrifices that were offered to the dead — that is, to gods who can provide help to no one, but are plainly like a dead thing, vain and useless, from which to expect any help or comfort is nothing less than extreme madness. And so, in contrast to all the gods of the Gentiles, Paul says pointedly that he has set his hope on the living God, 1 Tim. iv. 10.

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VIII. In this respect they are called by the Hebrew term meaning "sorrows" and "troubles"; for those who are occupied with arbitrary worship with the utmost solicitude obtain nothing beyond the greatest sorrows and anxieties: 2 Sam. v. 21, "And the Philistines left there their sorrows." The LXX renders it "their gods." Our translators render it "their images." 1 Sam. xxxi. 9, "They announced it in the house of their idols." The LXX renders it "their idols." And in very many other places they render the term by one Greek word for idols, sometimes by another, as Isa. xlvi. 1, Ps. cvi. 36. For the Hebrew root also signifies "to form" or "to fashion"; as Job x. 8, "Your hands formed me." And so idols seem to be able to be called by this term from the fashioning and forming of them, and accordingly to be rendered by the corresponding Greek term. For in this sense the rabbis call the carved images of the saints among Christians. But the origin of the word — indeed the very word itself that is employed — means "pain" and "grief": for idols bring their worshipers nothing besides toil and pain, that is, the greatest anxiety of conscience together with a sense of divine wrath. IX. For the same reason they are also called by a term meaning "birth-pangs": Isa. xlv. 16, "The craftsmen of idols departed in shame." Junius renders it "makers of images." Our translators, "The makers of idols." The Vulgate, "Fabricators of errors." The LXX renders it "Be renewed toward me, O islands" — entirely wide of the mark. The Arabic follows them. But they omit what is in the text and add things that are nowhere indicated. The word properly signifies "the pangs of those in labor." The prophet testifies that superstition afflicts and torments the consciences of men with like pangs, Mic. vi. 7.

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X. In this same respect they are also called by a term meaning "something shapeless and confused" — also desolation, devastation, emptiness. For every religious worship established outside the divine ordinance devastates and confounds the consciences of men, which it ought to cultivate and strengthen. 1 Sam. xii. 21, "And do not turn aside after worthless things that will not profit or deliver, for they are nothing." The LXX renders it "they are nothing." Some also think the related term is used in Num. xxii. 21.

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XI. For the same cause of their effect, and with respect also to their outcome, they are called by a term meaning "vanities": Jer. xiv. 22, viii. 19, x. 8, "Are there

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any among the vanities of the nations who give rain?' LXX., 'Is there among the idols of the nations one that causes rain?' See Deut. xxxii. 21.

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XII. With respect to the material of the immediate objects of worship, they are also variously named. Hence they are also called contemptuously by a term meaning "wood" or "a piece of wood": Hos. iv. 12, "My people asks counsel of its wood"; and Jer. x. 8. Whatever idolaters falsely imagine, their gods are wood and nothing more. Also by a term meaning "gods of stone," that is, stone gods: Deut. iv. 28, "You will serve gods of stone." Also by a term meaning "gods of silver," that is, silver gods; and by a term meaning "gods of gold," that is, golden gods: meaning those composed and cast from silver or gold, Exod. xx. 23. And the one calf of Aaro-

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nic's calf is called "gods of gold," Exod. xxxii. 31.

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XIII. They are also variously called with respect to their outward form. Most frequently by a term meaning "images, likenesses": Num. xxxiii. 52, "You shall destroy all their molten images." LXX., "molten images." And similarly, 2 Chron. xxiii. 17. Our translators everywhere, "images." With respect to form there is also another term; it frequently occurs together with the term that properly signifies a carved image: Deut. iv. 16, "Lest you corrupt yourselves and make for yourselves a carved image, the likeness of any figure" — that is, an idol. LXX., "a carved image, any likeness." XIV. With respect to material and form they are called by a term meaning "carved images"; for this is an image or likeness hewn from stone, wood, or any other material, Exod. xx. 4; Lev. xxvi. 1; Jud. xviii. 17; Isa. xlii. 17. The LXX renders this word variously: by a term meaning "carved things," Lev. xxvi. 1; Deut. iv. 16. Also in the same sense, by a term meaning "carved works," Isa. xlv. 20; by a term for "images," Exod. xx. 4; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 22. Also by a term meaning "likenesses" or "idols," Isa. xxi. 9; and by a term meaning "images," Isa. xl. 19, 20; and by a term meaning "enclosures of altars," 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3. Our translators consistently render it "graven images." Under this name the rabbis for the most part call the images that certain Christians make in order to worship them.

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Hence in Chaldean the related term means "to profane" or "to make profane"; for nothing is more profane than idolatry.

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XV. Hence they are also called by a term meaning "gods of casting" or "molten gods": Exod. xxxiv. 17, "You shall not make for yourself molten gods." And there is a description that contains all these things, Deut. iv. 28, "gods, the work of human hands."

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XVI. With respect to the true God and His covenanted people, they are called gods

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— that is, "other gods," Exod. xx. 3. These, because they are not that true God, are in reality not gods at all; such are the ones that this covenanted people ought not to have admitted. And in the same sense the term means "alien gods," or foreign gods, and similarly at Deut. xxxii. 16, and in many other places.

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324 CORRUPTION OF MOSAIC THEOLOGY. [Book V.

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XVII. Taking their designation from their worshippers, they are called "gods of the peoples," Deut. xiii. 8 — that is, of those who have been rejected from the true God, His covenant, and His worship. For this reason also, at Jehosh. xxiv. 14, they are called "gods beyond the river" — namely, those whom the Chaldeans worshipped.

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XIX. Of this kind is the term rendered "They shall not stand — the groves and the sun-images," Esa. xxvii. 9. LXX.: idols. Our translators: "images." Also at Lev. xxvi. 30, "I will destroy your high places, and cut down your sun-images," LXX.: your idols made by hand. And at Esa. xvii. 8, "He shall not look to the sun-images," LXX.: abominations. These seem to be so called from the sun, which is named from heat. Hence our translators, wherever this word occurs, add in the margin "sun images," although another derivation of the word may also be given; and sometimes it simply means "idols."

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XX. Of the same kind is teraphim. The etymology of the word is unknown; those who derive it from a certain root are mistaken. It appears to be a Gentile or foreign word. We will say more about it under the proper names of idols. The LXX. more often retains the word itself, as at Jud. xvii. 5, xviii. 14, 17; 1 Sam. xv. 23. Sometimes they render it as idols, as at Gen. xxxi. 19, 34, 35; and as vain images, as at 1 Sam. xix. 13. Also as carved images, Ezech. xxi. 21; and as those that speak, Zech. x. 2, for reasons to be explained shortly. Our translators either retain "teraphim," as at Hos. iii. 4, or render it by "images," with the word "teraphim" noted everywhere in the margin.

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XXI. Also the term meaning "new gods:" Jud. v. 8, "The people chose new gods" — mushrooms of the earth, which but the day before yesterday did not at all ex-

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XXII. Furthermore, from the nature and desert of idolatry, idols are frequently called "abominations:" 2 Reg. xxiii. 24, "Josiah purged all the idols and all the abominations." LXX.: detestable things, things that are detestable and execrable. 1 Reg. xi. 5, 7, Milcom is called the abomination of the Ammonites; and Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites; and Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. LXX. everywhere renders it as idol. See Ezech. xx; Zech. ix. 7; Jer. iv. 1, xxxii. 34; Esa. lxvi. 3.

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XXIII. Finally, by way of supreme contempt they are called by the Hebrew term signifying "filth, dung, wallowing-places:" Ezech. xxiii.3, "He committed fornication with them to defile himself," with dunghill-gods. Lev. xxvi.30; Deut. xvi; the term signifies "dung;" Job. xx.7; Ezech. iv.12, 15. Hence this name was given to the gods of the nations, since they deserve nothing more honorable.

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III. What kind of idol it was is greatly disputed. Perhaps this name was given by the Holy Spirit in contempt to the abomination of the Midianites or Moabites, since the worshippers called it by a different name. For many say that Pehor signifies something obscene and filthy; it is indeed a word of very uncertain origin. The root means "to open"; also in Chaldean, "to discharge what has been eaten"; also "to lay bare" and "to uncover." From this Bucerus derives the origin of the word in his commentary on Ps. cvi., the etymology of which Calvin also mentions in his note on the same passage; but he does not venture to embrace it. The Rabbis use this word most especially when they make mention of this idol: "Uncovering oneself before Baal-peor," Tractat. Sanhed. fol. 60.

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IV. Most of the ancients believed that Baal-peor was Priapus: so Jerome, in his commentary on Hos. ix., and in his work against Jovinian, lib. i. cap. xxxii.; for no other reason, I think, than because the Midianites, having enticed the Israelites into acts of fornication, defiled them at the same time with the rites of this idol. But Priapus had not yet been born — the one from Lampsacus, that is, of Pontus, who, having been driven from his homeland on account of his shameful deeds, was afterward admitted into the number of the gods, for reasons which it would be shameful to recount. Furthermore, those acts of fornication did not belong to the rites of the idol; for the well-known story of Zimri and Cosbi proves that some committed that crime within the very camp of the Israelites themselves.

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V. Now from the meaning of the root word meaning "to open," and from the fiction regarding Priapus attributed to it —

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326 CORRUPTION OF MOSAIC THEOLOGY. [Book V. — some seize the occasion, in explaining the mysteries of this idol, to bring forth obscenities of this kind, which can be neither pleasing to modest minds and ears, nor ought to be thrust upon others. Let anyone who wishes consult Cl. Voss. de Origin. Idol. lib. ii. cap. i. In a word, this is what the Hebrews say in brief. But other reasons could also be given as to why the idol received its name from the root meaning "to open." Perhaps it was so called from the immense gaping of the mouth with which it was carved; or, as Isidorus says, because others gazed at the image with open and gaping mouths. But it seems highly probable that, just as the fornications of the Israelites gave Christians occasion to think that this idol was Priapus, so likewise from the meaning of the word the Jews seized occasion to attribute all things filthy and obscene to its worship.

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VII. It is therefore still not established what god this Baal-peor was. We shall consider Baal later; all the difficulty is produced by the addition of Pehor. From it the various conjectures we have recounted have arisen. But Pehor was a Moabite mountain: Num. xxiii. 28, "Balak led Balaam to the summit of Pehor." On that mountain a sacred shrine had been built, which was called Beth-pehor; in Deut. xxxiv. 6, Moses is said to be buried "in the valley in the land of the Moabites, over against Beth-pehor" — that is, the mountain on which the sacred shrine was built. The idol itself, therefore, was simply called Baal; and it is so named absolutely in Num. xxii. 41, "Balak led Balaam to the high places of Baal." Thus Baal received the name Baal-peor from the place where he was worshipped among the Moabites, just as Jupiter was called Capitolinus and Olympius, and the Virgin was called of Halle or of Loreto. And this explanation of the surname is given by Suidas in his article on Beel-peor: Beel, he says, is Chronos, and Peor is the place in which he was worshipped. And Theodoret likewise in Ps. cvi. Now one who was called Pehor from the place of worship absolutely, as Capitolinus or Olympius, without the marker of Baal, is also called Baal, without the addition of Pehor. Baal-peor is therefore Baal worshipped on Mount Pehor. Let the learned filth, therefore, which scholars heap up here, be done away with. Baal alone remains, concerning whom we shall observe some things in the next chapter.

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The worship of Baal, Jud. 2:11 — The progress of his worship under the reign of Ahab — Whether the oath-renouncing proclamation of Jehovah was affixed to the gates of Samaria — Baalim as a plural form — Whether Baal is a name common to several idols — Every image of Baal called Baal — Baal-zebub — The origin of the name Baal — The nature of the proper name of an idol among idolaters — "Lord of flies," the meaning of the name — Apollo Smintheus, Jupiter Myiagros — The Temple at Jerusalem entirely free from flies — Beelzebub, prince of demons — Why he is so called — "Zebel" meaning "dung" — Baal-shamin among the Tyrians — "Lord of heaven" — Baal-berith, "lord of the covenant" — Berytus, a Phoenician city — All are one Baal.

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I. The next place in Israelite apostasy is occupied by Baal himself, called by that name absolutely — an idol most celebrated throughout the entire East. The Holy Spirit first mentions him in Jud. 2:11: "They forsook Jehovah and served Baal himself." The people defiled themselves with the superstition of this idol at various intervals all the way to the Babylonian captivity. Under the reign of Ahab, who had taken a Phoenician wife mad with that idolatry, matters progressed so far that the vile idol was openly preferred among the ten tribes over the God of Israel. Indeed, scarcely anyone known to the most discerning Elijah was found free from that atrocious wickedness. For that remnant of seven thousand, hiding on account of the fury of Jezebel's persecution, which God had preserved for Himself, was invisible to him. The rabbis relate that Ahab affixed to the gates of the city of Samaria a proclamation abjuring Jehovah. But this is Jewish — that is, trifling and fabulous — for even Jezebel herself, the fiercest champion of the worship of Baal, while devising the greatest and most fatal crime against the house of Ahab, did away with Naboth by making use of a legal pretext concerning the non-blasphemy of Jehovah's name.

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II. In Jud. 2:11 he is called Baalim, in the plural number, and frequently elsewhere. From this, some conclude that Baal is not a proper name for any particular idol, but a common noun denoting all the gods of Syria. Indeed, the Hebrews assert that all the idols of the nations, since they are lords and masters of those who serve them (which is the meaning of the name), are called Baalim: "They are lords of their worshipers." The prophets, therefore, are to be understood as attacking under the name of Baal not merely the impious veneration of one idol, but all superstition and arbitrary worship, by which anyone grants dominion over his conscience to others besides the one true God. III. But in Jud. 10:6, the Baalim are enumerated by name, and are distinguished from the gods of Syria, Sidon, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. Also in verse thirteen of that chapter, where the first mention of this idol is made, the name is used in the singular, designating a specific idol.

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IV. More correctly, therefore, Baalim is said to derive from the multitude of images erected to that idol. For every image of Baal was Baal. Hence there were Baalim, though the one to whom all referred was one; and Baalim and Baal are used interchangeably. Indeed, the Holy Spirit so consistently regarded the actual images or statues in the Baalitic worship that Paul uses the name of Baal in the feminine gender, by which he meant to denote the image of it, Rom. 11:4.

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328 THE CORRUPTION OF MOSAIC THEOLOGY. [Book V. seashore near Azotus. Since the Israelites were destitute of all divine oracles, King Ahaziah sent to him to inquire whether he would recover from his illness, 2 Reg. 1:2. Concerning the meaning of the addition "zebub," as with that of Peor, the conjectures of scholars are varied. It denotes a fly. Perhaps the epithet "fly-god" was added as a reproach to idolaters, so that he would be a god who either took care of flies, or could not even drive them away. Scaliger believes the idol was called by another name among the Philistines, namely "lord of sacrifices." Thence, by a slight alteration made in contempt, it became the present form. It is commonly thought to have been so named on account of the multitude of flies that, attracted by the blood of sacrifices, swarmed into the idol's temple; some, however, think it was because he was believed to drive away the most destructive and deadly flies that plagued the inhabitants of the territory of Ekron along the seashore. Munster denies that he was able to find the rationale of the name among the Hebrews. Yet such epithets are not infrequent among the nations. Thus Apollo among the Phrygians was called Smintheus, that is, of mice. And among others, Hercules Cornopion, and Jupiter Myiagros. The Jews agree, nor is the matter improbable, that the Temple at Jerusalem was, by a special divine benefit, freed from flies, even though so great a number of sacrifices was offered there daily. It is therefore not unlike the truth that the infestation of flies was cast as a reproach upon idols and idolaters.

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VI. This name, changed to Beelzebul, we read in the New Testament to have been attributed to "the prince of demons." For since the gods of the nations were demons, who under various pretexts presented themselves through idols consecrated to another purpose to be worshiped, the reason is plain why the name of this idol, which was everywhere held in the highest veneration, was assigned to their prince. But "zebub" was changed to "zebel" for the greater ignominy of idolaters. For Zebel means "dung" — by which name we have shown above that the gods of the nations were called. Therefore this word means "Baal of dung"; for no reason can be given for deriving it from Zebul, meaning "habitation."

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VII. Among the Tyrians, from whom all this Baalitic worship originated, this idol was called Baal-shamin, according to Sanchuniathon; that is, "lord of heaven." So Augustine, Questions, book vii, question 16: "Baal," he says, "the Punics appear to say 'lord'; hence Baal-samen is understood as saying, as it were, 'lord of heaven.' For samen among them is the name for heaven." This is the Hebrew phrase meaning "lord of the heavens," or Zeus Ouranos. In all these names, therefore, we have no idol other than one Baal.

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VIII. In Jud. 8:33 and 9:4, the deity of the Shechemites is called Baal-berith; that is, "lord of the covenant." The Septuagint translators supposed that the Israelites, forsaking God, had made a covenant with Baal so that he might be to them as God. They render the words thus: "They made a covenant with Baal that he might be to them as God." And Jerome: "They had struck a covenant with Baal, that he might be to them as God." The Chaldaic interpreter similarly has the same sense. But the fourth verse of chapter nine proves that the idol was called Baal-berith; and there the translators retain that term. Others therefore conjecture that this god was that of the Berytians, that is, the inhabitants of the nearby Phoenician city called Berytus, from whom they had learned his worship,

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Israelites. IX. But all these gods, as has been said, were only one Baal, to whose name various epithets were added from various occasions,

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The worship of Baal — Religious worship twofold — Moral; instituted — Among the superstitious, arbitrary worship takes the place of the instituted — Baal worshiped with both — Faith and hope placed in him — Solemn invocation of his name — Swearing by the name of Baal — Genuflection; adoration; kisses — Temples of Baal — The occasion for building them — Altars — Images — Sacred groves, natural; artificial — The occasion for making them — Who the priests and worshipers of Baal were — Servants, priests, prophets — Chemarim; whence called — Priestly vestments — High priest — Sacrifices — Oil, new wine, grain, incense — Bullocks fattened for that purpose — Human sacrifice — Who Baal is — Not a common noun — The sun — The sole god among the Phoenicians — Sacrifices to Baal — To the sun — The sun's participation — Whether the Israelites understood the sun in Baal.

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I. It remains for us to show briefly how the apostate Israelites venerated this Baal in the holy land, and then who he himself was, for whose cause they declared war against the God of their fathers. All divine worship is either moral — whether natural or instituted according to God's good pleasure by Himself — and among the apostates, arbitrary worship takes the place of the instituted. The Holy Spirit teaches us this in the example of Jeroboam, 1 Reg. 12:31-33, who in performing sacred rites did "as he had devised in his own heart." See 2 Chron. 13:9. The deserters attributed both kinds of worship to Baal, having taken them away from God.

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II. Moral worship is fulfilled by faith, hope, love, and religious submission of the soul in all things. Those affections of the soul are expressed through invocations — that is, prayers, vows, and solemn attestations of the deity as though present and beholding all things

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and governing — sacred and solemn attestations. They also express themselves simply and almost naturally in genuflections, in prostrations of the body,

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in adorations, and in other similar external tokens of the mind's feeling. With all these things, therefore, the idolaters rendered religious honor to Baal.

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III. That they placed faith and hope in him they made plain through the solemn invocation of his name: 1 Reg. 18:26 — "They called upon the name of Baal," saying, that is, "Baal, hear us." And that they had chosen him as their God, Elijah showed by that choice which

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he permitted to the people, whether they would follow Jehovah or Baal, v. 21.

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Then they swore by his name, thereby establishing him as the most present God, the searcher of hearts, and the supreme governor of all actions: Jer. 12:16, "They taught my people to swear by Baal," or by the name of Baal. To these things they added genuflection, or prostration of the body with kisses: 1 Reg. 16:31, "He served Baal and bowed down to him." Hence God distinguishes the remnant who feared Him from the deserters, in that they "had not bowed the knee, nor given kisses to Baal," 1 Reg. 19:18.

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IV. In the arbitrary worship which they rendered to the idol, they appear to have fashioned a kind of image of the whole divinely instituted worship, and in addition they added very many things devised by themselves or borrowed from the neighboring Baal-worshipers. They built temples or sacred houses for him: 1 Reg. 16:32, "Ahab built a house of Baal in Samaria." Mention of these houses occurs everywhere; and they were at length demolished by Jehu with all their theatrical apparatus and superstitious furnishings, and made into latrines, 2 Reg. 10:27. But it was Ahab who first built a temple for him. The more ancient idolaters were content with groves and altars, as appears from the history of Gideon's reformation, Jud. 6:28. But after Solomon had at God's command prepared a temple for Him, the ancient rival and ape of God, seizing the next opportunity, took care that a sacred house should be erected for himself as well.

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V. In that temple they dedicated altars for offering sacrifices to him: 1 Reg. 16:32, "He set up an altar for Baal in that house of Baal." That there were multiple altars in the same temple is shown by 2 Chron. 23:17; and that there were images along with the altars, by 2 Reg. 1:2; 2 Chron. 23:17. What form, however, these images were fashioned into is entirely uncertain.

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VI. To the preparation of idolatry there also belonged groves. There were two kinds of these: some were natural, consisting of planted trees, which idolaters used far and wide throughout the whole world in their sacred rites; such was the grove that Gideon cut down, Jud. 6:28, and such as it was customary to plant on the high places. There were also artificial groves, that is, fabricated images and likenesses of natural ones, which they brought into their sacred temples and used in some manner in religious worship. Such was the grove that King Josiah removed from the house of God and burned, 2 Reg. 23:6. What is called here simply by the Hebrew word for "grove," is called in ch. 21:7 by the Hebrew term for a carved image, that is, an "image of a grove." It seems to me that, just as when the Jerusalem temple was built they brought into it the tabernacle which they had previously used in celebrating divine worship (1 Reg. 8:4), so likewise the idolaters, after they had taken care to build a temple for Baal, because they could not bring into it the actual groves with which they had long been accustomed to venerate him, brought in instead images of those groves, whether fashioned or painted.

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VII. Moreover, to provide for the Baalitic worship they assembled a great multitude of priests. Eight hundred and fifty are mentioned, 1 Reg. 18:19. Of these, 450 performed sacred rites in the Samaritan temple of Baal; the rest did so town by town and village by village in the groves. These were commonly called by the Hebrew term meaning "servants of Baal," that is, servants or worshipers of Baal, 2 Reg. 10:21. They were distributed into three categories: for some were properly so called servants, who performed menial tasks, submitting themselves to the nod and will of their superiors; others were priests, to whom was entrusted the care of regularly performing sacrifices; and others were prophets, whose office it was to deceive the people by doctrines and the princes by predictions. See 2 Reg. 10:19.

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VIII. All of these were called by the special name Chemarim: Zeph. 1:4, "I will cut off the name of the Chemarim," that is, the Chemarim themselves, the priests of Baal, of whom he had just made mention. The same word is used in 2 Reg. 23:5 and Hos. 10:5 in the same sense. And the Chaldean term is rendered by Buxtorf as "a minor sacrificing priest, a pagan priest, an idolatrous hierophant, a sacrificing minister of idols." Nor is it used in any other sense anywhere in the sacred text; and wherever it is attributed to the priests of idols, the Chaldean renders it by the corresponding Aramaic term, as in Jud. 17:5. By the Syriac paraphrast, however, the name is taken two or three times in a good sense for the priests of God. And in the Epistle to the Heb. 2:17, Christ Himself is called by that name. Most scholars think the priests of Baal were called by this name from the black or dark garment which they were accustomed to wear; but the Hebrew root also means "to grow hot" and "to burn." Why then should we not conclude that they were called by this name from that most savage office which they performed in the burning of infants — an office which also encompasses the other meaning of the word, in that they would contract blackness of face in that work? That they used a distinctive garment in their sacred rites is suggested by the history of Jehu, 2 Reg. 10:22.

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They offered to this idol every kind of sacrifice. God complains through the prophet that they gave oil, new wine, and grain to Baal, Hos. 2:8. We have shown elsewhere that these were the chief offerings to idols. Jeremiah testifies several times that they made incense offerings to him, ch. 7:9, 11:13, 17. And that they offered young bulls, 1 Reg. 18:26. The Hebrews teach, with respect to Jud. 6:25, 26, that some of these were fattened for several years for that purpose, so that more handsome victims might be slaughtered. To these they added human sacrifice, Jer. 19:5, 32:35 — concerning which crime we will say more in the following chapter.

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IX. Let us now briefly consider who it was whom they venerated with such great apparatus. Some think that Baal is an appellative name, denoting any idol to which superstitious worship has been paid. But that notion is most clearly refuted by these words of Elijah: 1 Reg. 18:21, "If Jehovah is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." For just as Jehovah was the proper name of the God of Israel, so Baal was the proper name of that false god whom the idolaters worshiped. I will say in a single word who he was: namely, the Sun. We have shown that the Phoenicians taught them this Baalitic worship. Among them, however, the Sun was the only heavenly God, and Beel-samen, that is, "lord of heaven." For the Sun was called Baal, or "lord," from that dominion which he appeared to hold over the light, and therefore over all things. He was esteemed the first among creatures to be regarded as God. Nor does it stand in the way that, in 2 Reg. 23:5, they are said to have offered sacrifices to Baal, to the Sun, and to the Moon — as if Baal were different from the Sun; for since there is no distinguishing mark between Baal and the Sun in the Hebrew, the name of the Sun can be placed there by way of explanation, as if he had said: to Baal, that is, to the Sun — nor does the multiplication of names always indicate a distinction between things. For the same idols were worshiped under various names. We have shown above the many names of the Sun. Moreover, since that foolish and stubborn people had taken upon themselves to worship the idols of all nations, it could not but happen that the same idols were venerated under various names and with various rites. I do not, however, wish to assert that the Israelites always expressly understood the sun by Baal, since they had only in their minds to worship the gods of those nations which they saw prospering and having things go according to their will. For this reason that impious Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, suspecting that they had given aid to his enemies against him.

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Molech, the abomination of the sons of Ammon — The same: Molech, Moloch, Milcham — LXX: Archon — The worship and the place appointed to him — The worship: passing through fire — Its two kinds — Burning alive and purification by fire — The opinion of Vossius and Maimonides regarding purification, rejected — Burning alive of infants customary among the Phoenicians — The manner and rite of the abominable sacrifice — The custom variously transmitted — The image of Molech and of Saturn — Concerning lustration through two fires — In the course of time the milder form of torments prevailed — Idolatrous initiation through various degrees of torment — The origin of this most monstrous superstition — The place appointed for the worship: the valley of the son of Hinnom — The most pleasant place, whence it was called the valley of Hinnom — Gehenna — For what reasons that name is used to designate the place of the damned — Tophet, whence so called — Concerning the words of Job, ch. 17:6 — The word denotes the place and punishments of the damned — Molech and Baal-peor, that is the Sun — Saturn the Sun — Adrammelech and Anammelech — Solar worship — The dedication and adoration of horses.

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I. After Baal, Molech occupies the next place in sacred history. He is called "the abomination of the sons of Ammon," 1 Reg. 11:7. The one whom the Tyrians called Baal, or Lord, was called by the Ammonites Molech, or King. Nor does it matter in the least whether you call him a king or a lord. He is also called Moloch, Amos 5:26; and Milcham, with the ending and sense of the word slightly altered, 1 Reg. 11:33; and also Malcham, Zeph. 1:5. The LXX renders Lev. 18 as Archon, which is a word midway between king and any sort of lord. The first mention of this idol, most notorious for its most foul worship, occurs in Lev. 18:21. Two things are chiefly celebrated concerning it: the worship, and the place appointed for it. The worship was "the passing of offspring through fire," Lev. 18:21; Deut. 18:10; 2 Reg. 16:3, 21:10. There were two kinds of it — burning alive, and purifications by fire. Vossius contends that only the latter is to be understood in the performance of this idol's rites. Rambam is also of this opinion, in his work On Idolatry, ch. 6, sect. 4, 5. "Of your offspring," he says, "do not give any to pass through to Molech. How was this done? With a great fire kindled, they took a portion of their offspring" (that is, some son or daughter) "which they handed over to the priests who served the fire. But when the priests had received the son, they restored him to the father, who, according to his own judgment, was to lead him through the fire. Therefore the father, with the permission of the priests, drove the son through the fire. He commanded him to pass through on foot until he had traversed whatever the flames encompassed. For they did not burn him for Molech; rather, that worship consisted solely in the passing through." But the most clear testimonies of Scripture cry out against this. The place appointed for the worship of Molech, as we are about to say, was "the valley of the son of Hinnom." In that valley king Ahaz "burned his sons with fire," 2 Chron. 28:3. That others did the same is attested by Jeremiah, ch. 7:31, 32, who accordingly calls that valley "the valley of slaughter." And the Psalmist thus interprets the Molech-burning, Ps. 106:37, 38: "They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed." This plainly indicates burning alive. Hence the same word that means "to pass through" also means "to sacrifice." Among the Jews, Moses of Gerona and Isaac Abarbanel are also of this opinion.

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II. No one doubts that the Israelites received this Molech superstition from the Phoenicians. We have shown elsewhere that they sacrificed their sons to Saturn. So Ennius writes concerning the Carthaginians:

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For among the barbarian peoples it is the custom to sacrifice children to Cronus,

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and to slaughter mortal offspring. And Plato in the Minos: "It is not our law to sacrifice human beings, but among the ignorant Carthaginians they do sacrifice, as being holy and lawful to them, and some of them even their own children to Cronus, as things not unholy." Similarly, almost no ancient writer fails to mention Phoenicia's practice of human sacrifice. Following their example, the Israelites applied themselves to this crime.

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"There was," they say, "a hollow image of Molech having seven chambers; the first they opened for an offering of meal; the second for turtledoves; the third for a sheep; the fourth for a ram; the fifth for a calf; the sixth for an ox. But he who wished to offer his son — for him the seventh chamber was opened. And the face of this idol was like the face of a calf, with hands spread flat to receive offerings from those standing by; and meanwhile they danced while the boy was being burned in the idol with fire kindled beneath it, beating drums so that the wailing of the boy might not be heard." Among those also is Lyra: "Moloch," he says, "as the Hebrews report, was a copper idol made in the form of a man, hollow within. And in that hollow a fire was kindled until the idol was as if red-hot, and then a boy was placed between the hands of the idol. And the priest, beating the drums, made such a noise that the voice of the dying boy could not be heard, lest the parents should be moved with compassion, but should rather believe that their child's soul had been received by the gods in peace and without pain." Others say differently: "The Chemarim," they say, "kindled a great fire, and one of them received a portion of the seed from the father and delivered it to the other Chemarim; and these in turn delivered the son back to his father after he had been handed over to them, so that he might lead him through the fire by the authority of the Chemarim. And the father of the son was himself the one who led his son or his daughter through the kindled fire by the power of the Chemarim, and caused him to pass from one side to the other through the midst of the flame, until the boy was burned." They think this tradition of handing over a boy to the Chemarim is to be understood from the words of the commandment, "You shall not give," or, "You shall not deliver from your seed"; and they explain the leading through by means of this passing. Yet they do not deny that he was at length killed and burned. Moreover, Diodorus reports a bronze statue dedicated to Saturn at Carthage, beneath which fire was placed to burn living men; and that a similar custom prevailed among the Druids we have shown above.

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IV. What is said also concerning purifications or lustrations by fire may find a place here as well. For perhaps, as time went on, idolaters descended to this milder form of torment, just as elsewhere also, wearied of horrible slaughters, they offered images of men in place of living men. They also prefaced this sort of purification as an initiation into idolatrous worship. For no one could be duly consecrated to the sacred rites of certain idols unless he passed through many degrees of torments; one of these was passage through fire, by which those being initiated were not lightly burned and wounded. Thus Gregory Nazianzus, Oration i, Against Julian: "No one can be initiated into the mysteries of Mithras unless, by passing through various degrees of torments, he shows himself holy and impassible." And Nonnus: "First they are subjected to lighter torments, then to more severe ones; and so, after enduring all the tortures, they are imbued with the sacred rites themselves, being tormented indeed with fire and water and torments of this kind." Concerning these same rites, Virgil, Aen. xi. 785:—

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"O Apollo, guardian of holy Soracte, whom we are the first to worship, for whom the blaze of pine-wood on the heap

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and plant our steps upon much burning coal." Concerning these things, see Pliny, book vii, chapter ii. And it is not improbable that the Israelites also imitated these practices.

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V. The prophet sets forth the causes of so great a crime: Mic. vi. 6, 7, "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God most high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The deadly stings of conscience drove these wretched hypocrites, ignorant of the true sacrifice which alone removes the consciousness of sin, into this madness. VI. The place appointed for the worship of this idol was the valley of the son of Hinnom. "The place was," says Adrichomius, "in the suburbs of Jerusalem (to the east, below the Mount of Ascension, near the Fuller's Pool), most pleasant like Tempe, watered by the springs of Siloam and the flow of the brook Kidron, planted with gardens and orchards, and altogether wooded and full of delights." So it is; for whereas all other idols had their groves and shrines within the city itself, the temples dedicated to Molech were built outside the walls of the city. It was called by that name before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan; for in the first division of the land it is expressly named "the valley of the son of Hinnom" and "the valley of Hinnom," Josh. xv. 8, and the origin of the name need not be sought elsewhere. For there are those who derive it from a root meaning "he roared, he wailed," as if it were so called from the roaring that the sons of idolaters sacrificed there had uttered; but as we have said, the place was named after its owner, long before it was defiled by that crime. From the phrase meaning "valley of Hinnom," a single word was formed; we also have it as a single term, "Gehinnom," Josh. xviii. 16. For many reasons this place afterwards came to be used as a name for the place of the damned; Jerome denies that this was done by the ancients. Yet the Chaldean paraphrast, unknown to Jerome, very frequently uses that term for the place of the damned, as at Isa. xxxiii. 14, and elsewhere. It is established that our Lord used the term in this sense, Matt. v. 29, 30, and x. 28. For since that place was rendered horrible and abominable — first by the burning alive of miserable infants; then by the total destruction of the Assyrian army under Sennacherib; and finally by Josiah's casting in of dead bones, which brought upon it the greatest pollution — it was seen as fitting, being heaped up with so many crimes and dreadful punishments, to call to the minds of the wicked those dreadful and eternal punishments which God will at the appointed time exact from all of them. Moreover, Josiah so defiled the entire valley by bringing in corpses, 2 Reg. xxiii. 10, that it does not appear ever afterwards to have been set apart for superstitious use. VII. In that valley there was a particular place called Topheth; perhaps that word denotes the entire precinct that was within the sacred enclosure: 2 Reg. xxiii. 10, "He defiled Topheth in the valley of the sons of Hinnom." And Jer. vii. 31, "The high places of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom." Most hold that Topheth was so named from a word meaning "drum"; for the drum was beaten while the boy was alive in the fiery chamber of the idol, so that the wailing he uttered amid the flames would not move the impious bowels of the parents. Forerius, on Isa. xxx. 33, says that the Hebrew word signifies a portent, and that the place was so called because it was a horrible spectacle. And in

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336 CORRUPTION OF MOSAIC THEOLOGY. [Book V. he adduces for the confirmation of his view the words of Job, chapter xvii. 6, "He has made me a byword among the peoples" — with the Hebrew appended. Those words are indeed rendered variously by interpreters. Arias Montanus: "And I shall hereafter be as a fire of Gehenna." Junius: "I shall hereafter be material for those who beat the drum." The Vulgate: "I am an example before them." The LXX: "I have become a laughingstock to them." The Chaldean: "And I shall be from the inner Gehenna." Our own translators: "And aforetime I was as a tabret;" or rather, "Afore them," as they note in the margin. Doubtless the holy man complains that he has been made a reproach, a mockery, and a byword among worthless men, upon whom they play as upon a drum, or whom they beat as a drum. But since that word, in the prophet Isaiah, chapter xxx. 33, is taken for hell, or is used to represent eternal punishments, interpreters have judged it to bear the same meaning here. Nevertheless, nothing prevents it from signifying "drum" here rather than a portent or prodigy, as that learned man wished. But that the place and the punishments of the damned are described by Isaiah can be doubted by no one who compares with some care that fire once prepared for a king with the fire which our Lord teaches was prepared for the devil and his angels.

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VIII. Who precisely was the one they worshiped with this impious cult is not altogether a settled matter. That he was the same as Baal seems to be proven by the identity of the cult; for they also sacrificed children to Baal, and this in the valley of Hinnom, Jer. vii. 31. Further, Amos affirms that the people worshiped Molech in the wilderness, chapter v. 26, yet no idol other than Baal-peor is mentioned in the history of those times as having been worshiped by them there. Some therefore judge that Molech is the same as Baal-peor and Baal — that is, the Sun. That Tyrian Saturn was himself the Sun, the learned Vossius demonstrates at length.

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IX. Nor were Adrammelech and Anammelech different from this Molech — to whom the inhabitants of Sepharvaim burned their sons in fire, 2 Reg. xvii. 31. Adrammelech is the Hebrew for "magnificent king"; and Anammelech means "the king's answer," from which they doubtless sought oracular responses.

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X. In these things, therefore, they worshipped the Sun, albeit in some measure covertly. But at last, when every mask was laid aside, they pursued Him openly and avowedly with divine honors. That the kings of Judah had dedicated horses and chariots to the Sun, the sacred history relates, 2 Reg. xxiii. 11. Throughout all the east, horses were sacred to the Sun. This Xenophon teaches in the Cyropaedia, book viii, and in the Anabasis, book iv; and Pausanias also in the Laconica. Heliodorus, in the tenth book of the Aethiopica, shows that four-horse chariots were added to them. These horses appear to have served as relay-horses, used by equestrian couriers who daily saluted the Sun at the king's command; or perhaps the king himself and the princes rode upon them when they went to worship the Sun. Whether these were real chariots or images of chariots is uncertain. But it is certain that, beyond this dedication of horses, they worshipped the Sun directly and immediately: Ezech. viii. 16, "They worshipped the sun toward the east." That this was a most ancient solar cult, we have shown elsewhere.

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Ashtaroth — Goddess of the Sidonians — Called "God" by the Hebrews — Worshipped by the Philistines — A town of this name — Images in the shape of sheep — Groves of Ashtaroth — Astarte — Atergatis — Derceto — Concerning Queen Gatis, and the phrase "besides Gatis" — Abstinence from fish; origin of the superstition — The form of the image of Astarte — Queen of heaven — The moon — Heavenly goddess of heaven — The sun, lord of heaven — The moon, queen — Gad and Meni, Isa. lxv. 11 — Who Gad is — The opinion of Jerome — The host of heaven — The gods of Damascus — Maacah, a terror — Other matters.

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I. It remains for us to treat of Ashtaroth, and a few other unnamed gods that remain. Ashtaroth is called the god of the Sidonians at 1 Reg. xi. 5, 33 — "god" rather than "goddess," since the Hebrews have no word to express a deity in the feminine gender. She is first mentioned at Jud. ii. 18, and again at cap. x. 6; 1 Sam. vii. 3. That this idol was worshipped not only by the Sidonians but also by the Philistines, and indeed by all who inhabited the seacoast, is shown by 1 Sam. xxxi. 10.

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III. The Jews commonly maintain that Ashtaroth designates idols fashioned in the likeness of sheep, for they say the Hebrew word denotes "a ewe." Others hold that the idol received its name from the multitude of sacrifices offered from sheep and cattle, 1 Sam. vii. 4. The Septuagint renders the Hebrew word for Ashtaroth as "groves of Ashtaroth," joining to it another word of nearly the same sound; for the Hebrew word in question signified "grove." Hence some think that this idol was worshipped in groves.

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IV. This idol was also known by other names: Astarte, the most renowned Syrian goddess, and Atergatis, and Derceto — all of which are established to have flowed from the other. For vain are the things which Athenaeus, in his Deipnosophistae, book vii, produces from Antipater the Stoic concerning this goddess, and why she was called Atergatis. He invents a certain queen named Gatis, who promulgated an edict that no one should eat fish "besides Gatis," that is, except Gatis herself. Hence, he says, the name Atergatis arose among the ignorant common people — a foolish explanation, and in keeping with the manner of the Greeks in investigating the origins of the names of their gods; for everyone can see that the name Atergatis is a corrupted form of the Hebrew word for Ashtaroth.

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— his son Cupid, came to Syria to the river Euphrates, and that in that very place the giant Typhon suddenly appeared; that Venus thereupon threw herself with her son into the river, and there changed her form into the shape of fish, by which act they were freed from danger. And so afterward the Syrians who live closest to those places refrained from eating fish, fearing to catch them, lest for a similar reason they might seem either to assail the protection of the gods or to capture the gods themselves." Nothing is more foolish than these things. Most say that the image of the idol was fashioned in the shape of a fish from the thighs down to the very feet, while the rest of the body was that of a woman. The origin of the image is uncertain, but it is almost certain that it gave occasion to the religious reverence for fish. Nicetas, in his commentary on Gregory, says it was a statue of Venus. I have no doubt that she was the same as the "queen of heaven" so often mentioned by Jeremiah. She was the moon, who was for others both Venus and Diana and Juno Lucina; called by the Hebrew name on account of her many names and the multitude of sacrifices. Lucian affirms that he believes the Syrian goddess, who is Astarte, is the moon. Jerome agrees that the moon, dominant among the stars, is designated by this name, in his commentary on Jer. cap. vii. Thus the poet describes her: "She shines among all

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"It was night, and the moon was shining in a clear sky among the lesser stars."

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That is, the queen of heaven. Tertullian, in Apol. cap. xxiv., connects her with Syria's Astarte and Africa's Caelestis. By Caelestis, or Ourania, Venus is commonly understood, as is evident from Lucian. But that Venus is none other than the moon has been shown elsewhere. There are, however, those who think that the queen of heaven was the sun. For they demonstrate by examples that the sun is sometimes of the feminine gender; whereas the word that denotes the moon, as the other denotes the sun, is never so. Hence among the Chaldeans the lunar deity was called masculine. But I would hardly believe that this grammatical argument prevailed; rather, just as they called the sun "lord of heaven" and even "king," so by the name "queen of heaven" they meant to designate the moon.

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VI. Philastrius, Heres. xv., affirms that the Jews worshipped Fortune, the Hebrew Gad: "Preparing a table for the demon and filling the cup for Fortune." And in the Latin translation of the Greek text found in Jerome, the word for Fortune corresponds to Gad; while the word for demon corresponds to Meni. The Vulgate translates not Gad but Meni as Fortune, and uses Meni merely as a particle: "You who set a table for Fortune and pour a libation upon it." And so likewise Symmachus, according to Jerome, renders it "without me." Junius renders the force of the words as follows: "You who prepare a table for that troop and fill a libation for those numbers." For Gad signifies a troop, and Meni appears to be derived from the root meaning to number. Our own translators follow him: "That prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink-offering unto that number" — though they relegate Gad and Meni to the margin. Arias Montanus: "Preparing a table for Jupiter and filling a libation for Meni." In such variety, it is not easy to say what is most satisfying. It is certain that the queen of heaven is not meant here; learned men heap up many things about this passage — about the star of Jupiter, about Mercury, about the constellation of the stars, about good fortune, about the horoscope, a favorable ascending planet, auspiciously placed, about the idols of the Edomites, and other things, all uncertain. Although none of them fully satisfies on every point, I must confess that what the most learned Jerome once noted on this passage appeals most to my mind. "There is," he says, "in all cities and especially in Egypt and in Alexandria an ancient custom of idolatry: on the last day of the year and of the last month, they set a table laden with various kinds of food and a cup mixed with honey wine, taking augury for the fertility either of the past year or the future. And this the Israelites also did, venerating the monstrous idols of every kind."

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VII. Together with the sun and moon they also worshipped the whole host of heaven, that is, all the stars. Jerome writes, in his commentary on Isa. xv., that Chemosh, mentioned in 1 Reg. xi. 33, was the same as Baal-Peor. More truly, he is identified with Molech, as can be seen from Jud. xi. 24.

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VIII. There remain unnamed gods. Among these occur the gods of Damascus, to whom King Ahaz sacrificed, 2 Chron. xxviii. 28, and built an altar in the very house of God, 2 Reg. xvi. 11-13. Maacah, grandmother of King Asa — who is called his mother — set up a particular idol for worship in a grove, 2 Chron. xv. 16, making a mipletzeth. The Vulgate renders it, "An image of Priapus." Others, "a horrible statue." The LXX reads Astarten. The word signifies a "terror" or fright. Hence Castalio translates it "Pan," who was accustomed to strike terror into men in the groves. I judge rather that this vain terror alludes to the Holy Spirit. IX. What is said about Ob and Iadoni and other kinds of ventriloquism, and about chiromancy, augury, geomancy, sortilege, Pythians, and conjurers, does not pertain to our present purpose. It is sufficient to have briefly touched upon the chief, if not all, of those idols which the apostates superstitiously worshipped with wicked crime, having forsaken the true God.

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The Aaronic Calf — The occasion of its making — The people demanded not the supreme God but an intermediary — They did not believe the calf to be God — It was so called metonymically — Whether it was made in the likeness of the Egyptian Apis — Golden images of the lost Apis — The figure of a male calf — Apis a female cow — Why the calves of Jeroboam were called heifers — No god other than Jehovah was worshipped in the calf — A superstition hateful to God — The lies of the Gentiles concerning the worship of an ass's head at Jerusalem —

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The occasion and pretext of the fabrication — A passage of Tacitus noted — Moses ground the calf to powder and scattered it upon the water — Whether in imitation of the submersion of Apis — Aaron ineptly defended by the Jews; falsely defended by Morin — The true crime of Aaron.

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I. There follow those things in which they sinned in the manner and means of religious worship, substituting arbitrary worship in place of what was instituted. And here the Aaronic calf first presents itself, Exod. xxxii. 1-5. Moses having been absent on the mountain for some days, the carnal people, eager for a visible sign of the divine presence promised to them and not yet instructed in the full worship common to the whole assembly, compelled Aaron to cast a golden calf for those purposes. "Come," they said, "make us gods who will go before us; for as for this man Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." They sought gods, that is, not to take the place of Jehovah, but to take the place of Moses, through whom they might consult God. For what they were committing to Aaron to be fashioned that day, it was scarcely possible for them to believe would become a true deity by the next day. Moreover, to attribute the name of God to images metonymically was customary even among those who by no means believed that the images themselves were gods. They therefore set about forming and fashioning for themselves a visible sign of the divine presence. II. Some consider that Aaron fashioned this calf in the likeness of the Egyptian Apis, or rather of the golden image which the priests were accustomed to consecrate in memory of an Apis that had been lost or had died. He may also have had in mind the animal itself, always held to be of the highest excellence on account of the labors from which we obtain the fruits of the earth. Scripture does indeed seem to indicate that this calf was an image of a male calf; for at Ps. cvi. 20, a masculine participle is attached to the name by which it is designated, whereas Herodotus in the Euterpe teaches that the Egyptians consecrated female cattle to Isis and sacrificed males. Nor does this create a difficulty with the fact that the prophet Hosea calls the calves of Jeroboam — fashioned after the pattern of this wilderness calf — by a feminine term, at cap. x. 5, which word the LXX render by the feminine form meaning "heifers," since the prophet calls them so in contempt, as Jerome most correctly notes on the passage. Scripture also implies that the image was large, when it teaches that the Israelites "exchanged their glory for the form of an ox that eats grass," Ps. cvi. 20. There is moreover the fact that Stephen affirms that on account of the erection of this calf, "they turned back in their hearts to Egypt," Acts vii. 39 — namely, where they had seen such images.

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III. That the people had no intention of worshipping any god other than Jehovah in the calf is clear from the history of what was done. We showed above that they demanded not the supreme God in place of Jehovah, but an intermediary in place of Moses; and when the calf was seen, they said: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it and proclaimed, saying, Tomorrow shall be a feast to Jehovah." "Your gods" — that is, your God; for there was but one calf, and it was consecrated to one. So also Neh. ix. 18: "When they had made for themselves a molten calf, they said, This is your God who brought you out of Egypt" — that is, an image of your God, or a visible sign of His presence in your midst. The people were certainly foolish and rebellious; but that they were so bereft of reason as to believe that a newly made calf, which they had made in the desert only two days before, had brought them out of Egypt — no one can suppose this, unless he also thinks they were not only cast a single calf but were themselves all transformed into calves. Furthermore, when the people were summoned to consecrate the calf, Aaron proclaimed "A feast to Jehovah." "Tomorrow," he said, "shall be a feast to Jehovah" — that is, dancing before this image we will celebrate Jehovah. The feast was instituted for Him, not for the calf, not for Apis, not for Osiris or Isis. It is therefore certain that the wilderness Israelites resolved to worship no God other than Jehovah. This argument was once argued most learnedly in the books on idolatry and in the lectures on the Book of Revelation by the ornament of his age, John Reynolds.

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IV. How great a crime the people incurred by devising this arbitrary worship, and how hateful that superstition was to God, became most quickly apparent from the horrible outcome. This is not the place to recount the matter at length; but from those words of Exod. xxxii. 34, "On the day when I visit, I will surely visit their sin upon them," there passed into a proverb among the Jews: "No punishment is inflicted upon Israel in which there is not an ounce of the calf."

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V. By occasion of this crime as well, the whole people had been besmirched with the most shameful and lasting stain of infamy among other nations. For it was from no other source than this calf-idolatry that certain persons seized the occasion to forge that most celebrated fabrication about the golden head of an ass being worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. However utterly filthy the lie was, this folly — or rather this madness that surpassed all folly — does not allow us to suppose that the fabulists were entirely without any pretext. The words of Tacitus, Hist. V, chap. iv, are: "They consecrated in the innermost sanctuary an image of the animal by whose indication they had dispelled their wandering and their thirst." He had previously said that animal was an ass. That remarkable man seems to have achieved here, with a concise and compressed manner of expression, what no one since the birth of mankind has ever surpassed — uttering more lies in fewer words. Yet it cannot be denied that some shadow of the true history and of what was actually done, however obscurely, can be discerned through the windings of these lies. Sacred history teaches that the people were several times oppressed by thirst and the confusion of their routes in the vast wilderness. We know that they clamored urgently for a leader and for water; but that they happened upon a herd of asses going to water and made use of them as guides — that is an old wives' tale. But that they cast that golden calf with the intention of using that visible sign of God's presence as a kind of oracle in their distresses, and of continuing their journey under its auspices, is plain from the narrative of what was done. Also, long afterward, when they were settled in Canaan, led by no other example than that wilderness one, they consecrated the same image in certain inner sanctuaries — namely at Dan and Bethel. Remarkably, by a confusion of everything, the Gentiles transformed the golden calf into a living ass, the miracle of drawing water from the rock into a spring or stream found with the aid of asses, and Dan and Bethel into Jerusalem. And lest Josephus — otherwise the most diligent narrator of the antiquities and deeds of his nation — should furnish any occasion for continuing these lies of the Gentiles, he suppressed with deep silence this history of the Aaronic golden calf. The Targum of Uzziel, however, concerning this crime: "Their evil report went out among the peoples of the earth, and they acquired for themselves a bad name for their generations."

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VI. This calf, ground to powder, "Moses scattered upon the surface of the water and commanded the people to drink," Exod. xxxii. 20. From this act of Moses, Selden and Grotius conjecture that he alluded to the submersion of the Egyptian Apis; for at an appointed time they would solemnly submerge Apis in the Nile. But that submersion of Apis was a part of idolatrous worship, and by far the most superstitious part. That Moses imitated it — especially in that act by which he inflicted punishment with the utmost ignominy upon the idolaters — is in itself incredible and is plainly contradicted by sacred history.

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VII. The teachers of the Jews, from those words of Aaron in Exod. xxxii. 24, "I cast the gold into the fire, and this calf came out," invent — in order to clear him of the crime — that he threw the mass of gold into the fire with the intention of despoiling the Israelites of those ornaments which they were foolishly going to squander on idolatry, and that the calf came forth by the work of magicians, some of whom were from that Egyptian rabble which had gone up with the people into the desert. Jonathan ben Uzziel adds that Satan, having slipped in among the gold, produced that form — things that scarcely accord with what sacred history records about Aaron's act, in ver. 4, namely "that he received the gold from the hand of the people, fashioned it with a graving tool, and made from it a molten calf." François Morin also endeavors to remove every suspicion of crime from him in that book to which he gave the title "Aaron Vindicated." But in those dissertations — composed, to say nothing harsher, for the display of wit — he boldly and rashly fabricates many things that I marvel could ever have entered the mind of any mortal of sound head. He imagines that Aaron was at that time the high priest; he imagines that Aaron had seen the likeness of the calf on the mountain, even though God had expressly declared that no one had seen any likeness; he imagines that Aaron fashioned the calf after the pattern of the cherubim which Moses afterwards erected at God's command; he forgets that God had strictly forbidden them to form any image; and he contradicts the Holy Spirit to His face on many points, and advances many other things which it is distasteful to recount. Although Aaron did not propose to the people that any god other than Jehovah be worshipped in the calf, he nonetheless bound himself and the people in that manifest crime that, without God's command, he devised the way and manner of arbitrary worship in a visible sign.

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The Calves of Jeroboam — The occasion of their making — The motivating reasons and their use — What sort of images the Teraphim were and how they were made — The Teraphim of Micah — The Ephod of Gideon — The Bronze Serpent — The captivity of the ten tribes.

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I. After the manner of Aaron's calf, two other golden calves were erected long afterward by Jeroboam. For I trace here the origin and occasion of Jeroboam's superstition. The things that some report concerning Joseph are too forced. They say that a calf had once been dedicated to his memory in Egypt — which is indeed most uncertain. Then they say that Jeroboam, an Ephraimite of the stock of Joseph, chose this image to consecrate in worship, in order to keep the people in veneration of his own family. But these things, as we have said, seem too harsh and forced. It is more satisfying that the memory of Aaron's calf provided the occasion for making these others. For how greatly the ancient deeds of their fathers — whether rightly or wrongly done — were held in reverence among that people is attested by what is recorded concerning the bronze serpent likewise fashioned in the wilderness, and the ephod of Gideon, and other such things. The Holy Spirit relates the history of these calves in 1 Reg. xii. 28–32. The reasons for Jeroboam's plan are more fully set forth in 2 Chron. xiii. 6–9. The entire tribe of Levi, and very many of the pious among the Israelites, adhering to the ordinances of God, left their ancestral homes and withdrew to the territory of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; for it was certainly not free for them to go into the Judean dominion and return whenever they wished. For in the manner of those who hold power — especially when the novelty of a new kingdom and the lust for ruling concur, drawing every religious pretext in an evil direction — this Jeroboam judged that those who went up to Jerusalem for the purpose of worshipping God could safely form a plan to defect from his yoke; and therefore he took away from them all that liberty. Furthermore, by the law all males were required three times a year to present themselves before the Lord at the temple; and if they were obedient to that commandment, it would necessarily follow that the king would be deprived of all his subjects so many times, all of whom would be in the power of his most hostile enemy. He concluded that no kingdom with such a custom could endure. What then was he to do? Should he openly defect from Jehovah and His worship, and draw the people into the same wickedness? It is indeed probable that this wicked man, who had subordinated everything divine and human to his own ambition, would have attempted to drive the people — over whom he had obtained a recent and precarious rule — to that degree of impiety, if there had been any hope of it. He therefore calls to mind Aaron's calf and persuades the people that Jehovah could be worshipped in the manner Aaron had prescribed: 1 Reg. xii. 28, "Having taken counsel, the king made two golden calves and proclaimed to the Israelites, It is enough for you that you do not go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." He uses the same words that Aaron used at the dedication of his calf. Now it is plain that Jeroboam and

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the people worshipped Jehovah is plain. After the Baal worship — that is, solar worship — was later removed by Jehu, the people of the ten tribes nevertheless clung tenaciously to this practice of worshipping God in the calves, right up to their final and eternal captivity.

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II. Of this kind were the teraphim. They are first mentioned among the Jews at Jud. xvii. 5. We said something about them in our exposition of Abrahamic theology, at Gen. xxxi. 19. What they were is not yet settled. "Images made at a certain position of the stars, with figures," says Grotius. That the small images were made in human form is indicated by the history of Michal the daughter of Saul, who, in order to deceive the messengers sent by her father to kill David, placed teraphim in his bed, by whose appearance and form those deceived supposed that they were looking at David himself lying sick, 1 Sam. xix. 13. That images were made in the likeness of a human face is written in the Book of Roots by R. D. K. Eliagin of Tishbe relates the manner of making them: "They slaughtered," he says, "the firstborn son, whose head they severed by twisting. The severed head they then preserved with salt; and they wrote upon a golden plate the name of an unclean spirit, and so, lighting candles before it, they worshipped it." Divination through the dead was familiar to the ancients. The Emperor Hadrian killed his favorite Antinous in order to consult the gods through his entrails, and afterward enrolled him among the gods. The custom of lighting candles before images still persists among some. That teraphim were also used for eliciting oracles the sacred history teaches: Zech. x. 2, "The teraphim have spoken vanity;" Ezech. xxi. 21, "He consulted the teraphim." But that they were consecrated among the Jews in the manner described by Elijah is a Jewish fiction; for those who used them had no intention of worshipping any god other than Jehovah. They were merely a kind of small idol, easily portable, after the manner of household lares and penates. Accordingly, the mother of Micah affirms that the silver from which those idols of Micah were cast, she had "consecrated to Jehovah to make teraphim," Jud. xvii. 3. Micah was also greatly pleased that he had obtained a Levite as priest, ver. 10, who would not have cared what family his priest came from, unless he had resolved to worship Jehovah, see ver. 13. These teraphim were accompanied by an ephod — that is, "a linen priestly garment." The author of the Book of Judges records that these lasted until the captivity, xvii. 30. After the captivity, he foretold that the Israelites would live without them, Hos. iii. 4; for I do not agree with those who think the prophet there makes mention of true and false worship side by side — the ephod, they say, belonging to the Lord, and the teraphim to idols. But both were equipment of superstition; for the use of the ephod was no more lawful for the Israelites than that of the teraphim.

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III. To this also belongs the ephod of Gideon, Jud. viii. 27. Nothing need be said about the form of the garment, since it is described at length in the book of Exodus. It was a gilded garment: first a votive trophy of victory, then changed over to superstitious use. Augustine thinks the ephod is taken synecdochically, and that Gideon made all the pontifical vestments in order to draw the worship of God into his own city of Ophrah — with zeal perhaps good, but with a most wretched outcome. For he established these things without God's command; yet the Gideonites did not wholly forsake God Himself. IV. Well known to all are the things pertaining to the bronze serpent fashioned in the wilderness. First erected for an evangelical purpose, then transferred to superstitious use, the pious king Hezekiah broke it in pieces and cast it away with the utmost contempt. V. These, then, were — if not all, at least the chief — idols and the means and instruments of false worship by which this people, most abandoned to idolatry, initiated in this apostasy, defiled and contaminated themselves by rejecting the first foundation of Mosaic Theology. God caused the church of the ten tribes — wallowing in this foul flood of idolatries and incurable — to be led away into eternal captivity, without hope or promise of return, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16. A few things still remain to be said concerning the Jewish church.

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III. This was that partial apostasy of the Jewish church which God, employing the greatest gentleness and mercy, was pleased to correct by seventy years of captivity. For after the people had not permitted themselves to be torn away from those wicked customs and errors through the prophetic ministry, and were moreover heaped with every injustice, licentiousness, plunder, fornication, murder, and oppression, the church was reduced to such a condition that, partly on account of the national constitution and partly because the very great majority of the people had consented to the apostasy, the reformation of the church through the separation of the righteous had become utterly impossible. God was therefore pleased to bring a universal desolation upon it, so that the people, restored to their ancestral land, might be able to recommence from the very foundations, as it were, all things pertaining to the observance of Mosaic Theology.

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The necessity of the Babylonian captivity for the reformation of the church — The heads of the Ezraitic reformation — The Great Synagogue restored — Its origin; its work — The Feast of Tabernacles restored, pleasing to God — The sole rule of ecclesiastical reformation — Repudiation of polygamy — The accuracy of the biblical text — The origin of the Hebrew points.

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I. THAT God had not cast off all care for the church carried away into captivity was both evident from the outcome, and He Himself had given assurance of it to the godly through His promises. Indeed, to a most merciful Father, that brief exile was punishment enough for the greatest of crimes. The condition of that people during it was far different — vastly different — from what the condition of that same people now is, being most utterly cut off from God. For at that time they were not destitute of the written word, or of the Holy Spirit, or of the prophetic ministry, or of the most certain hope of return. But as we have said, it was impossible for that church to be recovered to good fruit without a total interruption of its solemn observances. For since the temple was holy, the city holy, and the whole land holy, and the priests all of one particular family, and the sacred administrations bound to one place, and the greater part of the priests and people corrupted and stubbornly persisting in apostate defection, a removal from the catholic seats of the church was necessarily to be prepared in advance for its reformation. But when the appointed time of captivity had been completed, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah — historical — and of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi — prophetical — testify that the returning people, under the auspices of godly princes, priests, and prophets, undertook the most complete reformation of the church according to the standard of Mosaic Theology.

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IV. We set down the second part of the Ezraitic reformation as the institution of the Great Synagogue, which is remembered with celebrated fame among the Jews. The Hebrew phrase — "the men of the Great Synagogue" — is the most customary circumlocution of these reformers. Whoever wishes to know more about it, besides the Jews themselves, may consult: Martin. Raymund., Pug. Fid., part ii, cap. iv.; Petrum Galatin., Arcan., lib. iv, cap. vi.; Bodin., de Repub., lib. vi, cap. viii; Baron., Annal., T. i, A.c. xxxi. 10, 11, xxxiii. 19; Lorin., ad Numer. xi. 16; Casaubon., Exercit., xiii. 5; Cappell., Vindic. pro Casaub., lib. iii, cap. ii.; Cunee, de Repub. Heb.; Constant. l'Emper., in Titu. Mid-

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V. The Sanhedrin of seventy-one members had been instituted by Moses in the wilderness, which, compared to the lesser assemblies of judges, is commonly called the Great. Some affirm that it served only the wilderness era, and did not endure in the land of Canaan once judges or kings had been established; but Selden, the most vigorous defender of these Sanhedrins, rightly shows that they are greatly mistaken in this — though he does not deny that it had been interrupted many times. The returning people restored this Sanhedrin in the first place. There are, I confess, those for whom this most eminent part of the Ezraitic reformation is disagreeable, and who regard what is said concerning it as Jewish fictions; while they themselves are meanwhile ready to believe whatever the lying Talmud dares to invent in its traditions, provided it serves the interests of the opinions they cherish. But as we have said, the origin of this Sanhedrin of seventy-one members was sacred, proceeding from an express commandment of God. Those who dream that those great men and prophets returning from captivity — most thoroughly instructed in the law of God, burning with zeal for reformation of every kind — did not restore that assembly, without which they could neither preserve order nor authority, will find no rival in me. For they are not found to have fallen short of their duty in other matters in such a way that we would suspect them of negligence in this institution of the highest utility and necessity for the governance of the people. VI. Furthermore, this assembly of reformers was called the "Great Synagogue" par excellence, not from the number of its members, which was precisely determined, but on account of the dignity of the persons who constituted it,

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348 THE JEWISH CHURCH, THE EZRAITIC REFORMATION. [Book V. Indeed, the greater part of the confessors were men who were inspired, prophets, and amanuenses of the Holy Spirit. The church had never seen an assembly of this kind since the days of Moses; no one therefore ought to find it surprising if it brought back into sacred practice those things which, though instituted by God from the very beginnings of the church, had lain despised and neglected; and if, relying on divine authority, it ordained certain things concerning the sacred Scripture itself for the use and benefit of all the faithful to the end of the world. The reformation of the church comes closest to its original institution. It was therefore necessary that all these prophets and men of God should be, as it were, a single Moses; for a great and arduous work lay upon them, by which the ruins of many generations were to be repaired. It is pleasing to add one or two examples of the utmost diligence in restoring all things exactly to the standard of Mosaic Theology.

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VIII. We shall presently show that this synagogue also expelled from the boundaries of the church the unlawful intermarriage with Gentiles that had scarcely been avoided in a holy manner since the days of Solomon; but they also went higher still. For men instructed with the spirit of prophecy set themselves against the most ancient custom — never truly approved by God — of taking multiple wives and of dismissing those whom they had joined to themselves by lawful bonds on trivial pretexts, a custom which had prevailed throughout the whole nation from antiquity, Mal. ii. 14-16: "Jehovah has testified between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously: though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did He not make one, though He had a remnant of spirit? And why one? That He might seek a godly offspring ... For he hates divorce, says Jehovah, the God of Israel." This is a remarkable testimony against polygamy, such as does not exist elsewhere in the whole Old Testament before the captivity. I confess that the earlier words of verse 15 are ambiguous — the Hebrew phrase which interpreters render variously: "Did not one do it?" "Did he not make one?" And in Greek: "Did not another make it?" For the Hebrew word, being masculine in gender, seems unable to denote a woman. But it does not have a feminine form derived from it. For the root of this word is not from the form which would yield a feminine, but from another, as R. D. K. teaches in the Michlol. It is therefore no wonder if this form is sometimes used in the feminine gender, as its neuter sense indicates, Zech. xi. 7; the following words also admit no other meaning. The Targum of Jonathan trifles with something or other about Abraham alone. But the words are clearly to be interpreted either of the single woman created in the beginning, as our Lord Jesus Christ Himself — the best author and interpreter of Scripture — appears to render their sense; or of the counsel of the one God to join one male and one female in lawful matrimony.

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IX. The words, moreover, with which the prophet treats the subject of divorce are not altogether free from ambiguity, ver. 16: Jerome renders: "If you have hated her, put her away, saith the Lord." The ancient English version: "If he hate her, let him put her away" — which reading the royal translation retains in the margin, yet interprets the words in an entirely different sense: "The Lord saith that he hateth putting away" — in accordance with the mind of the Holy Spirit. For since the words are set down elliptically, that sense which, without arbitrary supplements, is nearest to the foundation, is to be embraced. Therefore the word is placed absolutely, and God testifies that He hates this sending away.

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XI. We have mentioned in the foregoing place the careful preservation of Holy Scripture. It is the greatest treasure of the church, to which, under God's care and the administration of the Spirit, it owes its continued existence on earth. This is the sole law of the entire reformation, and therefore the first thing to be attended to with care. No one can justly doubt that Ezra and his prophetic colleagues had carefully preserved ancient copies in their possession. They applied the greatest effort to transcribing these most accurately, and to removing errors that could not impossibly have crept in from other copies during the period of the dispersion. Some attribute the beginning of the collation of all these to the Masorah. In the whole work, moreover, they made use of the most present inspiration and guidance of God. But that Ezra

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— neither to have wished to change the ancient letters, nor to have been obliged to, nor to have been able to, nor to have had any need to, we have already demonstrated. There is also another fiction which has, more than it ought, gained credence among some great men: namely, that the entire Holy Scripture was lost, and that Ezra restored it from memory and committed it to writing. A most absurd falsehood, and at the same time a blasphemy! God forbid that anyone should hereafter cast this reproach upon His care, providence, and love toward the church! XII. Most learned men consider the invention of Hebrew vowel points to pertain to Ezra's careful work on the biblical text. I assent to their opinion to this extent, that I regard it as most probable. For after the prophetic ministry had ceased in the Jewish church, it is a matter of reverence to think that no others whatsoever could have undertaken that work. Whether, therefore, we say that the vowels were coeval with the letters themselves, or were devised by Ezra, it amounts to the same thing, since both positions ascribe a divine origin to them. There are, however, those who hold that the entire Hebrew vowel-pointing is a post-Talmudic rabbinic invention. What I think in this matter, since the plan of my work requires me to state it, I hope I may set forth without giving offense to anyone here or elsewhere; although another attempt on this front did not turn out so successfully, by which, all unknowingly, I frightened away the clucking hen from the egg she had just hatched.

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I. It is the opinion of great men that Ezra and his colleagues, assessors of the great synagogue, invented the Hebrew vowel pointing while they were making careful provision for the Holy Scriptures, since before that time the Jews used only the twenty-two consonantal letters in writing. I am not willing, for my part, to oppose the opinion of those who hold that the vowels were coeval with the letters, nor to persist in that view obstinately; since even those who consider the origin of the vowel points to be ascribed to Ezra maintain plainly that it was of divine origin. The opinion, therefore, whose defense we undertake in this digression, is that the Hebrew vowel pointing which we now use by the benefit of God should be assigned to no one after the time of Ezra; or, what amounts to the same thing, that it had a divine and infallible origin. For there are some who think that certain post-Talmudic rabbis devised it; and they not only think so, but also consider that those who hold otherwise deserve to be met with insults. Yet the monstrous arrogance they employ does not frighten me from subjecting their opinion to examination. For the anger and high-sounding words which some display — acting as if they were pleading the cause of truth, with minds puffed up with disgust and an excessive opinion of themselves, or inflated with the leaven of partisan zeal — are things which one who has not learned to despise, or at least

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to disregard, will, in these embittered times, be compelled to abandon all hope and concern for defending the truth.

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II. When this divergence of opinions was first entered into by learned men, it seemed to be of very little moment how the dispute was resolved. Elias Levita is almost the only one among Jews who inclines toward the opinion of the novelty of the vowel pointing. But since he had established that the oral law — which that most superstitious nation adores as a shadow or a cloud — had always existed, merely being committed to writing by the rabbis, he was untroubled about its divine authority. Perhaps it was equally indifferent to him whether it was considered to have originated from God Himself or from masters who nearly occupy God's place. Those Christians who first embraced this opinion could not foresee in their own thoughts what evils would arise from it. But since the audacity of some in profaning the Holy Scriptures has ceased to be tolerable and advances further every day — lest at length, outrageously, nothing sacred should remain in the sacred texts — it seems to be the concern of all who are held by due reverence for the divine word to guard most scrupulously every detail of Hebrew truth. For we see that from this one error — concerning the rabbinic and arbitrary invention of the Hebrew vowel points — very many evils have poured themselves out upon the church of God, threatening the most serious ruin to sacred truth. Hence some assert that the individual words of Holy Scripture must be considered and weighed apart from all connection with other words, as so many, I suppose, hieroglyphic signs; others, that the Holy Scriptures have been corrupted by the Jews in this arrangement or fixing of vowel points which we now use — among these is Bellarmine, De Verb. Dei, lib. ii. cap. li. Johannes Morinus maintains that the sense of the Hebrew text cannot be perceived by us without the aid of the vowel points; and therefore, since the points owe their origin to the effort of uncertain men — fallible in all things, plainly false in some — that Hebrew text cannot be the rule and norm of faith, Exerc. lib. i. cap. ii. Gregory of Valencia therefore wishes it to be corrected according to the standard of the Latin Vulgate version, tom. i. disput. v. quest. 38. Another person — whom I do not name, both out of respect and for other reasons — thinks that rabbinic invention is not so perfect that it cannot be improved. Another holds that the vowel pointing can be altered by anyone at his own pleasure, provided that a more convenient sense of the words is elicited by that alteration. Cappellus adds that very many differences between the Hebrew text and the ancient versions, especially the Greek of the LXX, took their rise from this — that the latter was made before the invention of the vowel points, and accordingly followed that reading which was then in use, from which the Masoretes often departed in their vowel pointing. I fear, however, that through this opened door, still greater monstrosities of opinion may be expected from the curious and itching minds of this age, especially if diligence should be added to audacity. How this dispute was conducted not long ago among learned men, especially Buxtorf and Cappellus, is known to no one who wishes to be informed of these matters

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— about these matters. What has recently been said by some others is almost entirely borrowed from those men. Indeed, I am sufficiently well-informed that certain persons would not have pressed forward so heavily armed with the testimonies of the rabbis on behalf of the novelty of the vowel points, had not the most illustrious Buxtorf so thoroughly burned his calf, that what he had adduced by way of objection against himself they converted to their own use.

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V. 2. The very nature of the thing clearly shows that it is from heaven, not from men. The Spirit breathes everywhere in it. From beginning to end of the sacred books, consistent with itself, self-coherent, everywhere sincerely and infallibly determining the meaning of the letters, this punctuation indicates and declares the mind of the Holy Spirit. Those on the opposing side will never produce a single instance to the contrary that carries any weight. This shines forth most clearly in the most obscure prophecies, which conceal the most profound mysteries — in the understanding of which all Jews are blinder than moles, and have been so ever since the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. I trust that grave and learned men would not wish to sell, for the price of the most uncertain conjectures, that light which the punctuation brings to innumerable places of sacred Scripture, unless they were afflicted with a certain perverse obstinacy. That certain accents are superfluous and useless, that the silent shewa is often added without purpose and multiplied without cause, and other such petty quibbles which Cappellus suggests in the reformation of grammar in favor of his hypothesis — these are so frivolous and inept that I marvel that learned men have been able to insist on them and ever bring themselves to accept them. That learned men will know the proper rationale for every single point in sacred Scripture — this, I think, they will not claim. Certainly I know those who have told me, in their published writings, that certain points in the Hebrew punctuation are wholly useless and certain accents superfluous; but who told them the same I do not know. Nor is there any inclination in me, in so great a cause, to lend faith and authority to grammatical trifles and the bold conjectures of puffed-up men. Others say that Hebrew punctuation is not so perfect a work but that it can be corrected, emended, and rendered more perfect. But there is more than one reason why I should judge them as too elated by their own opinion, or as knowingly and willingly carrying themselves more magnificently than their merits warrant, in order the more disdainfully to contemn others. Come then; if they are men, let them try their strength. We shall immediately see how far bronze differs from lupines. They shall never equal that man and his wisdom who produced the punctuation, even if they burst themselves trying. Let them proceed by specific instances, or it will be of no profit to pour out empty words, of those who are at home neither here nor there. Whoever shall seriously weigh this work will find it perfect, divine, most absolute — like the other works of God, to which nothing can be added and nothing taken away. To one who would emend or

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354 On the Origin of Hebrew Punctuation. (Book V.) To one who would emend or correct it I shall say: Will you also annul my judgment? [Job 40:2.] Nor indeed can I sufficiently wonder what has come into the minds of learned men, that they should ascribe to some ignorant rogues — destitute of all resources both spiritual and of secular learning — a work of this kind, to the emending of which in any single point the entire nation of the learned has always been unequal, and still is.

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VI. 3. In this question, which is one of fact, the testimonies of the Jews themselves are of no small weight. All of them here agree in the same judgment, namely, that the origin of the punctuation was divine. Elias Levita himself, who was almost the only one among his people who dared to ascribe the designation of open sounds by means of points to the post-Talmudic Masoretes of Tiberias, nevertheless everywhere maintains that it was a part of the oral law handed down by God Himself on Mount Sinai, and that it had been preserved no less sacredly and inviolately than if it had been committed to writing from the very beginning. But the majority of them, and the most learned, consistently assign this writing to Moses or Ezra. Whoever wishes to see this proved by testimonies should consult the most learned dissertation of the distinguished Buxtorf on the origin of Hebrew punctuation, and Joseph de Voisin in his most erudite preface to the Pugio Fidei of Martin Raymond. When I had said elsewhere that the testimonies of the rabbis carry great weight in this cause, and that they ought therefore to be considered competent to have invented the punctuation itself, this was objected against me. But most unjustly: the absurdity of that comparison betrays itself. For some can bear witness that a thing was done divinely — at least that neither they nor their fathers did it — who are in reality wholly unequal and unfit for doing the thing itself. But to dismiss the testimonies of the Hebrews, they say that the controversy is not about the sounds of the vowels, but only about the signs. For they acknowledge that the Hebrews always had the same vowel sounds which they still use, and that thus the language was never destitute of vowels. That the observation of this distinction is of such great moment for deciding this whole controversy, someone not long ago judged it to be, so that he attacked me with unbridled spirit because, in narrating this controversy, I had thought no account of it needed to be taken. But I could not suppose that the question being discussed was whether all Hebrews were utterly dumb until the time of the Masoretes of Tiberias. For if they were destitute of vowel sounds, they were also dumb, and could never utter a single complete word. For that nothing can be pronounced through the letters themselves without open vowel sounds is known to those who have not yet washed their ears. That the Hebrew language had vowels in this sense — not only before it entered anyone's mind to express them by marks or figures, but even before a single consonant letter was written or inscribed — whoever shall attempt to prove this by reasons and arguments, has a cause, without doubt, in which it is easy to be eloquent. Meanwhile it is the origin of the points, not of the sounds, that we are investigating. But since the advocates of the novelty of the points judge it to be in the interest of their cause that this distinction between sounds and figures of vowels be carefully weighed in the agitation of this question, come, let us concede that the Hebrews before the invention of the points were not dumb, but spoke after the manner of other men. But what assistance they can carve out of this for their cause still remains to be seen by us. VII. 4. The supreme utility, if not the absolute necessity, of the points and accents for the proper understanding of the sacred text — since I have expounded this elsewhere — I am unwilling to rehearse at length here. I leave this to the judgment of all who have ever seriously used the Hebrew language in the study of sacred letters. Rabbi Bechai, on section Noah, Exod. 13:17, brings forward an excellent testimony from the book Bahir to this end — namely: The points with the letters of the law of Moses are like the soul of life in the human body. But if that heavenly light, which is generated for truth from the fixing and restricting of the meaning of the words which the Holy Spirit uses, is to be reckoned the product of human ingenuity and will, what great evils will immediately spring from that, and what prejudices to faith, no one can easily conjecture. The memory of the attempts of some, whom this supposition has driven out, is altogether unwelcome. Hence we have seen some boasting, without horror and most just indignation, resting on doubtful, uncertain, indeed most inept conjectures — those who, in order to display themselves as skilled craftsmen in composing learned conjectures, are prepared to cast away all reverence for God and men — the uncertainty and obscurity of the Hebrew text, and correction to be instituted through the versions, and even conjectures, if only one would use them modestly, according to their own judgment. Still worse things are forced upon us by the itching and ambitious minds of this age. Let the vowel points be removed, all the distinctive accents, and let the bare letters remain, or rather let them remain thus stripped bare, with no distinction applied throughout any book, each word separated from the rest by some point as among the Samaritans, or at least an imaginary one — how great an Iliad of evils, how great scandals and dangers would immediately flood the church would be apparent at once. But that all these things can be thus removed and discarded, indeed perhaps ought to be, if the entire punctuation is the handiwork of uncertain men, of Jewish rabbis — no reason of any weight can be brought forward. They say, however, that the letters which they call mothers of reading, and the letter Vav, before the invention of the points were either vowels or were used in the place of vowels, by the benefit of which readers could easily remedy all those inconveniences that seem to accompany the absence of vowels; and that the points also were not set by the Masoretes of Tiberias according to their own will or pleasure, and that therefore the punctuation does not rest on their authority. But I would first gladly know whether those letters alone which they call mothers of reading, which now appear in the sacred text, were employed for that end, or whether they were also added and inserted in all other places in which the sound of the word requires their presence. If they say that only those were formerly used which still adhere to the text, and in those places and words in which they remain — it is clearer than noonday light that they could not supply the place of vowels nor compensate for their deficiency; since there are innumerable words in which they do not appear at all, and sometimes where they are present they do not serve correct pronunciation, if any trust is to be placed in the present punctuation; for it would necessarily follow that a single Aleph would render almost all open sounds by itself, which everyone sees would be as ridiculous to imagine. But if they shall say that these vowel letters were formerly multiplied in the text, and written throughout according to the standard of the sound of the words — I should like to know who those persons were who dared to pluck out and discard so many thousands of letters inscribed in sacred Scripture by God Himself and the prophets, or when we should suspect this was done? Neither the religion nor the superstition of the Jews allows us to ascribe so bold a deed to them. It is not characteristic of the same men both to count scrupulously how many times each single letter occurs throughout the entire Bible, and to discard so many thousands voluntarily. Therefore this fiction is not willing to heal the wound that the novel opinion concerning the points inflicts upon the light of truth and the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Moreover, that the Hebrew text was expressed with Greek characters by the aid of these vowel letters — which is also pretended — is proved by no reasons or testimonies. That bare assertions, suspicions, and conjectures should be allowed any place in so great a cause is not fair. One could have learned the pronunciation of the Hebrew language from the usage of the Jews, or from the points themselves, so that for representing the Hebrew text in Greek characters one had no need of that fictitious and most imperfect aid. Then again, that the Masoretes of Tiberias did not punctuate the Scriptures according to their own will — which is the other part of the answer set out above — is something that Jews, relying on the foolish tradition of the oral law, can maintain with some modesty and show of probability; but others cannot, namely those who acknowledge that oral law to be a fiction of superstitious men. There is, however, one who, in defending the novelty of the points, asserts twenty times, and not without insults toward those of the contrary opinion, that these Masoretes punctuated Scripture according to the received and common reading which properly expressed the mind of the Holy Spirit, and not according to their own will. Let us see, therefore, what sound reason underlies this that could persuade anyone to regard that fictitious punctuation of the Masoretes as of any value. The Masoretes, they say, attached the points to the Bible according to the reading received and in common use at that time. Among whom, I ask, was that reading received, which is established as the standard for attaching the points? Among those very Masoretes themselves, of course. For at the time when they say this deed was done, it is uncertain whether there were any Christians who understood the Hebrew text. The Masoretes, therefore, punctuated the Bible according to the reading received among themselves. That is the hope. Although we have shown elsewhere that they were the worst of rogues, if there were any, perpetually using the boldness of fabricating whatever they pleased; let it be granted, however, that in this undertaking it was expedient for them to be honest. What then? That received reading exhibited the genuine meaning of the Holy Spirit, to which they attended in attaching the points. But who, I ask, were the judges and arbiters of that meaning? The Masoretes themselves, without doubt. Therefore the Masoretes attached the points not according to their own will but according to the reading received among themselves and the meaning which they judged best and true. If I were to deny this, how, I ask, would the adversary prove it? Will he show that they acted in good faith in other matters? He will never do so. Will he bring witnesses? He has none. And Seneca teaches us that a historian has never been compelled to take an oath. Let us therefore proceed in equity and fairness, and concede what cannot be proved. But these things are not mutually contradictory: they could have used their own judgment in discerning the true reading and in investigating the meaning of the Holy Spirit, and yet have had no form or standard of punctuation, and thus be arbitrary judges of the work they undertook — unless no one is to be considered to act according to his own will unless he acts perversely. That strict judgment is one thing and arbitrary judgment another, Marcus Tullius affirms in the oration for Roscius. But the laws would nowhere have constituted arbitrary judges if it were necessary that whoever determines anything by his own will must determine it without judgment. For when we permit something to the will of others, we do not mean that in passing sentence on us and our affairs they should indulge their own inclinations with no regard for what is fair or right. When I said, therefore, that the Masoretes attached the points to the Bible according to their own will, I understood nothing else, nor could I have understood anything else, than that they carried out this work using and trusting their own judgments. Thus the knowledge, skill, judgment, and integrity of the Tiberian rabbis — all of which I would not purchase for a rotten walnut — are, according to this view, the sole foundation of the present reading of all Hebrew manuscripts. For there is no mortal who has learned the use of manuscripts that are still written without points, except by the aid of the points. But you say that, relying on tradition and not on their own judgment, they reproduced in their punctuation the reading received from their fathers. But how faithful they were as guardians of traditions, how skilled as compilers and purveyors of most inept fables, indeed horrible blasphemies, under the name of most ancient traditions — as if they had counted it a glory to have utterly overturned all traces of truth — I am unwilling to say at greater length here, since the matter is manifest and will be spoken of later. Therefore, from that tradition — since they themselves, even if they were not to be promoted, had nevertheless constituted themselves by their own authority as guardians and preservers of it — we are not yet freed from having to rest on the faith of one of those rogues in the reading of the entire Hebrew text. They say furthermore that the true reading of the text was preserved not so much by oral tradition, after that language ceased to be vernacular, as by the very writing of the text itself, which always remained intact. But this also seems to me remarkable; for it does not admit of easy explanation how the true reading can be preserved in the writing, through that writing which cannot be read. For I should gladly know, since the letters without

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VIII. 5. Furthermore: the force and authority of the opinion concerning the ancient and sacred origin of the points are strengthened by the uncertainty and vacillation of the authors of the contrary opinion in assigning their origin. They are unwilling to say that Ezra invented the points; who then is the author of the work? When did he live, and where in the world? To what end did he undertake the work? By whose command, persuasion, or authority? Whom or how many did he have as master workmen, arbiters, and judges of the work? What did those whose interest it most greatly was that the work be carried out to the last detail think or determine concerning the work undertaken and completed? All these things they either openly profess to be ignorant of, or it is easy to prove that they are. The work is said to have been the common undertaking of the Masoretes of Tiberias. So, of course, said Elias Levita. Some determine that it was completed in the fifth century after the birth of Christ, others in the sixth, Morinus in the seventh or eighth. But what if I were to say that those Masoretes of Tiberias never existed, and that the authors of this opinion, in order to fabricate that the points were devised by those Masoretes, first fabricated the Masoretes themselves? Could they convict me of falsehood from any approved history, from the monuments of past events? I am quite sure they cannot. I acknowledge indeed that around the year 350, when Jerome was in Palestine, the Jews had an obscure and inglorious school in the city of Tiberias. Whether it lasted there until the time to which the inventors and fabricators of this imaginary work are compelled to assign it is uncertain, indeed improbable. For such was the condition of that people at that time that they could not safely remain for long in any considerable number anywhere within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, which they had so often shaken with slaughters, seditions, and wars. In the very place where they are said to have completed this work, not long before they had been afflicted with a great disaster by Gallus, the legate of the Emperor Constantius. From that time, whether any trace of a Masoretic school remained in Tiberias is immediately uncertain. Furthermore: everything in which there was ever any knowledge or learning among the Jews was cultivated more diligently at that time in the east, around Babylon, where they had occupied quieter habitations, than in Palestine. While the western rabbis had been almost as mute as fish for a century or two, out of the east came that great and most consummate work of fables and trifles, the Talmud, which is called Babylonian. That a few obscure, ignoble men of no name or worth should have undertaken and completed so great a work without the knowledge of other celebrated men of the same profession, and without consulting them — this is for those to believe who are ready to give easy credence to everything that yields to the advantage of their cause. Furthermore: whoever has greeted any Jewish writings even from the threshold knows that all Jews are, and have always been from the final rejection, the most insolent heralds of things gloriously achieved, as it seems to them, by themselves and their own people. In this arena they have always taken care only that they do not pass over true things in silence, while they shamelessly put forward falsehoods, fictions, and unprecedented claims everywhere with the utmost impudence. Yet concerning this most divine of inventions, than which that people has never produced anything equal or comparable, there is among them the deepest silence for several centuries. After a thousand years, Elias finally came forward, who suspects that certain Masoretes of Tiberias devised this work. Was there no one who could have committed to writing for posterity the origin of that divine artifice among the inventors themselves, especially since its glory and usefulness were so great that nowhere in the world — whether Christian or Jew, learned or unlearned — has anyone been found who was willing or dared to contradict its use or its perfection in any part, in the whole, or in the smallest point? Is it credible that the fame of so great an endeavor, exulting in its prosperous success, should have been entirely extinguished within the brief space of a generation among a people most tenacious of all traditions even about trivial and worthless matters? I confess that I do not have enough credulity in my treasury to bestow faith on such portentous conjectures.

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IX. That the punctuation of the Bible is a most excellent invention, no one, I think, will deny. It must plainly be said that nothing like it will ever arise, nor has anything like it ever arisen. The church has received an immortal benefit in its use. There are learned men who hold that it is absolutely and indispensably necessary for the true understanding of sacred letters. Without the points, says Marcus Mann in his preface to his Hebrew Lexicon, no certain doctrine about this language can be transmitted; since everything can be read in different ways, so that there would be greater confusion of this one language than that of Babylon. And Rudolphus Cevallerius, in Rudiments of the Hebrew Language, chap. 4: As for what remains concerning the antiquity of the vowels and accents, I subscribe to the opinion of those who affirm that the Hebrew language, as the most perfect archetype of all other languages, was plainly written with them from the beginning; since those who think otherwise not only make the authority of sacred Scripture doubtful, but in my judgment utterly overturn it, inasmuch as without vowels and marks of distinction it has nothing certain and firm. Franciscus Junius is of the same opinion, in his Animadversions on Book II, Chapter 2, of Bellarmine's De Verbo Dei; where, following John Isaac, a Jewish Christian, he compares one who undertakes to read the Scriptures without the points to a one-eyed horse. I will not repeat what Jerome said about the writings of Jovinian, after someone else about those of Plautus: No one but the Sibyl will read these; but I can apply that poet's saying — he who has obtained a reputation obtains a standing — so on all sides do difficulties present themselves in the bare letters. And noteworthy are the remarks of Engelbertus Engles in his preface to the lexicon of Valentin Schindler. There are, he says, many most learned and most distinguished men, who, because certain Jewish rabbis long after the

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360 On the Origin of Hebrew Punctuation. [Book V.] letters of the alphabet, assert that the points were invented by men, and think that vowels did not exist at the same time as the consonants of the Hebrews; but if the few places of Scripture enumerated from many are more carefully considered, it will become clear that the points either arose together with the 22 letters, or that Scripture was formerly like wax, flexible now in this direction, now in that. And if the points were invented by men, it follows necessarily that Scripture in our time has not divine but human authority. Hence that saying of Aben-Ezra, in the Balance of the Holy Language: Whatever exposition shall not be according to the rationale of the accents, do not acquiesce in it, nor give ear to it. He has similar statements in other places; I will add only what he has in his Commentary on Exod. 20:1: Know that words are like bodies, and accents like souls; but the body is like a garment to the soul.

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X. The far greater part of the theologians who have been trained in this arena holds the same view. Some of the Papists do indeed freely concede that the Hebrew text, with the vowel points removed, can be understood either not at all, or only with great difficulty and very imperfectly. Then, certain great men who, in their writings, touched on this matter in passing while engaged with other subjects — having by no means weighed all the considerations pertaining to this cause — were too hastily drawn to a position on it; and these men, seizing their concessions for their own purposes with the utmost boldness, triumph over the sacred Hebrew truth with astonishing audacity, as though it were useless and scarcely or not at all intelligible. There are even those who fling a grave charge against those who most firmly believe in the divine origin of the vowel points, on the grounds that, according to the opinion of those who assign that origin to the rabbis, the pointing could, and perhaps should, be removed — as though they were doing injury to the Holy Scriptures, and attempting that from which much of the clarity of the text would be taken away. By the same reasoning, some Socinian might say that I deny Christ ought to be worshiped with religious worship, because I deny that He ought to be so worshiped unless He were that supreme and only God — while the Socinian himself is fully persuaded that He is not that supreme God. In this matter, therefore, we have all learned men as supporters; namely, that the use of vowel points and accents is of such great moment for perceiving the true and genuine sense of Holy Scripture, that with them removed, nearly all things would be thrown into a wondrous confusion and rendered uncertain. It is indeed true that those who have attained to the true reading of the text by means of the pointing, and who retain knowledge of that sense which the pointed words and the passages distinguished by accents express, are able to make much progress in the study of the Scriptures by the aid of other means. But let us suppose that these points had never been devised, and let us utterly cast away all the sense and understanding that we have drawn from Holy Scripture by their benefit, whether directly or through the labors and studies of others; let us approach the bare letters with minds empty of preconceived opinions — and we shall immediately see into what great difficulties, uncertainties, and darkness we are plunged. For since every person’s own judgment would be established as the standard for the pronunciation of words, the reading of sentences, and all pauses and distinctions, who would prevent the entire community of scholars from immediately falling into endless and ruinous disputes? That unique word of God — once the glorious prize — would become an apple of discord. Whether proud and luxuriant minds, swollen with the conceit of knowledge or laboring for a reputation in learning, would leave anything unmoved and beyond doubt in it, is quite uncertain; indeed, it is nearly most certain that they would leave nothing of the sort. Upon this pointing rest all those means by which we learn this language, and even many aids for those already advanced in its solid knowledge. If all these are cast away — and not just this or that conjugation as pleases Cappellus, since the rationale is the same for all — without whose help and benefit not even the Jews themselves, who are wholly devoted to the study of this language, would have anything certain to rest upon, then the door will most certainly be thrown wide open — not merely a broad window, but a great gate — to endless disputes. For is there almost any man of somewhat greater learning who would not feel shame, and who would not be weary of his own sloth, if he could contrive nothing new which, by his own judgment and testimony, would contribute to correcting the true and genuine reading of Holy Scripture and to properly fixing and establishing the distinctions of sentences? And shall we suppose that no one would immediately be found who, to show himself a more excellent craftsman than another, or more skilled at composing learned conjectures, would tear down his work? He must indeed be a stranger to all literary matters, and especially to criticism, who thinks otherwise. But there is no need, they say, for the present reading or pointing to be changed in any respect. I say, however, that in order for any work to be held so sacred that no one has the right to change it in any respect or to introduce anything new into it, this must arise either from the excellence of the work itself, or additionally from the supreme and inviolable authority of its author. Where only the excellence and rationale of the work is alleged, it is fair that that excellence and rationale be accurately and diligently weighed, in order to establish that they are not alleged in vain. But once an examination has been instituted, it is entirely lawful and free for the examiner to reject whatever seems less congruent with right reason. And there is nothing to prevent this from being done in this cause. They say that this system of pointing is most excellent, and therefore should not easily be rejected in any respect. Very well; but it is not exempted from free examination on account of its excellence — not in the least; indeed, where through its alteration a truer reading or a more suitable sense can be drawn out in the judgment of the examiners, then since it is subject to examination by its own merits, not only will such alteration be lawful but even necessary. And it is clear that this must be said of all sentences, indeed of every single word. Come, then, let the critics try their strength, exhaust the full power of their art here, bring hither wagonloads of annotations, devise new readings, new senses — the most faithful guardian of sacred truth, namely the received reading, has gone — it has perished — it has boarded ship —

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362 ON THE ORIGIN OF HEBREW POINTING. [Book V.] — reverence for the received reading. Many things, I admit, are brought forward by the advocates of the novelty of the points in answer to the argument drawn from the impossibility of learning that language and attaining the genuine sense of Scripture in many places, with the benefit of the pointing removed. Johannes Morinus confesses that the matter is truly so, and that an accurate knowledge of this language is altogether impossible; and he ridicules those who think that the Masoretes by their pointing preserved the correct pronunciation of the language. It is true that the Hebrew language, compared with other languages, contains very few words. But it is not thereby made easy to learn or readily acquired. For although the words or expressions are few, yet many have the same signification; and there is almost none that does not admit of several meanings, and very many admit a great number. The same letters exhibit various and often entirely different significations. This is well known. The word rendered “Salomo” means both “Solomon” and “perfect” and “recompense” and “garment.” Innumerable examples of this kind can be drawn from any vocabulary and concordance of this language. While it was indeed a vernacular tongue, spoken daily by a vast multitude of people, it was not very difficult to properly grasp the force of each word and to retain it by use. But when it ceased to be in common use, and there was no person for whom it was his native and vernacular tongue, and it was preserved in its entirety in one book alone, it is altogether impossible that its correct pronunciation could be maintained except from a consideration of the text of the book itself. Some urge that the Greek language at one time lacked accents, and was yet sufficiently clear to the understanding. But whoever concludes that Greek accents are to be compared with Hebrew vowel points and accents appears to have insufficiently grasped the use or function of either in the respective language. The Greek language has such breadth that nearly everything in it is redundant. Moreover, the regular variation of its words and their mutual dependence in construction are so great that the accents contribute little or nothing to the intelligibility of speech. There are very few words which, consisting of the same letters in certain tenses, are distinguished in meaning by accents. In Hebrew all things are different: the variation of words is minimal; the dependence in the course of speech is rare and abrupt; ellipses are most frequent; the ambiguity of words is nearly infinite. And yet even in Greek, where a word is genuinely of doubtful meaning for lack of an accent — which does not happen often — it is not difficult to go astray. Let the well-known error of the great Jerome serve as an example. Eusebius wrote in his Chronicle, at the year 1326 A.M.: EPIMENIDES CLEANSES ATHENS. Jerome translated it, “Epimenides overthrew Athens,” instead of “purified it” — since it was uncertain whether katharei or kathairen should be read; but the matter is known from history, for Epimenides did not overthrow but rather purified the land of Attica with sacrifices. Moreover, what some suppose — that even Aristotle himself missed the true sense of a proverbial saying which he mentions, taking it to mean “wicked” with the accent on the last syllable — is without doubt wrong, since the proverb means “wretched and laborious” with the accent on the first syllable. For the terms rendered “wretched” and “blessed” are properly opposed to each other; the terms rendered “wicked” and “blessed” are not at all. The same reasoning holds, and the same also is the signification of the word meaning “wicked” and of the word meaning “one who leads a wretched life” — each rendered by the superlative form; hence that question posed from an ambiguity at Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Book VIII, by Stratonicus: “Who are the most wretched of those in Pamphylia?” — since the life of the Pamphylians was both wretched and infamous for acts of brigandage. Indeed, that even the greatest men have sometimes been deceived about the sense of words, when an ambiguous word occurs with no distinct accent, even though an attentive consideration of the entire passage seems to require precisely one sense — let Marcus Tullius himself serve as an example, the most learned of all men born in Greek and in Latin. In the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, chapter 42, he reports the words of Leonidas to the Lacedaemonians who were about to fight against Xerxes, confident that they would without doubt die in battle, as follows: “Go on with brave spirit; perhaps we shall dine among the dead.” The Greek word in question means “breakfast” and also means “the best or bravest in war,” derived from a related root. But Diodorus Siculus, Book XI, chapter 9, says that Leonidas commanded them to “breakfast quickly,” saying “Breakfast!” or “Take breakfast now!” — that is, “Eat your breakfast promptly.” This sense is required by the logic of the antithesis — namely, “as those who will sup among the dead.” But Cicero, not attending to the antithesis and taking the word as if it were derived from the word signifying “a brave man,” translated it “Go on with brave spirit.” There are other examples at hand, but a poorly constructed comparison will not permit me to dwell on them longer. You will perhaps say that the pointing also rests on authority to this extent, that it would be wrong to abandon it altogether. But all its authority it has from its authors, and from nowhere else. In order, then, to come to the point we are aiming at, we shall briefly consider who, according to the opinion of those who oppose the divine origin of the pointing, its authors were.

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XI. Those who deny that the Bible was pointed by Ezra, as we have said before, assign that work with one voice to certain Masoretes or Jewish rabbis of Tiberias. In designating the time, they hold contradictory opinions. They conjecture that certain Masoretes lived at Tiberias after the completion of both Talmudic works, which they establish as antecedent to this devising of the points; for they cannot prove it by any adequate argument or testimony. That the Jews had a school in that place some centuries earlier, we admit; but we say that it was abandoned and desolate at the time when the Babylonian Talmud was compiled. But let us grant — since the learned men would very much wish it — that certain Jewish rabbis, more or fewer, lived at Tiberias at that time; who and of what character they were, and what is to be attributed to their learning, judgment, and integrity — taking nothing away from their reputation in an injurious manner — let us briefly consider.

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XII. I do not wish to repeat here what I have written elsewhere about the state, condition, and dreadful hardening of the Jews after the destruction of the second temple and the final rejection of that nation by God. Let us satisfy the present purpose by setting forth those things which, being known to all, cannot be denied by anyone. The greatest privilege of the Jews was once that they were entrusted with the oracles

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364 ON THE ORIGIN OF HEBREW POINTING. [Book V.] — of God, as the apostle relates in Rom. 3:2. But they had long since fallen away from this; for the word has no longer been committed in any way to their care or faith. For by divine covenant the word had been entrusted to their fathers, Isa. 59:21; and when they fell away from that covenant through unbelief and ceased to be the people and church of God, they became nothing more than unfaithful possessors of the word itself. Together with the lawful right to the use of the word, they also utterly lost the Holy Spirit, who was promised in that same covenant. What is to be expected in or concerning the word of God from those to whom it has in no way been committed, and who are destitute of the Spirit, would be easy to show, were they not themselves a dreadful example of it. Approaching the most holy word of God with unwashed hands, with impure conscience and mind, they defile all sacred things — themselves defiled by all; for, as the apostle speaks of these very persons in Titus 1:15, “to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience are defiled.” Moreover, they were so far from perceiving the true meaning of the Holy Spirit in the word, that they stubbornly, obstinately, and most pertinaciously set themselves against the whole truth that is uniquely contained in those books which they daily handled. Whatever in all of Scripture pertains to the glory of God, whatever pertains to their own salvation — all of this was to them an object of utmost hatred and abomination. Indeed, from the time of Rabbi Judah the Prince, who composed the Mishnah, and thereafter, they cultivated with the utmost superstition a certain new religion, entirely alien from that prescribed to their fathers, that is, from Mosaic Theology; and diametrically opposed to the Christian religion, which that other served. For, continually oppressed by the dreadful curse of God on account of their rejection and killing of His most holy Son, the Savior of the world, they sought in vain to free themselves from the bond of that curse and its punishment by new crimes; meanwhile, they were stupidly and beyond all belief most ignorant of all the liberal arts and sciences, of all history, and of all things useful in human life. That the greatest of their teachers were a class of men that was inept, frivolous, delirious, given to magic, idolatrous, superstitious, unlearned, and depraved — this both Talmuds teach; and they were so occupied with devising monstrous fables that they appear to have descended into the arena as competitors in lying, each striving to surpass the other. Whoever has persuaded himself that Biblical pointing proceeded from such most shameful, vain, foolish, lying, accursed, and God-hated little men, and that it was immediately received and employed by all Jews and Christians without any prior examination or any hesitation whatsoever as the standard for all reading, both private and public, and for all expositions and interpretations — such a person shall have his credulity entirely to himself, with no rival from me.

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XIV. In the first place, they enumerate the names of certain great men by whose authority the opinion that asserts the novelty of the points is considered the stronger. But a hundred years ago or thereabouts, it would have been impossible for anyone to use this argument. It is scarcely a century since this bold conjecture became widely known; nor does it have such stability that there is not hope it will vanish in a shorter space of time. Although I am one who would more readily yield to the authority of learned men than almost anyone, yet there are not just one reason why I should not labor much here over an argument drawn from the testimony of certain individuals. For since there is no lack of celebrated men of no less great a name, and of no less distinguished reputation in literary matters, who could most easily be set against those cited, the prudent reader will judge that no resolution of this dispute can follow from a conflict of, so much as men, as testimonies. Moreover, I find that learned men do not always use the requisite diligence in citing their authorities. Let those serve as an example who praise Valentin Schindler as though he were in agreement with the opinion of the rabbinical invention of the points; whereas in the entry for a particular word he shows that he judged the points to have been even more ancient than the age of Ezra. Some express doubt; others settle this dispute in passing while occupied with other matters; those who have undertaken the defense of that opinion as their chief purpose are very few indeed. And I think that several of these — who by their own merit earned a great name in theology and in the church of God while they lived, and who still enjoy that name among grateful posterity — if they could have foreseen to what end certain persons would use their words, would not have pronounced anything in this cause without having carefully weighed the force of the arguments.

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366 ON THE ORIGIN OF HEBREW POINTING. [Book V. written with points, which they affirm they preserve -- not merely venerating it, but claiming it represents the autograph of Moses; that Israelites are also found in China, in whose most ancient books the points do not appear, even though some of those books were written six hundred years ago; from which they conclude that not Moses or Ezra, but the post-Talmudic rabbis devised the art of Hebrew pointing. A. We have shown elsewhere how slight -- indeed, of no weight at all -- this argument is in this case. We will here only run through the main points of reply. We say, therefore, first, that this practice of the Jews is universal, that is, common to the entire nation in all synagogues everywhere, is proved by no adequate testimony; and it matters nothing to us what a few western Jews do in their synagogues, since the practice of the great majority is entirely unknown to us. Second, neither has anyone yet shown that this practice is ancient; most of those synagogal customs are superstitious and idolatrous, very many are novel, and all are post-Talmudic. Third, the Jews themselves -- at least the great majority and the most learned among them -- constantly deny that they intend by that practice to teach that the ancient scriptures were not pointed, since they themselves adhere to the opinion regarding the divine origin of the entire pointing system. Fourth, although this synagogal book does not have points, it does nevertheless have the cantillation marks, which those who use this argument will no more concede were from Moses than the points themselves. Either, then, the codex -- or rather the custom of certain Jews -- does not prove that the points are not coeval with the letters, or it proves that the cantillation marks are likewise not coeval with the text. Fifth, those who most boldly seize upon this synagogal practice of the Jews for their own purpose say that the rabbis devised the points for a twofold reason: first, that the reading of the sacred text might be made more expeditious and as easy for others as for themselves; and then, that some who were less learned might by their aid read the biblical text in the synagogues. They therefore themselves concede that pointed codices were formerly customarily read in the synagogues. Indeed, it is most certain that in antiquity the Jews who were Hellenized used the Greek translation of the law in the synagogues, so that nothing certain can be gathered from this modern custom of certain people. Sixth, the Jews themselves give other reasons for this custom; some of these we have reviewed elsewhere from Azariah's Imre Bina, ch. 59. But whoever carefully weighs those twenty-one rules which the masters decree must necessarily be observed in transcribing the codex to be used in the sacred synagogal services will easily perceive that they do not without reason employ an unpointed codex, since an accurate observance of all those rules in writing out the points is plainly impossible. The chief -- if not the sole -- reason for this custom seems to consist in the following: that no one should presume to read the law publicly in the synagogues until he is so well skilled that he can exactly observe all the points, both the vowels and the accents, when reading codices in which they are not written. For those who recite this book not only distinguish all the vowel points by pronouncing them with the greatest care, but also chant each word according to the modulation of the accents. There is yet another reason -- perhaps the truest of all, which we have also indicated elsewhere -- for this custom, which may be gathered from what Johannes Morinus most truly states in his Samaritan Grammar, ch. 25: Scripture of this kind, he says, is subject to far more meanings than that which sets out words with their own vowels, and is therefore far more fertile for the mystical interpretations which can be learned from tradition alone by oral transmission. Finally: even granting that they say they wish by this book to refer to the autograph of Moses -- which some of them pretend was written after the manner of a single voice, without any distinction of words -- it by no means follows from this that Ezra did not point the scriptures; and so this practice of the Jews contributes nothing at all to settling this dispute.

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XVIII. They add further the testimony of Aben-Ezra, whose greater antiquity and authority they invoke. He, however, in his commentary on Exod. 25:[31] has these words: I saw in the books that the sages of Tiberias examined, concerning which certain of their elders swore that they had carefully considered three times every word, every pointing, and each fully and defectively written form, and behold, the letter jod was written in the word in question -- but I did not find it so in the books of Spain and France, nor in those from overseas. Readers will easily perceive that those who produce testimonies of this kind are suffering from a serious shortage of evidence -- testimonies that are so far from supporting the opinion they wish to maintain that they plainly confirm the contrary. They say, I grant, that the Tiberian sages examined those codices in order to know whether the pointing exactly corresponded to the true pronunciation. But nothing of the kind occurs in the author himself. He only affirms that they examined those codices in order to know whether they were written with exactness. Nor was the question he is addressing about any point at all, but about the letter jod, which he shows ought to be present in the word in question as appears from the careful examination of those codices. He says, then, that certain scribes of those codices -- in order that the authority of those which he himself had seen, in which the jod was written in that word, might be more clearly established -- swore that they had carefully examined every form, every word, and the entire pointing; that is, according to the standard of those ancient exemplars which they had in their possession. Nor does it follow from this that they invented the points any more than the letters themselves, since they subjected every form, every word -- that is, all the letters -- no less than the pointing to examination. Therefore R. A. E. reports nothing else about those Tiberian elders than that they swore that they had most diligently examined the writing of those codices -- one of which he himself had seen -- consisting of letters and points.

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XX. First, then, learned men deny that any mention of the points is made in the entire Talmudic work. But since it is all too probable that some of those who use this argument have by no means read through those enormous volumes so diligently that they can safely pronounce that they are entirely silent on the subject of the points, they point to certain passages in which, if the points had been known or in use at that time, it could not have been -- by their own admission -- that they would not have been mentioned. 2. Although I would by no means concede that the points had not yet been devised, even if it were most clearly established beyond all controversy that no mention of them is made in the Talmudic work -- since it is most certain that there are very many matters pertaining to the doctrine of the Hebrew language about which there is the deepest silence in that work, so that I could pass over this entire argument without the slightest loss or prejudice to the truth -- yet since there is no lack of testimonies drawn from both Talmuds which prove that the pointing system was known at the time when those works were published, it is clearer than light itself that this argument is altogether feeble and entirely without force. There is no need for me to transfer hither the passages which the most learned Buxtorf produced in his Tiberias, and which his most learned son solidly defended against the Cappellian objections. Let the reader consult what Rabbi Azariah collected in Imre Bina, 59, from Talm. Hierus. Megill. ch. iv., and Talm. Babylo. Megil. i., fol. 3, and in Nedarim, fol. 37.

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XXI. But they press further, that no mention of the points is made at a time when it would evidently have been necessary, if only the art of pointing had been devised at that time; for when the Talmudic doctors wished to distinguish the various meanings of those words -- which clearly signify different things according to the diversity of the vowels that can be attached to the letters or pronounced with them -- they say nothing at all about vowel points, but by repeating the words themselves they show that they signified the distinction by pronunciation, which they were unable to note in writing. For how easy it would have been for them to indicate that this word written or pronounced with kamets, or with tsere, or with holem, or with hireq signifies this or that, if only those points had been known to them at that time? Reply. We concede that the vowel points were not formerly distinguished by artificial names. These names were assigned to them by grammarians at their discretion, long after the fact; the same thing happened in other languages as well. The Masoretes very often call tsere simply kamets; sometimes kamets katon, since those names were not yet distinguished. Segol is also called by them patach katon, and kibbuts is called shureq. The primary names given them were the open sounds they denote. Although, therefore, the Talmudic doctors may perhaps not have been able to designate the vowels by those names by which the later age of grammarians distinguished them from one another, nothing nevertheless prevents them from being considered to have known how to write their forms. Furthermore, how can it be proved that the Talmud was written without points? The Jews constantly assert that the Mishnah, which is older than both Talmuds, was pointed in ancient times, although those codices have appeared nowhere for many centuries --

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370 ON THE ORIGIN OF HEBREW POINTING. [Book V. -- until one was recently carefully edited in Amsterdam. But the entire force of this argument depends on the claim that points were not used in writing at that time; which is begging the question. Furthermore, the distinguished Buxtorf showed long ago that the sequence of discourse in those passages where the various meanings of those words are discussed is such that no addition of points is needed for assigning the distinction.

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XXII. Sixth, Cappellus draws an argument against the antiquity of the pointing from the number of the vowels and accents, which he says is laborious and useless. There are fourteen vowels; many of them -- at least some -- are said to be useless, since there are not that many distinct sounds in human speech. Then they say that no account can be given of a great many of the accents, since they signify nothing at all, distinguish nothing, convey no meaning, and are no help or aid in learning the language or in reading. The points of both kinds, both the vowels and the accents, therefore appear to have been a rabbinic contrivance, and not well suited to the purpose which they serve. There are those, however, who think they can reach the same conclusion from a consideration of the number and variety of the vowels by exactly the opposite means. For they say that those points represent all the open sounds or vowels so exactly and accurately that they seem to be a more artfully devised invention than one that should be ascribed to the first inventors of the letters, whose concern was only to express what was necessary. Thus in the judgment of some they are superfluous and useless; in the judgment of others, they are accurately fitted to the vowel sounds; but in neither group's view -- for plainly contrary reasons -- are they divine. But the answer to both objections is easy. Those who acknowledge the most exact perfection in this pointing system have no just cause, without doubt, to move it away from a divine ordering. The more perfect anything is in its own kind, the more divine it ought to be judged to be. That the Hebrew language -- the most ancient and most perfect of all languages -- was produced as the standard of the others by God Himself, and by holy men endowed with the spirit of prophecy, very learned men judge with the weightiest of reasons. Nor would I deny that there is force in this argument, unless we were to assign the origin of the points to the most perfect wisdom that comprehends all things simultaneously. But the discourse of those who complain that many of the vowels and accents are useless is plainly futile and arrogant. How, I ask, will these little doctors ever persuade us that everything in the sacred scriptures whose purpose they do not grasp is useless? Is this dealing seriously with the matter? Is this arguing? The rationale, use, and utility of many of the accents we do not understand; therefore they are superfluous and were devised arbitrarily by the rabbis. It would indeed be easy to settle any dispute in that manner. But ought we to make pronouncements about the word of God from our own ignorance and lack of knowledge? Will that at last be judged fair? For my part I would far rather trust one who professed to know nothing than one who professed to know everything. What if some one person, entirely unknown to us, has been aided by any accent in perceiving the meaning of even the smallest word in the sacred scriptures, or directed in reading in the manner which God approved while the carnal ordinances of the Jewish church were still in force? Are we petty men -- to whom, among countless other things, this use is unknown -- to judge that accent useless? Without doubt, had not learned men previously decided among themselves, for other reasons, that the pointing was not of divine origin, they would not have ventured to use that bold caviling in this case. The Jews today, indeed, think that there is no one in existence who has a complete understanding of the accentual system, writes Sebastian Munster in the epistle prefixed to the Commentary of R. D. Kimchi on Amos. Elias Levita testifies in a Hebrew letter to the same Munster that he had written a book on the system of the accents, which perished at Rome. Had that writing been published, perhaps learned and modest men would have possessed something in whose knowledge they would by no means repent.

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XXIII. Seventh, some contend that Jerome also did not know the points, since, as they say, he made no mention of them anywhere. They suppose that this most learned man, as it seems, committed to writing everything he knew, whether he had any occasion for doing so or not — an opinion I am by no means permitted to share. I would then wish them to show what reason Jerome would have had for relating that the Hebrews, in writing their language, used not only letters but also vowels, when all the other nations known to him had done the same. There is no one among the ancient historians who has preserved more and more reliable accounts of the affairs of the Carthaginians than Polybius of Megalopolis. He shows in many places that he not only understood the Punic language but had also read their records. For having carefully set forth in the third book of his history with what forces Hannibal entered Italy, he affirms that he gathered all the information he reported from bronze tablets inscribed by Hannibal himself. And yet this Polybius nowhere in his histories mentions the unusual manner of writing from right to left that the Phoenicians used, although he himself could not have been ignorant of it. Little support, therefore, is to be expected for this opinion from Jerome's silence. For it is certain that he could have known the points without having mentioned them in his writings; it is certain that the points could have existed and yet been unknown to him, since many copies were always transcribed without them; it is also certain that Jerome had access to a very small number of manuscripts and made use of only one or two teachers — so that it ought by no means to seem strange if he had never seen a pointed codex; moreover, there were no grammars, and no one in that age had cultivated the art of that language. To rely, therefore, on his silence is not to contend against the truth by arguments or reasonings, but by the most uncertain conjectures. But neither are there lacking testimonies drawn from the works of Jerome which plainly indicate that he had both seen and recognized both kinds of points. I have elsewhere cited that passage to Evagrius: "The Hebrews very rarely use vowel letters in the middle of words." Rabbi Azariah in Imre Binah, chapter 59, cites the same words to the same effect.

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Simeon de Muis, in Defens. Veritat. Hebraic., and Josephus de Voisin, in Praefat. ad Pug. Fid., reply that Jerome called the letters aleph, waw, and yod vowels, since in other languages they perform that function. Indeed, waw and yod are vowels when they have points added to them; although they very frequently take the place of consonants in a way different from what occurs in the Greek language. That aleph was ever a vowel has not yet been proved; it is also frequently pronounced with a different sound from what it would produce if it were a vowel. Taken bare, therefore, these letters are not the vowels that Jerome indicates. Next, in his Exposition on chapter 1 of Jonah, he has these words: "I am sufficiently amazed that it was translated thus, since in the Hebrew there is no community whatsoever of letters, syllables, accents, or the word." I do not know whether anyone could make more open mention of accents — which, however, no one will say were in use before the vowel points. So also on Gen. 19:38, regarding the Hebrew word there, he says, "They add a point above, as if it were incredible that anyone could lie together without knowing it," thus observing an irregular pointing. And on Ezech. 27: "Hebrew names are frequently interpreted variously, in accordance with the difference of accents and the change of vowel letters, which have their own distinctive properties especially among them." And in his epistle to Paula and Eustochium, or his Preface to Isaiah, he affirms that this prophecy "is written among the Hebrews in cola and commata." In Quaest. Heb. on Gen. 47:31: "And in this place some vainly pretend that Jacob worshiped the top of the scepter of Joseph, meaning that honoring his son he worshiped his authority; whereas in the Hebrew it reads quite differently: 'And Israel worshiped,' he says, 'at the head of the bed.'" The Hebrew word in question is the one from which the controversy arises. Jerome knew that the apostle had rendered that word by the Greek for scepter. If it had not been pointed in such a way that it ought truly to be rendered "bed," how, I ask, would he have dared to say "in the Hebrew it reads differently," when without points it reads no differently? Ought Jerome to have listened to his Nicodemus against the translation used by the apostle himself, or the sense of the passage rendered by him, and boldly declare "in the Hebrew it reads differently?" — which, unless we grant that he knew the points, is utterly false. It is therefore sufficiently established that Jerome knew the vowel points and accents, and made more open mention of them than could have been expected from one who had no other occasions for noting them. But some say that Jerome could have learned from common usage that the Hebrew word in question was to be pronounced in that passage in such a way as to mean "bed." But Jerome says nothing about the pronunciation of the word; he shows how it was read in the Hebrew — that is, by every reader examining the text — and what, I ask, was that common usage which he is supposed to have followed? He made use of one or two teachers, as we said. But that he would have preferred the whisper of an obscure teacher to the authority of the apostle is not credible; especially since the sequence of the discourse admits both meanings; for it is most certain that Jacob worshiped God, leaning on the top of his staff.

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XXIV. In the last place, some allege the kinship of the Arabic and Syriac languages with Hebrew: these languages, they say, have only very recently admitted pointing, and the same condition appears to have obtained for the Hebrew language in antiquity. At what time the Arabs and Syrians first acquired the use of letters, and then of points, is entirely uncertain. The distinguished Golius, in his Preface to Sura 31 of the Quran, shows that the ancient Arabic script fell out of use centuries ago. What other changes the vicissitudes of times and all things have introduced into that language, we simply do not know. Perhaps the points also fell into disuse and were called back into common use through the Saracens. In truth, as to when vowel points first came into use among the Arabs and Syrians, no trustworthy testimony exists. Granted even that all these oriental languages originally lacked vowel points — this does not prevent us from concluding that Ezra added them to the usage of the sacred language.

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XXV. And these are the chief heads of argument by which learned men think they have proved that Hebrew pointing was itself the work of the post-Talmudic rabbis — those who submit to being dispossessed of so great a treasure will by no means find me as their companion.

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XXVI. Many also suppose that the well-known variation in the sacred Scriptures which goes under the name of Keri and Kethib arose from that same care which Ezra applied to the sacred Scriptures. I am not disposed to repeat here what I have written elsewhere concerning the nature and number of these variant readings. There are those who ascribe this variation to the original amanuenses of the Holy Spirit; some of these think that a mystery underlies it; others say that the ambiguity of a certain Hebrew expression was its cause. There are those who assert that the Keri are Masoretic notes, partly variant readings collected from various codices, partly critical corrections of the text — this is the opinion of those who attach little weight to what is held concerning the purity of the Hebrew codex called the Masoretic, as though there were need of a mark of distinction here, or as though any other biblical codex had ever been in common use among men. Having read through the opinions and arguments of many learned men, I confess that I am at a standstill here; yet I am pleased to add what Isaac Abarbanel has on this matter in his preface to the prophet Jeremiah. Having rejected the less satisfactory opinion of others, he adds: "But the true state of the matter seems to me to be this: that Ezra together with the Men of the Great Synagogue found the books complete and intact, as they had been written. But before he established the pointing and the accents and the division of verses, he gave attention to the reading; and if anything occurred to him that was foreign to the nature or property of the language and to the rules of grammar, he considered within himself that it had come about for one of two causes. First, that the scribe in these irregular forms had regard to some one of the mysteries of the law according to the dignity of its prophecy and the depth of its wisdom, and therefore had not dared to attempt to delete anything from the divine books; for he understood that those books had been written with singular wisdom, and that the defective and redundant letters had not been written without reason —

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374 ON THE EZRAIC REFORMATION. [Book V. and exotic expressions of that sort, wherefore he left them in the text just as they had truly been written, but placed in the margin the Keri — that is, the explanation of this exotic reading according to the property of the language and according to the simple sense. . . . It can also be the case that Ezra judged that there existed in the sacred Scripture letters and expressions written irregularly for no other reason than that the one who transcribed them had not expressed them correctly as he ought, whether from ignorance of the Hebrew language or from ignorance of orthography; . . . and therefore it was necessary to set forth the true spelling and reading of the expression according to the rules of grammar. This is the reason for the Keri which the holy scribe placed in the margin, being unwilling to lay hands upon the words of the authors who spoke by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

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The remaining parts of the reformation of the Ezraitic church — The solemn restoration of the preaching of the divine word, Neh. viii. 1, 8 — Its neglect before the captivity — Jehoshaphat's efforts in its restoration, 2 Chron. xvii. 7-9 — Princes joined to the priests and Levites in that work — The diligence and success of the earliest reformers of the Christian churches in that work — The triflings of the Jews and of others — The excommunication of the Cuthaeans, Ezra iv. 2, 3 — The separation of the people from impure mixtures.

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Chron. xvii. 7-9. For the neglect of the administration of this duty is a most certain sign of ecclesiastical defection; and its careful discharge is by no means the least part of reformation. Therefore the pious reformers gave the most diligent attention to this office. Those also whom God was pleased to use in recovering His churches from the long bondage of mystical Babylon applied themselves to that work with no small and admirable success.

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II. The more recent Jews hold that the Chaldaic paraphrase is indicated by those words we cited from Nehemiah. Some Christians also agree with this view, or show themselves sympathetic to this delusion, after having settled upon another opinion no less absurd concerning two kingdoms. But we have shown above that the use and mastery of the Hebrew language had not yet perished from the people, as they would have it. Furthermore, it is expressly stated that these Ezraitic speakers first read the book of the law "plainly," and then gave "understanding by exposition of the sense." To what end, I ask, would that plain reading serve, if the common people had not at all understood the very sound of the words? Therefore what is here mentioned was the restoration of the solemn divine ordinance concerning the continual preaching of the word. Next follows the excommunication, or rather the rejection, of the Cuthaeans. The history is found at Ezra iv. 2, 3: "They came to Zerubbabel, and to the heads of the people, and said to them, Let us build with you: for, just as you, we seek your God; for we have not sacrificed to another since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, who brought us here. But Zerubbabel, and Joshua, with the rest of the heads of the fathers' families of Israel, said to them, It is not for you to build with us a house for our God; but we ourselves together will build for Jehovah the God of Israel." It was not participation in the divine worship that these hypocrites sought, but the favor of the Persian kings, of which the Jews were then making favorable use. For if they had sincerely sought to join themselves to the God of Israel, they were not to be rejected. But the matter was plainly otherwise, as the outcome showed; they had nothing else in their minds under the pretense of religion than what the Shechemites had in a similar case so many centuries before, Gen. xxxiv. 23.

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III. To the rejection of the Samaritans was added the separation of the people from impure mixtures with profane peoples. This is narrated at length in chapters nine and ten of Ezra, and in the last chapter of Nehemiah. And so at last that arrangement of the church's reformation was completed, and Mosaic Theology was restored to its former place, honor, use, and dignity.

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The final apostasy of the Jewish church — The general occasions of this — The people mixed with Gentiles — The entrance of philosophy — The various evils arising from it — Disputes, quarrels — Sects — The forgetting of the sacred language, the oppression and ignorance of the common people — The ambition and blindness of the teachers — Corruption of morals — Versions of the Scriptures.

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I. The grace of God in the restoration of the church was, in the course of time, followed by the falling away of ungrateful men, and that falling away by a most horrible

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collapse and ruin. The plan of our work requires that we set this forth briefly as well. The new church, founded upon the prophetic ministry, retained, while that ministry endured — though not entirely free from every fault — a purity that was pleasing to the merciful God. Once it was removed, the entire body of the church gradually sank into ruin. We shall briefly indicate what things drove it into those difficulties from which it could never emerge, and then the nature of its total apostasy.

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II. From the time of the completed restoration, the people, oppressed by the tyranny and oppressions of the kings of Syria and Egypt, scattered hither and thither in all directions by various calamities, and compelled to endure foreigners even in the holy land, were immediately infected by the contagion of very many evils. In those centuries, the Greeks brought forth far and wide throughout the entire East that eristic philosophy, packed with empty wrangling, which they had not long before been giving birth to — the arms of the Macedonians serving as midwife. The teachers of the Jews also drank this in. While the temple of Solomon stood, and they worshipped God purely in it with sincere and proper devotion, that philosophy was entirely unknown to all the devout. For before the Babylonian captivity, no mention of literary learning or of foreign sciences occurs among that people — with the sole exception of mathematics, which they appear to have received from the Chaldeans and perverted to idolatrous uses. For all human wisdom is prone to pride and arrogance, especially when it resides in a mind not yet subdued to obedience to the truth. But that Greek philosophy, gradually introduced into the church, very quickly turned not merely into a great evil but into the ruin of purer theology. For those whose religion consisted in faith alone and the observance of the commandments of God began to erect schools — wholly unlike those over which the ancient prophets presided — to institute endless disputes, to tie knots, and to split into sects, just as we know that same philosophy caused to happen among the Greeks. The names of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno were no more the banners of disputing factions among the Greeks than were the names of Shammai, Hillel, and others among the Jews. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes emulated the Academics, Peripatetics, and Stoics — and the itch for disputation of the former was more pernicious than that of the latter, because they entered into quarrels not about goat's wool or about fictions which, like spiders spinning webs from their own brains, they had fabricated — as the Greeks did — but about religion, the worship of God, and the meaning of the Scriptures, all of which are sacred and to be revered.

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III. Next, the people had for the most part forgotten the sacred language. That was the second fruit of their mixing with the Gentiles. Those who lived in the dispersions spoke Greek; those who lived in their ancestral seats spoke Syriac. Thus the common people were gradually brought into the deepest ignorance of the law of God, since they could scarcely understand the language in which it alone was written. Relying on that ignorance, petty teachers began to puff themselves up, to arrogate everything to themselves as though they alone were wise, to despise the people, to lord it over their faith, to assume honorific titles, to contend with one another — some even doubted, having cast aside all fear of God. It would take too long here to trace the origins, distinctions, opinions, crimes, and pretexts of the sects. Since I must deal with matters well known and already treated by others, for the purposes of this work, it is my intention to touch briefly only on their main points. Let it suffice, therefore, to have reckoned in summary, among the causes of the general apostasy, the ignorance of the common people and the pride, vanity, and blindness of the teachers — the former destitute of the letter itself, the latter of the Spirit.

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IV. Add to this that, after the Hasmoneans had held power for some time, having cast aside the divinely instituted theocracy, they openly defected in their political governance to Greek customs and rites. Greek were the names — Hyrcanus, Alexander, Aristobulus, Antigonus — of those who ruled the people after the Macedonian manner. And from that source also no small evils arose. Thus, when the prophetic ministry had ceased in the church, and the people, exposed to profane mixing with the Gentiles, had nearly forgotten their own language, and the teachers, splitting into various sects after the manner of philosophers, consulted only their own honor, and there was no one to cut down the ever-increasing harvests of wickedness — everything was openly hastening toward final ruin. But before I recount the main heads of this fatal apostasy, it is necessary that I say something about the versions of the holy Scriptures which very many consider to have arisen around this period, when the people had lost their proficiency in the sacred language; I hope it can be dealt with in the briefest of digressions.

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I. Concerning the Greek version of the Scriptures by the Seventy, which is commonly assigned to this interval of time — while the Jewish church was on a downward slope toward general apostasy — I must say what Protagoras once said, as reported by Laertius, book ix. 51, concerning the gods of the nations. "Concerning the gods," he says, "I am not able to know whether they exist or do not exist, nor what they are like; for many things prevent one from knowing — both the obscurity of the matter and the brevity of human life." For all that is commonly said about that version is so uncertain, and so many and so great are the battles of opinion about it, that scarcely a lifetime would suffice for accurately examining them all; so that what he once said we have seen — that many uncertain men contend about this uncertain matter.

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II. Very many agree that some version of the Scriptures was made at this time by seventy-two men; yet there are those who reject the entire history of it as bad goods and a purely Jewish fable. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria assign that work to the time of Ptolemy Lagus; the most celebrated father of the history, Aristeas — as found in Josephus — and Josephus himself assign it to Philadelphus; some assign it to Philometor. Justin, in Apol. ii, is the authority for the claim that Philadelphus sent to Herod the king of the Jews requesting that he send those interpreters to him. What in

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378 ON THE TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES BY THE LXX. [BOOK V. He demonstrates, by means of a quality befitting a most distinguished man, that he gave too ready a credence to the rumors that were commonly circulated about that translation. Most writers say that Demetrius Phalereus was the one who advised Philadelphus to obtain the books of the Jewish law; but others think that Philadelphus never made use of the services of that Demetrius in the preparation of his literary undertaking, for Laertius writes that Demetrius was in great disfavor with that king, and therefore died at the beginning of his reign from the bite of a serpent near Diospolis. The learned Vossius could counter this testimony in no other way than by asserting that Philadelphus had established his Library while his father was still reigning -- contrary to the common testimony of all the ancients -- yet even so that wedge is not sufficient for the knot; for Philadelphus had pursued Demetrius with mortal hatred long before his father's death. Moreover, nearly everyone ventures to swear that six men from each tribe were sent by the high priest of the Jews to Philadelphus to complete that work; but there are those who would not believe even sworn witnesses that so large a number of learned men from each tribe was then living in Jerusalem. Some maintain that these men were not so much translators as prophets; among those who at one time held this view was Augustine, in City of God, book XVIII, chapter xlii, which Jerome was never persuaded of by anyone. Justin affirms that they were distributed into seventy-two cells and that each one produced the entire work separately, so that they agreed on every single word rendered; Jerome gently mocks this fiction; Serarius and others give credence to the history after Justin; many follow Jerome in discounting it. Some write that the entire translation was completed in seventy-two days; others reject that dreadful haste. There are those who write that they translated only the Pentateuch -- such as Aristeas, Josephus, Philo, and nearly all the Talmudic scholars; Huetius, Morinus, and most of the moderns say the whole of the Old Testament scriptures. Some hold that the Jews were greatly pleased by that work; others that they solemnly instituted a fast on account of the undertaking that had been begun, and cursed the work itself. Philo asserts that the LXX made their translation not from the Hebrew truth but from the Chaldean Targum, and certain of the rabbis agree with him; Cappellus, and those who owe everything to him in the controversy concerning the vowel points, say it was made from a Hebrew manuscript written without points. Some say the high priest sent a manuscript, if not written in golden letters, at least adorned with them, as a mark of honor to Philadelphus; most of the rabbis declare that a manuscript of that kind is profane and fit for no use at all. Some affirm that the translators were equipped with the highest proficiency in languages and employed the greatest fidelity in executing the work; others that they willingly corrupted the sense in many places for various reasons; Munster and Ximenes say they lacked either fidelity or understanding. Truly remarkable are the things Jerome writes about this translation in his letter to Augustine. And in the preface to Isaiah, addressed to Paula and Eustochium, he expressly affirms that the translators were unwilling to disclose to pagans the sacraments of their faith openly. Most conjecture that the Greek translation which still survives under their name is the very one they produced long ago; Drusius, and he is not alone, maintains that the ancient one has long since perished. If it survives, most concede that it has been very badly corrupted in numerous places since Jerome, among whom is Bellarmine; Morinus asserts that it has been preserved pure and unimpaired. Some think the whole tradition concerning this translation is a Jewish fable, as we said before. Heinsius, in Aristarchus, chapter x, determines that the fable-makers seized the occasion for fabricating it from Exod. 24:7, 11. He writes that it was said that Moses, Aaron, and seventy elders ascended to God, and that He did not lay His hand on the princes of the children of Israel; in place of which last words the Hellenists have: of the elect of Israel not even one dissented. Hence, beyond doubt, the story about Ptolemy and those seventy elders -- hence those famous scenes which blessed Jerome explodes, hence that invention that not one among so large a number disagreed in the rendering of the holy scriptures. The conjecture of that most learned man would perhaps have pleased those who are not unaware of how skilled the Jews are as craftsmen in fabricating the most monstrous falsehoods from the slightest occasions -- had not a more recent Aristarchus declared him to be a grammarian and a vain man, to be laughed at for his arrogance, after he had passed from the living. To subject these various opinions, or other controversies about this translation, to examination in this place would be foreign to the task I have undertaken. Since it is commonly referred to the period we are discussing, nothing that I know of prevents me from briefly saying what I think of it. [*Angariae: the fasts of the four seasons. Martini, Lexicon Philologicum. -- Ed.]

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380 ON THE TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES BY THE LXX. [BOOK V. -- the common Greek version that then existed had suffered no harm. However it came to pass, it cannot be denied that it now disagrees with the Hebrew truth in six hundred places, and more often gives words under which there lies no tolerable sense; how vainly the interpreters labor in expounding such passages there is no need to say -- the matter is self-evident. There are those, however, who affirm that our Savior used that version and thereby commended it to the church -- precisely as some petty priest once wrote that He was accustomed to chanting the Mass. That this can be affirmed with greater plausibility of the writers of the New Testament seems possible. For many passages from the Old Testament are cited in their writings in the very same words that still survive in the Greek version, although they very frequently appear to differ in certain respects from the Hebrew texts. Many have shown that this discrepancy is one of words only and not of sense; some have even shown that the apostles in fact followed the Hebrew text in places where they are commonly thought to have adhered to the Greek version. The view that pleases most is that of those who affirm that the Holy Spirit, as the author of all scripture, expounding His own meaning as He saw fit, transferred testimonies from the Old Testament to the New using whatever words He pleased; and that Christian copyists of the Greek version gradually inserted those very words into it. IV. The authors of this view are not without very strong arguments on which they rely. It will be sufficient for me to point out a single one in this place, which I do not know whether anyone has yet observed. It is known that certain testimonies are cited in the New Testament in a somewhat obscure form, so that it is not immediately easy for everyone to discern from what passage of the Old Testament they are drawn. It is certain that some persons inserted several of these into the Greek text in those places where previously there was no trace of them, and from which they neither were nor could have been drawn. Let the words cited by the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 6 -- and let all the angels of God worship Him -- serve as an example. Since some did not know from where the apostle had borrowed these words, they deemed it necessary to insert them at Deut. 32:43, and so after the words Rejoice, O heavens, with Him, they added and let all the angels of God worship Him -- words of which there is not a trace or vestige in the Hebrew text, nor anything that would provide any occasion for inserting them. Moreover, so that we may understand that the passage has been interpolated, immediately after the violent intrusion of those words they repeat Rejoice, so that the sense of Moses's speech would thus proceed in an orderly fashion. That the apostle did not cite those words from that passage is made manifest by the preface, apart from the fact that the words of the Holy Spirit, in whose name he cites them, are not in that passage. When, he says, He brings the firstborn into the world, He says -- but in that Mosaic passage concerning the bringing of the firstborn into the world there are no such words, the direct exposition of which is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in Ps. 97, in which that testimony was truly spoken.

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V. I will add a single passage, and that a well-known one. From the words of Moses in Gen. 47:31 -- the Hebrew text of which is heavily damaged in the source -- the apostle shows that Jacob worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff; that is, he was strong in faith, though nearly dying. The apostolic words, and he bowed in worship upon the top of his staff, crept into the Greek text, as if the apostle had thereby translated those words of Moses; for that the Greek translators originally did not render the Hebrew word in that place by the word for staff is evident enough from the fact that the very same word, repeated in the same history concerning the same person and matter, they consistently render by the word for bed or couch, as may be seen in chapter 48, verse 2, and in chapter 49, verse 33 -- but about these things, God willing, on another occasion.

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DIGRESSION III. On the Origin of the Targumim, or Chaldean Paraphrases.

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I. To this interval of time, when the Jewish church was already rushing toward its destruction, most scholars assign the origin of the Chaldean paraphrases -- or the Targumim -- at least of certain parts of them. Whether there were once more translations of holy scripture into that language than survive has been rendered uncertain by what certain of the ancients said about the Greek translation of the LXX having been made from the Chaldean paraphrase. All scholars, both Jews and Christians, confess that a complete translation of the whole of scripture, produced by one man or by several at the same time or in the same century, never existed. There still survive three Targums on the law, or Mosaic Pentateuch. Of these, one bears the name of Onkelos; another is distinguished by the name of Jonathan Ben Uzziel; the third is called, for what reason I do not know, the Jerusalem Targum. That which exists on the historical books and the prophets carries the name of the same Jonathan, or of another Jonathan. That on the books of Psalms, Job, and Proverbs is attributed to a certain one-eyed or blind Joseph, whoever he may have been. Of entirely uncertain authorship are the fabulous and puerile commentaries that survive under the name of Targumim on Esther, the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes. The books of Ezra and Daniel never had a Targum, since they were from the beginning partly written in Chaldean. Elias Levita, in his preface to the Methurgeman, does indeed make mention of a Targum of Daniel; but the sequence of his argument proves that by Targum he understands in that place the Chaldean language itself, not an ancient paraphrase; and for that reason he expresses the wish that a Chaldean grammar be drawn up on the model of the Targum of Daniel. Ravius indicated not long ago that a Targum on the books of Chronicles survives; a copy of which the distinguished Samuel Clerk, Architypographer of the University of Oxford -- a man most worthy of a better fortune on account of his manifold learning -- at last obtained, and is about to publish shortly; and in this way the chain of paraphrases on all the books of the Old Testament will be complete.

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II. Everything that is said by authors about the time when these Targumim were composed is most uncertain. Josephus, Origen, and Jerome -- the most skillful investigators of literary monuments of this kind -- are silent. Sixtus of Siena was of the opinion that some Targum was known to the ancients under the name of a Syriac codex. That work, when at last published (if it was indeed published), reveals itself to be a Christian work, sufficiently different from those Chaldean paraphrases of the Jews. There are those who suspect that this Jonathan son of Uzziel was, by reason of a similarity of name, the same as Theodotion, the well-known interpreter of the scriptures, whom all the ancients without exception mention. But no one reports that this Pontic proselyte ever interpreted the scriptures in Chaldean, since his Greek translation was so well known. The ancient Christians therefore appear to have been entirely ignorant of all these paraphrases. Some accordingly hold that all of them were written not only after the destruction of the city and temple, but also after the age of Jerome. For it is known that he spent his life in those places where it seems impossible that the names and deeds of these literary luminaries could have been entirely hidden from him. The hatred that subsisted between Christians and Jews -- on account of which neither people deigned to celebrate the literary achievements of the other -- is alleged by some as the cause of this silence. That the common people on both sides were so disposed is indeed credible. But what does this have to do with Josephus, the most learned of the Jews, who, setting aside the impulses of anger and zeal against Christians, expounded with the greatest diligence all the achievements of his nation, and who even wove a narrative of the Greek translation that is quite lengthy and honorable? What does it have to do with Jerome, the most curious investigator of all not only books but also Hebrew traditions? There must be some other reason why these men made no mention of these paraphrases. But I do not wish to cling obstinately to this argument. It is certain that Jerome did not see all the books and all the literary monuments that existed in his own age; for neither the weakness of the human intellect nor the brevity of this life is sufficient for so great an undertaking. Nor is it credible that he committed to writing everything that he saw or knew. We also showed above that an argument drawn from the silence of certain ancient writers is not adequate to destroy the antiquity of books or the credibility of writings. Let the reader consult: Petrus Galatinus, Arcana Catholica, book I, chapter ii, pp. 7-9; Martinus Raymundus, Pugio Fidei, book I; Gulielmus Schickardus, Bechinath Happerushim, p. 37; Buxtorf, De Origine Punctorum, p. 127; Josephus de Voisin, Preface to Pugio Fidei; Cocceius, in Sanhedrin, p. 226; Buxtorf, Abbreviationes, p. 120; Morinus, Preface to the Greek Bible; Hoornbeek, Preface to Controversiae Judaicae; Hottinger, Philologia Sacra, book I, chapter iii, section 1, p. 259; Rivet, Isagoge ad Sacram Scripturam, p. 119.

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III. I will treat briefly of each individually. Among all the Targumists, if you consider the dignity of the work, first place is owed by the consensus of all scholars to Onkelos. I do not know whether the Jews, who take such great delight in fictions and falsehoods -- of which there is less abundance in him than in the others -- are of the same opinion. What century he lived in, or who he was, has not yet been established. Some hold that he was a proselyte, and that he lived in the days of Hillel and Shammai -- that is, at least a hundred years before the destruction of the city. Rabbi Azariah in Imre Binah agrees with that conjecture, as does the author of the book Zohar, col. 131, citing a passage in Hebrew or Aramaic: Shammai and Hillel, he says, did not teach Onkelos the word of the law until he was circumcised. Others hold that he was likewise a proselyte, but the brother-in-law of the Emperor Titus, and thus that he lived at the very time of the destruction. So the author of Juchasin, p. 52. Azariah in Imre Binah expressly rejects that opinion, relying on no other argument than the century in which, following the tradition of certain teachers, he had affirmed that Onkelos lived. Some suspect, on account of a similarity of name, that this Onkelos was that Aquila who, as Jerome testifies, translated the holy scriptures into Greek with exactness in a second attempt. Others also report that a certain Aquila lived at about that time who was celebrated among the Jews, and whom they think was this Onkelos. Since, therefore, nothing certain remains regarding the time when he lived, anyone is free to think whatever he likes according to his own judgment. His Targum, however, whoever he was, is almost the only one among the surviving Chaldean paraphrases that is worth reading. For it adheres closely to the text, most often rendering the very words and generally rendering the sense of the Holy Spirit, and does not, as is customary for all the others, deliberately wander into mythical and fanciful writings. Guided by this reason alone, I conjecture that this paraphrast lived before the destruction of the city; for from that time onward all without exception, utterly destitute of the Holy Spirit, indulged in childish and ridiculous trifling. In what estimation or repute the work was held among the more ancient Jews is entirely unknown; that some of the later ones valued it highly is attested by the compilation of that codex in which the Hebrew text itself and this paraphrase of Onkelos are written out alternately verse by verse; but that it was ever read publicly in the synagogues the Jews deny, nor is there any reason why it should have been, since from the final dispersion the Jewish people were utterly ignorant of the Chaldean language. To think that this translation -- of uncertain author and uncertain origin -- has any worth or authority where it differs from the Hebrew truth is the opinion of none but madmen.

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IV. The one who translated the prophets (Daniel excepted) and the historical books into the Chaldaic language is said to be Jonathan Ben Uzziel. There also exists, as we noted above, a Targum of the entire law attributed to the same name. Regarding the time in which he lived, everything that is brought forward is no less uncertain than what we reported concerning Onkelos. A great many Jews affirm that he was a disciple of Hillel. For to Hillel and Shammai, as the most famous masters of the sects, they eagerly ascribe everything whose origin they do not know. They also fabricate that miracles were performed from heaven in connection with both the beginning and the completion of this work. For they write that the beginning of the work was attended by an earthquake, and by the Spirit thundering terribly against the author for having violated the scriptures; and that its progress and appro-

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384 THE ORIGIN OF THE TARGUMS. [Book V. val was attended by fire falling from heaven to consume the flies that happened to stray onto the parchment on which he was writing; and that its completion was attended by the highest praises, not unlike those with which the image of Christ was said to have honored Thomas, after he had completed the first part of the second, crying out, "You have written rightly concerning me, Thomas" — whether they actually believe this is uncertain. Galatinus contends, in book i, chapter iii, that this same Jonathan who wrote the Targum on the prophets also translated the law in a Mosaic manner. He also reports that he himself at that time saw a copy of this version, which did not become publicly available in its complete form until more than a century later. And what is the strongest argument that he reported in good faith what he had seen is that he recites the opening words of that paraphrase exactly as they now stand in the printed copies. For copies of the Targum of Jonathan were once exceedingly rare, and not more than one or two could be found among the Jews themselves in any single province, as Elias Levita testifies in the preface to the Methurgamim. Rabbi Azarias also, in the Imre Bina, chapter ix, affirms that this same Jonathan composed the translation of both the Pentateuch and the prophets. Those who hold a different opinion rest their case chiefly on the argument that it is established by the most certain indications that this paraphrast of the law lived not only after the destruction of the city, but also after the completion of the Talmudic work, to which he makes express reference at Exod. 26:2 — whereas the other, the prophetic Jonathan, lived before the coming of Christ, indeed, as some hold, shortly after the return of the people from the Babylonian captivity. But the weight of the arguments by which they prove that this prophetic Jonathan lived in those times that intervened between the return from Babylon and the destruction of the city — upon which the entire force of the argument depends — has not yet been established. The testimony of the Jews, unaccompanied by any evidence from the circumstances of the facts, is not sufficient for proof. There are also rabbis besides Azarias who, along with Galatinus, assert that both works are the offspring of one and the same author. I have no wish to make this dispute my own. What alone gives any appearance of reason to the suggestion that these two Jonathans were different persons is this: that the prophetic Targumist does not blunder quite so badly as that most foul corruptor of the Pentateuch. What is to be thought of the whole work I will show briefly. In rendering the historical books he is restrained. He rarely indeed reproduces the text word for word, yet he does not wander everywhere at his own pleasure. There are, however, even in these, places where he trifles so childishly and in such a Talmudic manner that I can scarcely believe a little man of such audacity and ignorance ever laid a hand on the exposition of the scriptures before the full apostasy of that church was accomplished. It is distasteful to record here his most trifling ravings. Let the reader test this in Judges chapter 5, and he will find that we have invented nothing here. In exactly the same manner he conducts himself throughout in translating the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Wherever the meaning of any passage appears somewhat more obscure and recondite, especially if it presents anything concerning the person, grace, or office of the Messiah (although he readily retains the name of Messiah, and even inserts it several times where it does not occur in the text), he boldly and recklessly twists it by means of wicked invented allegories toward carnal and legal meanings — that is, in a Jewish manner. Let Isaiah chapter 53 serve as an example, from which the reader may understand how the blind Jews torture both themselves and the words of the Holy Spirit in order to extricate themselves from that rabbinic slaughterhouse of unbelief. In the remaining prophets, as though he had determined nothing else for himself but to stray perpetually from the true sense of the words, he everywhere invents the most perverse allegories with unbridled license. Genuine expositions of truth "Appear as rare swimmers in a vast whirlpool."

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VI. This Joseph also, who is said to have written a paraphrase on the Hagiographa, was truly blind. If anyone wishes to have a specimen of Jewish audacity, blindness, impudence, ignorance, and lying, let him consult this author. The entire book of Esther from beginning to end is defiled with the most shameless lies and ridiculous fables. The Song of Solomon swarms everywhere with Talmudic absurdities, and the Talmud itself is commended by name at chapter 5, verse 10; nor is the matter handled more reverently in Ecclesiastes. The paraphrase on Job is without doubt a patchwork, compiled from the attempts of several writers, and is not free from rabbinic ravings. The book of Psalms and the Proverbs of Solomon have suffered less from the defilements of this impure man. Yet I would not say that these Targums are of no use whatsoever, since they carefully express those things that are said of God in the Scriptures in an anthropomorphic manner, and do not twist the passages pertaining to the Messiah toward other persons, as is the practice of the more recent Jews — for the name of the Messiah occurs more than fifty times among the Targumists, as Elias observes in the Methurgam — although they wretchedly corrupt the meaning of those passages; and one who wishes to acquaint himself with Jewish fables may learn them from these works.

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Other causes of the final apostasy of the Jewish church — Cessation of prophecy — Summary of the causes — Degrees of apostasy — The first foundation of Mosaic Theology — The defection of the apostates from it — The origin of traditions — And of sects — The foundation of the oral law — The rise and nature of the oral law — Born after the destruction of the city — Jewish observances not continued in the institution of the evangelical church. II. Now, as the fullness of time was hastening, in which that great prophet, promised to the church from the foundations of the world, was to be manifested in the flesh.

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The Final Apostasy of the Jewish Church. [Book V. and God had strictly commanded the people to attend to the law of Moses until He came, and with that word had, as it were, laid a final hand upon the revelations of the Old Testament, Mal. 4:4-6 — there ceased entirely for several centuries that prophetic and extraordinary ministry which God had variously employed from the very beginnings of that church for its reformation. From the death of Malachi to the preaching of John in the wilderness (who was not sent for this reason — to recover that church from the ruin of apostasy into which, by God's will, it was then hastening — but to prepare the way for the great builder of the new church), for four hundred years, no one was appointed by God outside the ordinary order to call back the people, who were inclined to every wickedness, to better ways. And so, since the church was destitute of prophecy, Mosaic Theology corrupted by the philosophy of the Gentiles, the common people mingled with the nations, forgetful of the holy tongue, leaning on teachers who rejected the Holy Spirit, given over to the manners and vices of the age, gradually and universally defecting from all the principles and foundations of Mosaic Theology, it fell into final ruin. The traces of that apostasy must therefore be briefly traced in the next section.

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II. The first foundation of Mosaic Theology was placed in the authority of the Holy Scriptures. We demonstrated this at length above. For after God had committed His word to writing, He willed that it alone should be the norm and rule of all faith, obedience, and religious worship; and He strictly forbade the church and all theologians to add anything to it under any pretext whatsoever. This theological principle is the foundation and fence of all the others. The ringleaders of the apostates were the first to make it void. There was nothing in the doctrine or conduct of the impious Pharisees that our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked more severely; and He teaches that they introduced countless inventions into the worship of God and religious observance under the name and pretext of "the traditions of the elders" — that is, of teachers who first dared to depart from the pure word of God. It is probable that, immediately upon the departure of the prophets, certain men who considered themselves wise, pretending to give expositions of the legal customs and Mosaic institutions, thrust upon the people new ceremonial rites and new theological precepts. Once this window was opened, and the widest possible field was given for the vain ingenuities of petty teachers to exercise themselves, with one treading in the footsteps of another, the collection of arbitrary institutions and rites gradually grew to such a multitude that their observance came to occupy nearly the whole of religion. For once a man has decided that the bounds of the divine commandment are to be transgressed, there is nothing to prevent him from wandering into the boundless. What the teachers of one century discovered, those of the next called "traditions." Once these began to win favor and authority with the people — who were most ready to prefer the inventions of men to the institutions of God — whatever novel thing anyone devised was imposed under that name upon the credulous common people, who were ignorant of the divine law. And when many had applied themselves to this work in various places, there arose at last among the precepts of the teachers and the traditions, as they were called, not only discrepancy and diversity, but (nor could it have been otherwise) contradiction and contrariety as well. So great was the multitude of new fables that it was by no means easy for anyone to receive and comprehend them in such a way as to be competent to instruct the people in their religion and observance. Hence schools arose — not rivals of those ancient ones in which the sons of the prophets devoted themselves to the worship of God and the study of the sacred writings, but rather resembling those which the Greeks had established for perpetuating philosophical disputes and brawls. These were nothing other than a confusion of wranglings over the most absurd ancient traditions, and workshops for new ones. But as each head teacher of a school became renowned — of whom the most ancient who are remembered were Shammai and Hillel — his decisions, sayings, and dogmas were devoutly revered by his disciples and the people as though they were divinely delivered. It was also from the diversity of traditions that the crowd of doctors burst into various sects. The three most ancient and best known of these were those of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes; to which Judas of Galilee added a fourth during the days of the census, according to Josephus, and the headless Herodians a fifth. The atheism of the Sadducees is said to have sprung from a saying of one teacher misunderstood. For when he had declared, under the pretext of the greatest love toward God Himself, that no one ought to render obedience with a view to eternal reward, they say that his foolish disciples, ready to swear by the words of their master, concluded that he denied the resurrection and eternal life. So writes the author of Tzemach David in the Chronicle, under the second temple, at 4460: [Hebrew text] — "Tzadoc," he says, "and Bajethosus were two disciples of Antigonus, and they erred concerning the saying of their master, in that he had said, 'Be not like servants ministering to a master in hope of receiving a reward.' One said to his companion, 'Behold, the master in his exposition taught that there is neither reward nor punishment for man;' and having seized this occasion, they say that they fell away from the faith." All these traditions tended either to the plain and direct abrogation of all authority from the commandments of God, or at least to their being so interpreted that no one was bound by their authority to render that obedience which God required — which amounts to the same thing — while the arbitrary commandments of the teachers themselves were to be observed most scrupulously under penalty of eternal death. Wherever, then, this Pharisaism flourishes — by which, through devised delusions and perverse interpretations, the virtue, efficacy, and perfection of God's commandments are enfeebled, while the arbitrary prescriptions of men are severely imposed under whatever pretext — there apostasy flourishes and reigns apart from all true theology. Nor is it necessary for me to demonstrate at greater length that the Jewish church before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ was stained and corrupted with this poison,

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The Final Apostasy of the Jewish Church. [Book V. since the evangelical history everywhere sets this before the eyes of all. In this most pernicious error the horrible and final apostasy of that church had its beginning. And this was the foundation of that oral law, which for many centuries now has filled both pages in the religion of the apostates. For after the mass of traditions had grown to immense proportions, and blind apostates destitute of the Spirit of God delighted in them alone, and since their origin was, as happens in a long series of events and years, no longer known, new teachers arose who attributed all of them to Moses himself. I will condense the long fable as best I can. It is summarized in the Tractate Pirke Avoth, ch. 1: [Hebrew text] — that is, "Moses received the law from Mount Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; the prophets delivered it to the men of the great synagogue." By this they mean the oral law. Rabbi Moses Maimonides narrates the entire fable more fully in the preface to Yad Hazakah: [Hebrew text] — that is, "The precepts that were delivered to Moses at Sinai were all given together with their exposition, according to that word, 'I will give you there the tablets of stone, and the law and the commandment'; the law, namely, the written law, and the commandment, that is, its exposition. Moreover, God commanded us to observe the law according to the commandment, and the commandment is the oral law." He adds, "Our teacher Moses wrote out the entire law with his own hand before he died, and entrusted a copy to each tribe. One copy he deposited in the ark as a testimony, according to that word, 'Take this book of the law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord our God, that it may be there as a witness against you.' But the commandment, or exposition, Moses did not write, but charged it to the elders and to Jehoshua, and to all the other Israelites, according to that word, 'Every word that I command you, you shall be careful to do.' Therefore it is called the oral law. And this oral law, although it was not written, our teacher Moses taught in its entirety to the seventy elders in his assembly. Eleazar, Phinehas, and Joshua, those three received it from Moses; Joshua then delivered it to his disciple." And so he continues in a long order reviewing the names of those who, from the days of Joshua down to Rabbi Judah the Prince, received this oral law from their predecessors and handed it on to others; and at last he adds, [Hebrew text] — "Our holy Rabbi" (that is, Rabbi Judah) "composed the Mishnayoth." This, of course, is what he would have us believe: that those futile, inept, and absurd traditions which that Rabbi Judah compiled in the Mishnayoth were that oral law, the exposition of the written law, which they fable Moses received from God on Mount Sinai.

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V. That the leaders and ringleaders of defection from God, the teachers of the sects, introduced countless most superstitious fictions and corrupt practices, distinguished by the name of traditions, into the church, and by these corrupted the whole of divine worship — this the evangelical history teaches clearly, and we have demonstrated it above. There are, however, learned men who hold that our most holy Lord adopted certain Jewish customs and practices concerning the worship of God and sacred religious observances in the institution of His church. Some do not hesitate to assert that the Lord's Prayer itself, which He prescribed as the norm and model of all our prayers, was drawn from the most commonly received formulas among the Jews. They do indeed acknowledge that Christ put an end to the Mosaic institutions. But they teach that He entrusted certain observances, which the doctors of the Jews had of their own accord introduced into use, confirmed by His own authority, to the evangelical church to be devoutly kept. Since this opinion seems to me sufficiently horrible and contumelious toward our most holy Lord Himself, before we proceed in the exposition of this final defection of the church, it is fitting to subject it to examination. Concerning the Jewish Rites Observed by Christ. [Book V.

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I. After the second temple was built, the ministry of the prophets and of other men divinely inspired — to whom the task of restoring the church to the standard of Mosaic Theology had been entrusted — was removed. That the teachers of the succeeding centuries, who wished to be regarded as the teachers of Israel, John 1:10, held the most diverse opinions concerning faith itself, and the observance and ceremonies of divine worship, I believe there is no one who does not know. But above all, turning deaf ears to that most holy commandment of God — to which they were strictly admonished at the very sealing of the Old Testament canon to give their minds exclusively, until He came who was to expound all truth, namely, to submit themselves to the discipline of the law of Moses — they were wholly occupied in devising new rites and interpolating traditions without authorization. Thus, with prophecy ceasing, philosophy entering, and the help of the Holy Spirit held in last regard, the whole church, corrupted by evil superstitions, gradually tended toward ruin. The evangelical history records some of what the corrupt teachers established in religious worship and in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and the pretext by which they used to impose these things upon the people. But after certain celebrated teachers, whose names were sacred and venerable among the common people who wholly deferred to the precepts of the masters, had indicated that some rite was to be observed in religion, or that this or that was the sense of some divine commandment or institution, their successors, who intended to enjoy the same authority with posterity, taught that those novel institutions were to be kept with the utmost reverence as if they were from heaven and not of human origin. Hence, as we noted above, the mass of traditions grew to immense proportions in a short time. Thus in the end almost nothing sound or uncorrupted was left in the whole of religion. This further evil was added in the course of time to crown the rest: it became utterly impossible for the people, wrapped in darkness, to know or distinguish what was of divine institution, what of ancient observance, and what of recent invention. When all sacred things among the Jews were in this state and condition, certain learned men consider that our Lord Jesus Christ, in establishing the evangelical church and in His infinite wisdom ordering the worship of God therein, transferred to His own use (as they put it) certain received traditional rites which those people at that time devoutly observed in the worship of God — indeed nearly all those which He instituted — and, having confirmed them by His own authority, delivered them to His disciples to be observed until the consummation of the age. They add furthermore that that most holy prayer, the most perfect norm and model of all our prayers (for Christ did not command the words to be recited, which we do not read the apostles as having done either, says Grotius, Annotations on Matt. 6:9), which He taught to His disciples, was composed by Him from the most commonly used formulas among the Jews. That this is indeed so, they argue from the fact that those rites which were once observed are mentioned among the teachers of the Jews, especially in both Talmuds — the very rites which we Christians still observe on the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that the petitions of the Lord's Prayer are there to be found, most of them at least, if not all. For these things are not pointed to as though they were then first born or first received among the Jews when the Talmudic work was compiled; rather, their antiquity and observance is established by the authority of masters and teachers who lived long before the destruction of the city; and — which is the chief point of the argument — they say these were part of that oral law which R. Judah Hakkadosh recorded in the Mishnayoth as received by tradition through successive hands. Since, however, I cannot deny that this opinion of learned men is by no means to my taste — indeed, that I dissent from it strongly — above all for this reason: that since it is at best uncertain, indeed false, the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ seems in it to be scarcely, or not even scarcely, sufficiently guarded; although my personal affairs and those of the public now compel me not merely to hasten but to rush to the conclusion of this work, I am not willing to pass it over in silence. I will therefore deal first with the opinion as a whole in general terms, and then subject separately to examination the proofs which some adduce in confirmation of that opinion.

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I. Let us see, therefore, first, what may be conceded to learned men in this matter; and then what things I cannot admit, at least until they are confirmed by weightier rational arguments than those they have hitherto used in this argument, or by trustworthy testimonies. I concede, therefore, first, that certain sayings — indeed many — which are found in the evangelical writings can be found among the Talmudic rabbis, or at least things very similar to them. The same can be said in particular regarding certain petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. But also that parallels to these are found in the writings of pagan sages, learned men have noted with respect to the Scriptures of both covenants.

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IV. We also concede, in the third place, that the Mishna doctors and Gemarists do not produce those sayings, do not make mention of those rites, as though they had only then become known and published, nor do they affirm on the sole basis of their own authority that these were in use before the destruction of the city — but rather they bring forward the doctors themselves, who lived long before those times, each one expounding the sense of his own age, or even of the oral law.

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V. It is further conceded that certain proverbial sayings which were in common use among the people at that time were employed by our Lord in the conversation He had with the common people, and were accordingly recorded in the evangelical writings. Of this kind were: “Physician, heal thyself”; “To him who has, it shall be given”; “The first shall be last, and the last first”; “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear”; and others of this kind. Moreover, just as every people is very tenacious of its proverbial sayings, so we acknowledge that the Jews retained these and similar ones in memory for many centuries and recorded them in writing.

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VI. These things, I say, we readily concede; and so what remains to be considered is whether the proofs of the learned men accomplish anything beyond what we have conceded. But it is certain that this dispute cannot be decided from these things alone. For it has not yet been established that those rites about which the question is raised were truly in use in the Jewish church before the destruction of the city, or that they were known to that people in the days of Jesus Christ’s sojourn on earth. So that the truth may be made plain, we will first set forth certain things which will make the explanation of the entire controversy easy.

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VII. First, therefore, we say that this oral law — which the Talmudic doctors commonly establish as the source and origin, the storehouse of all traditions and rites — is a horrible fiction, a mere lie, wickedly devised for the total destruction of Mosaic Theology and the eternal ruin of the Jewish people. For no greater mention is made of this law in all of Holy Scripture than of the Mohammedan Alcoran. Moreover, those who have dared to sew onto the word of God additions of this kind, from which this law largely consists, are severely execrated and devoted to destruction. And that entire unbelieving and stubborn-natured people, surviving and dispersed throughout the whole world, owes its hardening and its horrible obstinacy in unbelief — by the judgment of a most just God — to this satanic fiction. For, led away from the word of God under its pretext and bewitched by the inveterate prejudices of carnal traditions, they neither know anything beyond the most senseless fables, nor wish to know anything beyond them. And this, I trust, will be openly acknowledged.

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VIII. Second, there are two kinds of rites and ceremonies which are mentioned among the Talmudic doctors but are not expressly instituted in the law. For either they pertain only to the manner of celebrating the instituted worship, with certain additions applied, drawn in whatever way from arbitrary expositions of the words of Scripture; or else the rites themselves are new and entirely different from all divine institutions. No one has yet proved, nor will anyone hereafter prove, that any memory, any monument, any trace or vestige of either kind existed before the return of the people from the Babylonian captivity, or while that church was flourishing under the leadership and governance of the prophets and the earliest reformers. All things owe their origin to that interval of time in which that church rushed headlong into its final and fatal apostasy and ruin — or to that period in which it ceased to be a church.

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IX. Third, we deny that our Lord confirmed any purely Mosaic institution by His authority. All agree that He abolished all of them.

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The case is different for those things which are founded in the nature of things. For since all the Mosaic rites were instituted for a time of reformation, Heb. 9.

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10, and they had only a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things themselves, chap. 10:1; nor could they maintain their place, once that which they served to prefigure had been introduced; nor were they to be recovered again from that death to which they had once been appointed. X. Fourth, It is most plainly established from the whole of the gospel history that our Lord Jesus Christ, for as long as He lived subject to the Mosaic institutions as the minister of circumcision, most consistently rejected and condemned with the utmost detestation, without exception, all the unwritten traditions that the older or more recent teachers had introduced.

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394 CONCERNING THE JEWISH RITES OBSERVED BY CHRIST. [Book V. — this the apostle Paul teaches in his entire epistle to the Hebrews. For he presents the high priesthood, and accordingly all Mosaic worship, as something indeed to be abolished immediately, but not yet abolished. Hence the state the church would be in, once all typological worship was completely removed, is called a new world for it. He also affirms that there was yet a little while remaining before those Mosaic rudiments, shaken by the death of Christ, would be removed, so that the things that cannot be shaken in Christ's kingdom might be established. Nor does it stand in the way that the apostles and elders and the whole church of Jerusalem had long before decreed, by the mind of the Holy Spirit, that the disciples from the nations were not bound by the law of Moses, Act. 16; for they themselves show, a long time afterward, that all the believing Jews had adhered to its observance, Act. 21:21, 22. In many places also the believing Jews and those who had not yet given their names to Christ conducted themselves indiscriminately together. Hence James the Just, who had lived in Jerusalem for very many years and was most well known to all the people for his outstanding and utterly genuine holiness, was not at all suspected by the leading men of the city of being a Christian, because he had diligently frequented the worship of God in the temple, as Eusebius reports, Hist. Eccles. Book 2, chap. 23. Indeed, Grotius writes that this commingling lasted somewhere until the time of Hadrian.

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XIV. Eighth, The remaining Jews (that is, whatever of the nation had survived the Flavian disaster), driven and put to flight from every solemn Mosaic assembly, wandered about here and there, utterly uncertain what they should do, by what rite they should worship God, or where they should plant their feet. Others have shown that they established a Sanhedrin — or rather a school, or a den of the most inept wranglings — here and there. But the whole of that history rests on conjectures and rabbinical testimonies, more uncertain than any conjectures. During the reign of Hadrian over the Roman empire, deceived by the cleverness and cunning of a notorious scoundrel whom they call Bar Kokhba, and driven by the goads of their crimes — or rather by the divine curse — they swarmed from everywhere into Judea and Galilee and stirred up a war against the Romans that was ruinous enough to both sides. But at last defeated, and afflicted with a calamity only slightly less than that which had mowed them down at the destruction of the city and the temple, still not understanding the most just indignation with which God was pursuing the entire nation in every land, yet broken in strength and spirit, partly driven off, partly threatened with death unless they fled, they were all to a man ordered to go into exile from the whole of Judea. What they accomplished in their hiding places from that time through the next century is shrouded in deep darkness. At last the most famous Rabbi Jehuda — Hakkadosh, that is — burst forth, the originator and chief of that superstition by whose wickedness they are to this day burdened and odious everywhere on earth before God and men. He set his hand to the forging of that new Jewish religion which, swollen with innumerable superstitions, prevails throughout the whole nation. For when he was set over the school and observed how greatly all things pertaining to religious worship and observance were fluctuating in uncertainty, he gathered from ancient traditions, new fictions, and observances that were then in use among many, scraping and tearing them together from everywhere, a certain body or system of religious and civil or forensic constitutions, which they call the Mishnaioth. Into that book the two Talmuds gather the expositions, disputations, quarrels, and fables of the rabbis. For as soon as Rabbi Jehuda had raised the standard, people flocked to it from everywhere at once. Whatever impure and ignorant little men were anywhere able to scrape together from old wives' traditions, from the sayings of holy Scripture wretchedly and blasphemously distorted, from the rites and customs of the Gentiles and of Christians that were not expressly contrary to the Mosaic law — whatever they could be compelled in any way to make serve their purpose — all this they poured in here as into a swamp of fables, lies, and every kind of superstition. For just as Muhammad stitched together his Quran from Jewish traditions, from the gospel history most corruptly interpolated, from pagan rites, and from his own fictions, so also did those rabbis compose their Talmudic work. Having premised these things — which will all be found to be capable of clear demonstration, since they have been drawn from histories and most trustworthy monuments of past events — I will set forth in a few words what my opinion is in the case before us. Our opinion, therefore, is this: that those evangelical institutions of which any mention is made either in the Mishnah, or in the Talmuds, or in other Jewish teachers, and accordingly all purely evangelical pericopes that exist in any of their writings, the Jews derived partly from the gospel itself, partly from the practice and traditions of Jewish apostates which flowed out from Judeo-Christian assemblies, partly from the mouth of the common people among whom they lived, and from nowhere else. 396 CONCERNING THE JEWISH RITES OBSERVED BY CHRIST. [Book V. This opinion, I say, seems more probable than that other opinion which dangerously asserts that our Lord Jesus Christ borrowed His most holy institutions from the refuse-pits of Judaism; indeed I consider it to be most true and exposed to no objections that carry any weight or force. For since those blind and stubborn apostates had lost their ancestral religion, the worship of God, and their homeland (for whoever supposes that the Talmudic religion, or present-day Judaism, is the same as what is set forth in the law and the prophets, is a stranger to these matters), most utterly destitute of the Spirit of God, and applying all their effort to devising and erecting, from the most uncertain traditions and rumors, a new manner of worshipping God and new rites of worship — there is surely no reason why it should seem strange to anyone that they seized upon certain things that had been in use among Judaizing Christians, or at least things most similar to those, for their own purposes. Wonder will be even further removed if we consider that some of the stitchers-together of the new superstition were Christian apostates, which is certainly neither incredible nor improbable. For that is why so many traces of the gospel history survive in the Quran, since a certain Sergius, a Nestorian monk who had defected from Christianity, accompanied its author and was received as a partner in the work.

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XV. But let us weigh the force of the opposing opinion. By what authority, I ask, can we know for certain that those prayer formularies which now exist among the Jews, and those rites which are not expressly prescribed in the law, were in use before the destruction of the city? The Jews, they say, consistently affirm that they received these things from Moses himself by means of the oral law. But we have already proved that this oral law is the most shameless of fictions, of which, before the final apostasy of the people and the destruction of the nation, not a trace or any memory exists. And things that owe their origin to this oral law could not be more ancient than that law. But they say the Jews had set times for prayer; I grant it. Luke in Acts 3:1 mentions the hour of prayer, the ninth, and teaches that there were three daily times of prayer. Maimonides in the Mishnah, Book 2, Tract. on Prayer and the Benedictions of Priests, chap. 1, teaches this, but denies that it was established by the law. "Moreover," he says, "neither the number of prayers, nor the obligation toward this or that prayer, nor any certain or fixed time for prayer is from the law." So they had three daily prayers, of which the first was called the morning prayer, the second the mincha, and the third the evening prayer. That some ancient Christians observed those three times — "with the plainly indifferent freedom always, everywhere, and at all times to pray," as he himself says — Tertullian teaches us in his work On Fasting. But what follows from this? That they also had prescribed prayer formularies? But how will that be established? Maimonides indeed reports that Gamaliel, whose age and time of life are known from sacred history, composed a prayer for the extirpation of the heretics — that is, of the Christians; how well this accords with the counsel that Luke ascribes to him in Acts 5:38 is not easy to understand. Therefore that the Jews had humanly devised prescribed prayers before the destruction of the city — there is not even the appearance or shadow of proof. But, they say, the Samaritans affirm that a book of prayers written by Moses himself, transmitted to them, has been preserved in the hands of the chief priests of Gerizim down to the pontificate of a certain Hadrian. Let Apella believe it; no one else will; for all the Jews with one voice detest this most shameless lie. These are the people who fabricated an eleventh commandment — most worthy indeed of fabricating Mosaic prayer formularies. If any such book had ever existed, to believe that its memory had survived only among the Samaritans — an Assyrian colony, impious, and hateful to God and the church — would be, as the saying goes, "the act of a madman, not of a sane Orestes." I grant that most Jews think that after the time of Ezra — when, with prophecy ceasing, that church declined through contempt of the Spirit and the divine word into final apostasy — the people used certain prayer formularies in synagogue worship, and also in the worship of the temple; but it cannot be proved that the Mishnaic or Talmudic teachers, or any teachers of subsequent centuries, knew for certain what those formularies were, or retained any memory of them. For it is foolish and wicked to suppose that this church had made use of those liturgies which are now in use among the Jews in the worship of God. The same must be said concerning rites. Before that impostor Rabbi Jehuda, there is no Jewish writer in the Hebrew language, nor in Greek, except Philo, Josephus, and Jesus Sirach. Concerning these matters among them there is the deepest silence. But who will convince me that Rabbi Jehuda or his followers did not lie when they hint that this or that rite was in use before the destruction of the city, when I know that they lie most shamelessly in matters of far greater importance and in their historical accounts? Their ancestors also — if descendants of Adam ever existed who could have been better than they — we are taught, as truth itself bears witness, to have fabricated many things foolishly and superstitiously. And among these latter there is no end, aim, or limit to lying; so that everywhere they seem by deliberate effort to contend with one another to snatch the prize in devising horrible lies. Examples are unnecessary; those who are not yet washed with brass know. But learned men say that in their own affairs they are to be believed — why, I ask? when nowhere more than in their own affairs are they found to be triflers and liars? But let us hear a most learned man making the case for the rabbis in his own words, in his work On the Law of Nations among the Hebrews, Book 2, chap. 2: "If perhaps a doubt arises for anyone here," he says, "whether credit is to be given to the Talmudic body and its writers in matters of this kind, insofar as they are historical — that is, insofar as they record in them what was recognized and practiced as law of whatever kind among the ancient Hebrews — on the ground that that body, as it now stands composed, and those other writers, belong to centuries more recent than the destruction of the temple and the city, such a person will perhaps also doubt the trustworthiness of Justinian

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398 CONCERNING THE JEWISH RITES OBSERVED BY CHRIST. [Book V. or of Tribonian, while he records or mentions in the Digest or elsewhere the opinions and legal rulings of Modestinus, Papinian, Florentinus, Alphenus, Proculus, Celsus, and others of that kind, who are about three hundred years older than Justinian, opinions and rulings not found elsewhere — still less when he records the laws of the twelve tables, which antedate even these centuries by many more." After adding things similar to these he at last concludes: "To admit a reason for doubt, whether in law, in theology, in history, or anywhere else, from this cause alone — when all the other circumstances that attend the matter in no way militate against its credibility — is nothing other than to resist all antiquity almost universally, and the historical truth of events themselves, too perversely and obstinately." XVI. There is no one, as far as I know, who has brought forward more or more plausible arguments for winning credence for those Talmudic rumors of which we are treating. The most distinguished Joseph Scaliger also holds similar views. Let us see, therefore, in brief, whether the most distinguished scholar achieved what he intended. If indeed the reasoning he proposes concerning the rabbis and the ancient jurists were to proceed on equal footing, this argument would be legitimate. But the matter is altogether different. It is most certain that the books of those authors, whose opinions, decisions, and legal responses are cited by later writers in civil law, once existed — indeed at the very time when those celebrated maxims were transcribed from them; or they were also drawn from authentic memoranda, court records, public commentaries and accounts. But the Mishnaic and Talmudic teachers do not even pretend that their predecessors ever wrote anything of the kind that they everywhere ascribe to them. After several centuries had elapsed from the death of those men, relying on uncertain and obscure rumors and on vain traditions, they bring various teachers onto the stage at will, and do not so much report as openly fabricate what such teachers said or are said to have said. If there were any pre-Mishnaic books, or if perhaps any had ever existed; if they rested upon any monuments of events that had ever occupied a place in the real world; if anything beyond their own credibility and authority could be adduced which would be adequate or suitable for founding a conjecture that the things they record actually stood as they say; if the state and condition of Jewish affairs over several centuries left any room for suspicion that they faithfully preserved in memory the sayings and deeds of their predecessors before the destruction of the city — then the comparison that has been instituted would seem to have some force of valid reasoning. But as we have said, all things here are very different. Furthermore, how immeasurably does the credibility of the witnesses differ! Puppies smell quite differently from pigs. From those whose truthfulness I have found to be established in many matters I am unwilling, on account of suspicions or mere conjectures, to withhold credence. But to bind oneself to believing those whom one knows in many — indeed in nearly all — matters to be openly the most brazen impostors, is scarcely the act of a man, let alone of one who loves truth. Those ancient jurists whom Selden mentions were men of gravity, learned, upright, and most celebrated throughout the whole world; they said, wrote, and assigned to others nothing except openly, publicly, and in the light of men, where if they had written anything otherwise than strict observers of justice and truth ought to have done, they would have been accused of falsehood by almost the whole world. Our Talmudic teachers were blind, wicked, and ignorant, given over by God to a reprobate mind, who — as Joseph Scaliger rightly observes in his work On the Emendation of Time, Book 7 — appear deliberately to "profess ignorance of all good things;" impostors and tale-tellers, babbling mere nonsense in the darkness and in their hiding places, to whom no reason can be given why we should believe anything great or small that they say. But let what has been said on this matter in general suffice; what will be of any importance will come to be weighed in the consideration of particulars.

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XVII. Let us examine the particular instances by which learned men endeavor to maintain their position. There are some — whom out of respect I do not name — who assert not only that our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed a prayer formula to His disciples in the manner most customary among Jewish teachers, but also that He drew the very words and petitions of which He composed His most holy prayer from the formulas most commonly used among them. Let us see, then, by what weight of arguments or by what credible testimonies they strive to prove this; for the claim seems to me scarcely sufficiently honest. The disciples, they say, asked Christ to teach them to pray, just as John had taught his disciples. And John, they add, followed the custom common among the Jews, by which teachers handed down to their disciples prayer formulas to be learned. But that all these things are altogether uncertain and supported not merely by a slender but by absolutely no prop at all, even a near-blind man could perceive. I grant that God prescribed certain solemn forms of blessing to the Aaronic priests; and that the Talmudic rabbis, after their pattern, devised others — whether originally eighteen in number, corresponding to the bones of a man's back, as they trifle, I do not know; if the first inventors of those formulas had that in view, I know only that they acted in their usual foolish manner. They eventually grew to a hundred and eighteen, for frivolous reasons which it is tedious to recount. That every celebrated teacher taught his disciples prayer formulas is both incredible and unsupported by testimony. That John followed the example of those teachers whom he openly and persistently rebuked for ignorance, hypocrisy, and superstition is asserted far too boldly. To place John, and far more so the Son of God Himself, in the same rank as the blind teachers of the Jews is to me a matter of scruple. That the name of God should be reverently invoked is the voice of nature and an eminent part of natural worship. Whoever undertakes to instruct others in the knowledge and worship of God must necessarily teach them to pray, that is, to pour out prayers to Him. This John performed among his disciples; by what aids and means he did so is uncertain; that he taught them to pray is most certain; and likewise for what things they ought especially to pray at that time. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who at the appointed time, according to the promise of the new covenant, was about to pour out the Holy Spirit upon His disciples

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— was about to pour out upon His disciples lavishly, and was to relieve their weaknesses in pouring out prayers; He set forth, as it were in advance, the most holy sum of all things they would ever ask through His aid. For just as the Spirit of grace does nothing in us except according to the rule of the word, so that none who rely on the Spirit may deceive themselves, they must attend to that same word in all the duties for the discharge of which they are made fit by His aid and assistance. It is worth appending Grotius's annotation on Luke 11:1, "Teach us" — meaning, "Teach us a summary of the things to be prayed for. For they were not at that time bound to specific syllables. So also from John it is credible that a summary of prayers pertaining to repentance was set forth: just as this prayer of Christ contains the heavenly kingdom. Hence it is called by Tertullian a breviary of the whole gospel, and by Cyprian a compendium of heavenly doctrine." Thus far Grotius. Cornelius a Lapide is of the same opinion on Matt. 6:9: "Here Christ," he says, "hands down to Christians the manner of praying, yet does not command that we pray in these exact words, but only teaches what things are to be asked of God, and in what order, and with what brevity of words they are to be asked." And on Luke 11:2, he notes from Jansen that Christ in this prayer set forth a synopsis of the whole of Christian doctrine; and therefore Matthew appended it, by way of prolepsis or anticipation, to the Sermon on the Mount, which the Lord delivered at the beginning of His ministry. For whoever thinks Christ taught His disciples the same prayer formula twice is greatly mistaken. And the assertion, as some are fond of saying, that our Lord adapted the prayer formulas common among the Jews to His own purpose by making slight alterations, is far too bold. The ravings and dreams of the Talmudic rabbis, which some employ to lend credibility to this fiction, are empty and worthless. Some Longus of ours commends in this matter Josephus Albo Ikkar, as if Ikkar were the name of the man who wrote the book to which he gave the title. But great errors are made in examples of this kind. Baronius himself, at year 34, num. 134, by a similar error but with the opposite outcome, supposed the name of a certain rabbinic book to be Alphes, whereas that name was the name of the author himself — called, that is, by the name given. He then adds Jacob Turim, since that Rabbi Jacob wrote a book called Arba Turim — that is, of four orders; which is the same, says Casaubon, as if someone were to cite among authors Tullius on Nature, because Marcus Tullius wrote books on the nature of the gods.

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XVIII. That most perfect model of all prayers, and most exact compendium for cultivating our communion with God, undoubtedly spread into the knowledge of those Jews who were apostasizing — who, having at length wholly defected from the profession of the faith, nonetheless retained the use of certain things they had learned among Christians that did not conflict with Mosaic rites. From them, and from nowhere else, arose that very faint rumor about the petitions of the Lord's Prayer which the Talmudic rabbis appear to have possessed.

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XIX. Furthermore, the most learned Selden, in his work on the Ancient Hebrew Sanhedrin, Book I, endeavors with many arguments to prove that Christ borrowed the rite of baptism from that which was then in use among the Jews. Others do the same. Among the Jews there were two kinds of proselytes: the first, called in Hebrew "proselytes of sojourning," and the second, "proselytes of righteousness." The proselytes of righteousness were partakers of all ecclesiastical privileges and were fully counted among the people of God. Such was Ebed-Melech, Jer. 39:16-18. Learned men teach that all these, upon their admission into that state, were not only circumcised but also baptized; and they confidently affirm that no proselyte of righteousness was ever made, however circumcised, unless he was also immersed in baptism. But in truth, that one might become a partaker of all the privileges of that church, circumcision alone was required — so the express testimonies of Holy Scripture teach. For the law reads as follows, Exod. 12:48: "If a stranger sojourns with you and wishes to keep the Passover, let every male of his household be circumcised; then let him draw near to keep it, and he shall be as a native of the land; and no uncircumcised person shall eat of it." Concerning rabbinic baptism, this much may be said. They suppose that this baptism of proselytes had its origin from another legal institution. For the same law applied to proselytes and to natives, Lev. 11:49; Num. 15:15 — that is, they were equally bound by the same law to the performance of the same duties. But all the Jews, they say, were baptized. From where, I ask, does that appear? From Exod. 19:10. Before the giving of the law, Jehovah declared to Moses and said: "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments." But since the whole people was solemnly baptized at this divine command, there was no need for this rite to be repeated among them. The proselytes, however, in order to be conformed to the people, had to undergo this rite. But that was a washing of garments. By "garments," they say, the whole body is meant. How is that established? The teachers so teach. But there is no reason why we should believe this against the express testimonies of Scripture. Let us hear Selden himself, in his work on the Ancient Hebrew Sanhedrin, Book I, chap. 7, p. 66: "It is well known to anyone at all familiar with the Talmudists," he says, "that it is very common among them to seek the grounds of their introduced customs and of those humanly received as a hedge or fortification of the sacred law, as they call it, from some passage and words of the sacred text — not as though established by precept, but by example or some analogy. And this is often done so boldly, far beyond what is proper, that the very words are wrested into confirmation of such customs in a sense far different from the genuine meaning of the sacred passage." Now I am unwilling to suspect that they have done this in the distortion of this passage, since the matter itself is evident. Furthermore, the washing of garments served solely that one occasion — namely, to show reverence at the peculiar divine presence in the giving of the law — and had nothing to do with the regular worship of God. That the necessity of bodily baptism, as a fixed and solemn rite for all ages, should be derived solely from a single washing of garments, and from a cause

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"The same man thrice carried the pure water around his companions, sprinkling them with light dew and with a branch of the fruitful olive." Now "carried around" is the same as "purified," for purificatory offerings were carried around. Macrobius teaches the distinction between sprinkling and ablution in his Saturnalia, Book III, chap. 1. Lucian mentions this rite in his Menippus, or the Necromancy, 7. "Leading me at midnight to the river Tigris," he says, "he purified and cleansed me, and with a torch lustrated me, and with a sea-onion, and with many other things besides." See also what Pliny records, Book XXXVI, chap. 4, regarding Timarchides and Asterius, who touched the altar of Jupiter with impure hands and was for that reason struck by lightning: "Pouring libation with washed hands he touched the altar of Jupiter; for which reason the father burned him with the fire of the blazing thunderbolt. It is right that only the scrupulously pure should touch sacred things." There was also customarily a threefold purification: namely, with water, sulphur, and fire. Hence Ovid: "Purify the old man three times with flame, three times with water, three times with sulphur." XXI. Now Justin Martyr, in his Apology II, affirms that all the washings employed by pagans in their sacred rites originated from our Scriptures through the evil imitation of demons — as also the custom of removing sandals when entering shrines or temples, from the word of God to Moses when he drew near the burning bush; which indeed does not seem far from the truth. XXII. But all this is far from the sacred rite of baptism. A female proselyte could not be circumcised. For her admission, therefore, if anywhere, account would have to be taken of baptism; but where the ceremonies of that admission and grafting into the people of God are enumerated, there is no mention of baptism, Deut. 21:10-13. But Paul expressly affirms that the whole "people was baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." I grant this; in the crossing of the sea God solemnly dedicated the people to Mosaic instruction. But it is false that the Jews ever imitated or were required to replicate that miraculous baptism. The institution of the rite of baptism is therefore nowhere recorded in the Old Testament; no example of it exists; nor was it ever employed during the Jewish church in the admission of proselytes; no mention of it occurs in Philo, Josephus, or Jesus Sirach; nor in the evangelical history. The rabbinic opinion, therefore, concerning the baptizing of proselytes, owes its origin to the Tannaim, or pre-Mishnaic teachers, after the destruction of the city. That they wished by this to distinguish themselves from the Samaritans is the judgment of the most learned Schickard in his work on the Royal Law among the Hebrews, chap. 5, p. 127. "For distinction from the Samaritans," he says, "they added a certain baptism" — which is proved from Rabbi Alphes and from the Talmud itself. I rather think that the Tannaean teachers borrowed this rite, previously unknown before that time, from the baptism of John, which was celebrated throughout the whole nation and by which a great part of the people had been initiated. Justin mentions indeed a heresy among the Jews in his Dialogue with Trypho, which he calls Baptists; but he denies that those who used that rite were properly called Jews. The author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox proposes this question to himself — or repeats it as proposed by others — namely: "If the baptism of John was not according to the law, as indeed it was not, how was it not contrary to the law, and how was it according to the law? And why did those who were under the law not oppose it, and why did they accept the baptism that was against the law?" To this he replied that the baptism of John was a forerunner of the gospel of grace, and therefore it was beyond the law. That opinion of certain learned men, therefore, concerning the transfer of the Jewish baptismal rite — which was truly not in use at that time — into the practice of His disciples by the Lord Jesus, is wholly devoid of probability.

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XXIII. The same things must plainly be said concerning the Eucharist. That most holy institution of our Lord, together with all the circumstances pertaining to its solemn celebration, is supposed by some to have been derived from Jewish rites, of which no mention occurs anywhere in Holy Scripture. We have not yet seen it proved by any competent testimony that those rites were in use before the final destruction of the nation. Since, however, others have discharged this task with sufficient success, it is not our intention to do it again here, given the great haste under which we are continually pressed.

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We showed previously that certain of the evangelical ordinances have their foundations in the very nature of things, or in the principles of right reason. They pertain first to human beings as such, before they pertain to Christians. The use among the nations of those things that are consonant with the dictates of reason was always varied, according as men gave themselves more or less to the discipline of natural light. Among these is excommunication. For right reason dictates that one who acts against the duties, laws, and rules of a community of which he is a part should be excluded from the privileges of that community. Nothing is more frequently encountered in the practice of this right among the ancients in good authors. That the Jews observed this custom, they themselves teach. Whether they did so by virtue of some divine institution or by common right, we do not now dispute. That this kind of custom existed among the pagans

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404 ON THE JEWISH RITES OBSERVED BY CHRIST. [Book V Among many other witnesses to its prevalence, Gaius Caesar testifies in book vi of De Bello Gallico, chapter xiii: "If anyone," he says, "whether private citizen or public official, has not abided by their" (that is, the Druids') "decree, they forbid him from the sacrifices. This penalty is regarded among them as the most severe. Those upon whom this interdict has been placed are reckoned in the number of the impious and wicked; all men withdraw from them, shun their company and their conversation, lest they receive some harm from their contagion; neither is justice rendered to them when they seek it, nor is any honor communicated to them." Some do not scruple to assert that this custom passed from the pagans to the Christians. I strongly doubt that anything more disgraceful could be invented against the ancient Christians. The opinion of the majority is that it passed from the Jews to the Christians. But whether ecclesiastical excommunication was divinely instituted in the Jewish church, and whether any examples of it exist while the city and temple were still standing, I am unwilling to make my own cause. The Mishnaic Rabbis and the Gemarists make frequent mention of it. It is false that our Lord received the practice of this rite from the Jews or from the pagans. Reason dictates that men living in harmony, establishing some rule common to all, should dwell together in communities. Whatever end or object they may have set before themselves — sacred or civil — the same law applies. That all those who would wish to enjoy, use, and benefit from the rights and privileges of any society should hold to the bond upon which the society rests, and submit to its rules, is likewise equitable. Otherwise a community cannot be kept intact, nor can it endure. For one who refuses to comply, exclusion from the society's privileges and fellowship is at hand — and right reason also dictates this. All these things pertain to nature, as we are human beings. To suppose that the human race learned these dictates of reason — which it had cultivated several thousands of years before the name of rabbi was ever born — from the rabbis themselves, is madness. However much these axioms may be founded in the very nature of things, yet since our Lord Jesus Christ willed nothing at all to be reverently observed in His church except on His own authority — since He alone is its head, king, and lawgiver — He has secured by His own institution the appropriation and application of these principles to the use of evangelical assemblies; and therefore, although these principles or common notions are still natural in themselves, since what is once congruent with rational nature is utterly impossible to be permanently incongruent with it, yet their application to those sacred matters which depend on the pure institution of Christ is purely evangelical. After the apostle had therefore proved from the very law of nature, and from the equity of the nations as well as of the Mosaic institutions, that wages are owed to the dispensers of the gospel for their work, he adds immediately, "So also our Lord has instituted," 1 Epis. ad Cor. ix. 14.

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Chapter 16. The Final Defection of the Jewish Church. 405

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The second foundation of Mosaic Theology — The justification of the sinner before God is gratuitous — The defection of the Jewish church from it — Vain boasting about Abraham as father — The acknowledgment of natural misery rejected — The impious vow of dying Jews — The third foundation — On the coming and authority of the Messiah — The worst defection from it — A digression on the change and abolition of the Mosaic worship — Heb. 7:12–15 — All Mosaic worship rested on the Aaronic priesthood — Its change foretold — The evangelical worship that follows — The Messiah is High Priest — Ps. 110:4 — What the priest is — The Mosaic laws subject to change — The final defection and destruction of the Jewish church.

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I. We proceed to the second foundation of Mosaic Theology. The gracious justification of sinful man before God constitutes it. Its principal parts we have expounded above. That the Jewish church has wholly defected from it, the gospel itself plainly shows. For whereas they ought always to have openly professed, first from a deep and inward sense of natural misery and of their most abject condition in this world, "that a Syrian ready to perish was their father," and many other things to the same effect, they, puffed up with an excessive opinion of themselves, seized every opportunity to thunder forth with haughty lips that solemn declaration: "Abraham is our father." By this vain boasting they fortified themselves against all conviction of natural misery. Hence, at the beginning of his preparatory ministry, John the Baptist found it necessary to confront this prejudice, Matt. 3:9. "Do not presume," he says, "to say among yourselves, We have Abraham as our father." But stubborn pride resisted correction. For inflated with a vain conceit of this privilege, they boldly and obstinately opposed the truth itself — namely, the Lord Jesus — when He called them to repentance. There was no mention of "the Syrian ready to perish"; they never ceased to boast of themselves as "the seed of Abraham, the sons of Abraham," and therefore holy, righteous, and acceptable to God. By the chain of this same most pernicious error, very many in every age are held fast — those who, destitute of the inward form and power of religion, strive to fortify themselves against the light of truth and the reproaches of conscience by an opinion of external privileges and the empty pomp of ceremonies.

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II. This foundation of Mosaic Theology taught, secondly, the free election of God, and the proper power (δύναμις) of the elect for rendering due obedience to God. But against no article of divine truth did the crowd of apostates set themselves with greater resolve. There was scarcely anything that they believed God had freely bestowed upon them. On the contrary, they constantly boasted that they were free, that they had never borne the yoke of bondage, but that they were naturally endowed with sufficient strength for rendering obedience to God. They accordingly complained that they suffered the gravest injustice when they suspected they were being numbered among the blind, the sick, and the guilty, who had need of a physician or of pardon. Now this error has another inseparable companion. For those who suppose themselves naturally endowed with strength for duly rendering obedience to God, conclude that such obedience is to be discharged by external observa-

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tions and works. And those who think that the greatest or chief part of obedience and divine worship consists in external works and rites are undoubtedly confident that they are ready and fit to render it. By the bond of both errors together, the apostates were held fast against the doctrine of this foundation.

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III. Thirdly, they so stubbornly repudiated reconciliation, the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, and the eternal righteousness to be obtained through the Messiah, that they openly professed that no one could be justified except by the works of the law; and they obstinately pursued that righteousness of the law which they had never been able to attain. Spiritual redemption and deliverance from the world, from death, from hell, and from sin they neither cared for nor expected. Concerning these things, in the true and genuine Jewish writers, there is the deepest silence. The entire expiation of sins they assigned partly to legal sacrifices and partly to their own merits and sufferings; as even now the dying cry out: "Let my death be the expiation of all my transgressions." All these things are so well known from the evangelical history that there is no need to dwell on proving them. Thus that church openly defected from the second foundation of Mosaic Theology — the justification of sinful man before God.

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IV. The third remains. This theology expounded the coming and office of the Messiah. It taught that the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord of the church, the greatest prophet, was to be invested by God the Father with authority and dominion, so that it would be His right and prerogative to institute new forms of worship and ceremonies, abolishing the old ones. All Mosaic theologians were bound to be obedient to Him in all things, under penalty of eternal excommunication. But after they had awaited His coming through so many centuries, already weighed down by their defection, they showed themselves so hostile to that truth that, for no other reason than that they suspected He would put an end to the ancient rites, they put the Messiah Himself to the most cruel death. From that time until this present day, the dogma that the ceremonial law is absolutely eternal and subject to no change has become the primary foundation of apostate theology. And the nearer those carnal ordinances approached their appointed end, and the more the season of reformation hastened on, with all the greater madness and obstinacy did they champion their immovable adherence to them. This most pernicious error the apostle sets before the eyes of all by many arguments drawn from their own principles in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now since we are dealing with the chief head of present-day Judaism, it will not be alien to our purpose to weigh one of those arguments here — namely, the one the apostle pursues in chapter seven, verses 12–15, and elsewhere: "For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity a change of law comes about as well. For He of whom these things are said belongs to another tribe, from which no one has ever officiated at the altar; for it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, a tribe about which Moses said nothing concerning priests. And what we say is even more evident, if another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek." Now the sum of this apostolic argument is as follows. The entire ceremonial law, all the administrations of the solemn worship and Mosaic institutions, rested on the supreme priesthood. The whole law always turned on this one hinge. For this reason, in the midst of calamities, destructions, and public ruin, God preserved the Aaronic or priestly family to this extent — that there was never lacking from it one who would discharge the priesthood according to the prescription of the law. For He had strictly forbidden that anyone who was not of the natural seed of Aaron should ever dare to undertake that office, Num. 16:40. Moreover, He gave authority to that law by setting forth dreadful examples against those who had dared to intrude upon the priestly administrations — as in the case of the Levites, Num. 18:7, and of King Uzziah, 2 Chron. 26:18–21. The connection between the legal worship and the priesthood was such that the same fate threatened both; so that when the priesthood was changed, it was impossible that the legal worship should not also undergo a change. Furthermore, God designated a special place for the performance of His solemn worship. Outside that place, no sacred rites that were common to the whole church and that expressed its unity could be performed, no offerings or sacrifices could be made. Mount Moriah in the city of Jerusalem was that place. But with all these institutions in place, God Himself foretold that a time would come when He would raise up another priest, from another family and tribe, and therefore of another order. For He foreshadowed that the Messiah — a king from the tribe of Judah — would also be high priest or supreme priest. Now since God appointed a high priest neither from the seed nor from the order of Aaron, it was necessary that all those Mosaic institutions whose administration rested solely on the Aaronic priesthood should immediately dissolve and vanish. All these things, says the apostle, cannot but be most well known to the Hebrews everywhere. You all believe that the Messiah is descended from the tribe of Judah. This, he says, is evident. And you also acknowledge that God never said anything about a priesthood — one that would oversee the Mosaic worship — being raised up or established in the tribe of Judah. It remains therefore only for me to prove that the Messiah will be the supreme priest. This is established from the words of the Psalmist irrefutably, Ps. 110:4: "The LORD has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." That this psalm is prophetic and has the Messiah in view, not one of the Jews at that time doubted. The Targumists agree; nor does any one of the ancient masters deny it. And even when our Lord Jesus Christ had exposed the shameful ignorance of the scribes and Pharisees before all the people by a question drawn from this psalm concerning the person of the Messiah, though they were covered with shame, they did not dare to deny that He was the Messiah whom David in that place called his Lord. He is said to be not merely a future priest, but — so that the ineffable prerogative of that priest might be made known — God solemnly

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swears that He will discharge the priesthood immutably forever. But here the apostates of today resort to a most wretched subterfuge. The word kohen, they say, signifies not only a priest but also a prince; and they would most gladly admit that the Messiah will be a prince. And this is indeed a finding most worthy of the rabbis — because it is plainly frivolous and nugatory. Melchizedek is called the king of Salem, and "priest of God Most High"; is this a prince or a priest of God Most High? Why, I ask, would one call him a prince when one had just called him a king, since kohen never denotes a prince except one who is lesser and inferior to a king? Furthermore, it was the role of the priest, not the prince, to bless others in the name of God — which Melchizedek is recorded as having done here, Gen. 14:18. Nor was Melchizedek a prince of any particular order, but a priest. Nor, as we have said, does Cohenim, when that word is transferred to the civil sphere, ever signify kings or those endowed with supreme power, but only those who occupy secondary or tertiary positions — the kind of minor prince that the Jews are unwilling to admit their Messiah will be.

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V. Furthermore: the Messiah was appointed heir not of the kingdom of Melchizedek but of the kingdom of David; and in David the type of His royal office was preeminent, since David reigned in the church — Ps. 2 — while He, the other, reigns among the nations. It was therefore necessary that the coming of the Messiah should be met with the dissolution and abrogation of the Mosaic institutions. To what has been said there is added no small weight of argument from the following. The city of Jerusalem was established by God's command as the seat of all solemn worship. The apostates do not deny this. But when the Messiah came, the last of the prophets foretold that a pure offering would be made to God everywhere, throughout the whole world, Mal. 1:11. And lest anything should be lacking to the establishment of this truth — which brings the most present destruction upon Judaism — God foretells that in the days of the Messiah He will take priests and Levites for Himself from the Gentiles themselves, Isa. 66:21. But this can no more be consistent with Judaism than light with darkness. The more perceptive among the Jews, compelled at last by the force of truth, yield the point. The author of Sepher Ikkarim not only expressly affirms that the law is mutable, but also replies to the arguments by which Maimonides, in his book on the foundations of the law, endeavors to prove it is eternal. For after reciting the arguments of R. M. B. M., he adds in book 3, chapter 13: "If anyone considers arguments of this kind more carefully, he will find that they do not prove the divine law to be immutable" — and he replies to them individually. And in chapter 20 he expressly teaches that the Messiah will be a prophet greater than Moses, and one who will have the right to change his institutions. R. Moses Nachmanides teaches similar things in his commentary on Deuteronomy, section Nitzavim. But these things are mentioned here in passing and by the way.

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VI. Such was the fatal apostasy of the Jewish church, openly departing from all the principles and foundations of Mosaic Theology. This defection was attended by the ultimate corruption of morals. The efficacy of heavenly truth having been rejected — the only thing capable of setting a limit and measure to human crimes — nearly the whole people, utterly given over to every wickedness and ruined by vices, hastened their own final destruction. Moreover, the Son of God having been repudiated and wickedly put to death — He who is the soul and life of Mosaic Theology, without whose saving and life-giving influence that theology was a useless body, or rather a corpse not unlike (perhaps the very one) the body over which the dispute between Michael and the devil arose — since it can no longer lead any of its theologians to God, it does not appear worthy of the name of theology. For Jewish theology is, as Antonius Hulsius rightly defines it in his preface to his book on the Messiah, "a doctrine handed down by men in the Talmud, comprising a series of civil and ecclesiastical ordinances once observed in the Jewish polity, and to be restored therein through the Messiah, so that the Jews may live happily in the world" — how far this is from the nature and end of all true theology, anyone may easily judge.

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VII. There were two reasons why this apostate theological world — long destined for fire — was not destroyed by that fire until several years had elapsed after the rejection of the promised Messiah. For, first, the apostates themselves had to render an accounting. It was therefore necessary, as Paul testifies everywhere, that the gospel be proclaimed to them — not only throughout all Judea, but among all the dispersed among the nations — before the nation was destroyed by inescapable ruin. Then, besides, there still lay hidden in that people the remnant of election by grace, which had to be called out before the wrath to the uttermost came upon them. For these reasons, I say, that church was continued in God's forbearance and longsuffering for some years after the apostates had put the finishing hand to their fatal apostasy. Concerning this destruction, let the reader consult the most celebrated historian Josephus, Preface to the book on the Jewish War, and book 6, chapter 9, §§12, 26; book 7, chapter 9, §§11, 12, 15, 16, 24, 28. He recounts not men but monsters; he records not a disaster or the destruction of a nation, but an inexhaustible abyss of all the miseries that the human race has ever endured. And such was the end of the apostate Jewish church, after God had tolerated it with much longsuffering for 527 years from the Ezraitic reformation.