Читать книгу Watson Refuted - Francis Samuel Ward - Страница 3

MY LORD,

Your second letter begins with some nice distinctions between authenticity and genuineness. The whole reasoning seems to amount to this, that a book may be authentic, although not genuine, and vice versa. To this proposition we were no strangers; but piety makes your Lordship forget some other considerations. When the proofs of authenticity depend in a great measure upon the genuineness of a book, then the authenticity falls to the ground the moment we prove it spurious. Thus the Jews strenuously maintained, that the Pentateuch had been written by an inspired man at a particular time. But if Moses is shown not to have written these books, I trust you will not declare them authentic, without other very solid proofs. When a whole nation is proved to be mistaken respecting the author of a work, we ought not hastily to credit their legends. Moreover, logic teaches us, that in proportion as events are incredible, they require a stronger testimony to prove that they have actually taken place. A battle may have been fought, a city may have been destroyed, but miracles being against the order of nature, no testimony can be strong enough to prove them, we must again appeal to faith. It is so much easier for men to be deceived or imposed upon, or for persons designedly to mislead their credulous followers, that unless it were more miraculous that a man should be mistaken, than that the miracle happened, we ought not to give credit to such fables. If we drop this rule of logic, we shall readily believe prodigies of all sorts, whether wrought by Moses, Jesus Christ, Mahomet, St. Antony of Padua, or any modern wonder-workers, witches, magicians, astrologers, or magnetisers. Mr. Paine no where asserts, that because a book is not genuine, it must be false; but certainly he might assert this of the Bible. You say, that if the works of Titus Livius had been ascribed to another, they would nevertheless be true; how would you ascertain it? If the whole Roman nation supposed them to have been written by a particular author at a certain time, and should we be enabled to point out many passages evidently written in a posterior age, would you, without any other proofs, join in the assent to the authenticity of the history, upon a tradition so vague, and already proved false in so material a point? Although I am no Bishop, I would only imagine, that as to probable events contained in such spurious books, there might have been some grounds for them; but I would receive them with great caution; and, at any rate, never would I establish a system of history, much less of religion, upon the productions of an ignorant people: in all cases, events related against the order of nature are to be considered as the reveries of dark ages. To elucidate your principles, you mention Anson's voyage, written by Robins, under the name of Walter, to prove that a spurious work may contain a true history; but, my Lord, do you forget, that this was written at a time when the whole nation knew that Lord Anson had made such a voyage, and every man in his fleet could testify the particulars of it? But if our posterity, four or five centuries hence, should discover a book purporting to be written by a Mr. Walters, detailing the voyage of Admiral Anson, and if in that book they should meet a passage speaking of the late revolution in France, or of the author's death and burial, would not that strike at the authenticity of the whole? Would any part be believed that was not corroborated by the evidence of respectable contemporary authors? All that could be inferred would be from the nature of the events related, such as the accurate description of countries, and such other particulars as marked either the period of the observations, or their truth: in the first case, they might suspect the work to be interpolated; in the second, they would value it only for the accuracy of information. It is different with scientifical and historical works: a spurious book of science may contain truths, they stand for themselves, they are the same at all times and places. Not so in history: the truth here depends on the universal consent of nations, on the testimony of authors of credibility confronted with each other, and in all cases relating things probable. When we read in a Chinese history, that the goddess Amida peopled the world by bearing male children from under one arm, and females under another, or, in the Mahometan writers, that the trees spoke to the founder of that sect, would a man credit any circumstance, however probable, related in such histories, without the strongest collateral proofs? And should we further discover, that these histories detailed events posterior to their author's death, would not this make the whole still more improbable? Your remark upon this subject is singular: you say, that if Joshua, Samuel, or Moses, declared themselves the authors of the works ascribed to them, then to prove these books spurious would at once destroy their genuineness and authenticity. I would reason thus: Moses does not say, that he was the author of the Pentateuch; why then do we believe that he wrote it? You would, no doubt, answer, that the tradition of the Jews proclaims him such. I retort, that if the genuineness of a book may be proved by tradition, we ought as much to argue against the authenticity of a work, from having proved the general belief of its genuineness to be founded on error, as if the author had said, I am the author of this book. This we shall, in the sequel, prove to be the case with the books of the Old Testament. The addition of an express declaration of Moses would add no authenticity to the Pentateuch, since it is as easy to forge a work where the author speaks in the first as in the third person.

Your next remark is concerning miracles. I have already observed, that no testimony can give them belief. You maintain, that the degree and kind of evidence for the prodigies recorded in the Bible exceeds that for any other wonders. How this happens I am unable to comprehend. I know they are contained in a book composed by the priests of the most credulous and ignorant nation that perhaps ever existed; and the authority of these unknown and obscure persons, is all the evidence we have for crediting their stories. An English Bishop tells his countrymen, that the miracle of the sun standing still is better supported than the prodigies of Abbe Paris, Mesmer, and the late Labre at Rome, than the numerous Indian, Chinese, and Popish miracles, of which a great part are attested by magistrates, divines, physicians, and the most enlightened classes of society; while the wonderful repast of the angels with Abraham, or the marvellous tale of Jonah's three days' residence in the belly of a fish, depends upon the authority of a book which we shall prove to be spurious, to have been lost for several ages, and to be compiled, if not altogether composed, by some Jewish scribes, who were, as they themselves acknowledge, the only men versed in the scriptures of the nation. I thought you would have known sacred history better than at the present day to make such unsupported assertions. Have you forgotten the wonders of the magicians of Pharaoh? Do you not recollect the express acknowledgment of Moses himself, that there may be miracles and prophecies performed by men who adored not the Lord Jehovah? Does he not say, in chap. xiii. of Deuteronomy, "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, &c. – that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to you to turn away from the Lord your God." It is not because he is a false prophet, but because he is not a prophet of Jehovah. Does not this at once show the grossness of the conceptions of the Jews, and the sophistical mode of arguing of their legislator? For I would ask, How did Moses prove himself the oracle of God? Or how did Jesus Christ show himself the Son of God, but by their pretended miracles? Why then believe the testimony of a miracle in one instance, and not in another? But the Jews certainly imagined, that there were several gods, and that they quarrelled with each other, as kings are used to do; therefore it was natural that one set of prophets should try to exterminate another, and be as inveterate against them as the Lord Jehovah was against Baal, or other rival gods. If the reader imagines I speak at random when I say, the Jews believed in other gods, I refer him to Judges, chap. xi. ver. 23, 34, where it is said, "So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldst thou not possess it? Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." There cannot be a fairer parallel.

I can hardly imagine a Bishop ignorant of the augurs, oracles, and sybils of the Greeks and Romans, and of the implicit belief these nations had in them; the truth of their prophecies was fully as well established as the prophecies of the Jews. Neither were miracles uncommon among the heathens. You have, no doubt, read St. Ambrose and Origen, and have found in the works of these and other fathers, that the only difference between the miracles of the Christians and infidels, was, that the former were operated by God, and the latter by the devil; and could I be satisfied that Satan took up Jesus Christ to the top of that high mountain, (now unknown to geographers) from whose pinnacle all the world could be seen, this would surprise me as much as to see Jesus Christ, or any other wonder-worker, bringing a dead man to life. I am ashamed to have inveighed so long against silly prejudices; but I could not avoid calling upon your Lordship, to point out the difference between gospel-miracles and the ridiculous tales believed in all dark ages, and of which we find so copious collections in the works of the first fathers. The axiom of philosophers, that no human testimony can establish the credibility, of miracles, you have left unanswered. You say it has been confuted an hundred times: had you given the confutation of it, we would have been able to ascertain the truth of your assertion. You are writing for the multitude, and being a dignitary of the church, ought to furnish the people with arms to oppose reason. Perhaps the unsuccessful attempt of Dr. Campbell has deterred you from at least recapitulating the principal answers to this proposition. Till you can prove that the great mass of mankind are not very fallible and easily deceived by any impostor, or that they are disposed and capable to examine the truth of reports spread about prodigies, you will never be able to persuade men of sense, that events impossible are to be believed upon the testimony of those who not only are, but have constantly been, the slaves of credulity in all countries.

You then show, that Mr. Paine's objections to the genuineness are not new. This is true; and I am surprised you have quoted so few supporters of his opinions. Your attempt to prove the genuineness of the Pentateuch, by direct evidence, is ridiculous. What! Maimonides, ten centuries after the destruction of the Jews, a Jew himself, and writing at a period so remote from the supposed date of the books of the Old Testament, is, by Dr. Watson, called a direct evidence of the genuineness of the Pentateuch. Juvenal, a poet, who in more than one place ridicules the credulity of the Jews, says, that they believe in Moses – so do the Europeans allow that the Indians believe in Brama. – We question not the general traditions of the Jews, but the credit they deserve; and I shall next proceed to show, that the books of the Pentateuch are spurious, and undeserving of credit. The name of Moses and the Jews were unknown to the famous Phoenician historian Sanchoniato, of whom Eusebius has preserved us some extracts; he has never mentioned a word about this famous legislator: had he done so, Eusebius was too strenuous an advocate for Christianity not to have recorded it. The books of the Jews were concealed from all the world before the famous Greek translation made at the instance of Ptolemy Philadelphia. Josephus himself acknowledges, that no heathen knew the Jewish books, which he endeavours to explain, by some miraculous interference of God to keep them from the impious. It is evident, that the insignificance and ignorance of the Jews were sufficient to screen them for a long time from the search of philosophers. Upon the early history of the Jewish nation, however, we have the testimony of several of the ancient writers. Manetho, and Chaeremon, Egyptian historians, give the most unfavourable account of this nation. Lisimachus does not favour them any more; and, although he differs about the name of the king who expelled them from Egypt, yet he agrees in calling them a set of men infected with leprosy, and the meanest of the subjects of the king of Egypt. Diodorus Siculus is as hard upon these wretched Jews. In short, the opinion of their being the vilest and most ignorant of men, has prevailed among all antiquity. All the writers about them agree in stating that they never produced any work in science; indeed, that they never improved any branch of useful knowledge. Many of these authors mention Moses as a priest of Heliopolis, who led them out of Egypt, and gave them a religion. Diodorus Siculus informs us, that the God of Moses was Jau, or Jahouh, which is the true pronunciation of Jehovah; and Plutarch (de Iside) says, that the Thebans adored this God, and had not images in their temples, because Jau signified the general principle of life, the soul of the world.

Strabo, in his Geography, book 16, informs us, that Moses, who was an Egyptian priest, taught his followers to worship the God Jahouh, without representing it by emblems. This was the God of the Thebans, the soul of the world. The Jews have even preserved the name of Tsour, or giver of forms, and commonly translated by the word creator in chap. xxxii. of Deuteronomy. Herodotus affirms, that the Jews or Syrians of Palestine borrowed circumcision from the Egyptians. Diodorus says the same; and even Philo and Josephus do not deny it. A great many other rites were copied by the Jews from this nation. It is, therefore, of great consequence to ascertain the age in which the Jewish books were written; for if we can prove that all the fundamental points of their religion were copied from their masters the Egyptians, or borrowed from the Babylonians during the captivities, then the reader will judge of the truth of the clerical opinion, that a handful of hordes were the favourite people of God; that a set of ignorant and credulous vagabonds taught science to the Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians, and preserved nothing among themselves but some ridiculous accounts of their origin, and a collection of absurd prodigies. If we succeed in pointing out from what sources Jewish mythology is derived, there will be but little difficulty in unravelling the principal fables contained in the Pentateuch and other Jewish books. We are pretty well acquainted with the allegories of the heathen mythologies.

I am ready to grant that several of Mr. Paine's objections are not valid, and often trifling; but I declare, once for all, that I do not think myself bound to follow Mr. Paine in every instance. I shall direct my remarks, rather to disprove your reasoning, than to defend every objection of your opponent; at the same time, I shall avoid repeating what he has advanced, and you have not disproved. The chief proofs against the genuineness of the Pentateuch have been overlooked by Mr. Paine. I shall state them briefly.

First. It was believed, by all the best informed old fathers of the church, that the Jewish books had been absolutely lost during the captivity, and that Esdras had written them from inspiration; or, that he collected the Pentateuch, and all other canonical books, out of whatever records he could find, and put them together.2 In either case, their authority is greatly invalidated; and the more so, as the fourth book of Esdras, adopted by the Greek church, and generally deemed authentic, says expressly, that Esdras dictated the holy books during forty successive days and nights, to five scribes, who were continually writing. This tale shows sufficiently the general belief that he was the restorer of the long lost books of the law. In our second book of Nehemiah, or, properly speaking, Esdras, it is said, that Ezra, or Esdras the scribe, who was above all the people, brought the book of the law to the people, and then the people rejoiced much in being instructed in the law of God, that when they found there the commandment of the Lord ordering the Jews to perform the feast of the booths, there was great gladness, "and all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under booths: for, since the days of Joshua the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so.". If the Jews had even forgotten a feast, the memory of which every father would transmit to his son, is this not an evident proof that they had no books in the captivity? Again, in chap. vii. of the 1 book of Esdras, it is said, that Esdras "had very great skill, so that he omitted nothing of the law and commandments of the Lord, but taught all Israel the ordinances and judgments."

Can any man, after this, doubt that Esdras is the compiler of all the books which the Jews had not known for many centuries? And are we, who laugh at the Catholic councils, to trust to the word of a Jewish scribe? it is further stated in 2 Chronicles, chap. xxiv. ver. 15, that Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of God given by Moses, and sent it by Saphan to king Josias, who heard it read, which shows that it must have been very short; and, by the context, it would appear to have been the law strictly speaking; another proof that these records were altogether scattered, and are all without authority, since it was so easy to forge them among a people who seemed to preserve no more than a traditional law. Again, although, in the older Jewish books, such as Kings and Chronicles, we find the name of Moses often mentioned, yet no word answering to the five books of Pentateuch is to be found. The Code of laws of Moses seems to have been forgotten; for Solomon ornamented the temple with calves, in express contempt of that law, and this while he was the favourite of God, and the wisest man in the world. The very confusion that pervades the books ascribed to Moses, shows them to have been compilations. Jerome, who was one of the most learned of the fathers, confesses that he dares not affirm that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch; he even adds, that he has no objection to allow that Esdras wrote the books in question.3

Secondly. We know that no canon of books ever existed among the Jew's till the time of the synagogue under the Maccabees. Before their reign, there had never existed among the Jews any such council; and, if the word occurs in the Pentateuch, it is a fault of the transcribers and composers, who lived when there was a synagogue, and is not to be understood in any other acceptation than a collection of priests. The Pharisees of the second temple chose the books they thought best among a multitude of forgeries. The Talmud relates, that this synagogue were about to reject the Book of Proverbs, Ezekiel's prophecies, and Ecclesiastes, because they imagined these writings contradictory to the law of God; but a certain Rabbin having undertaken to reconcile them, they were preserved as canonical. A prodigious number of forged Books of Daniel, Esdras, and of the Prophets, were then in circulation; and to distinguish the genuine from the false works became absolutely necessary. This doubt and uncertainty conspires to render the decision of the synagogue very doubtful; particularly, as we shall show in the sequel, that many passages of the Prophecies are written evidently about the time of this choice of sacred books, and inserted in them, probably by some cunning priest, as the oracles of Sybil were forged to suit Cæsar.

Thirdly. The similarity of the mysteries of the Jews to those of the Babylonians, is too glaring not to let us see the origin of Genesis in particular. The creation in six days is a perfect copy of the Gahans, or Gahan-bars, of Zoroaster; the particulars of each day's work are literally the same. The serpent was famous among the Babylonians. The mythological deluge of Ogyges and Xissuthrus, are symbols of changes arising on earth, as they imagined, from the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. These, a little ornamented by the historical narration of Deucalion's inundation related by Berosus, is the pattern of Noah's flood; the ark of Osiris and emblematical dove and raven were Egyptian hieroglyphics. The man and the woman in Paradise is a mere copy of Zoroaster's first pair. The original sin is Pandora's box. The Talmud of Jerusalem says expressly that the Jews borrowed the names of the angels, and even of their months, from the Babylonians. The Elohim, or Gods, (not God), are said in Genesis to have created the world. It was not Jehovah, but the genii or gods that are in the Hebrew called makers of the world. And these are the very genii, who according to Sanchoniatho, were by Mercury excited against Saturn.

Fourthly. We ask, in what language was the Pentateuch written, if it really was the work of Moses? It is known that Hebrew is a dialect of the Phenician, and that the Jews spoke Egyptian for a very long time before they adopted the language of the people among whom they dwelt. In Psalm lxxxi. we learn that the Jews were surprised to hear the language of the people beyond the Bed Sea. If, therefore, Moses, or any person of that age, is the author of the Pentateuch, it is evident that the Hebrew books are mere translations. What degree of credit does a nation deserve, who have been able to take for originals books that were in the face of them translations? Is it right to persecute men, as priests have done while they had power, for refusing to give credit to this tissue of contradictory and absurd fables?