THE
WO R K S
OF THE
RIGHT REVEREND
WILLIAM WARBURTON.D.D
LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.
A NEW EDITION, IN TWELVE VOLUMES.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED
A DISCOURSE BY WAY OF GENERAL PREFACE*,
CONTAINING
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR j
BY RICHARD HURD,D.D.
LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER.
'
A>/'.\ VOLUME THE THIRD. \ v£ V
Printed by Luke Hansard $ Sons, near Lincoln'S'Inn Fields*
FOR T. CADELL AND W, DAVIES, IN THE STRAND,
1811.
V '
CONTENTS
o F
VOL. III.
THE DIVINE LEGATION. BOOK III.
PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURli STATE TO SOCIETY, FROM THE OPINION AND CONDUCT OF THE ANCIENT SAGES AND PHILOSOPHERS - p. 1
JSECT. I. Testimonies of ancient sages and philosophers, concerning the necessity of the doctrine of a future state to civil society _ pp4 j 12
SECT. II. That none of the ancient philosophers believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, though, on account of its confessed necessity to the sup- pc~t of religion, and consequently of civil society, all the theistical philosophers sedulously taught it to the people. The several senses in which the Ancients con ceived the permanency of the human soul explained. Several genera] reasons premised, to shew that the ancient philosophers did not always believe what they taught, and that they taught the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments without believing it : Where the principles that induced the ancient sages to make it Jawful to deceive for public good, in matters of religion are explained, whereby they are seen to be such as had no place in tne propagation or genius of the Jewish and Uinstian religions, in the course of this enquiry, the rise, progress, perfection, decline, and genius of the ancient Greek philosophy, under its several divisions, are considered and explained - - pp.12j_44
pECT. Ill Enters on a particular enquiry into the senti ments of each sect of philosophy on this point. The division and succession of their schools. The character ot bocrates*, and of the new and old Academy. The ? character and genius of each sect of the grand Quaternion of theistic philosophy, the Pythagoric, the Platonic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic: shewing that not one of these believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. The character of Tully, and his sentiments
IV CONTENTS OF THIRD VOLUME.
on tliis point. The original of the ancient fables, and of the doctrines of tiie Metempsychosis and Metamorphosis, occasionally enquired into and explained - pp. 43 — ^5
"SECT. IV. Shews, h) order to a fuller conviction, that the ancient philosophers not only did not, but that they could not possibly believe a future state of rewards and punishments, because two metaphysical principles, con cerning the nature of God, and of the human soul, which entirely overturn the doctrine of a future state of rc- ivards and punishments, were universally held and be lieved by all the Greek philosophers. These doctrines examined and explained: In the course of this enquiry, the true genius of the ancient Egyptian wisdom ex plained; and their pretended philosophy, as delivered by the later Greek writers, shewn to be spurious. The Sec tion concludes with the use to be made of this remarkable fact (of the ancient philosophers not believing, and yet sedulously teaching, a future., state of rewards and punish-' meats) for the support of our main question, pp. 125 — 208
SECT. V. This account of the ancient philosophy, so far from being prejudicial to Christianity, that it greatly credits and recommends it. Proved from t4io mischiefs that attend those different representations of paganism, in the two extremes, which the defenders of religion are accustomed to make : where it is shewn that the diffe rence in point of perfection, between the ancient and modem systems of morality, is entirely owing to Christi anity pp. 208-— 215
SECT. VI. The atheistical pretence of religion's being an invention of statesmen, and therefore false, clearly con futed, and shewn to be both impertinent and false. For that, was the Atheist's account of religion right, it would not follow that religion was/z/se, but the contrary. But the pretence false and groundless, religion having existed before the civil magistrate ',\as in being - pp. 215 — 314
APPENDIX PP-S^— 354
ISOTES - - - PP. 355—399
ERRATA:
p. 60. (notej) /or [M] read [N], p.6'5. (note*) for [P] read [O]. p. 146. 1. 5. for below, read above.
THE
DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES
DEMONSTRATED.
BOOK III.
SECT. I.
IN the beginning of the last book, I entered upon the proof of my second proposition ; namely, THAT ALL ANTIQUITY WAS UNANIMOUS IN 'THINKING THAT THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE
STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS WAS
NECESSARY TO THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY : And the method I laid down for it, was, 1 . To shew the conduct of Legislators, and the founders of civil policy. 2. The opinions of the wisest and most learned of the ancient Sages.
The CONDUCT OF THE LEGISLATORS hath been fully examined in the last book.
II. THE OPINION OF THE ANCIENT SAGES,
is the subject of the present.
VOL, III, B THEY
2 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
THEY too, as well as the Lawgivers, were unani mous in this point, how discordant soever and at variance amongst themselves, in other matters. Whatever System of Policy the Historian favour ed ; whatever Theory of Nature the Philosopher espoused; THIS always remained an unquestionable principle: The favourer of arbitrary power deemed it the strongest bond of blind obedience ; and the friend of civil liberty, the largest source of virtue and a public spirit. The Atheist, from the vastness of its social use, concluded Religion to be but an invention of State ; and the Theist, from that con fessed utility, laboured to prove it of divine original.
To give the reader a detail of the discourses, where this truth is owned and supported, would be to transcribe Antiquity : for, with this begins and ends every thing they teach and explain of Morals, Government, human Nature, and civil Policy. I shall therefore content myself with two or three passages, as a specimen only, of the general voice of ancient Wisdom.
Timasus the Locrian, a very early Pythagorean, well practised in affairs, and, in Plato's opinion, of consummate knowledge in philosophy, discoursing on the remedies to moral evil, after having spoken
r
of the use of philosophy to lead well- tempered minds to happiness, by teaching the measures of just and unjust; adds, that, for intractable spirits civil Society was invented; which keeps men in fear
Sect, i.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 3
by the coercions of Law and Religion: " But if we " come (says he) to a perverse ungovernable dispo- " sition, there, punishments should be applied ; " both those which civil laws inflict, and those " which the tenors of religion denounce against the '" wicked from above and from below : as, that " ENDLESS PUNISHMENTS attend the remains of " unhappy men ; and all those torments, which I " highly applaud the Ionic poet for recording from " ancient tradition, in order to 'cleanse and purify " the mind from vice *."
That sage historian, Poljbius (whose knowledge of mankind and civil Government 'was so cele brated, that Rome preferred him to the august em ployment of composing laws for Greece, now become a province to the republic) speaking of the excellence of the Roman Constitution, expresseth himself in this manner : " But the superior excel- " lenceof this Policy, above others, manifests itself, " in my opinion, chiefly in the religious notions " the Romans hold concerning the Gods : that " thing, which in other places is turned to abuse, " being the very support of the Roman affairs ; I " mean THE FEAR OF THE GODS, or what the
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" Greeks
4 THE DIVINE LEGATION [BookllL
' Greeks call superstition ; which is come to such a
" height, both in its influence on particulars, and
" on the public, as cannot be exceeded. This,
" which many may think unaccountable, seems
" plainly to have been contrived for the sake of the * Community. I^Jndeed, one were to frame a
" civil Policy only for wise men, it is possible this
u kind of Institution might not be necessary. But
" since the multitude is ever fickle and capricious,.
" full of lawless passions, arid irrational and violent
" resentments, there is no way left to keep them in
" order, but by the terrors of FUTURE PUNISH-
" ME NT, and all the pompous circumstance that
" attends such kind of fictions. On which account
** the Ancients acted, in my opinion, with great
K judgement and penetration,, when they contrived "' to bring in these notions of the Gods, and of a
" FUTURE STATE, into the popular belief; and
" the present age as inconsiderate! y} and absurdly,
" in removing them, and encouraging the multitude
" to despise their terrors. For see now the conse-
" quence : in Greece, the man who is entrusted
" with the public money (to pass by other matters)
" though it be but of a single talent, and though he
" give a ten-fold security in the most authentic form.
" and before twice the number of witnesses which
" the Law requires, cannot be brought to discharge
;f his engagements-} while, amongst the Romans,
" the mere RELIGION OF AN OATH keeps those,
t( who have vast sums of money passing through
" their
Sect. i. ] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 5
" their hands, either in the public administration or " in foreign legations, iroin the least violation of '" their trust, or honour. And whereas, in other ** places, it is rare to find a man, who can keep his " hands clean, or forbear plundering his Country ; " in Rome it is as rare to take any one offending in " this kind. That every thing which exists is sub- " ject to mutation and decay, we need not be told; 46 the unalterable nature of things sufficiently informs " us of this truth. But there being two ways, *' whereby every kind of Policy is ruined and dis- " solved ; the one from WITHOUT, and the other " from WITHIN ; that destruction, which cometh ** from without, cannot be constantly avoided by any *•' human provision : but then, there are known and 41 efficacious remedies for those evils which arise 41 from within*/'
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6 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
Polybius says literally, There are two ways by which a State is brought to dissolution, from without and from within : that from without is uncertain and little known ; that from within is known and certain. By which words he must mean what I make him to say, as appears by what he imme diately subjoins, where he shews how the power of the Great, when degenerated into tyranny, may be checked by the People : whose opposition to power produces, as it happens to be well or ill managed, either the best or worst form of govern ment, a Democracy or Ochlocracy.
This long passage deserves our attention, and for many reasons. Polybius was a Greek, and, as all good men are, a tender lover of his Country, whose
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Secti.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 7
ancient glory and virtue were then fast on the decline, and the Roman mounting to its meridian. The melancholy reflexions, arising from this view of things, were always uppermost in his thoughts : so that speaking here of the great influence which Religion had on the minds of the Romans, he could not forbear giving his countrymen a lesson, and instructing them in what he esteemed the principal cause of their approaching ruin; namely, a certain libertinism, which had spread amongst the PEOPLE o7 CONDITION, who, ashamed of the simplicity of their Ancestors, and despising the ignorance of the People, affected a superior penetration, which brought them to regard, and preposterously to teacb others to regard, the restraints of religion as illusory and unmanly. This he confirms by shewing the strong influence religion hath on the morals of men. But to understand what follows, of the two ways by which a state comes to rum, from without and from rafAw, which seems to be brought in a little abruptly, we must suppose, that those, to whom the historian addresses himself, had objected, That It was not a want of piety amongst themselves, but the force of the Roman arms without, which had broken the power of Greece ; and that this disaster they were patiently to submit to, because all empires have their stated periods. Let us suppose this, and the politi cal reflexion on the fall of States will have a high propriety, and close connection with what preceded. It is to this effect : " I agree with you, says Poly-
B 4
8 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book Iff. bius, that evils, coming suddenly on a State from without, cannot be easily warded ; but then, those arising from within, as they are commonly foreseen, have their remedies at hand. Now I take our misfortunes to have proceeded from these : for had not a neglect of religion depraved the manners of the Greeks, Rome had wanted both pretence and inclination to invade us, and Greece would have continued able to support its own sovereignty : therefore your trite aphorism of the mutability of human things is here altogether misapplied."
But had this great man lived only one age later, lie would have found large occasion of addressing this very admonition to the Romans themselves; when the same libertine spirit foreran and con tributed to the destruction of their Republic ; and religion had so lost its hold of those, whom, in the time of Polybius, it so entirely possessed, that Caesar could dare, in full senate, with a degree of licence unexampled in Antiquity, to declare, that the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments was all a groundless notion. This •was a dreadful prognostic of their approaching ruin.
If this great politician then may deserve credit, it would be worth while for our People of condition to look about them, and compute their gains by such a conduct: those of them I mean, if any such there be, who profess to love their Country, and yet as publicly .despise the Religion of it. One of
them,
Secti.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 9 them, who did both in an eminent degree, and who •would substitute a TASTE, instead of a future state, for the government of the world, thus ex- presseth himself: " Even conscience, I fear, such, " as is owing to religious discipline, w ill make but " a slight figure, where this TASTERS set amiss. " Amongst the vulgar perhaps it may do wonders; " a devil and a hell may prevail, where a jail and a " gallows are thought insufficient. But such is the " nature of the liberal, polished, and refined part " of mankind ; so far are they from the mere sim- " plic'ity of babes and sucklings, that, instead of " applying the notion of a future reward or punish- " ment to their immediate behaviour in society, they " are apt much rather, through the whole course *' of their lives, to shew evidently that they look on " the pious narrations to be indeed no better than " children's talcs and the amusement of the mere " vulgar*."
I will not now ask, Where was the religion, but where was the civil prudence of this great patriot ? For if it be indeed true, as he con fesses, that amongst the vulgar a devil and a hell may prevail, where a jail and a gallows are thought insufficient; why would this lover of his country take off so necessary a restraint on the manners of the multitude ? If he says he would not, I ask., why then hath he publicly ridiculed it ? Or was it
* Characteristics, vol.iii. p. 177. edit. 3.
indeed
io THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book IIL Indeed his intention to make all his fellow- citizens MEN OF TASTP:? He might as well have thought of making them all LORDS *.
So absurd and pernicious is the conduct of the Free-thinkers, even admitting them to be in the right. But if, instead of removing the rubbish of super stition, they be indeed subverting the grounds of true religion, what name must be given to this de gree of madness and impiety ?
On the whole, I fear we are in no right way. Whether in the Public too we resemble the picture this sage historian hath drawn of degenerated Oreece, I leave to such as are better skilled in those .matters to determine.
The great Geographer, whose knowledge of men and manners was as extensive as the habitable globe, speaks to the same purpose: " The multitude in " society are allured to virtue by those enticing " fables, which the poets tell of the illustrious " achievements of ancient heroes, such as the " labours of Hercules and Theseus ; and the rewards " conferred by the Gods, for well-doing. So again, " they are restrained from vice by the punishments, " the Gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and " by those f terrors and ihreatnings which certain •" dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon ^ their minds; or by believing that divine judge-
* See note [A] at tbe end of this Book. f See note [B] at the end of this Book.
" merits
Secti.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 11
" ments have overtaken evil men. For it is im* " possible to govern women and the gross body of
" the people, and to keep them pious, holy, and " virtuous, by the precepts of philosophy: this can " be only done by the FEAR OF THE GODS; which " is raised and supported by ancient fictions and " modern prodigies. The thunder therefore of « Jupiter, the JEgis of Minerva, the Trident of ef Neptune, the Thyrsus of Bacchus, and the Snakes " and Torches of the Furies, with all the other "' apparatus of ancient theology, were the engines ." which the Legislator employed, ^ as bugbears, to " strike a terror into the childish imaginations of " the Multitude *."
Lastly, Pliny the elder " owns it to be expedient " for society, that men should believe, that the " Gods concerned themselves in human affairs; " and that the punishments they inflict on offen-
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12 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
" ders, though sometimes late indeed, as from " Governors busied in the administration of so vast " an Universe, yet are never to he evaded *." Thus He, though an Epicurean; but an Epicurean in his senses -: from whom we hear nothing of the mad strains of Lucretius, " That all religion should 1 be abolished, as inconsistent with the peace of " mankind."
SECT. II.
BUT to give this matter its full evidence, it will be proper to set together the PUBLIC PROFESSIONS, arid the PRIVATE SENTIMENTS of the ancient THEISTICAL PHILOSOPHERS: who, notwithstanding they were for ever discoursing on the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, to the People, yet were all the while speculating in private on other and different principles. A conduct which could proceed from nothing, but a full persuasion that this doctrine was the very vital part of Religion ; and the only support of that influence, which divinje worship hath on the minds of the Multitude.
Now, though after reading their history, reflecting on their characters, and examining their writing* with all the care I was able, it appeared to me,
* Verum in his Decs agere curam rerum huipanarum credi, ex usu vitae est; pcenasque maleficiis aliquando seras, occupato Deo in tanta mole, nunquam autem irritas esse. Hist. JCat. 1. ii. c. 7.
that
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 13
that these men believed nothing of that future, state which they so industriously propagated in the world; and therefore on this, as well as other accounts, deserved all that asperity of language with which they are treated by the Sacred writers ; yet the contrary having been long and generally taken for granted, and their real opinions often urged by our ablest divines, as conformable and favourable to the Christian doctrine of a future state; I suspect that what I have here said, will be exclaimed against as an unreasonable and licentious paradox.
But, for all this, I do not despair of proving it a certain, though an unheeded, truth: and then I shall hope my reader's pardon for the length of this enquiry, as it is of no small moment to shew the sense Antiquity had of the use of a future state to Society: and as, in shewing that use, I shall be able to clear up a very important point of antiquity, doubly obscured, by length of time and perversity of contradiction.
But, before I enter on the matter, I shall, in order to abate the general prejudice, explain what is meant by that FUTURE STATE, which, I suppose, the THEISTICAL PHILOSOPHERS did not believe. And this the rather, because the contrary opinion has continued the longer unquestioned, through the lax and ambiguous use of the term. Thus, because it was evident, that all, or most of the theistical philosophers believed^ as well as taught, the immor tality, or rather the eternity of the soul, men, tied
down
14 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. down to the associations of modern ideas, concluded that they believed, as well as taught, the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments.
To make the reader, therefore, master of the question, it will not be unfit, just to distinguish the several senses, in which the Ancients conceived the PERMANENCY of the human soul; and to reserve the explanation of them, and assignment of them to their proper authors, for another place.
This permanency was either,
I. A SIMPLE EXISTENCE after this life : Or,
II. EXISTENCE IN A STATE OF REWARD AND PUNISHMENT, according to men s behaviour here.
Each of these was two-fold. Simple existence was either,
I. AN IMMEDIATE REFUSION OF THE SOUL, ON DEATH, INTO THE UNIVERSAL NATURE Ol' TOV *EN, FROM WHENCE IT PROCEEDED : Or,
II. A CONTINUANCE OF ITS SEPARATE AND DISTINCT EXISTENCE, ON DEATH, FOR A CERTAIN PERIOD, BEFORE ITS REFUSION INTO THE TO?
*EN, IN A SUCCESSIVE TRANSITION THROUGH VA RIOUS ANIMALS, BY A NATURAL AND FATAL, NOT MORAL DESIGNATION.
Existence in a state of rewards and punishments was either,
I. A STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS,
IMPROPERLY so CALLED; WHERE HAPPI NESS
Sect, 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 15
NESS AND MISERY WERE THE NATURAL AND NECESSARY CONSEQUENCES OF VIRTUE AND VICE ; NOT POSITIVELY SO, OR BY THE FREE DESIGNATION OF WILL I Of,
II. A STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISH MENTS, PROPERLY so CALLED ; WHERE THE
HAPPINESS AND MISERY CONSEQUENT ON VIR TUE AND VICE, WERE THE POSITIVE AND FREE DESIGNATION OF WILL, AND NOT THE NECES SARY CONSEQUENCES OF THINGS.
The LAST is that notion of a future state, so- useful to Society, which all the Lawgivers, Priests,. and Philosophers publicly taught and propagated ;: and which the People throughout the whole earth universally believed. Of this, the METEMPSY CHOSIS was, generally, a part; and, what is more,, continues to be so to this very clay, amongst the civilized Gentiles of the East.
It is A FUTURE STATE, then, OF REWARDS and* PUNISHMENTS IN GENERAL, and particularly the second and proper notion of it (for as to thejirsfr it was peculiar to the Platpnists) which I pretend to. prove the ancient Philosophers did not believe.
But before I proceed to explain the principles of each sect, it will not be improper to premise those GENERAL REASONS, which induced me to think that the Philosophers did not always believe what they taught : And that they taught this doc trine without believing it. And as the reader's chief •prejudice, on this point, ariseth from the Philo sophers*
t6 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book lit sophers' having talked and written so much in behalf of a future state of rewards and punish ments; the three first of the following general reasons will shew, i. That they all thought it lawful to say one thing, and think another. 2. That they perpetually practised what they thus professed to be lawful And 3. That they practised it on the very point in question.
I. Myjirst general reason was, that the ancient Sages held it lawful, for the public good, to say one thing when they thought another.
We have described the times of Antiquity very ill, if it doth not appear, from what is here said, that each People had the most religious regard to the laws and constitutions of their country. What raised this veneration (natural to all men, accus tomed to a form of Policy) to such a height, was the popular prejudice in favour of their original. For, we have seen, the Founders pretended to receive their respective institutions from some PATRON GOD. At the time, they received the civil policy, they established the national religion; whose principal rites were objective to the patron God; which gave occasion to the PUBLIC PART OP RELIGION, explained above: whereby, the State, as such, became the subject of religious worship.
This making the national Religion one of the most necessary and essential parts of civil govern ment, it would become a general raaiim, not only
of
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 17
of mere politicians, but of all the best and wisest of those times, THAT EVERY ONE SHOULD CON
FORM TO THE RELIGION OF HIS COUNTRY. We
see, by the behaviour of SOCRATES himself, how much men were possessed with the fitness and im portance of this rule. That excellent man, who made it the business of his life to search out, and expose the errors of human conduct, was most likely to detect the folly of this general prejudice. Yet when he comes to his defence before his judges; a defence, in which he was so scrupulous that he rejected what his friends would have added of con fessed utility to his service, because not strictly conformable to that truth, by which he squared the rectitude of his life ; when he comes, I say, to answer that part of the charge which accuses him of attempting to overturn the popular Divinities, he declares it, in the most solemn manner, as his opinion, that every one should adhere to the Reli gion of his country *. If it should still be sus pected, that this was only said, as it made best for his defence, let us follow him in his last moments, retired amidst his philosophic friends and followers; and there we shall find him still true to this great principle, in a circumstance which hath much distressed, and still distresses, modern critics to
;i
account for • I mean the requesting his friends to sacrifice a cock to Jisculapius • a piece of devotion,
* See note [C] at the end of this Book, VoL.IIL
18 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III
on some account or other, no matter what, due from him, according to the customs of his country, which he had neglected to perform *.
But for all this, no one the least conversant in antiquity, will, I suppose, take it into his head that these Sages, because they held every one should adhere to the religion of his country, did not there fore see the gross errors of the national religions. Why then (it may be asked) was this strange vio lation of truth amongst men who employed all their studies to evince the importance of it, in general, to happiness ?
The explanation of the riddle is easy : the GENIUS of their national religions, consisting rather in the performance of Rites of Worship than in the profession of Opinions, taught them to conclude,
THAT UTILITY AND NOT TRUTH WAS THE END
OF RELIGION. And if we attentively consider those religions (formed in subserviency to the State) as is occasionally explained in the several parts of this work, we shall not much wonder at their con clusion. And then not rightly distinguishing between particular and general UTILITY •; between that which ariseth from the illegitimate, and legitimate, administration of civil policy, they universally em braced this other false conclusion, THAT UTILITY
AND TRUTH DO NOT COINCIDE f. From this
* See note [D] at the end of this Book, f See the contrary proposition proved, towards the "beginning of the sixth lection of the third book.
latter
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 19 latter principle, a third necessarily arose, THAT IT
WAS LAWFUL AND EXPEDIENT TO DECEIVE FOR
THE PUBLIC GOOD. This all the ancient Philo sophers embraced : and Tully, on the authority of Plato, thinks it so clear, that he calls the doing otherwise NEFAS, a horrid wickedness. The famous Scaevola, the Roman Pontiff, frankly declares his opinion (as St. Austin tells us) " that Societies " should be deceived in religion *." The last men tioned author goes on : " Varro, speaking of *' religions, says plainly, that there are many " TRUTHS which it is not EXPEDIENT the vulgar " should know ; and many FALSEHOODS which yet " it is useful for the people to receive as truths f." Upon which the Father remarks, " Here you have " the whole arcana of state ;£." Nothing shews more strongly, that, not truth, but utility, ruled all, in Paganism, than the case Livy mentions, of what happened in the 573d year of Rome. Some con cealed books of Numa were discovered ; which, on examination by the proper officers, being found to
* Expedire sxistimat falli in religione civitates. De Civ. Dei, 1. iv. c. 10.
t Varro de religionibus loquens, evidenter dicit, multa esse VERA, quse vulgo scire non sit TJTILE ; mul- taque, quae tametsi falsa sint, aliter existimare populum expediat.
J Hie certe totum consilium prodidit SAPIENTJUM, per quos civitates & populi regerentur.
c 2
20 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III, be injurious to the established Worship, were ordered, by Authority, to be burnt. Not one word is objected to them as containing any falsehood ; on the contrary, they were treated at their execution with the utmost reverence and respect ; and the fire was lighted by the sacred Ministers who served at the Altar. - As we go along, we shall find this maxim ^universally received by the t heist ical Philosophers.
I would only observe, that it appears from hence, that the principles, which induced the ancient Sages to deem it lawful to LIE or deceive for the public
<*ood had no place in the nature, or in the con-
i™1 ^
sonant propagation of the JEWISH and CHRISTIAN religions.
II. My second general reason was, tfiat the an cient Sages did actually say one thing when they thought another. This appears from that general practice in the Greek Philosophy, of a TWOFOLD DOCTRINE; the EXTERNAL and the INTERNAL? a vulgar and a secret. The first openly taught to all; and the second confined to a select number., If this needed any other proof than what is given above, it might be supported by the very language used in speaking of the philosophers — tit ™»
t* ^ow w^at initiation or what mystery could there be in a sect that had nothing to hide from the Many, nothing to communicate to the
* Marinus in vita Prodi. t Theorist, in Patr. ok
Tew?
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 21
Few ? And how, but by saying one thing and thinking another, could such a system be supported ? Nor were they different doctrines or subjects, but one and the same, handled differently; popularly and scientifically; viz. according to OPINION, or according to TRUTH *.
PARMENIDES, we are told, had two doctrines concerning the nature of the universe ; one, in which lie taught that the world had been made, and would be destroyed*, another, in which he said, it was tmgenerated, and would never be dissolved; and that the first was his PUBLIC, and the second was his PRIVATE teaching f .
That PLATO followed the same practice, we learn from his own words, who, in a letter to his friends, says, according to Dr. Bentley's translation +, " As u for the symbol or private note you desire, to know " my serious letters, and which contain my real (( sentiments from those that do not, know and " remember that GOD begins a seripus letter, and *' GODS one that is otherwise §." Now had not
* See note [E] at the end of this Book. t See note [F] at the end of this Book.
J See the Doctor's Remarks on the Discourse of Free-thinking, Sec.
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£ol $s iH$ vtfov. Ep. xiii, c 3 Plato
22 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. Plato used the exoteric doctrine, or delivered things not corresponding to the real sentiments of his mind, what occasion had his friends to desire this private mark or symbol to know when he was in earnest?
GALEN says, " Plato declares that animals have { constantly a soul, which serves to animate and " inform their bodies : as for stones, wood, and " what we commonly call the inanimate parts of " the creation; all these, he says, are quite destitute " of son!. And yet in his Timceus, where he ' explains his principles to his disciples and select ' friends, he there oives up the common notion, " declare:- that there is a soul rJIfFused through the " univu'se, uhichis to actuate and pervade every " part of it. Now u'c arc not to imagine that in " this c'.7,vf: he u INCONSISTENT with himself, or " mainiaim contrary doctrines, any more than " Aristotle and Thtophrastus are to be charged . " Kith ccrtt'n'titctioH, when they delivered to their " Jji^-i^les t/ittr acrcatic doctrines, and to the principles of another nature*" And,
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Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 23
in the communication of their acroatics or arcane opinions, the philosophers were as cautious as the teachers of the Mysteries were in theirs: and set about it with the same solemnity *.
SYNESIUS, a thorough Platonist, and scarce more than half a Christian, who perfectly well understood all the intrigues of Pagan philosophy, delivers it as the plain consequence of the practice of the double doctrine, " that philosophy, when it " has attained the truth, allows the use of LIES
<f AND FICTIONS f,"
After this, it will hardly need to be observed, That their external doctrine was, either the in vention of fables, or the propagation of what they held to be false : and their internal, the delivery of what they held, or discovered, to be the truth : j Yet because a remarkable passage of MACROBIUS will, together with the proof of this point, tend to the further illustration of the general subject we are
upon, I shall give it at large. " Yet it is to be
u understood (says this author) that the PHILO- " SOPHERS did not admit into every kind of dispu- << tation, the false and fabulous, whether of their
* And in the same form of words :
So, Porphyry in Eusebius introduces his internal doctrines,
f NSj ai> pAoVop®- In-o wv T<»if cvw?« T? . Epist. cv.
c 4 " own
24 THE DIVINE LEGATION. [Book III.
c own invention or of public allowance * but only c in those works which treated of the SOUL, or of
f ETHERIAL POWERS, Or of the OTHER GOPS f.
' But when their discourse ventured to raise itself : to GOD, the origin and principle of all things, ' Him whom the Greeks call the GOOD and the 1 FIRST CAUSE; or, to MIND J; which the Greeks < call NOTE, the offspring of the supreme God, 1 which contains the original species of things
: The text says, fabulosa vel licit a. The two last words are found in all the old editions : the more modern, for an obvious reason, dropt them. Gronovius :akes notice of the fraud, and restores them to their place; but, in order, finally, to degrade them, on a fair hearing : which he does, and puts velfcta in their place. But licita is, I believe, Macrobius's own word, and signifies, those theological fables allowed of by public authority. So thztfabulosa vet licita means, either suck fables as the philosophers invented, or such as they bor rowed from the popular belief.
t The text says— de atriis atheriisve potestatibus ; by which the author means, the first natural Gods of Gen- tilism, the heavenly bodies- as by- -vel de ceteris Dis, he means, the second class of false gods, dead mm deified.
—admentem. By mind, the author here means the third hypostasis of the Platonic trinity, called rife or A0V©-. For he takes his example, of what he says, of the conduct of the philosophers, from Plato ; and illustrates an observation of his own, in this place, by a passage in that philosopher.
4 " called
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 25
" called ideas; when these things, I say, MIND and " the SUPREME GOD, are the subject, then all fable " and falsehood is banished from the discourse. " ButNstill let us observe, that if, on these subjects, " their discourse leads them to inculcate doc- •" trines, which not only exceed the power of " speech, but even human ideas and cogitations, " they then fly to allusions, similitudes, and figures. " — But then again, on the other hand, when the " discourse is of the first kind, that is, concerning " the GODS and the HUMAN SOUL, where fable " and falsehood are employed, the philosophers " have had recourse to this method, not out of an " idle or fantastic humour, or to please their au- " dience by an agreeable amusement ; but because " they know that a naked and open exposition of " NATURE * is injurious to her ; who, as she hides " the knowledge of herself from gross and vulgar " conceptions, by the various covering and dis- " guise of Forms, so it is her pleasure, that her " priests, the Philosophers, should treat her secrets " in fable and allegory. And thus it is even in the " sacred Mysteries, where the secret is hid, even
* quia sciunt iwimcam esse nature apertam nudamque expositionemqm sui. He alludes here to the danger of explaining openly the physical nature of the heavenly bodies, because it would unsettle one half of vulgar polytheism. So Anaxagoras was accused, and some say convicted, of a capital crime, for holding the sun to be a mere material mass of fire.
" from
26 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book IIL
" from the initiated, under figurative and sccnical " representations*. And while princes and magis- " trates only, with Wisdom j* for their guide, are " admitted to the naked truth J; the rest may be " well content with outside ornaments, which, at " the same time that they excite the beholder's " reverence and veneration §, are contrived to " secure the dignity of the secret, by hiding it " under that cover from the knowledge of the " Vulgar ||." The first observation I shall make on
this
* — • figurarwn cuniadis operiuntur, i. e. cuniculis jiguranm ad representationem aptis. It alludes to the allegorical shows of the mysteries represented in sub- terraneous places.
-j- • — Sapicntia interpret?; Wisdom is here put into the office of hierophant of the mysteries, who instructed • the initiated in the secret.
J — summatibus tantum viris veri arcani consciis. By these Macrobius means, heroes, princes, and legislators : alluding to their old practice of seeking initiation into, the greater mysteries.
^ Contenti sint reliqui ad venerationem figuris, 8cc. is equivalent to (Contenti sint reliqui aptis venerationl jfiguris.
|| Sciendum est tamen non in omnem disputationem philosoplios adrnittere fabulosa vel licita, sed his uti solent, vel cum de AN IMA, vel de aeriis atkeriis'cepotest-f atibus, vel de ceteris Dis, loquuntur. Ceterum cum ad sitmmum et principem omnium Deum, qui apud Grsecos •nxya&Vy qui ispurov amov nuncupatur, tractatus se audet attollerc j vel ad mentem quam Grseci vw appellant,
originalei
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 27 this long passage is, that the SAME SUBJECT, namely, the nature of superior beings, was handled in a TWOFOLD manner; • exoterlcally ; and then the discourse was of the national Gods: esoterically; and then it was of the first Came of all things. 2. That the exoteric teaching admitted fable and falsehood, fabulosa vel Helta : the esoteric only what the teacher believed to be true, nihil fabulosum penitus. 3. That what was taught the Vulgar concerning the HUMAN SOUL was of the exoteric kind. 4. That the teaching of fables was one thing ; and the teaching in fables, or by figurative expressions, quite another : the first being the cover of error ; the second the vehicle of truth : that
the
originates rerum species, quse ftecu dictsc sunt, continen- - tern, ex summo natam et profectam Deo : cum de his, inquain, loquuntur, summo Deo et mente nihil fabulosum penitus attingunt. Sed si quid de his assignare conantur, qu£e non sermonem tantuminodo, sed cogitationem quoque humanam superant, ad similitudines et exempla confugiunt— De Diis autem, ut dixi, ceteris, et de anima non frustra se, nee, ut oblectent,ad Fabulosa convertunt; sed quia sciunt inimicam esse naturae apertam nuclam- que expositionem sui: qure sicut vulgaribus hominum sensibus intellectual sui vario rerum tegmine operimen- toque subtraxit; ita a prudentibus arcana sua voluit per fabulosa tractari. Sic ipsa mytteria figurarmn cuniculis operiuiitur, ne vel hasc adeptis nuda rerum talium se natura praebeat : sed summatibus tantum viris, Sapientia interprete, veri arcani consciis ; con tend sint reliqui ad venerationem figuris defendentibus g vilitate secretum. In Somn. Scip. lib. i. c. a.
*8 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III, the passions and prejudices of men made thejirst necessary; that the latter became unavoidable, through the weakness of human conception. This distinction was useful and seasonable, as the not attending to it, in those late times, in which Macro- jbius wrote, was the occasion of men's confounding these two ways of teaching with one another.
From all this it appears, that a right conception of the nature of the DOUBLE DOCTRINE was deemed the TRUE KEY to the ancient Greek Phi losophy.
On which account several writers of the lower ages composed discourses ON THE HIDDEN DOC
TRINES OF THE PHILOSOPHERS*. But as these,
which would have given much light to the subject, are not come down to us, we must be content to feel out our way to the original and end of the double doctrine as well as we are able. For it is not enough, that this method of teaching was gene ral amongst the Greek philosophers: to bring it to our point, we must prove it was invented for the good of Society.
The original is little understood. It hath been generally supposed owing either to a barbarous love of mystery ; or a base disposition to deceive. Toland, who made it the study of a wretched life, to shed his venom on every thing that was great and
* Zacynthus scripsit to, aTropf-nIa, TWJ QitotroQieq, refer rente Laertio, Porphyrius toSv QtoHrfyuv ?a ano^cc, teste Eunapio in ejus vita.
respectable,
Sect 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 29 respectable, sometimes * supposes this double doc trine the issue of craft and roguery; at other times, a grave and wise provision , against the bigotry and ; superstition of the vulgar. And a different sort of man, the celebrated Fontenelle, when lie calls mystery, which is the consequence of the double doctrine, the apanage of barbarity, does as little justice to Antiquity.
I shall shew first, that those, from whom the Greeks borrowed this method of philosophising, invented it for the service of Society. And secondly \ that those who borrowed it, employed it for that purpose; however it might at length degenerate into craft and folly t-
First, then, it is confessed by the Greeks them selves, that all their learning and wisdom came from Egypt; fetched from thence either immediately by their own Philosophers, or brought round to- them by the Eastern Sages, by the way of Asia. In this, the Greeks are unanimous. Now Herodotus, Diqdorus- Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, all testify that the Egyp tian priests, with whom the learning of the place resided, had a TWOFOLD PHILOSOPHY, the one hidden and sacred, the other open and vulgar J.
* See his Tetradymua, in what he calls, Of tW Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy.
f See note [G] at the end of this Book.
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T*
30 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. To know their end in this way of teaching, we must consider their character. yElian tells us *, that in the most early times, the Priests, amongst the Egyptians, were Judges and Magistrates. So that the care of the People must needs be their chief concern under both titles : and as well what they divulged as what they concealed, must be equally for the sake of Society. Accordingly we find them to have been the first who taught an in tercourse with the Gods, a future state of rewards and punishments, and initiation into MYSTERIES, instituted for the support of that belief: The aVcpprfl^ of which was the doctrine of the UNITY.
Plutarch assures us of this truth, where he tells us, that it was chiefly to their Kings and Magistrates, to whom the SECRET doctrines of the College were revealed. " The Kings were chosen (says he) " either out of the priesthood, or the soldiery : " as this order for their valour, and that for their " wisdom, were had in honour and reverence. But " when one was chosen out of the soldiery, he was " forthwith had to the college of the Priests, and " instructed in their secret philosophy; which in- " volves many things in fables and allegories, where " the face of truth is seen, indeed ; but clouded and
" obscured |-"
And * Var. Hist. 1. xiv. c. 34.
•f* O? 31 Pa<rite~s ayr&eiwuvlo (Av IK ruv tyetav vi T£V (tax'ipuvy TS /WEV di avtyiav, TS tie 5ia cropiav, y£v«<; a%iu(A&, y^ TIJMIV
sv&v{ tyivtlo ruv
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 31
And in the same manner, and with the same view, the MAGI of Persia, the DRUIDS of Gaul, and the BRACHMANS of India, the genuine offspring of the Egyptian priests, and who, like them, shared in the administration of the state, had all their external and internal doctrines '*.
What hath misled both ancient and modern writers to think the double doctrine to be only a barbarous and selfish craft of keeping up the re putation of the teacher, was a. prevailing opinion, that moraljigd natural truths were concealed under the ancient fables of the Gods and Heroes. For then, these fables must have been invented by the ancient Sages ; and invented for the sake of explain ing them, and nothing more. So the learned Master of the Charter-house, taking it for granted that the Sages were the inventors of the ancient mythology, concludes that one of these two things was the original of the double doctrine : ' : It arose " either from the genius of Antiquity, especially of " the Orientalists; or else from the affectation of " making important things, difficult, and not easily " understood at first sight f." But that way of
allegorizing
rn$
;. ^ OS. Steph. ed. * Orig. cont. Celsurn, 1. i.
f Sive id factum fuerit pro ingenio priscornm honu- num, maxime orientalium ; sive ut ea, quro pulclu-a erant, difficilia redderent, neque priijiQ ifttuitii Archseol. FUU. L i, c, 3.
32 TtfE DIVINE LEGATION [Book IIL allegorizing the ancient fables was the invention of the later Greek philosophers. The old Pagan mytho logy was only the corruption of historical tradition; and consequently arose from the People; whose
follies and prejudices occasion the double doctrine
^
to be employed for their service. But what it was that facilitated its use, we shall see hereafter, when we come, in the fourth book, to speak of the Egyp tian HIEROGLYPHICS.
Secondly, We say, the Greeks, who borrowed this method of the double doctrine, employed it, like the Egyptians, who invented it, TO THE USE OF SOCIETY.
1 . The first who went out of Greece to learri Egyptian wisdom, were the LEGISLATORS : Or such as, projecting to reduce the scattered tribes, which then overran Greece, into civil Society, travelled thither to learn the ART of LAWGIVING, from a nation ,f be most celebrated for that knowledge. Of these, were Orpheus, Rhadamarithus, Minos, Lycaon, Triptolemus, and others; who concerned themselves with nothing of the Egyptian wisdom, but their public morals or Polities', and received the double doctrine along with it; as appears from their instituting the MYSTERIES (where this doctrine, was practised) in their several civil establishments.
2. The next sort of men who went from Greece to Egypt for instruction (though the intercourse of the Lawgivers with Egypt was not interrupted, but
continued
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 33
continued clown to the times of Draco, Lycurgus, and Solon) were the NATURALISTS; who, through out their whole course, bore the name of SOPHISTS. For now Greece being advanced from a savage and barbarous state, to one of civil Policy, the inha bitants, in consequence of the cultivation of the arts of life, began to refine and speculate. But physics and mathematics wholly ingrossed the early sophists, such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xeno-* phanes, Parrrfenides, and Leucippus. For as these studies were managed systematically and fitted to the vain and curious temper of that people, this, as the post of honour, would be first seized upon. Besides, Greece being at this lime over-run with petty TYRANTS *, the descendants of their ancient HEROEs,~IFwas found unsafe to turn their specu lations upon morals ; in which politics were con tained, and made so eminent a part. All then that this second class of Adventurers learnt of the Egyptians, was PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE : and as, in the Cultivation of this there was little occasion for, so their character of mere Naturalists made them have less regard to, the double doctrine. And in effect, we find little men tion of it amongst the first Greek Sophists, who busied themselves only in these enquiries.
Je yftogtoK Ty$ 'Etoad®* x ruv
sv Toiiq woAw Kc^iravloy TUV <57^ocroSwv (ASI&VUV Hist. 1. i»
VOL, III. D 3. The
34 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
3. The last sort of people, who went to Egypt for instruction, were the PHILOSOPHERS, properly so called. A character exactly compounded of the two preceding, the Lawgiver and the Naturalist. For when now, after various struggles, and revolu tions, the Grecian States had asserted, or regained their liberties, MORALS, public and private, would become the subject most in fashion. From this time, the Grecian Sages became violently given to Legislation, and were actually employed in making laws for the several emerging Common-wealths : Hence Aristotle observed, that " the best Law- " givers in ancient Greece, were amongst the " middle rank of men." The first (as well as most famous) of this class, and who gave philosophy its name and character, was PYTHAGORAS. He, and Flato, with others, travelled into Egypt, like their predecessors. But now having joined in one, the t\vo different studies of Politics and Philosophy, a slight tincture of Egyptian instruction would not serve their purpose : to complete their Character, there was a necessity of being thoroughly imbued with the most hidden wisdom of Egypt. Accord ingly, the Ancients tell us *, of their long abode there ; their hard condition of admittance into the sacred Colleges ; and their bringing away with then* all the secret science of the priesthood. The result of all was, and it is worth our observation, that,
* Porph. devita Pythag. — Strabo de Platonc, 1. xvii.
Gcogr. Origin. Comm. in Ep. ad. llom. c. iii.
4 iron*
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED, .35
from this time, the Greek Sophists (now called Philosophers) began to cultivate the belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, and, at the very same time, the practice of the double doc trine : which two principles were the distinguishing badges of their Character.
Thus, by an intimate acquaintance with the Egyptian priesthood, the Greeks, at length, got amongst themselves a new species of SAGES, whose character much resembled that of their masters. But with this difference, that amongst the Egyptian Priests (and so amongst the Magi, the Brachmans, and the Druids) Philosophy was an appendix to Legislation ; while amongst the Greeks, Legislation was but the appendix to Philosophy. For philo sophy was the j£m acquest of the Greek Sages ; and legislation, of the Egyptian. There was yet another difference ; which was, that, in the Greek Sophist, the two characters of LEGISLATOR and l_( PHILOSOPHER were always kept distinct, and con ducted on the contrary principles : whereas in the Egyptian Priest, they were incorporated, and went together. So th'at in Greece, the hidden doctrine of the Mysteries, and the aVop'pVa of the Schools, though sometimes founded by one and the same person, as by Pythagoras, were two very different things ; but in Egypt, still one and the same.
Greece was now well settled in popular Com* munities ; and yet this legislating humour still con tinued. And when the Philosophers had no more
D 3 work,
36 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. work, they still kept on the trade ; and from practical, became speculative Lawgivers. This gave birth to a deluge of visionary Republics, as appears from the titles of their works preserved by Diogenes Laertius ; where, one is always as sure to find a treatise De legibus., or De republica, as a treatise, De deo, De anima, or De mundo.
But of all the sects, the Pythagoreans and Pla- tonists continued longest in this humour. The Academics and Stoics, indulging to the disputatious genius of the Greek philosophy, struck out into a new road ; and began to cultivate the last great branch of philosophy, LOGIC; especially the Stoics, who, from their great attachment to it, were sur- named Dialectici.
The reader hath here a short view of the pro gress of the GREEK PHILOSOPHY ; which Plato aptly divided into PHYSICS, MORALS, and LOGIC*. We have shewn that this was the order of their birth : the study of physics and mathematics began while Greece groaned under its petty tyrants : morals public and private arose with their civil liberties: and logic, when they had contracted a habit of disputation and refinement.
But when now the liberties of Greece began to be again shaken by Tyrants of greater form arid power, and every nobler province of Science was
, H0IKON, AIAAEK- TiKON. Diog. Laert. .Prorcm. § 18,
already
Sect 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED 37 already possessed and occupied by the Sects above mentioned ; some ambitious men, as EPICURUS, attempted to revive the splendor of ancient PHYSICS by an exclusive cultivation of them ; rejecting LOGIC, and all the public part of MORALS, Politics and Legislation : and, with them, in consequence, (which deserves our notice) the use of the DOUBLE DOCTRINE *, as of no service in this reform. *An evident proof of its having been employed only for the sake of Society : for were it, as Toland and his fellows pretend, for tkeirjywn, it had found its use chiefly in Physics ; because the celestial bodies being amongst the popular Gods, enquiries into their physical essence would hardly escape the public odium : Plutarch tells us how heavily it fell both on Protagoras and Ariaxagoras f. Notwith standing this, the first and the last of the Sophists,
* Clemens Alex, indeed (Strom. 5.) says, that " the " Epicureans bragged they had their secrets which it " was not lawful to divulge;", but this was only arro gating to themselves a mark of Philosophy, which those, to whom it really belonged, had made venerable.
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srt, y^ $i oXiyuv, ^ /CCET ewAaC'e/aj Ttvoj ri islrms {3adi$cw. a yao weix,ovlo raj <pu<rix%$ Xy {Ailsugoteaxag TOTE KCX^^EVH^ wj £/j airici$ faoyxs xj $vvdft£i$ a7rpQvoY)TU$ ^ Kulmo^KCiff^a wafa dicclplGGvlag TO SsTov «XX« xj Upulctyoga; tipvye ^ 'Ava&yogav elpxflevlat po^g . Vit. Nicise.
D 3 who
38 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
who dealt only in Physics, equally rejected the double doctrine. While on the other hand, the legis lating philosophers employed this very doctrine even in natural enquiries. We are told, that Pytha- goras's popular account of earthquakes was, that they were occasioned by a synod of ghosts assem bled under ground *. But Jamblicus t informs us, that he sometimes predicted earthquakes by the taste of well-water J.
It appears then, on the whole, that the double doctrine was used for the sake of Society ; their high notions of which made them conclude the practice not only to be innocent, but laudable : whereas, were the motive either love of mystery^ of fraud, or of themselves, it cannot be reconciled to any of their several systems of private morals.
III. My third general reason was, that the ancient Sages seemed to practise the DOUBLE DOC TRINE, in the point in question. I have observed, that those Sects which joined legislation to philo sophy, as the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Peripatetics, and Stoics, always professed the belief of a future state of rewards and punishments : while those, who simply philosophised, as the Cyreniac, the Cynic, and the Democritic, publicly professed the
* ^Elian. Var. Hist. 1. iv. c. 17.
t Jamblicus Vit. Pythag. 1. i.e. 23.
J See note [H] at the end of this Book.
contrary.
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 39
contrary. And just as those of the legislating class were more or less in the practice of that art, so were they more or less in the profession of a future state: as on the one hand, the Pythagoric and Platonic ; and on the other, the Peripatetic and Stoic. Nay in one and the same sect (as the Peri patetic, or the Stoic), when a follower of it studied legislation, he professed this belief; when he con fined himself to private morals, or abstract specu lations, he rejected it. Thus Zeno, amongst the Stoics, was a great assertor of it ; while Epictetus openly denied it. And Seneca, who was but a mongrel, seems willing to expose the whole mystery. For in those parts of his writings, where he strictly philosophises, he denies a future state ; and in those, where he acts the preacher or politician, lie maintains it ; and having in this character, said what he thought fit in its behalf, is not ashamed to add : " Hrec autem omnia ad MORES spectant, itaque " suo loco posita sunt; at qua? a DIALECTICS " contra hanc opinionem dicuntur, segreganda " fuerunt: et ideo seposita sunt*." As much as to say, the doctrine was preached up as useful to Society, but intenable by reason. One might push this observation from sects to particulars. So Xenophori and Isocrates, who concerned themselves much in the public, declared for it; and Hippocrates and Galen, who confined themselves to natural Studies, are inclined to be against it.
* Ep. 103,
D 4 This
40 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
This totally enervates what might be urged in support of the common opinion, from those many professions in the writings of the Theistical philo sophers, in favour of a future state of rewards and punishment; as it shews that those professions only made part of the EXTERNAL or popular doctrines of such sects *. It may likewise help to explain and reconcile an infinite number of discordances in their works in general; and more especially on this point, which are commonly, though I think falsely, ascribed to their inconstancy. How endless have been the disputes amongst the learned, since the revival of letters, about what Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics held pf the Soul ! But it was not the Moderns only who found themselves at a loss; sometimes the Ancients themselves were embar rassed. Plutarch complains heavily of the Repug nances of the Stoics : and in his tract so intitled, accuses Chrysippus, now, for laughing at the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punish ments, as a Mormo, fit only to frighten women and children; and now again, for affirming seriously, that, let men laugh as they pleased, the thing was a sober Jruth,
Yet neither could a truth so obvious, nor the notice here given of it, prevent the numerous writers against this book from perpetually urging, one from another, those professions in the EXOTERIC writings of the Phi losophers, as a confutation of what is here delivered Concerning their REAL SENTIMENTS.
IV. My
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 41
IV. My fourth general reason is gathered from the opinions which Antiquity itself seems to have had of its philosophers on this point. The gravest writers (as we see in part, by the quotations above, from Timaeus, Polybius, and Strabo) are full of apologies for the national Religions; that is, for what was taught in them, concerning a Providence here, and especially concerning the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, hereafter. They pre^ tend that these things were necessary to keep the People in awe ; but frankly own, that were Society composed all of wise men, THE RELIGION OF THI PHILOSOPHERS, which enforces morality by con siderations drawn from the excellence of virtue, the dignity of our nature, and the perfection of the human soul, would be a fitter and more excellent way to good. Now, the national Religions, as they taught a doctrine of a future state, being here op* posed to the Religion of the philosophers, which jij employed other motives, I conclude, that, in the opinion of these apologists, the Philosophers did
not really believe this doctrine,
V. My last general argument against the common opinion, is collected from an extraordinary cir cumstance in the Roman history. C^SAR, in his speech to the senate, to dissuade them from pu- pishing the followers of Catiline with death, argues, " that death was no evil, as they, who inflicted it for " a punishment, imagined, and intended it should
" be
42 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. " be made." And thereon takes occasion, with a licentiousness till then unknown to that august As sembly, to explain and inforce the avowed principles of Epicurus (of whose sect he was) concerning the mortality of the soul *. Now when CATO and CICERO, who urged the death of the conspirators, come to reply to his argument for lenity; instead of opposing the principles of that philosophy by the avowed principles of a better, they content them selves with only saying, that " the doctrine of a " future state of rewards and punishments was " delivered clown to them from their ancestors f." From this cold manner of evading the argument, by retiring under the opinion gf their Forefathers, I conclude, that these two great patriots were con scious that the real opinion of ancient philosophy would not support them: for nothing was more illogical than their reply, it being evidently, that Authority of their Ancestors, which Caesar op posed with the principles of the Greek philosophy. Here then was a fair challenge to a philosophic enquiry; and can we believe, that Cicero and Cato would have been less favourably heard, while they defended the doctrine of a future state on the prin-
* De pcena, possum equidem dicere id quod res hubet; in luctu atque miscriis, mortem acrumnarum requiem, non cruciatum esse; earn cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere; ultra neque curse, neque gaudio locum esse. Caesar apud. Sail, cle Bell. Catilin.
f See note [I] at the end of this Book.
ciples
Sect. 2.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 43 ciples of Plato ' and Zeno, so agreeable to the opi nions of their Ancestors, than Caesar was in over throwing it on the system of Epicurus ? Or was it of small importance to the State, that an opinion, which JTullj, in the words below, tells us was established by their Ancestors for the service of So ciety, should be shewn to be conformable to the conclusions of the most creditable Philosophy? Yet, for all this, instead of attempting to prove Caesar a bad philosopher, they content themselves with only shewing him to be a bad citizen. We must needs conclude then, that these two learned men were sufficiently apprized, that the doctrine of their Ancestors was unsupported by the real opinion of any Greek sect of Philosophy; whose popular profession of it would have been to no purpose to have urged against Caesar, and such of the Senate as were instructed in these matters ; because the practice of the double doctrine, and the part to which this point belonged, was a thing well known to them.
It may be true, that as to Cato, who was a rigid Stoic, this observation on his conduct will conclude only against one sect; but it will conclude very strongly : for Cato was so far from thinking that the principles of that philosophy should not be brought into the conclusions of State, where it could be done with any advantage, that he was even for having public measures regulated on the standard of their paradoxes', for which he is agreeably rallied
by
44 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. by Cicero in his oration for Mura?na. He could not then, \ve must think, have neglected so fair an opportunity of employing his beloved philosophy upon Caesar's challenge, would it have served his purpose in any reasonable degree.
But though Cato's case only includes the Stoics; yet Cicero's, who made use indifferently of the principles of any sect to confute the rest, includes them all. It will be said perhaps, that the reason why he declined replying on any philosophic prin ciple, was because he thought the opinion of their Ancestors the strongest argument of all; having so declared it, in a more evident point; the very being cfa God itself: In QUOD, MAXIMUM EST MA JORUM NOSTRORUM SAPIENTIA, qui sacra, qui cere- monias *, &c. But it is to be observed, that this was spoken to the People, and recommended to them as an argument they might best confide in; and therefore urged with Tully's usual prudence, who always suited his arguments to his auditors; while the words under question were addressed to an audience of Nobles, who had, at that time, as great an affectation to philosophise as Cicero him self. Hear what he says in his oration for Murana : Et quoniarn non est nobis hcec oratio habenda aut cum IMPERITA MULTITUDINE, aut in aliquo con- ventu agrestium, audacius paulo de STUDIIS HUMA- ^JITATIS qua; et MIHI et VOBIS NOTA ET JUCUNDA sunt, disputabo f.
* Oral, pro Milono f Sect. 29.
SECT.
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 45
SECT. III.
HAVING premised thus much, to clear the way, and abate men's prejudices against a new opinion, I come to a more particular enquiry con-» cerning each of those SECTS which have been supposed to BELIEVE the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments.
The ancient Greek philosophy may be all ranged in the ELEATIC, the ITALIC, and the IONIC lines. The Eleatic line was wholly composed of Atheists of different kinds-; as the Democritic, the Pyrr- honian, the Epicurean, Sec. so these come not into the account. All in the Italic line derive them selves from PYTHAGORAS, and swear in his name. All in the Ionic, till SOCRATES, busied themselves only in Physics, and are therefore likewise excluded. HE was the first who brought philosophy out of the clouds, to a clearer contemplation of HUMAN NATURE; and founded the Socratic school, whose subdivisions were the PLATONIC or OLD ACA DEMY, the PERIPATETIC, the STOIC, the MIDDLE, and the NEW ACADEMY.
As to Socrates, Cicero gives this character of him, that He was the first who called philosophy from heaven, to place it in cities, and introduce it into private houses *, i. e. to teach public and private.
morals.
* Primus Philosophiam devocavit e coelo, et in itt'bibus collocavit, et ia domos etiam introduxit. Tuscul.
Quacst,
46 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III, morals. But we must not suppose, that Cicero simply meant, as the words seem to imply, that Socrates was the frst of the philosophers, who studied morals-, this being evidently false; for the Pythagoric school had, for a long time before, made morals its principal concern. He must therefore mean (as the quotation below partly implies) that HE was the jirst who called off philosophy from a contemplation of nature, to fix it ENTIRELY upon morals. Which was so true, that Socrates was not only the j£/\tf, but the last of the Philosophers who made this separation; having here no followers, unless we reckon Xenophon; who upbraids Plato, the immediate successor of his school,, for forsaking his master's confined scheme, and imitating the common practice of -the philosophers in their pur suit of general knowledge; he being, as the same Cicero observes, varius et multiplex et copiosus.
^However, This, which Socrates attempted in Philosophy, was a very extraordinary project: and, to support its credit, he brought in those principles
Of DOUBT and UNCERTAINTY, which SO1716 of his
pretended followers very much abused: Tor while
he
st. hb. v.-And again, Acad. 1. i. Socrates mihi Videtur, id quod constat inter omnes, primus a r,ebus oocultis, et ab ipsa natura involute, in quibus omnes ante
im philosophi occupati fuerunt, evocavisse ~Philoso. pliiam, et ad vitam communem adduxisse, ut de vir- tutibus et vitiis, omninoque de bonis rebus & malig quasreret; coeleatia autem vel procul esse a nostra
gnmonc censcret, vel, si maxime cognita essent, nihil tamen ad bene vivendum conferre.
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 47 he restrained those principles of doubt to natural things, whose study he rejected; they extended them to every thing that was the subject of philo sophical inquiry. This we presume was Socrates's true character: who thus confining his searches, was the (bnly_pne)of all the ancient Greek philo sophers (and it deserves our notice) who really believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. How it happened that lie was so singularly right, will be considered hereafter, when we bring his case to illustrate, and to confirm the general position here advanced.
From Socrates, as we said, came the middle and New Academy, as well as the Old, or Platonic. Arcesilaus was the founder of the Middle; and Carneades of the New. Between the principles of these two there was no real difference, as Cicero tells us ; and we may take his word ; but both, I will venture to affirm, were as real Sceptics, as the Pyrrhonisms themselves: I mean in their principles of philosophising, though not in the professed con- elusions each pretended to draw from those princi ples. For the Academics as well as Tyrrhenians agreed in this, " That nothing could be known ; " and that, without interfering with any sentiments " of their own, every thing was to be disputed/' Heace the Tyrrhenians concluded, " that nothing " was ever to be assented to, but the mind to be " kept in an eternal suspense :" The Academics, on the contrary, held, " that the PROBABLE, when <c found, was to be assented to ; but, till then, they
" we'rfc
4* THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book lit ' were to go on with the Pyrrhonians, questioning, 1 disputing, and opposing every thing." And here lay the jest : they continued to do so, through out the whole period of their existence, without ever finding the probable in any thing ; except, in what was necessary to supply them with arms for disputing against every thing. It is true, this was a contradiction in their scheme : but Scepticism is unavoidably destructive of itself. The mischief was, that their allowing the probable thus far, made many, both ancients and moderns, think them uni form in their concessions : In the mean time they gave good words, and talked perpetually of their vermmile and probabile, amidst a situation of abso lute darkness, and scepticism ; like Sancho Pancha, of his island on the Terra Firma. This was Lucian's opinion of the Academics ; and no man knew them better ; speaking of the happy island, in his true history, and telling us in what manner it Was stocked with the several Sects of Greek phi losophy; when he comes to the Academics he observes with much humour, that though they were in as good a disposition to come as any of the rest, they still keep aloof in the Confines, and would never venture to set foot upon the Island. For here truly they stuck ; they were not yet satisfied whether it was an Island or not *,
TI$ TQiavw Ir/y. Ver, Hist. L ii.
This
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 49
This I take to be the true key to the intrigues of the ACADEMY ; of which famous sect m-my have been betrayed into a better opinion than it deserved. If any doubt of this, the acconnt which Cicero himself gives of them, will satisfy him. He, who knew them best, and who in good earnest espoused only the more reasonable part of their conduct, tells us, that they held nothing could be known, or so much as perceived: Nihil cognosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt — • — Opinio- nibus & INSTITUTTS omnia teneri; nihil VERITATI relinqui : deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt. Itaque Arcesilaus negabat esse quidquam quod sciri posset, ne illud quidem ipsum * : That every thing was to be disputed ; and that the pro bable was not a thing to engage their assents, or sway their judgments, but to enforce their reasonings, — Carneades vero multo uberius iisdem de rebus loquebatur : non quo aperiret sententiam suam (hie enim mos erat pat rim Academics AD VERSA HI SEMPER OMNIBUS in disputando) sed f, &c. — Pro- prium sit Academic judicium suum nullum inter- ponere, ea probare quae simillima veri videantur ; conferre causas, & quid in quamque sententiam dici possit expromere, null a adhibita sua auctoritate, judicium audientium relinquere integrum & libe- rum £ : That, though they pretended their end was to find the probable, yet, like the Pyrrhcnians,
* Acad, Quaest. 1. i, c. 12, 13.
t De Orat. lib. i. e, 18, J De Divin. lib. ii, sub fin. VOL, III, E they
50 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
they held their mind in an eternal suspense, and continued going on disputing against every thing, without ever finding the pwbabk to determine their j udgments, O Academiam volaticam & sui similem, modohucmodoilluc*5 says the man whose business it was to shew-only its fair side. And indeed how could it be otherwise, when, as he himself tells us, in the case of the same Arces'ilms, they endeavour ed to prove, that the moment, or weight of evidence, on each side the question, was exactly equal — — Iluic rationij quod erat consentaneum, faciebat, ut eontra omnium sententlas dies jam plerosque dedu- ceret: [diceret] ut cum in eadem re paria cont ranis in partibus momenta ratlonum itrvenirentur, facilius ah utraque parte adsentio sustineretur. This they held to be the case, even in the most important subjects, such as the SOUL, And in the most in teresting questions concerning it, as whether it was. in its nature, MORTAL or IMMORTAL. — Quod intelligi quale sit vi& potest: et quicquid est, mortaie sit, an aeternian r Nam utraque in parte niulta dieuntur. Ilorum aliquid vf&tro sapienti certurn •videtur: nostro ne quid maxime quidcm probabils git, occurrit : ita sunt in plerisque contrariaruna rati- oniim PA ETA MOMENTA f.
Thus it appears, that the sect was thoroughly sceptical J; And Sextus Enipiricus, a master of
# Ep, ad Alt. 1. 13.
f S.ee note !"Kj at the end of ibis Book,
£ See note [L] at the end of this Book.
this
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED "51
this argument, says no less : who, though he denies the Academics and Pyrrhoniam to be exactly the same, as some ancients affirmed, because, though both agreed that truth was not to be found, yet the Academics held there was a difference in those things which pretended to it (the mystery of which has been explained above) yet owns that Arcesilaus and Pyrrho had one common philosophy *. Origen, or the author of the fragment that goes under his name, seems to have transcribed the opinion of those whom Sextus hints at. " But another sect " of philosophers (says he) was called the Academic^ " because they held their disputations in the Aca- " demy. Pyrrho was the head and founder of
* Qavi fjuvlot TIVS; on Y\ ' AxaOYifAaiw pthOffoQia rj avrn ere •ni (THZ-^ii. 'O tasv TI 'Apxe<riha@-9 ov ry$ psws 'Axcx^nfjLta^ SIVM irporaTw ?t) fyxnyw, mavo poi from roT$ Iluppuvsioig ^oyWfj 00$ (MOV tivat cr^^^cv tnv X&T aurcv otfayYiv x^ r>iv Hypot. Pyrh. lib. i. c. 33. Ageiiius; too, assures us, that the difference between the two sects amounted to just nothing. Vetus autem quaestio et a multis scriptoribus Graecis tractata est, in quid et quan tum Pyr-rhonios et Academicos Philosophos intersit. Utrique enim SKETITIKOI, Ip^xs), airotfliKoi, dicuntur, quoniam utrique nihil affirmant, nihilque comprehendi putant - difFerre tamen inter sese — vel maxime prop* terea existimati sunt. Academici quidem ipsum illud iiihil posse comprehendi, quasi comprehendunt, et nihil posse decerni quasi decernunt : Pyrrhonii ne id quidem ullo pacto videri verum dicunt, quod nihil esse verum videtur. 1. ii. c, 5.
£ 2 " these;
52 THE DI\rINE LEGATION [Book IIL u these; from whom they were called PyrrfxKiians. u He first of all brought in the AxaJaAs J*a, or in- ** compreheijsibility, as an instrument to enable *' ti&m to dispute on footii sides the question, with- " out proving or decidmg any thing *.."
But now a difficulty arises which wift require some explanation- We have represented the Aca~ dbwjr as entirely sceptical: We have represented Socrates a dogmatist; and yet on his sole authority, as we are assured by Tully, did this sect hold its principles of Imomng nothing and disputing all The true solution seems to be this:
I* SOCRATES; to deter his hearers from all studies but those of mora/tity, was perpetually representing the obscurity, in which ail other lay involved: not only affirming that he knew nothing of them, but that ftothing could be known; while, in Mwals, lie was a dogmatist, as appears largely by Xenophon, «,nd the less fabulous parts of Plato. But Arcesilaus and Carneades took him at his word, when he said he knew Bathing; and extended that principle of «ncertainty ad omne &cibile*
2. Again, the adversaries, with whom Socrates had to deal, ia his project of discrediting natural
<# TO W *Axa3«/<ct'a 10,$
« Philosophica,
knowledge,
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 53 knowledge, and of recommending tke stwdy of w?0~ nrtfry, were the SOPHISTS properly so catted; a race of men, whoy by their eloquence and fallacies, bad long kept up the credit of Physics, and much vitiated the purity of Month : And These being the Grades of science at that time in Athens, it became the modesty and humility of his pretensions,, to attack them covertly, arid rather as an enquirer than a teacher. This produced the way of disputing by Interrogation; from the inventor, called the Scwatic: And as this could not be carried on but under a professed admiration of thek wisdom, and acqvil- escence in their decisions, it gave birth to tk? famous Attie Irony*. Hence it appears, his. mettiod of confutation must begin in do*ibt; be carried o& ia turning their own anas- agaaasfc ttei% saoi^ exad la tidvancwig nothing of km &m^
Now Arcesilaus and Caraeades haYi^, as we say, extravagantly extended |he Soeratic principle of knowing npthmg ; easily mistook tiiis. other,, »f advancing notkirtg of Ms mm, when di&putiBg with tlie Sophists; as a necessajy conseqi^ecice of the former ; and so made that a general rule for their school, which, in their master, was only ^n ccca- sional and confined practice^
* Soprates autem cte se ipse ctetraliens IB plus tribuebat ii\ quos volebat refeilere. Ita ema afmd clieeret atque sentiret, libeitter rtti soRtws est ea dissimulatione, quaia Grseci «i£om«? vocajfxtv \ u. c, 5.
54 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
On these two mistaken principles was the New Academy erected. i. Omnia latere in occulto, nee esse quidqtiam, quod cerni aut intelligi possit. 2. Quibus de causis nihil oportere neque pro- fiteri, neque affirm are quemquam, neque assertione approbare *.
They of the OLD ACADEMY f, who came first after Socrates, did, with more judgment, decline their master's method of disputation ; easily per ceiving that it was adapted to the occasion: and that to make it a general practice, and the charac teristic of their school, would be irrational and absurd. But the MIDDLE and NEW, instead of profiting by this sage conduct of their Predecessors, made it a handle to extol their own closer adhe rence to their Master; and an argument that they were returned to his true principles, from which the old had licentiously digressed. A passage in Cicero will justify these observations; and these observations will explain that passage, which, I presume, without them would not be thought very intelligible. Thus the Roman Orator expresses himself, under the character of an Academic : Primum, inquam, deprecor, ne me, tanquam phi- losophum, putetis schoiam vobis aliquam explica- turum : quod ne in ipsis quidem philosophis magnopere unquam probavi: quando enim Socrates, qiti farms philosophic jure did potest, quidquam
* Acad. Queest. lib. i. c. 12.
f See note [M] at the end of this Book.
tale
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 55
tale fecit ? Eoram erat iste mos? qui turn Sophists* nominabantur ; quorum & miraero primus cst ausus Leontinus Gorgias in conventu poscere qaseStionera, id est, jubere dicere, qua de re quis vellet audire. Au'dax negotium ; dkerem impudeas, nisi hoc m~ ttitutum postca translation ad phitosophos aostros met. Sed et flluni, quein nominavi, et ceteros Sophistas, ut ^ Platone ktelligi potest, lasos viderous a Socrate. Is enim percuBCtando atque mterrogando elicere solebat eorum ojanionesy qulbuscoio disse- rebat, ut ad ea, qu« S respoodisscat, si quid vide- retur, diceret : Qui MOS CUM A POSTERIORIBUS
KON ESSET RETENTUS> ARCESILAUS BUM REVO-
CAVIT> INSTITUITQUE, ut 'it, qui SQ • (tudtre vetfent, non se qu&rererJ, scdipsi dlcerent, quid s&itlrent: tjitod cum dlrissent, ille contra *. Here Cicero has gilded the false, but showy pretences of bis Sect : which not only represented their scepticism, as a return to the true principles of Socrates; bat would have the dogmatic sects of philosophy, against all evidence of antiquity, the later product of that race of Sophists, with whom the venerable Athenian had to do. But the Old Academy we may be sure, thought differently of die matter; Lucullus says of Arcesilaiis, Nonne cum jani phi- . losophorum disciplines gravissima* coRstitisseat, turn exortus est ut in optima Rep, Tiberius Gracchus, qui otium perturbare^ sic Arcesilausj, qui coosti- tutam phiiosaphiam everteret f .
* De Fro. BOR. et, Mai. iL c, i . t x 4
56 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
However, these bold pretensions of restoring the SOCHATIC SCHOOL to its integrity, deluded many of the Ancients ; and made them, as particularly Diogenes Laertius, to rank Socrates in the number of the Sceptics.
But this is not strange, for it was in the fashion for all the Sects to pretend relation to Socrates. Proserninata3 sunt familiae dissentientes, et multum disjunct® et dispares, cum tamen OMNES se phi- losuphi SOCRATICOS et dici velleat ct esse arbitra- rentur, says Cicero. And again, Fuerunt etiam alia genera philosophorum fere qui se OMNES SOCRATICOS esse dicebant ; rretricorum, Heril- liorum, Megaricorum, PYRRHONEORUM *. The same thing, I believe, Apuleius meant to express,
when speaking of Socrates he says, cum nunc
ctiam egrcgii Philosophi sectam ejus sanctissimam praoptent, et summo beatitudinis studio jurent in ipsius nomen f.
On the whole it appears that the Academics, (middle and new) as distinguished from the Pla- tonists, were mere Sceptics ; and so, like the Pyrrho~ mans, to be thrown out of the account.
Those therefore which remain, are the PYTHA- GORTC, the PLATONIC, the PERIPATETIC, and the STOIC : And if it be found that none of these four renowned schools (the PHILOSOPHIC QUATERNION OF DOGMATIC TntisTs) did believe, though all sedulously taught, the doctrine of a future state
* De. Orat. lib. iii. f Metam. 1. x.
of
Sect 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 57 of rewards and punishments, the reader, perhaps, >vill no longer dispute the conclusion, THAT IT
WAS NOT THE REAL OPINION OF ANT GRECIAN \ SECT OF PHILOSOPHY.
I. PYTHAGORAS comes first under our inspection. HE is said to have invented the name long alter the existence of his trad^; and was, as we may say, the middle link that joined together the Lawgivers and Philosophers ; being indeed the only Greek, who was p-operly and truly both : though, from his time, and in conformity to his practice, not only those of his ow n school, but even those of the other three, dealt much in legislation ; In which, his for tune was like that of Socrates, who was the first and last of the philosophers that confined himself to morals ; though, in imitation of his conduct, morals, from thence, made the chief business of all the subdivisions of his school.
In the science of legislation, ORPHEUS*, for whom he had the highest reverence, was his master; and in philosophy, PHERECYDES SYRUS f.
After he had formed his character on two so different models, he travelled into EGYPT, the fountain-head of science ; where, after a long and painful initiation, he participated of all the Mysteries of the priesthood.
Jie had now so thoroughly imbibed the spirit of legislation, that he not only pretended his LAWS
* Jamblichus de Vita Pyth. c. 151. f Id. ib. c. 184.
were
58 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Bool III, were inspired,, which most other Lawgivers had dorre; but that his PHILOSOPHY was so, like wise * ; which wo other Philosopher had the con fidence to do. .
This, we may be sure, would incline him to a more than ordinary cultivation of the DOUBLE DOCTRINE, " He divided his disciples (says *'* Oiigen) into two classes, the one he called the u ESOTERIC, the other, the EXOTERIC. For ta
Those he intrusted the more perfect and sublime w doctrines ; to The.se he delivered the more vulgar u and popular f." And, indeed > he was so eminent in this practice, that the secret or esoteric doctrine ©f Pythagoras became proverbial. For what end &e did it, Varro informs us, in St Austk\ where he says, that " Pythagoras instructed his auditors irt '* the science of legislation LAST OF ALL, when ** they were now become learned, wise, and happy.* And on what subject, appears from a common saying of the sect, that " in those things which " relate to the Gods, ALL was' not to be revealed "' to ALL £."
The Communities he gave laws to, the Cities he set free, are known to every one* And that nothing-
* Jamblielms de Vita Pyth. c. i .
f Our® rk (juxQnlx; &£&*, xj TK; EIHTEPIKOYS,
TU$ 31 rot, fAsigutTega. Fragm, cle Philos.
Mrj eiiw wgp; vsafiaz is&vlcz j$<x*
might
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 59 might be wanting to his legislative character, He, likewise, in conformity to general practice, instituted MYSTERIES; in which was taught, as usual, " the " unity of the divine nature." So Jamblichus: " They say too he taught lustrations and IN'ITIA- " TIONS, ,in which were delivered the MOST EXACT " KNOWLEDGE of the Gods. They say farther, " that he made a kind of union between divine phi- " losophif and religious worship ; having learnt some " thinss from the ORPHIC rites ; some, from the
O
" EGYPTIAN PRIESTS; some, from the Chaldeans " and Magi; and some from the INITIATIONS " celebrated in ELEUSIS, Imbros, Samothrace and " Delos ; or wherever else, as amongst the CELTS, " and Iberians *." Nay so much did his legislative Character prevail over his philosophic, that he brought not only the principles t of the Mysteries into the schools, but likewise many of the observances ; ^as abstinence from Beans and several kinds of animals ; which afterwards contributed not a little to confound the secret doctrines of the Schools and
# — 'Alyetoejv 5s avruv ra$ xaQotfljui$, xj rats telou-evas TEAE- TA2, rov AKPIBESTATHN EIAH2IN ATTON (r«y SEWV)
Tr,v
j StpatTriiaV a /wev /*«5o'j/?a votpa TWV OP^IKflN, a, 3s
AirrnrinN IEPEHN, « ^ ^^ x
"£ waft ri$ TEAETH2, T^ sv EAET21NI E, xj 2«/xo%aw xj Ar^Aw, :tj £«" T; -ara^a xj «7^ T^ KEATOT2 xj TW 'K>:f/ay. Jainbl. de
f See Book II. Sect. 4- Vol. II. p. 19.
the
fo THE DIVINE LEGATION [Bex* IIL She Mysteries* This confbrmif y was, without doobtr the- reason why the Crotoniatesr or the Metapon- fcrnes (for in this authors differ*) turned his boose or school, after his death, into a TEMPLE of CERES*
Thus the fame and authority o£ Pythagoras Becanae unrivalled over all Greece and Italy, Herodotus calls him, the most authoritative ofphi- Rsspkers f. Cicero- says of him : Cum, Superbo segnante, in Italiam venisset, ten-uh Magnam Ulam Graeciam euro HONORS EX DISCIPLINE,, turn ttiam AUCTORITA.TE J.
And this was no transient reputation- : it de scended to his followers, through a long succession ; to whom the cities of Italy frequently committed the* administration; of their affairs § ;,. where they so well; established their authority, that St. Jeirona tells us, wry lasting marks of it were remaining to his Sirae :. Respice omnem oram Italic, q,use quondam
* Diog. Laert. lib. viii. | 17. Porph.. die Vit. Pytli-
f — Oy T» acr^mrara crotpirn Iluflayofir. — lib. iv. § 95, literally, not of the least authority: a common mode of" expression in the ancient languages. So Homer, in the 1 5th Iliad, calls Achilles, ax «p<aw£CT«7®- "Axawr, not the worst soldier of the Greeks-; meaning, we the best.
J See note [M] at the end of "this- Book.
TI Xj 01 ffuvovlE$ aura traigoi) urs Xj v avrx sirfyexw ?a$ noteis, Porph. de Vit. Pyth. N°54.
Magna
Sect. 3-1 OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. & Magna Gratia dkebatur; et Pytkagoreonm &g-
matum inclsa publids titeris am cognosces*.
But there are two circumstances, which must meeds give us the highest idea of Pythagoras's fame in point of legislation.
1. The om is, that almost every Lawgiver of eminence, for some time before f and after, as wel as durwg Ms time, was numbered amongst his disciples : for the general opinion was, that nothing could be done to purpose in the legislating way., which did not oorwe from Pythagoras.
2. The other is, that the doctrine of the dispen* sation of Providence by a METEMPSYCHOSIS, w transmigration of the soul, though taught in all the Mysteries, and an iiis-eparable part of a future State in all the Religions of pagataism, became, "in com mon speech, the peculiar doctrine of Pythagoras.
And here the reader will pardon a short remark or two, not a little illustrating the point we are sipon.
There is not a more extraordinary book in aS Antiquity, than the METAMORPHOSIS OF OVID; whether we regard the matter or the form. The subject appears prodigiously extravagant, and the composition irregular and absurd : had it been the product of a dark age, and a barbarous writer, one
* Cent. Ruf. lib. ii.
f See the discourse on Zalencus's laws., B. IT.. Sect. 3-
might
62 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. might have been content to rank it in the class of our modern Oriental 'Tales, as a matter of no con sequence. But when we consider it as written when. Rome was in its meridian of science and politeness ; and by an Author, whose acquaintance with the Greek tragic writers, had informed him of what belonged to a work or composition, we cannot but be shocked at so "grotesque an assemblage of things : Unless we would rather distrust our modern judgment , and conclude the deformity to be only in appearance. And this, • perhaps, we shall find to be the case: though it must be owned, the common opinion seems supported by Quintilian, the most judicious critic of Antiquity, who thus speaks of our Author and his Work : Ut Ovidius LASCIYIRE in Metamorphosi solet, quern tamen excusare necessitas potest, RES DIVERSISSIMAS
IX SPECIEM UNIUS CORPORIS COLLIGENTJEM *.
But to determine on proper grounds, in this matter, we must consider the origin of the ancient fables in general.
There are two opinions concerning it.
I. Thejirst is of such who think the fables con trived, by the ancient Sages, for repositories of their mysterious wisdom ; and, consequently, that they are no less than natural, moral, and divine truths, fantastically disguised. Greg. Naz. characterizes these allegories well, where he calls them monstrous
* Instit. Orat, lib, iv. c. i, sub fin.
explanations^
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED, -63 zxplanatiom, without principles; in which there is nothing stable, but a way of interpretation which, if indulged, would enable you to make any thing out of any thing *. But what must eternally dis credit the fancy, that the first Mythologists were Allegorists, is, that if they indeed invented these fables to convey under them natural, moral, and •divine truths, they must have been wise and virtuous men, lovers of Mankind, and the friends of Society, But how will this .character agree to the abominable lewdness, injustice, and impiety, with which most of these popular fables abound ; and which they could not but foresee would (as in fact they did) corrupt all the principles of moral practice. For both these reasons, therefore, we must conclude 'that a system which gives us nothing for the moral but what, as Greg. Naz. observes, is uncertain, groundless and capricious ; while the Fable presents
nothing but what is absurd and obscene t, must be a&
~
after-thought employed to serve a purpose. How ever, it was well for truth, that none of these ancient Allegorists were able to do better ; that none of •them entered upon their task with any thing like the force of our BACON J ; the creative power of whose
r
* Efr I
UK. lS<ni£ TO rao-^y. Orat. iii.
*f* — -UfAlV B£ ^T£ TO VQXftEVOy
%wj'. Ib.
$ In lik Book; De sapientia veterum.
genius
64 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. genius so nearly realized these inventions, as some times to put us to a stand, whether we should not prefer the riches and beauty of his imagination, to the poor and meagre Truth that lies at bottom.
II. The other opinion of the origin of the fables, is that which supposes them to be the corruptions of civil history; and consequently, as having their foundation in real facts : And this is unquestionably the truth. But this system did not find so able an expositor formerly in Palaphatus, as the other more groundless conceit did of late in Bacon. It would lead me too far from my subject, to shew, in this place, which of the fables arose from the ambiguity of words, ill translated from some eastern languages; which, from proper names ill understood ; which, from the high Jigures of poetry, were invented to affect barbarous minds; and which, from the politic contrivances of statesmen, to tame and soften savage Manners: and how the universal passion of AD MIRATION procured an easy admittance into the mind, for all these various delusions.
But we must not omit, that the followers of this better opinion are divided into two factions; One of which would have the ancient fables the corruption of PROFANE history only; the Other, only of
SACKED.
This Last seems unsupported by every thing but
an ill-directed zeal of doing honour to the Bible:
For by what we can collect from Pagan, or even
2 Jewish
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 65 Jewish writers, the history of the Hebrews was less celebrated, even less known, than that of any other people whose memory Antiquity hath brought down to us. But, known or unknown, it is some what hard, methinks, that GREECE must not be allowed the honour of producing one single Hero; but all must be fetched from PALESTINE. One would have thought the very number of the Gentile worthies, and the scarcity of the Jewish, might have induced our critics, in mere charity, to employ some home-spun Pagans, for Heroes of a second rate, at least. But this, it seems, would look too like a sacrilegious compromise. So, an expedient is contrived to lessen that disparity in their number : and Moses alone is discovered to be Apollo, Pan, Priapus, Cecrops, Minos, Orpheus, Amphion, Tire- sias, Janus, Evander, Romulus, and about some twenty more of the Pagan Gods and Heroes. So says the learned and judicious Mr. Huet * : who, not content to seize, as lawful prize, all he meets within the waste of fabulous times, makes cruel inroads into the cultivated ages of history, and will scarce allow Rome its own Founder j~.
Nay, so jealous are they of this fairy honour paid to Scripture, that I have met with those who thought the BIBLE much disparaged, to suppose
* See note [P] at the end of this Book.
f Si fid em sequimur historic, fabulosa pleraque de eo [Romulo] narrari. Prop. iv. c. 9. § 8.
VOL. III. F any
66 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.- any other origin of human sacrifices than the com mand to Abraham, to offer up his son. The con tending for so extraordinary an honour being not unlike that of certain Grammarians, who, out of due regard to the glory of former times, will not allow either the great or small-pox to be of modern growth, but vindicate those special blessings to this highly-favoured Antiquity.
The other party then, who esteem the fables a corruption of Pagan history, appear in general to- be right. But the misfortune is, the spirit of system seems to possess these likewise, while they allow nothing to Jewish history : For, that reasoning, which makes them give the Egyptian and Phenician a share with the Grecian, should consequentially have disposed them to admit the Jewish into part nership ; though it might perhaps contribute least to the common stock. And he who does not see * that Philemon and Baucis is taken from the story of Lot, must be, very near, blind : Though he t who can discover the expedition of the Is raelites
* La fable de Philemon et de Baucis — les personages sont inconnus, et j'en ai rien d'interessant a en direr *;ar de penser avec Mr.Huet, qu'elle nous cache Fhistoire ties Anges qui allerent visiteF Abraham, c'est une de ces imaginations hazardees dans lesqudles ce savant prelat, Sec. Bariier, les Metam. d'Ovid. explic. des fables 7, 8, o, & 10. lib. viii.
f See Lavaur, one of the best and latest supporters of this system, in his Histoire de la Fable conferee
avec
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 67
raelites from Egypt to Palestine, in the fable of the Argonauts, must certainly be gifted with the second-sight.
Lastly, as it is the fault of these to allow nothing to Jewish history, so it is the fault of both to allow nothing to the system of the Allegorists : for though without all question the main body of the ancient fables is the corruption of civil History, yet it is as certain, that some few, especially of the late ones, were invented to convey physical and mofal TRUTHS.
Such was the original of the fables in general : But we must be a little more explicit concerning that species of them called the METAMORPHOSIS.
The metempsychosis was the method, the reli gious ancients * employed to explain the ways of Providence; which, as they were seen to be unequal here, were supposed to be set right hereafter.
But
avec rHistoire Sainte. Ainsi cette fable est toute
composee des traditions que les Chananeens ou Pheni- ciens avoint repandues dans leurs voyages. On y voit des traits defigurez par ces traditions, mais CERTAINE- MENT pris de 1'histoire des Israelites sous Moyse et sous Josue. Cap. Jason Seles Argonautes, a la fin.
* But this being the voice of our common nature, it is no wonder we should find the doctrine of the metempsychosis operating, as an old Opinion, amongst the uninstructed natives of South America. See Char- levoix's Hist of Paraguay, vol. ii. p. 151.
F2
68 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. But this inequality was never thought so great, as to leave no footsteps of a superintendency : For the people of old argued thus : If there were no ine quality, nothing would want to be set right:, and if there were nothing bat inequality, there would be no one to set it right. So that a regular Providence, and none at all, equally destroyed their foundation of a future state.
It being then believed, that a Providence was administered here as well as hereafter, though not with equal vigour in both states ; it was natural for them to suppose that the mode of it might be much the same, throughout. And as the way of punishing, in a different state, was by a transmigra tion of the soul', so in this, it was by a transforma tion of the body : The thing being the same, with only a little difference in the ceremonial of the transaction : the soul in the first case going to the body; and, in the latter, the body coming to the soul : This being called the metamorphosis ; and That, the metempsychosis. Thus, each made a part of the popular doctrine of Providence. And it is remarkable, that wherever the doctrine of transmi gration was received, either in ancient or modern times, there the belief of transformation hath pre vailed likewise *. It is true, that in support of the
* The modern eastern tales are full of metamorphoses-, and it is to be noted that those people, before they em braced Mahometanism, were Pagans, and believers of the metempsychosis.
first
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 69 first part of this superstition, Reason only suffered ; in support of the latter, the Semes too were violated. But minds grossly passioned, never want attested facts to support their extravagances. What prin cipally contributed to fix their belief of the meta morphosis was, in my opinion, the strong and dis ordered imagination of a melancholy habit \ a habit, more than any other, producing religious fear, and most affected by what it produces. There was a common distemper, arising from this habit, well known to the Greek physicians by the name of the LYCANTHROPY ; where the patient fancied himself turned into a wolf, or other savage animal. Why the disordered imagination should take this ply, is not hard to conceive, if we reflect that the mtt em- psychosis made part of the popular doctrine of Pro vidence ; and that a metamorphosis was, as we have said, the same mode of punishment, differing only in time and place. For thenligicus bdkj, we may be assured, would work strongly on a diseased fancy, racked by a consciousness of crimes, to which that habit is naturally obnoxious ; and, as it did in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, make the patient conclude himself the object of divine justice. Indeed, Da.- nieYs prediction of that monarch's disgrace, evidently shews it to have been the effect of divine vengeance; yet the circumstances of his punishment, as recorded in holy Writ, seem to shew, that it was inflicted by common and natural means. And that the vulgar superstition generally gives the bias to the career
F 3 of
70 THE DIVINE LEGATION. [BookllL of a distempered mind, we have a familiar instance. No people upon earth are more subject to atrabilarc disorders than the English : Now while the tales of magicians, and their transformations, were be lieved, nothing was more symptomatic in this dis temper, than such fancied changes by the power of witchcraft. But since these fables lost their terror, very different whimsies, we find, possess our melancholic people.
These sickly imaginations therefore, proceeding from the impressions of the religious notion of the metamorphosis, would in their turn add great credit to it ; and then any trifle would keep it up ; even an equivocal appellation ; which; I do not doubt, hath given birth to many a fable ; though to many more, it hath served only for an after-embellishment But it is remarkable, that fabulous Antiquity itself assists us to detect its own impostures. For, although it generally represents the punishments for impiety, as actual tram formations ; yet, in the famous story of the daughters of Prcetus, it has honestly told us the case ; that it was no more than a deep melan choly, inflicted by Juno, which made them fancy themselves turned into heifers ; so the poet,
" Prcetides implerunt FALSIS mugitibus agros.
and of this, Melampus cured them by a course of physic *.
Thus
* Prcetides, Proeti, Sc Stenobceae, sive Antiopse se-
cundum Homerum, filiae fuerunt, Lysippe, Ipponoe,
i Cy rianas sa.
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 71
Thus the METAMORPHOSIS arose from the doc trine of the metempsychosis; and was, indeed, a mode of it; and, of course, a very considerable part of the Pagan theology * : So that we are not to wonder if several grave Writers made collections of them; such as Nicander, Boeus, Callisthenes, Dorotheus, Theodorus, Parthenius, and Adrian the sophist. Of what kind these collections were, we may see by that of Antonius Liberalis, who tran scribed from them; Thence, too, Ovid gathered his materials ; and formed them into a poem on the most sublime and regular plan, A POPULAR HIS TORY OF PROVIDENCE ; carried down in as me thodical a manner as the graces of poetry would allow, from the creation to his own times^ through
the
Cyrianassa. Has se cum praetulissent Jtmoni in pul- chritudine ; vel, ut quidain volunt, cum essent antistites, ausse sunt vesti ejus aurum detractum in usum suum convertere : ilia irata hunc furorem earum immisit mentibus ; ut putantes se vaccas in saltus abirent, et plerumque mugirent, et timerent aratra; .quas Melam- pus, Amythaonis films, pacta mercede ut Cyrianassam uxorem cum parte regni acciperet, placata Junone, in- fecto fonte, ubi solitse erant bibere, purgavit et in pris- tinum sensum reduxit. Servius in Bucol. Virgilii vi.48.
* It plainly appears to have been in general credit, by its makhig the foundation of the following epigram, one of the finest in antiquity :
'Ex £w; JUE Scot TE^lav W0ov ix 5e X/fiwo
72 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. the EGYPTIAN, PHENICIAN, GREEK, and RO MAN histories : And this the elegant Paterculus seems to intimate, in the character he gives of the poet arid his work *.
Now the proper introduction, as well as foun dation and support, of this kind of history, is a THEISTICAL cosMOGENY. Accordingly, we find our Poet introduceth it with such a one. And this likewise in imitation of his Grecian Originals. Theopompus, by the account Servius gives of him, seems to have composed such a History, and so prefaced ; but on a more ingenious plan. Pie feigns that some of Midas's shepherds took the God, Silenus, asleep, after a debauch ; and brought him bound to their master. When he came into the Presence, his chains fell from him of their own ac cord; and he answered to what was required of him, concerning NATURE and ANTIQUITY f. From hence (as Serviu ; remarks) Virgil took the hint of his SILENUS: the subject of whose song is so exact an epitome of the contents of the META MORPHOSIS
'? Naso perfectissimi in forma opens sui. Hist. Rom. 1. ii. c. 36
f Sane hoc de Silcno non dicitur fictum a Virgilio, sed a Theopompo translation. Is cnim apprehensum Silenum a Miciaa regis pastoribus, dicit crapula madcn- tem, et ex ea soporatum ; illos dolo adgressos dormien- tem vinxisse; postea vincuiis sponte labentibus liberatum et rebus NATURALIBUS ct ANTIOUIS Midse interroganti respondisse. Serv. ad Eclog. vi. 33.
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 73 MORPHOSIS of Ovid, that amongst the ancient titles of that Eclogue, the name of Metamorphosis was one; which therefore makes it worth considering;
" Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta " Semina, &c.
" - - - et ipse tener mundi concreverit or bis.
" Hinc lapides Pyrrhae jactos, Saturnia regna,
" Caucasiasq; refert volucres, furtumq; Promethei -—
" Turn Phaetontiadas musco circumdat amarae
" Corticis
" Quid loquar aut Scyllam Nisi, quam fama secuta est, " Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris, " Dulichias vexasse rates - - - " Aut ut mutatos Terei narraverit artus :" <§'c*.
Here we have the formation of the world, the golden age, and the original and renovation of man \ together with those ancient fables which taught the government of the Gods, and their punishment of impiety, by the change of human, into brutal and vegetable forms. It is evident from hence, that both the Latin poets drew from one source ; and particularly from Theopompus : whom Virgil hath epitomised ; and Ovid paraphrased. And if Ovid neglected to borrow a great beauty from his ori ginal, to adorn his own poem ; Virgil (which is much more surprising) by deviating, in one mate rial circumstance, from their common source, hath committed a very gross blunder. OVID, in ne glecting to lay the scene of his History in the ad venture
74 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
venture of Midas's shepherds ; and so disabling himself from making SILENUS the Narrator through out, hath let slip the advantage of giving his sacred History the sanction of a divine Speaker, and, by that means, of tying the whole composition together in the most natural and artful manner. But then VIRGIL, either in fondness to the philosophy of Epicurus, or in compliment to Varus, who was of that School, instead of making his Cosmogeny theistical (as without doubt Theopompus did, and we see, Ovid hath done) from whence the popular history of Providence naturally followed, hath made it the product of BLIND ATOMS ;
- - - " per inane coacta " Semina,"
from whence nothing naturally follows, but Fate or
Chance. And yet Virgil talks like a Theist (indeed,
because he talks after Theist s) of the renovation
of Man, the golden Age, and the punishment of
Prometheus. Servius seems to have had some
obscure glimpse of this absurdity, as appears from
his embarras to account for the CONNECTION
between the Epicurean origin of the world, and the
religious fables which follow. In his note on the
words hinc lapides Pyrrhcz jactos, he says, — •
' qusestio est hoc loco : nam, relictis prudentibus
f rebus de mundi origine, subito ad fabulas tran-
situm fecit. Sed dicimus, aut exprimere eum
' voluisse sectam Epicurean), quae rebus seriis
" semper
Sects-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 75
" semper inserit voluptates : aut fabulis plenis ad- " mirationis puerorum corda mulcere."
The old Scholiast, we see, was much a stranger to that conceit -of Catrou\ that as Epicurus's Physics are followed in the origin of the World, so his Morals are explained in the Fables. With out doubt, Servius thought it absurd to suppose that the Poet would explain the most obnoxious part of Epicurus's Philosophy (his Physics) so clearly, and the useful part (his Morals) so obscurely.
However, in other respects, the Eclogue is full
of beauties.
On the other hand, Ovid not only found advan tages in making his Cosmogeny thcistical, but im proved what he found with wonderful art. De scribing the formation of man to be from earth, he shuts up his account in these beautiful lines,
" Sic modo qua? fuerat rudis, et sine imagine Tellus <c Induit ignotas hominum, conversafiguras?
Insinuating that this was the first of those CHANGES which he had promised to speak of ; and thereby finely preparing his Reader for the following con versions of Men into brutes, stocks, stones, and the several elements, by shewing that they were only returned into that, out of which they had been taken, by a no less surprising metamorphosis.
But to go back to his Poem. Now although-, to adorn and enliven his Subject, he hath followed the bent of his disposition, in filling it with the love-
stones
76 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. stories of the Gods; which, too, their Traditions had made sacred; yet he always keeps his end in view, by taking frequent occasion to remind his reader, that those punishments were inflicted by the Gods, for impiety. This appears to have been the usual strain of the writers of METAMORPHOSES — As long as they preserved their piety to thj Gods, they were happy *, being the constant prologue to a tragic story. So that, what Palasphatus says of the mythologic poets in general, may with a peculiar justness be applied to Ovid: The poets (says he) contrived fables of this kind, to impress on their hearers a reverence for the Gods f.
But this was not all. Ovid, jealous, as it were, of the secret dignity of his Work, hath taken care, towards the conclusion, to give the intelligent reader the master-key to his meaning. We have observed, that though the metempsychosis was universally taught and believed long before the time of PY THAGORAS ; yet the greatness of his reputation, and another cause, we shall come to presently, made it afterwards to be reckoned amongst his peculiar doctrines. Now Ovid, by a contrivance, which for its justness and beauty may be compared with any thing in Antiquity, seizes this circumstance, to instruct his reader in these two important points :
"Axpi f^v uv Ssa$ eTifAuV) £v$aifjuiVE$ rt<r<xv. Ant. Liberalis Met. c. xi.
•f Toy? 5e pttovs Taraj o-uveQsrav ol wonfloi, "not ol axgou/Atvoi iv u$ TO Sew, De incred. Hist. c. 3.
i. That
Sect 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 77
i . That his poem is a popular history of Providence : And 2. That the Metempsychosis was the original of the Metamorphosis. For in the conclusion of his book, he introduceth Pythagoras, teaching and explaining the TRANSMIGRATION of things to the people of Crotona. This was ending his Work- in that just philosophic manner, which the elegance of pure and ancient wit required.
The Abbe Banier, not entering into this beautiful contrivance, is at a loss * to account for Ovid's bringing in Pythagoras, so much out of course. The best reason he can assign, is that the poet having finished the historical metamorphosis, goes on to the natural ; which Pythagoras is made to deliver to the Crotoniates. But this is not fact, but hypothesis : The poet had not finished the historical metamorphosis : for having gone through the episode of the natural change of things, he re-assumes the proper subject of his work, the historical, or moral, metamorphosis, through the remaining part of the last book ; which ends with the change of Csssar into a comet. Had not Ovid, therefore, introduced Pythagoras, for the purpose here assigned, we should hardly have found him in this place; but in the Greek division, to which he properly belonged. Where the famous circum stance of his GOLDEN" THIGH, and the exhibition of it at the Olympic Games, would have afforded a very artful and entertaining Episode, in a narrative
* Met. de Ovid, et des Expl Hist. torn. iii.
of
78 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. of a CHANGE begun and left unfinished ; a proof of the truth of the doctrine of the Metamorphosis, at least as strong as that which the Alchymists bring for the reality of the transmutation of Metals, from the Nails, half gold and half iron, now to be seen in the Cabinets of the German Virtuosi.
What hath been said, I suppose, will tend to give us a different and higher notion of this ex traordinary WORK : and lessen our surprise at the Author's presumption, in so confidently predicting immortality to his performance :
" Jamque OPUS exegi, quod nee Jovis ira, nee ignis,, " Nee poterit ferrurn, nee edax abolere vetustas."
To proceed with our subject. From what hath been said of Pythagoras's character, it appears, that lie taught several doctrines which he did not believe; and cultivated opinions merely on account of their utility. And we have the express testi mony of Timaeus Locrus, tha't, m the number of these latter, was the poputo.r doctrine of the me tempsychosis. This very anrjieiu Pythagorean, after having said *, that the propagating the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, was necessary to society, goes on m this manner: " For " as we sometimes cure the body with un whole- 44 some remedies., when such as are most whole- £ some have no ^(Fec.t, so we restrain those minds 1 by false relations* which will not be persuaded
See the. J7irst Section of this Book.
" bj
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 79 " by the truth : There is a necessity therefore of " instilling the dread of those FOREIGN TORMENTS. " As that the soul shifts and changes its habitation; " that the coward is ignominiously thrust into the " body of a woman; the murderer imprisoned " within the furr of a savage; the lascivious con- " demned to invigorate a boar or sow ; the vain " and inconstant changed into birds; and the " slothful and ignorant into fishes. The dispen- " sation of all these things is committed in the " second period, to Nemesis tae Avenger ; together " with the infernal Furies, her Assessors, the In- " spectors of human actions; to whom God, the " sovereign Lord of all things, hath committed the " government of the world, replenished with Gods " and Men, and other animals; all which were " formed after the perfect model of the eternal and " intellectual ideas *."
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Timseus's
8o THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
Timasus's testimony is precise; and, as this notion of the metempsychosis was an inseparable part of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and pu nishments, if the Pythagoreans disbelieved the one, they must necessarily reject the other.
But, here it may be proper to explain, and inforce a distinction, which, by being totally overlooked, hath much embarrassed the whole matter.
The doctrine of the metempsychosis, as it signified a moral designation of Providence, came originally from Egypt, and was, as we have said, believed by all mankind. But Pythagoras, who had it, with the rest of the world, from thence, gave it a new modi fication, and taught, " that the successive transition of the soul into other bodies, was physical, necessary, and exclusive of all moral considerations whatever." This is \vhat Diogenes Laertius means, when he tells us, " That Pythagoras was reported to be " the FIUST who taught the migration of the soul, " from one body to another, by a PHYSICAL NE- " CESSITY *." This doctrine was, indeed, pecu liarly his, and in the number of the esoterics, delivered in his School, to be believed.
How destructive this proper Pythagoric notion of the metempsychosis was to the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, Ovid, who well understood the secret of the distinction,
* TlpSnov 5s tpcuri Tci/rov aTroffivau T>iv ^ux^v KTKAON ANAFKH2 AMEIBOT2AN, atoole fate* ivdeio-QM &ois
L. viii. ^ 14.
evidently
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 81 evidently perceived, where he makes Pythagoras, in delivering the esoteric doctrine of his school to the Crotoniates, reject a future state of rewards and punishments, on the very principle of his own metempsychosis, though the general metempsif- chosis was an inseparable and essential part of that state :
O genus attonitum gelidae formidine mortis, Quid Styga, quid tenebras, et nomina vana timetis, Materiem vatum, falsique piacula mundi ? Corpora, sive rogus flamma, seu tabe vetustas Abstulerit, mala posse pati non ulla putetis. Morte carent animae : SEMPERque priore relicta Sede, no vis dornibus * habitant vivuntque receptce.
The not attending to this distinction, hath much perplexed even the best modern writers on the subject of Pythagoras. Mr. Dacier, in his life of that philosopher, when he comes to speak of the doctrine of the mefempsychosis, advances crudely, that all Antiquity have been deceived in thinking Pythagoras really believed it. And, for his warrant, quotes the passage from Timaeus, given above. Mr. Le Cierc f , scandalized at this assertion, affirms as crudely, that he did believe it ; and endeavours to prove 'his point by divers arguments, and passages of ancient writers. In which dispute, neither of them being 'a ware of the two different kinds of Metempsychosis, each of them have with much
* L. xv. f Bibl. Choisie, torn. x. art. ii. sect. 5.
VOL. III. G confusion,
* 2 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
confusion, taken of the true and false in this question, and divided it between them. Dacier was surely in the right, in supposing Pythagwas did not believe the Metempsychosis, as delivered by his disciple Timaus ; but as certainly in the wrong to conclude from thence, that he believed none at all. And Le Cterc was not mistaken in thinking the philosopher did believe some sort of Metempsy chosis ', but apparently in an error in supposing that it was the popular and moral notion of it. In a word, the proofs which Dacier brings, conclude only against Pythagoras's believing a moral trans migration ; and those Le Clcrc opposes, conclude only for his believing a natural one. While neither, as we say, apprehending there were two kinds, the I one common to all, the other peculiar to that Phi- 1 losopher, they have both fallen into great mistakes.
Let me give an instance from Le Clerc ; as it will contribute in general to illustrate the subject, and, at the some time, throw light on the latter part of the passage, we have but now quoted from Timieus. Dacier had urged that passage to prove Pythagoras did not believe the Metempsychosis ; and Le Cierc had urged it, to prove he did ; because the author in conclusion expressly affirms, that the dispensation of the Metempsychosis is com mitted in the second period to Nemesis the avenger.
"A-rravla, <5t TOLIITX, EV &v?€£p -srsptocfy a Nt'^fen? 2YN-
AIEKPINE. Le Clerc says, I have translated these verbatim, that the. reader may see lie talks 1 1 seriously.
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 83 seriously *. But whoever reads the whole passage, which expressly speaks of the doctrine as useful and not as true, will be forced to own, that by the phrase, Nemesis decrees, is meant, it must be taught that Nemesis decrees. But this circum stance of Nemesis is remarkable; and enough to put the matter out of question. There were two kinds, as we have said, of the Metempsychosis, which the Pythagoreans taught ; the moral and the natural. The latter they believed, the first they only preached. So that Tiniaeus speaking here of the Metempsychosis as a fable, useful for the people to credit ; lest the reader should mistake him as meaning the natural, he adds the circum stance of Nemesis, the poetical Avenger of the crimes of men, to confine all he had said, to the moral Metempsychosis.
To support what is here observed, it may not be improper to insert the sentiments of some of the most considerable of Pythagoras's DISCIPLES on this point : which I shall transcribe from my very learned Friend, the author of the Critical Inquiry ' into the Opinions and Practices of the ancient Phi losophers : where the reader may see them admi rably well explained, and defended from a deal of idle chicane. Plutarch tells us " that EMPE- " DOCLES held death to be a separation of the
* J'ai traduit ces dernieres paroles de Timee mot pour mot, afinque Ton pfit voir, cru'il paile serieusement. Bibl. Choisie. torn. x. p. 193.
G a " fiery
84 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
" fiery substance from the other parts, and there- 1 fore supposed that death was common to the
" soul and body *."
Sextus Empiricus says, " it is evident that
" Epicurus stole his principles from the poets. As ' to that famous tenet of his, that death is nothing ' to ?/.v, he borrowed it from .EpiciiARMus, who ' says, I neither look upon the act of dying, or
" the state that succeeds it, as of any consequence
" and importance to me f."
Plutarch likewise, in his consolation to Apollonms,
cites the following words of EPICHARMUS : " The
parts of which you are composed will be separated
' at death ; and each will return to the place from
" which it originally came. The earth will be re- ' stored to earth, and the spirit will ascend upwards;
" what is there terrible or grievous in this^r'3
rov Savalw ysfEvyrGai ^ta^o^i^^ov TS
uy Y) vvyx.picri$ TW avfyuiru eryvcrA' are Kctia. raro xo.vov TOV SavMw <rufx,alo$ x^ -^u^r,^ DC Plac. c. 25. Cicero says, Empedocles aniiinim esse ccnset cordi suffusiim saiiguiiicm. i Tusc. p. alluding to Einpedoclcs's o\va .words in that famous verse:
Aif^ot yap avfyuTToif 'SJEpittaftiov en vw//.&.
vh o OB 'E5T**spo< tpuparxi ra Kpotrira ruv dofytxruv -•monjluv. awpKOMBS -- -roy SE Savaflov on sdev sri *s:fo$ <ZUTU 'sqoffpiwwKw ad Gram. ^ -273.
J KaAw$ av o >E7ri'/J&p/J>&- wvt
$ ydv, WcSpa & civx' ri TW$E xateTrov; x& Iv.
As
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 85
As for this ascent of the spirit upwards, Lucre tius will explain it :
Cedit enhn retro, de terra quod fuit ante,
In terras : et quod missum est ex Athens oris,
Id rursum coeli rellatum templa rcccptant. Lib. ii.
TELES, another follower of Pythagoras, thus addresses himself to one grieved and afflicted for the loss of a deceased friend ; " You complain " (says he) that your friend will never exist more. " But remember, that he had no existence ten " thousand years ago, that he did not live in the " time of the Trojan war, nor even in much later " periods. This, it seems, does not move you : all " your concern is, because he will not exist for the " future*." Epicurus uses the very same language on the same occasion :
llespice item quarn nil ad nos ante acta vetustas Temporis aeterni fuerit, quara nascimur ante. Hoc igitur nobis speculum natura futuri Temporis exponit, post mortem denique nostram.
Lucr. 1. iii. S.o far, my learned friend.
II. PLATO is next in order : He likewise greatly affected the character of Lawgiver ; and actually
start srar sfi yaf
TSfOKXTT'Tnit <T8.
W* Stobueus
T1 "5 EC. c. 106.
G 3 compose4
86 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III, composed laws for several people, as the Syracusians and Cretans ; but with what kind of spirit we may judge, by his refusing that employment for the The- bans and Arcadians, as soon as he understood they were averse to equality of possessions *. The truth is, his philosophic character, which was always pre dominant (as in Pythagoras the legislative) gave his politics a cast of refinement which made his schemes of Government very impracticable, and even un natural. So that, though his knowledge of mankind was indeed great and profound, and therefore highly commended by Cicero t, yet his fine-drawn specu lations brought him at length into such contempt as a writer of politics, that Josephus tells us, notwith standing he teas so high in glory and admiration amongst the Greeks, above the rest of the Philo sophers, for his superior virtue, and power of elo quence, yet he was openly laughed at, and bitterly ridiculed, by those who pretended to any profound or high knowledge of politics J.
The only Greek masters he followed, were Pytha goras and Socrates: These he much admired. From the first, he took his fondness for geometry,
* See JElian. Yar. Hist. 1. ii. c. 42.
f Deus ille noster Plato in votilelcc. See B. ii. § 3.
U^aruv &
To$ xtoi'iv, i>; x flix 3ifv:/x»v x
c-civav EIVCU ra,
'lalitei. Cont. A p.
l.ii. §31.
his
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 87 his fanaticism of numbers, his ambition for law- giving, and the doctrine of the Metempsychosis ; From the latter, the study of morals, and the mode
of disputing.
This was a monstrous mis-alliance*: I mean, -the incorporating into one Philosophy, the doctrines of two such discordant Schools : the first of which dogmatized in the most sublime questions of natuie; the* other gave up the most vulgar, as inscrutable. The Philosopher of Sarnos aimed at glory; the legislator of Sarnos followed utility ; but the simple Moralist of Athens laboured after truth.
We need not therefore any longer wonder at the obscurity which Plato's frequent contradictions throw over his writings. It was caused not only by the double doctrine, a practice common to all the Philosophers ; but likewise by the joint profession of two such contrary Philosophies. This effect could not escape the observation of Eusebius : Hear then (says he; the Greeks thctmdws, by their best and most powerjul speaker, now rejecting, and now again adopting the FA-BLES f.
However it was the abstruse pliilosophy of Pytha- <toras with which he was most taken. For the sake
o
* See note [P] at the end of this Book,
, role V lv waTuv tlffTTG&pevv ru$ pvQvs. PraJ.p. Evang. p. 47. Steph. Ed. See ^bo.ve, p. 52, &c. and what will be further said on this matter, in note [Ml at the
of this Book,
04
83 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. of this, he assumed also the legislative part ; and in imitation of his master, travelled into Egypt; where he was initiated into the Mysteries of the priest hood. It was this which made Xenophon, the faithful follower of Socrates, say, that Plato had adulterated the pure and simple philosophy of their Master; and was IN LOVE zritk Egypt, and the portentous wisdom of Pythagoras *. And even oc casioned Socrates himself, on reading his romantic Dialogues, to exclaim, Ye Gods, what a heap of lies has this young man placed to my account f !
But of all the Egyptian inventions, and Pytha- goric practices, nothing pleased him more than that of the double doctrine, and the division of his auditors into the exoteric and esoteric classes : lie more professedly than any other, avowing those principles, on which that distinction was founded ; such as,— 7%** it is for the benefit of mankind, that they should be ojten deceived— That there are some truths not jit for the people to know — That the world is not to be entrusted with the true notion of God', and more openly philosophizing upon that distinction, in his writings. Thus, in his books of Laws (which we shall see presently were of the exoteric kind) he defends the popular opinion,
T — $a<rt ds K) XuxfctTw axyffavlot rov Autriv &
®-, 'Hfoxtas, ttTreiv, 41; srcM,* /xs xale^iif^ff o Diog. Laert. 1. iii. §35.
which
Sect 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 89 which held the sun, moon, stars, and earth, to be Gods, against the theory of Anaxagoras, which taught the sun was a mass of fire, the moon an habitahle earth, $c. Mere, his objection to the NEW PHILOSOPHY (as he calls it) is, that it was an inlet to atheism ; for the common people, when they once found these to he no Gods which they had received for such, would he apt to conclude, there were none at all ; but in his Cratylus, which was of the esoteric kind, he laughs at their Forefather?, for worshipping the sun and stars, as Gods.
In a word, the Ancients thought this distinction of the double doctrine, so necessary a key to Plato s writings, that they composed discourses on it. Nu- menius, a Pythagorean and Platonist both in one, wrote a treatise (now lost) of the secret doctrines (that is, the real opinions) of Plato * ; which would probably have given much light to this question, had the question wanted it- But Albinus, an old Platonist, hath, in some measure, supplied this loss, by his Introduction to the Dialogues of Platof. From which it appeal's, that those very books, where Plato most dwells on the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, are all of the exoteric kind. To this, it hath been said, that some of these were of the political and civil kind : and so say I ;
* Tlefi ruv Rt&Tuv^ a-nopfauv. Teste Euseb. 1. xiii. c. 4, 5. Prsep. Evaiig.
f .A pud Fabric. Bibl. GJ-XC. lib, iii. c. 2*
but
9o THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
but nevertheless of the exoteric, called political, from their subject, and exoterlcal from their man ner of handling it. But if the nature of the sub ject vvill not teach these objectors that it must needs be handled exoterically, Jamblichus's authority must decide between us ; who, in his life of Pytha goras *, hath used political in the sense of exoterical: And in that class, Albinus ranks f the Criton, Phaedo, Minos, Symposium, Laws, Epistles, Epinomis, Me- nexenus, Clitophon, and Philebus.
There is an odd passage in Cicero J, which seems to regard the Phaedo in the light of a mere eivtfirJc composition, so far as it concerns the doc trine of a future state of rewards and punishments. The auditor is advised to read the Phaedo, to con- firm his belief in this point : to which he replies, Feel mehercule, <§• quickm s<epius; scd NESCIO QUOMODO, dum lego assentlor: cum posul Ubrum, $ mecum ipse de Immortalltatc animorum c&pl co&itare, asscnsio omnis ilia clabitur. The only
o
reasonable account I can give of this reflection, (far to suppose it an imitation of something like it in the Phredo itself, applied to a very different purpose, gives us none at all) I say the only reason able account is, that the Phaedo being an exoteric dialogue, and written for the people, was held amongst the learned, in the rank of a philosophical romance : but while one of these better sort of
* Sect. 1 50. t Sect, 5. J Tusc. Disp. 1. i- c. 5.
readers,
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 91 readers, is very intent on such a work, a master piece, like this, for composition and eloquence, he becomes so captivated with the charms and allure ments of these graces, that he forgets, for a moment, the hidden meaning, and falls into the vuljarjteceit, But bavin* thrown aside the book, grown cool, and
c5 l -
reflected on those principles concerning^ 6W and the sold, held in common by the Philosophers (of which more hereafter) all the bright colouring dis appears, and the gaudy vision shrinks from his em- trace. A passage in Seneca's Epistles, will explain, and seems to support, this interpretation. Quo- modo molest us cst JUCUNDUM SOMNIUM VIDE sir, qui exdtat\ aufert cnim votuptatem, etiamsi fal- sam, cffectum tamen vera habentevr, sic epistola tua mihi fecit mjiirlain\ reyocavit enim me cogita- tioni aptce traditum, &: it u rum, si licuisset, ulterius. Juvabat de aeternitate animarum qu&rere, imo mehercule credere. Credebam enim facile opinioni- bus inagnorum virorum, reni gratissimam promit- tentium magis quain probantium ! Dabam me spel tanttf. Jam eram fastidio mihi, jam re liquids cetatis infract a contemnebam^ in immensum illud tempus <§* in possessionem omnis cevi transit urus: cum subiio experrecius sum> epistola tua accepta, &; tarn B E L LU M so M x i u si perdidi *.
The Platonic philosophy being then entirely Pythagorean in the poirit in question, and this latter rejecting the doctrine of a future state of
102.
rewards
92 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. rewards and punishments, we might fairly conclude them both under the same predicament.
But as PLATO is esteemed the peculiar patron of this doctrine; chiefly, I suppose, on his~being the Jirst who brought REASONS for the ETERNITY df the soul * : on this account, it will be proper to be a little more particular.
1. First then, it is very true, that Plato hath argued much for the eternity, or, if you will, for the immortality of the soul. But to know what sort of immortality he meant, we need only consider what sort of arguments he employs. Now these, which he was so famous for inventing and inforcing, were natural and metaphysical, taken from the essence and qualities of the soul; which therefore concluded only for its permanency : and this he certainly be lieved f . But for any moral arguments, from which only a future state of rewards and punishments can be deduced, he resolves them all into tradition, and the religion of his country.
2. As the inventing reasons for the immortality of the soul, was one cause of his being held the
* Tuscul. Disp, 1. i. 0.17. Primum de animorum JETEKNITATE non solumsensisseidem quod PYTHAGORAS, sed RATION EM etiam attulisse.
*f* Tot rationes attulit [Plato] ut velle ceteris, sibi certe persuasisse videatur. Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1. i. c. 21. KaQaKsp o VCJJL^- b var^©- riyetj as he expresses it in his twelfth book of Laws.
great
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 93 great patron of this doctrine; so another, was his famous refinement (for it. was indeed //Ay) of the natural Metempsychosis, the peculiar notion of the Pythagoreans. This natural Metempsychosis was, as we have said, that the successive transition of the soul into, other bodies was physical and necessary , and exclusive of all mor^designation whatsoever. Plato, on receiving this opinion from his master, gave it this additional improvement; that those changes and transitions were the purgations of im pure minds, unfit , by reason of the pollutions they had contracted, to reascend the place from whence, they came, and rejoin that Sui&sTAWCEfrom whence they were discerped; and consequently, that pure immaculate souls were exempt from this transmi gration. Thus Plato's Metempsychosis (which was as peculiarly his, as the other was Pythagoras*) seemed indeed to have some shadow of a moral designation in it, which his master's had not : neither did it, like that, necessarily subject all to it, without distinction; or for the same length of time. la this then they differed : But how much they agreed in excluding the notion of all future state of reward and punishment, will be seen., when in the next section we come to shew what a kind of existence it was which Pythagoras and Plato afforded to the soul, when it had rejoined that universal SUBSTANCE, from which it had been discerped.
We have now explained the three sorts of Me tempsychosis ; — The popular ;— That which was
peculiar
94 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. peculiar to Pythagoras ; and lastly, Timt peculiar to Plato. The not distinguishing the Platonic from the Pythagoric; and both, from the Popular, has occasioned even the Ancients to write with much obscurity on this matter. What can be more inex plicable and contradictory than the account Servius hath given of it? " Sciendum, non omnes animas " ad corpora, reverti. Aliquoe enirn propter vitae £ merita non redeunt propter malam vitam; aliquee " propter fati necessitatem." In JEn. vi. ver. 713. Here, he has jumbled into o.ve, as the current doc trine of the Metempsychosis, these three different and distinct sorts : aliqua propter vita MERITA non redeunt, belonging to the popular notion; aliqua redeunt propter fall necessitate™, belonging to Pytbagoras's; and allqiue propter MALAM vitam, to Plato's.
3. However it is very true, that Plato in his writings inculcates the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments : but this, always in the gross sense of the populace : that the souls cf ill men descended into asses and swine;— that the uninitiated lay in mire and filth ; — that there vere three judges of hell : and talks much of Styx, Cocytus, Acheron, §c. and all so seriously *, as shews he had a mind to be believed. 13ut did he indeed believe these fables ? We may be assured he did not : for being the most spiritualized of the
* In his Gorgias, Phacdo, and Republic.
Philosophers,
Sect 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 95 Philosophers, had he really credited & future state of rewards and punishments, he would have refined and purified it, as he did the doctrine of t
of the soul, which he certainly believed. But he has as good as told us what he really thought of the matter, in his Epinomis ; where, writing of the condition of a good and wise man after death, he says, of whom, both in JEST and in EARNEST, 1 constantly affirm, that when such a one shall have finished his destined course by death, he shall at his dissolution be stript of those many senses which he here enjoyed ; and then only participate of one simple lot or condition. And, of MANY, as he 'was here, being become ONE, he shall be happy, wise, and blessed *. In this passage, I understand Plato secretly to intimate, that, when he was in jest, he held the future happiness of good men in a peculiar and distinct existence,, which is the popular and moral notion of a future state : but, when in earnest, he held, that this existence was not personal or peculiar,, but a common life? without distinct sensations: a resolution into the TO tv. And it is remarkable, that the whole sentence has an elegant ambiguity, capable of either meaning. For &•&>,& v ala-towiM may either signify our many passions and appetites,
* *Ov >c &
*rl woXhuv TOTE xotbotTizo vw aiff&nfftuv, /ma; re
Ok (AOVGV, >fy £K (STOA?.WV 'ivot yE/OVOTOj EV$GUfACVet T8
tftfy&rttlw apa >£ paxctfiw. Sub fin.
or
96 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
or our many cogitations. To deny we have the first of these in a future state, makes nothing against a distinct existence ; but to deny the second, does. His disciple Aristotle seems to have under stood him as meaning it in this latter sense, when iii earnest; and has so paraphrased it as to exclude all peculiar existence *. There is the same am biguity in lx sroAAwi/ £**, which may either signify, that, of his many sensations, he hath only one left, the feeling happiness ; or that, from being a part, and in the number of many individuals of the same species, he is become 0/ve, and entire, by being joined to, and united \vith the universal nature. Plato affirms all this still more plainly, in his com mentary on Timeeus, where he agrees to his author's doctrine of the fabulous invention of the FOREIGN
TORMENTS '(*.
4. Iii confirmation of the whole, (/'. e. of Plato's disbelief of the religious doctrine of a future state, as founded on the v. ill and providence of the Gods) \ve observe, in the last place, that the most in- telli^ent of the Ancients regarded what Plato said of a future state of rewards and punishments, to be said only in the esoteric way to the people.
The famous Stoic, Chrysipp'us ;£, when he blames Pldto, as not rightly deterring men from injustice, by frightful stories of future punishments, takes it
* See hereafter, in Sect IV. of this Book.
3 . :'. .
•j- See pp. 78, 70. J Plut. de Stoic, repug.
for
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 97
for granted that Plato himself gave no credit to them : for he turns his reprehension, not against that philosopher's wrong belief, but his wrong judgment, in imagining such childish terrors * could be useful to the cause of Virtue.
Strabo plainly declares himself of the same opi nion, when, speaking of the Indian Brachmans, he says, that they had invented fables in the manner of Plato, concerning the immortality of the soul, and a future judgment in the shades below; and other things of the same nature f .
Celsus owns that every thing which Plato tells us of a future state, and the happy abodes of the vir tuous, is an allegory. " But what (says he) we " are to understand by these things, is not easy for " every one to find out. To be master of this, we " must be able to comprehend his meaning, when he. " says, They cannot, by reason of their imbecility " and sluggishness, penetrate into the highest re- " gion. But were their nature vigorous enough " to raise itself to so sublime a contemplation, they " would then come to understand, that this was the " true heaven, and the true irradiation J." To un derstand
N 'fl; s3tv 3l«psfov7« TV$ 'Axxx$ xj «nfc 'A*p/7Sf, 3i* uv to, vaidof ia ra xaKQa-Whiiv at ywauxe$ aveigyxvi.
t UexfaTiKeKwi 3s -^ pv9x$, ucrTrep ^ IIAATUN, isttf re a<p6afffia$ ^UMS, xj TWV Kaff ' & xgtcrsuvy xj a^A« TOICIUTX. Geogr. 1. xv. p. 1040. Gron. Ed.
J T/ 3s 3i« T8TWV IftQaviZety » nsavn yvuvat pc&tov el JAYI ofif iffautiv dwoulon T/ WOT Irly txtTvo o <prwv VTT curQeveias j^ VOL. III. H
OS THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
derstand this true irradiation, the dtofavw <?«?, we must consider that light was one of the most im portant circumstances of the Pagan Elysium, as we may see in the chapter of the Mysteries ; where a certain ravishing and divine light is represented, as making those abodes so recommendable ;
Largior hie campos asthcr & lumine vestit
Purpureo - - -
But this remarkable passage of Celsus, besides the general conclusion to be drawn from it, confirms what we have said of the peculiar Platonic Metem psychosis. For here Celsus resolves all Plato's mean ing, in his representations of a future state of rewards and punishments, into that Metempsychosis: and we shall see hereafter, that that was resolvable into the re-union of the soul with the Divine Nature, when it became vigorous enough to penetrate into the highest region *.
The emperor Julian addressing himself to Hera- clius the Cynic, on the subject of that sect, when he comes to speak of the double doctrine, and the admission ofjablc into the teachings of the philo sophers, observes, |hat it hath its use chiefly in Ethics (in which he includes Politics t) and in that part of theology relating to initiation^ and the mys teries,
TV®- «% out$ IT itvai $iB%e)£iu TT sV^ofov rov as^a,' >tj « rj $vffi$ \KaYn t*w avct<7x,£<r8ai §£ogz<r<X) yvuvsu av bri sxeivos Inv o #\nQ%$ fyavo; xj TO cfcnQiwv fwj. Orig. cont. Cels. 1. vii. p. 352. Sp. Ed.
* See note [Q] at the end of this Book.
QiXOVCfUKOV ?£, TO 1StQ\ tiff,}! OlKtaV
Oral. 7.
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 99 t erics *. To support which, he presently quotes the example of Plato, w iio. when he writes of Theology, or as a Theologer, is full of fables in his accounts of the infernal regions f. From hence it appears, that, in the opinion of this learned emperor, Plato did not only not speak his real sentiments of these matters, but that when he did treat of them, it was not as a Philosopher, but as a Theologer ; in which character the ancient Sages never thought them selves obliged to keep within the limits of truth. What these fabulous relations were, he intimates, when he previously speaks of the fables taught in the Mysteries; by which he could only mean their re presentations of a futuie state : The great Secret of the Mysteries, the doctrine of the Unity, being, irihis opinion, of a nature directly contrary to the other.
We now come to the PERIPATETICS and STOICS, who will give us much less trouble. For these having in some degree, though not entirely, thrown off the legislative character, spoke more openly against a future state of rewards and punishments. Indeed the difference in this point, between them and the Platonists, was only from less to more reserve, as appears from their all having the same common principles of philosophizing *.
* Kal T£ SeofceyMttf, ry retort w, > (AVTIKU. Ib.
Ib.
Acad. Qusest.lib.i.
H2 III. ARISTOTLE
ioo THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
III. ARISTOTLE was the disciple of Plato, and his Rival. This emulation, though it disposed him to take a different road to fame, in a province yet unoccupied, and to throw off the legislative cha racter; yet it set him upon writing books of law and politics, in opposition to his Master ; whom takes every occasion to contradict.
He stuck indeed to the ancient method of the double doctrine, but with less caution and reserve. For, whereas the Pythagoreans and Platonists kept it amongst the secrets of their schools, he seems willing that all the world should take notice of it, by giving public directions to- distinguish between the two kinds *. Accordingly, in his Nkomachian Ethics, he expresses himself without any ceremony, and in the most dogmatic way, against a future State of rewards and punishments. Death (says he) is of all things the most terrible. For it is the final period of existence. And beyond that, it af- pears7 there is neither good nor evil for the dead man to dread or hope'\.
And in another place he tells us, that the soul, after its separation from the body, will neither joy nor grieve, love, nor hate, nor be subject to any
* See Cic. Ep. ad Att. lib. iv. Ep. 16. in singulis
libris [de republica] utor procemiis, ut Aristoteles in iis> quos e|o/]f^xK$ vocat -
*f- QcGeouTcfiw 5t' o 3«r«</(^* tskcas. yap xj aSsy m TW Tf^Vfwn fajittt sr« alcdoV) are xoaov tivct'» Eth. ad Nicom. lib. iii. c. 6. p. 130. Ed. Han. 1610. 8vo.
passions
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 101
passions of the like nature. And lest we should suspect that this was said of the ANIMAL life only, he goes further, and observes, that it will then neither remember, think, nor understand*. It must there fore, according to this Philosopher, ibe absolutely lost, as to any -separate existence.
IV. ZENO, the Founder of the Porch, followed the mode, in writing of Laws and a Republic. Agreeably to this part of his character, we find, by Lactantius, that lie taught a future state of rewards and punishments in the very terms of Plato : Esse wferos Zeao Stoicus docuit; $ sede-s piorum ab impiis esse discretas', $ Mo* qwdem qidetas ac delec- tabiles iRColerz rcgiones, bos vern lucre pxnas in tenebrosis lodsatque in cam voraginibits horrenditf. Yet, we know that he and the whole Porch held, that God governed the world only by his general Pro vidence; which did not extend either to Individuals, Cities, or People £: And, not to insist that his fol lower Chrysippus laughed at these things, as the most childish of all terrors, we know too, that the philosophic principle of his School was, thai the soul died with the body^. Indeed, Jx> compliment
their
* TO 3k AIANOEI20AI, xj $IAEIN £ MI2E1N, «» Ir»
T£ MNHMONETE, «TE ^x?T. De anima, 1. v. f Inst. lib. vii. sect. 7, t Nat. Deor. 1. iii. c. 39.
701$
K3
102 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III,
their WISE MAX, the Stoics taught that hi* soul held it out till the general Conflagration ; by which, when we come to speak of their opinion, concern ing the nature and duplicity of the soul, we shall find they meant just nothing.
However, it was not long before the Stoics en^ tirely laid aside the legislative character ; for. which their Master appears to have had no talents, as we may judge by what he lays down in his Republic, that States should not busy themselves in erect in <? temples ; for we ought not to think there is any thing holy, or sacred, or tltat deserves any real esteem, in the work of masons and labourers *. The good man had forgot that he was writing Laws for a People; and so turned impertinently enough, to philosophise with the stoical Sage. The truth is, this sect had never any great name for Legislation: The reason is evident. This part of Ethics, more than any other, requires the cultivation of, and ad^ herence to, what is called COMMON NOTICES. Whereas, of all the ancient systems of Philosophy, the Stoical Morals most deviated from Nature f.
They
TW ^£ fojppdfyoy oTa In vs^i TX$ IDIOTS, y$ ^fi ^ S^TTU^ fu<r£o;. Plut. de Plac. Phil. lib. iv. c. 7.— See the Critical inquiry into the Opinions and Practice of the Ancient Philosophers, p. 27—37. 2d ed.
on >c yvuv 6 irsuf rn
«^£ -2Z70MK a%iov -Hy ayiov olxobfauv re fyyoy -^ Qavawuv. Apud Grig. pont. Cels. p. 6 t See note [R] at the end of this Book.
Sect 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 103 They soon felt the effects which the doctrines of their School had on common life, and therefore in good time laid the study of Politics quite aside. After which, they wrote, without the least reserve, against a future state of rewards and punishments.
Thus EPICTETUS, a thorough Stoic, if ever there was any, speaking of death, says, " But whither do " you " go ? no where to your hurt : you return " from whence you came : to a friendly conso- " ciation with your kindred elements ; what there " was of the nature of fire in your composition, " returns- to the element of tire ; what there was " of earth, to earth; what of air, to air; and of " water, to water. There is no Hell, nor Acheron, " nor Cocytus, nor Pyriphlegethon *."
In another place, he says, " The hour of death " approaches. Do not endeavour to aggravate, "j" and make things worse than they really are: " Represent them to yourself in their true light. " The time is now come when the materials of " which you are compounded will be resolved into " the elements from 'which they were originally " taken. What hurt or cause of terror is there in
# ___ — , Ha; sis &w tisivov, aXX oQev lysva, «$ rot wfyevw, els ™ foixsief offov W Iv <roi wvf, & w? fasum, *3i* « yjSiw Q<rov WMiuM*, els TSveu/toiTiQv' cxrov
Apud Arrian. lib. iii. c. 13.
H4 "this?
104 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. " this? or what is there in the world that ABSO-
" LUTELY PERISHETH*'"
ANTONINUS says, " He who feareth death, either
" fears that he shall be deprived of all sense, or
' that he shall experience different sensations. If
6 all sensations cease, you will be no longer subject
" to pain and misery; if you be invested with
" senses of another kind, you will become another
" creature, and will continue to exist as such f."
SENECA, in his consolation to Marcia, daughter of the famous Cremutius Cordus the Stoic, is not at all behindhand, in the frank avowal of the same principles. Cogita, nullis defunct um malls qffici : ilia quce nobis inferos faciunt terribiles, FABULAM esse: nullas imminere mortuis tenebras, nee car- cerem, nee Jlumina Jlagrantia igne, nee oblivionis amnem, nee tribunalia, 8$ reos <§• in ilia libertate tarn laxa ullos iterum tyrannos. Luserunt istapoette, <§• vanis nos agitavere terroribus. Mors omnium dolo- rum 8§ solatia est, 8$ Jinis : ultra quam mala nostra lion exeunt '; qua nos in illam tranquiUitatem, IN QUA,
ANTEQUAM NASCEHEMUR, jaCUMlUS, repOtllt J.
* "H5Vj Hpufa aTToQaysiv' f*h Tfayu&'i TO ^ay^a, aXX* elir*
ftvcttj Yy Tl 0£<VOV, Tl /X£A^£{ O,7TO>^J(7&ai 1(*V £V Tw «oV^tW. 1. iv. 7.1.
*r "O TOV
tire attoiQiepotv aurvwiv wwn, «Mosov $uov ECO?, ^, T» yiii. 58.
t Cap. 19,
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 105 Luc i AN, who, of all the Ancients, best under stood the intrigues and intricacies of ancient Phi losophy, appears to have had the same thoughts of the Stoics upon the point in question. In his Jupiter Tragicus, or discourse on Providence, Da- mis, the Epicurean, arguing against Providence, silences the Stoic, Timocles, when he comes to the inequality of events', because the Author would not suffer his Stoic to bring in a future state to remove the difficulty. And, that nothing but decorum, or the keeping each Sect to its own principles, made him leave the Stoic embarrassed, appears from Iris Jupiter confuted, or discourse on destiny; where, when Cyniscus presses Jupiter with the same argu ments against Providence, Jupiter easily extricates himself: " You appear by this, Cyniscus, to be " ignorant what dreadful punishments await the " wicked after this life, and what abundant hap- " piness is reserved for the good*."
I will only observe in taking leave of this subject, that the famous STOICAL RENOVATION (which hath been opposed to what is here represented) seems to have been conceived on the natural Metempsychosis of Pythagoras. Origen gives the following account of it : " The generality of the Stoics not only sub- " ject every thing mortal to these RENOVATIONS, " but the immortals likewise, and the very Gods " themselves. For after the conflagration of the
* Ob ya
«• oV»i o< petrol svfapmi*
" Universe,
io6 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
<c Universe, which hath happened already, and will " happen hereafter, in infinite successions, the same " face and order of things hath been and ever will " be preserved from the beginning to the end *." It is true, the men of this School, to ease a little the labouring absurdity, contend for no more than the most exact resemblance of things, in one reno vation, to those of another. Thus the next Socrates was not individually the same with the last, but one exactly like him ; with exactly such a wife as Xantippe, and such accusers as Anytus and Me- litusf. Which, however, shews the folly of bringing this renovation for a proof, that the Stoics believed a future state of rewards and punishments.
Having now gone through these FOUR FAMOUS SCHOOLS, I should have closed the section, but that
T imagined
* STCJ'XWV ol tsteixg s I/.OVQV TY\V ruv
tlveu QztriV) a>.X« xj TY\V ruv aQxvxruv xj TUV HXT aur&f ya$ TY,V ra tzavTCx; sKTrvpua-iv anti^ccHis
TCC& <XTT apxps (&%fi r^aj isavlvv ytyovs re (Asvlot StgaTrzuEiv icu; rctg otTrefjupaure^ ot 0.7:0 off OTTWJ, aTra^a^oatlsg (pacriv effgo-Qat Kola eiTro TOJV vspolsppv veptofav vsavla? no, TI$ TO!
. Orig. cont. Cels. 1. iv. ed. Spen. pp. 208, 209. The nature of this renovation is examined at large, and admirably developed, in the Critical Inquiry into the Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers. f See note [S] at the end of this Book.
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 107
I imagined the curious reader would be well pleased to know what CICERO thought, on this important point ; Cicero, whcTfinished the Conquests of his countrymen in Greece, and brought home in triumph, those only remains of their ancient grandeur, their PHILOSOPHY and ELOQUENCE*. But there are great difficulties in getting to his real sentiments. I shall mention some of the chief.
1. First, that which arises from the use of the double doctrine ; a circumstance common to the Greek philosophy ; of its essence ; and therefore, inseparable from its existence. The ancients who lived after Cicero, such as- Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Synesius, Sallust the philosopher, Apuleius, do iii fact speak of it as an instrument still in use ; nor do any other ever mention it as a thing become obsolete. So that when Cicero undertook to explain the Greek Philosophy to his countrymen, he could not but employ so fashionable a vehicle of science. But how much it contributed to hide the real senti ments of the user, we have seen above.
2. Another difficulty arises from the peculiar genius of the Sect he espoused, the New Academy ; which was entirely sceptical: It professed a way of philosophising, in which there was no room for any
^ - ToV <F ' ATTOtoUVlOV - EtVf-tV Sfi /UEV, W X/XEfftW,
•fy Savpafai ry$ tie *E*tee'J©" o'uiluga T«V T^%»V, opoiv, TUV xahuv xj/owv ysrcAEiVelo, x^ ^odfrct, 'Pw/j.aioi$ &a era JIAIAEIAN TE *) AOFON, Tlut. Vit. Cic,
one
io8 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
one to interfere with his own opinions ; or, indeed, to have any. It is true, were we to consider Cicero as a strict Academic, in the Grecian sense of ad hering to a Sect, our enquiry would be presently at an end ; or at least very impertinent : but he pro fessed this Philosophy in a much laxer way ; as we shall now see.
3. And this leads us to another difficulty, arising from the. manner, in which the Greek Philosophy was received in Italy. The Romans in general were, by their manners and dispositions, little qualified for speculative science. When they first got footing, and had begun a commerce for arts, in Greece, they entertained great jealousies of the Sophists, and used them roughly : and it was long before they could be persuaded to think favourably of a set of men, who professed themselves always able and ready to dispute for or against VIRTUE indifferently * : and even then, the Greek Philoso phy was introduced into Rome, but as a more re* fined species of luxury, and a kind of table-furniture, set apart for the entertainment of the Great; who were yet very far from the Grecian humour, jurare in verba rnagistri : they regarded the doctrines of the Sect they espoused, not as a rule of life, but only as a kind of Apparatus for their rhetoric schools ; to enable them to invent readily, and reason justly, in the affairs of life. Cicero, who best
* See note [T] at the end of this Book.
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 109
knew upon what footing it was received, says no less, when he ridicules Cato for an unfashionable fellow. Hac homo ingcniosimmus M. Cato aucto- ribus eruditissimis inductus, arripuit, NEQUE DISPU-
TANDI CAUSA, UT MAGNA PARS, Sed ltd VWCtldi*.
The least, then, we may conclude from hence is, that Cicerc^ laughing at those who espoused a Sect viwndi cwm^ did himself espouse the Academic, causa disputandi: which indeed he frankly enough confesses to his adversary, in this very oration: fatebor enim, Cato, me quoque in adolescentia, diffisurn inferno meo, quaesisse adjumenta doctrinae. Which, mother words, is, I myself espoused a Sect of philosophy, for its use in disputation. Quintilian, having spoken of Cicero as a Philosopher, when lie comes to Cato's nephew, Brutus, (in his Philosophy, as much in earnest as his Uncle) ; of him, by way of Contrast to Cicero, he says, Egregius vero, multo- que quatn in Orationibus prsestantior Brutus, sufFecit ponderi rerum : sclas enim sentire qua dicit. As much as to say, " in this he was like Cicero, that he was equal to his subject ; in this however he was unlike, that he always said what he thought" This slippery way, therefore, of professing the Greek philosophy, must needs add greatly to the embarras we complain of.
4. A fourth difficulty arises from Tally's purpose in writing his works of philosophy : which was, nc
* See note [U] at the end of this Book,
to
no THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
to deliver his own opinion on any point of ethics or metaphysics, but to explain to his countrymen, in the most intelligible manner, whatever the Greeks had taught concerning them. In the execution of which design, no Sect could so well serve his turn as the NEW ACADEMY, whose principle it was, not to interfere with their own opinions : and a passage, in his Academic questions, inclines me to think, he entered late into this Sect, and not till he had formed his project. Varro, one of the dialogists, says to him : sed de teipso quid est quod audio ? Tully answers : quanam de re ? Varro replies ; relict am a te VETEREM JAM, tractan autem NOVAM. Varro hints at it again, where, speaking afterwards to Tully, he says, tua mnt mine paries, qui ab antiquontm ratione NUNC desciscis, <§• ea, qua ab Arcesila novata sunt probas, docere *, §c. This further appears from a place in his Nature of the Gods f , where he says, that his espousing the New Academy of a sudden, "was a thing altogether unlooked for. Multis etiam sensi mirabile videri, earn nobis potissi- mum probatam tsse philosophiam, qua lucem eriperet <§• quasi noctem quondam rebus ojfunderct, deserts- que discipline, % jam pridem relict a patrocimum NEC OPINATUM a nobis esse susceptum. The change then was late; and after the ruin of the Republic;
* Manutius and Davies, who, I suppose, did not attend to what passed before, agree to throw out the word mine, as perfectly useless and insignificant.
f Lib. i. c. 3.
when
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 111 when Cicero retired from business, and had leisure, in his recess, to plan and execute this noble under taking. So that a learned Critic appears to have been mistaken, when he supposed the choice of the New Academy was made in his youth. This Sect (says he) did best agree with the vast genius and ambitious spirit of YOUNG CICERO *.
5. But the principal difficulty proceeds from the several and various characters he sustained in his life, and writings ; which habituated him to feign and dissemble his opinions. He may be considered as an Orator, a Statesman, and a Philosopher. i. As a STATESMAN, he discharged the office of a PATRIOT, urbis conservator $ par ens, in a Go vernment torn in pieces by the dissensions between Senate and People. But could this be done by speaking his real sentiments to either ? Both were very faulty ; and, as faulty men generally are, too angry to hear reason. I have given an instance below, in the case of the Catiline conspiracy. And the issue of it declares the wisdom of his conduct He saved the Republic. 2. As a PHILOSOPHER, his end and design in writing was not to deliver his own opinion, but to ex plain theGjecianPhilosofhi/. On which account he blames those men as too curious, who were for knowing his own sentiments. In pursuance of this design, he brings in Stoics,
* Remarks upon a late Discourse of Free-thinking, Part IL Rem. 53.
Epicureans,
ii2 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
Epicureans, Platonists, Academics new and old, in order to instruct the Romans in their various opinions, and several ways of reasoning. But whether it be himself or others that are brought upon the stage, it is the Academic, not Cicero ; it is the Stoic, the Epicurean, not Balbus nor Velleius, who deliver their opinions, 3. As an ORATOR, he was an Advocate jbr his client, or more properly personated him. Verum etiam (says Quintilian) in his causis quibus advocamur, eadem differentia diligenter est eustodienda. Utiinur emmjictione personarwn, et velut ore alieno loquimur. In this case, then, he was to speak the sentiments of his client, not his own. So that in all these cases, though he acted neither a weak nor an unfair part, he becomes totally inscrutable. For these were Characters, all equally personated: and no one more the real man than the other : but each of them taken up, and laid down, for the occasion. This appears from the numerous inconsistencies we find in him, throughout the course of his sustaining them. In his oration de Harusp. respon. in senate, when the popular superstition was inflamed by present prodigies, he gives the highest character of the wisdom of their Ancestors, as Founders of their established Religion : " Ego vero " primum habeo auctores ac magistros religionurn V colendarum majores nostros : quorum mihi tanta " fuisse sapientia videtur, ut satis superque pru- * dentes sint, qui illorum prudentiam, non dicam " assequi, seel, quanta fuerit, perspicere possint" 13 Yet
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 113
Yet in his treatise of Laws, as the reader has seen above *, he frankly declares, that the folly of their Ancestors had suffered many depravities to be brought into Religion. Here the Philosopher con futed the Statesman : As, in another instance, the Statesman seems to have got the better of the Phi losopher. He defends the paradoxes of the Stoics in a philosophical dissertation : But in his oration for Marina, he ridicules those paradoxes with the utmost freedom. Nor under one and the same Character, or at one and the same time, is he more consistent. In the orations against Catiline, when he opens the conspiracy to the Senate, he represents it as the most deep-laid design, which had infected all orders and degrees of men in the City. Yet, when he brings the same affair before the People, he talks of it as only the wild and senseless escape of a few desperate wretches ; it being necessary for his purpose, that the Senate and People, w ho viewed the Conspiracy from several stations, should see it in different lights.
We meet with numbers of the like contradictions, delivered in his own person, and under his philoso phic character. Thus, in his books of divination, he combats all augury, &c. and yet, in his philoso-
VHMPMMM
phic treatise of laws, he delivers himself in their favour ; and in so serious and positive a manner, that it is difficulfTrot to believe him in earnest. In a word, he laughed at the opinions of State, when * See Book II. sect, 6,
-Vot.IIJ. I be
114 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III, he was amongst the Philosophers ; he laughed at the doctrines of the Philosophers, when he was cajoling an Assembly ; and he laughed heartily at both, when withdrawn amongst his friends in a corner. Nor, is this the worst part of the story. He hath given us no MARK to distinguish his meaning: For, in his Academic questions *, he is ready to swear he always speaks what he thinks : Jurarem per Jovem Deosque penates, me & ardere studio veri reperiendi, & ea sentire quiE dicerem | : Yet, in his Nature of the Gcds ;];, he has strangely changed his note : Qui autem requirunt, quid quaque de re ipsi sen- tiamus, curiosius id faciunt quam necesse est.
If it be asked, then, in which of his writings we can have any reasonable assurance of his true sen timents ? I reply, scarce in any, but his EPISTLES. Nor is this said to evade any material evidence that may be found in his other works, in favour of a future state of rewards and punishments : on the contrary, there are many very glaring instances of his disbelief, as far a.s we can hazard a judgment of his mind. As in his Offices, which bids the fairest of any to come from his heart, he delivers himself very effectually against it; as will appear in the next section. And in his oration for Cluentius to the Judges, he speaks with yet more force on the same side of the question : " Nam nunc quidem
* Lib. iv. sect. 20.
f See note [X] at the end of this Book.
J Lib. i. sect. 5.
" quid
Sect. 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 115
" quid tandem illi mail mors attulit? nisi forte " ineptiis zcfabulis ducirnur, ut existimemus illurn " apud inferos impiorum supplicia perferre," &c. " Qure si falsa sunt, id quod omncs intdligunt, " quid ei tandem aliud mors eripuit praeter sensum " doloris ? "
Nor will most of those passages, which are usually brought in support of the opinion, that Tully did really believe the immortality of the soul, stand in any account against these : Because, as will be shewn in the next section, they best agree to a kind of Immortality very consistent with a thorough dis belief of a future state of rewards and punishments. As to the celebrated argument of Plato, for the immortality of the soul, explained and inforced by Cicero, it is so big with impiety and nonsense, that one would wonder how any Christian Divine could have the indiscretion to recommend it as doing credit to ancient Philosophy ; or to extol the inventors and espousers of it, as having delivered and enter tained very just, rational, a /id proper notions con cerning the immortality of the human soul. If we examine this Philosophy as it is delivered us by Plato in his Phasdrus, or as it is translated by Cicero in his first Tusculan, we shall find it gives the human soul the attributes of the Divine Being, and supposes it to have been from eternity, uncre ated and self-existent. Speaking of the principle of motion, or the soul, it says, principii autem nulla est origo : narn e principio oriuntur omnia : ipsura
I 2 autera
li6 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book IIL autem niilla ex re alia nascl pot est : nee enim esset id principium quod gigneretur aliunde. — Id autem ncc nascl potcst, ncc mori.- - -Hsec est propria natura animi' atque vis; quae si est ima ex omnibus, quaB se ipsa semper rnoveat, neque nata certe est, et tfterna est. i T-usc. e. 2, 3. It is plain too, that this argument assigns the human soul a NECES SARY immortality, or an immortality which arises from its nature and essence, or from its original and inherent powers ; and not from the Will or appoint ment of God. We are told that the soul is im mortal, because it is a self-moving substance ; for that a self-moving substance can never cease to be, since it mil always have a power of existing within itself, independent of any foreign or external cause. And what can be said more of God himself ? sentit igitur animus se moveri, quod cum sentit, illud una sentit se vi sua, non aliena, mover! ; ncc ac cider e posse, ut ipse unquam a se de&cratttr. i Tusc. c. 23. Here its immortality is not supposed to arise from the influence of any foreign or external cause, but is resolved into the natural and inherent powers of the soul itself. Plato says, tTrsiK 21 dytw-nlov ^ &JHx<pQogo»
TBTO til zrz aVoAAuo-^t XTS
auro otvotywi
yvsa-Qxi Jwojov, 1^ avayxys dyivvtlov rs av it*. The necessity here spoken of was supposed to arise from an internal faculty and power of the soul, or from the principle of self:motion. The force of all this, has been shuffled over by the wri- ters against the D. L. with only repeating, that,
Cicero
Sect. 3-] OP MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 117
Cicero inferred the immortality of the soul from its wonderful powers and faculties, on its principle of self-motion, its memory, invention, wit and compre hension. As to self-motion, the word is equivocal, and may either signify the power given to a being to begin motion ; or a power inherent^ and essential to a Being, who has all things within itself, and receives nothing from without. Now we have shewn, that Plato and his followers used sel£motion, when applied to the soul, in this latter sense ; and from thence inferred a NECESSARY immortt'.lity^ in that Being which had it, an immortality which im plied increation and self-existence. As to the other powers and faculties of memory, invention, wit and comprehension, whatsoever immortality may he logi cally deduced from them, it is not that which Cicero deduces : For, as we see, his is a strict and proper immortality, an existence from all eternity, to all eternity: In a word, the immortality of the Supreme Being himself. Si cernerem (says Tally) quemad- modum nasci possent [facilitates animi] etiam quem- admodum interirent viderern. i Tusc. c. 24. And again, when he proves the immortality of the soul against Pansetius, he .goes upon the principle that the soul cannot be shewn to be immortal, but on the supposition of its being actually ungenerated. Volt enim [Panaetius] quod nemo negat, quicquid natinn
sit interire ; nasci autem animos, quod declaret
corum similitudo— nihil necessitatis adfert cur nas- catur, aniaii similitudo. i Tusc. c. 32, 33. I would
j 3 therefore
1 1 8 THE DIVINE LEGATION * [Book III. therefore have the friends of REASON, not to say of REVELATIOX, consider whether these extravagant notions of the human soul, do any honour to ancient Philosophy ? and whether Tully had not acted a more decent and modest part, to have held consist ently, even with Epicurus, the mortality of the soul, than widi Plato, that it was uncreated, self -existent, and necessarily eternal ?
It is only then (as we say) in his EPISTLES to his friends, where we see the man divested of the Poll* tician, the Sophist, and the Advocate : And there he professes his disbelief of a future state of rewards and punishments in the frankest and freest manner. To L. Mescinius he says : " Sed ut ilia secunda " moderate tulimus, sic hanc non sol urn adversam, " sed funditus eversarn fortunam fortiter ferre debe- " mus ; ut hoc saltern in maximis malis boni con- " scquamur, ut mortem, quam etiani beati contern- " nere debeamus, propterea quod NULLUM SENSUM " esset habitura, nunc sic aifecti, non modo con- " temnere debeamus, sed etiam optare *." In his epistle to Torqnatus, he says : " Ita enim vivere " ut non sit vivendum, miscrrimum est. Mori autem <c nemo sapiens miserum dixit, ne beato quidem — " sed haec consolatio levis est ; ilia gravior, qua te " uti spero: Ego certe utor. Nee enim DUM ERO, " angar ulla re, cum omni vacern culpa : Et si " NON ERO, sensu oi'inino carebo •)•." Some have taken the ero and non ero, in this passage, to relate
* Tarn. Ep.l. v. Ep. 21, t Lib. vi. Ep. 3.
generically,
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 11.9
generically, to existence or non-existence absolutely; and not, as Tully certainly meant it, specifically, to the state of existence or non-existence here, i. e. Itfe or death. But if that were his meaning, that if he had no being he should have no sense, Torquatus, for so wonderful a discovery, might well have returnee him his proverb, quoted in this Epistle, ?x< 'A9iW. On the contrary, his meaning in all these passages is that he should have no sense, because he should have no being. So in his Tuscul. 1. i. c. 1 1. Quomodo igitur, aut cur, mortem malum tibi videri dicis; quse aut beatos nos efticiet, animis manen- tibus; aut non miseros, scnsu carentes, i.e. anwns non manentibus. But the foregoing passage from the epistle to Mescinius, in which we find the same thought, and in the same expression, puts the mean ing out of doubt. Add to this, that it was the very language of the Epicureans, and used by Lucretius as an antidote against the fear of death, " Scilicet baud nobis quidquam, qui NON ERiMUstum, •" Accidere omnino potcrit SENSUMQUE movere/ But let it be observed, that when Cicero talks of .death as of the end of man, he does not make this ..conclusion on the Epicurean principle, that the sou was a mere quality, but on the Platonic, that it was resolved into the substance from whence it was ex tracted, and had no longer a particular existence. Again to the same person* he says; * Lib. vi. Ep. 4.
I 4 ? <luod
120 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Booklll.
' quod mihi ad consolationem commune tccum est, ' si jam vocer ad exitum vitae, non ab ea republica ' avellar, qua carendum esse dolearn, pra\sertim cum ' id SINE U^LO SEXSU futurum sit." And again to his friend Toranius*: "Cum consilio pronci ( nihil possit, una ratio videtur, quicquid evenerit, ' ferre moderate, praesertim cum omnium reruin ' mors sit extremism? That Cicero here speaks his real sentiments, is beyond all doubt. These are letters of consolation, to his friends, when he him self, by reason of the ill state of Public Affairs, much wanted consolation ; a season when men have
leasLfeuise> and are most disposed to lay open their whole hearts ;
Nam verse voces turn dernum pectore ab imo ' Ejiciuntur, & eripitur PJERSOXA, manet RES f."
LUC RET,
Here his real sentiments are deliveredj)ositiyely; which in his Tusculan disputations he advances only hypothetically ; but with a clearness that well com ments the conciseness of the foregoing passages. M. Video te alte spectare & velle in ccelurn migrare. A. Spero fore, ut contingat id nobis. " Sed fac,
ut isti volunt, animos NON remanere post mortem.
-M.Mai vero quid affert ista sentcntja? Fac
f enim sic animum intcrire, ut corpus. Num igitur
' aliq'ais dolor, aut omnino post mortem SENSES
* Lib. vi. Ep. 21.
| See note [Y] at the end of this Book,
" in
Sect 3.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 121
fi in corpore est? — Nein ammo quidem igitur SEN- " sus reinanet, ipse enim nusquam est. — Hoc pre- " mendurn etiam atque etiam est argumentum, " confirmato illo, de quo, si mortales animi sunt, " dubitare non possumus, quin tantus interitus in " morte sit, ut ne minima quidem suspicio SENSUS " relinquatur *." Now, this is the very language of the Epicureans, as appears from the following words of Pliny : " Post sepulturam alise atque alias " manium ambages. Omnibus a supremadie eadem, " qua? ante primum : nee magis a morte SENSUS " ullus aut corpori aut animne quam ante natalem. " Eadem enim vanitas in futurum etiam se pro- " pagat, — alias immortalitatem anima3, alias trans- tl fiorurationem, alias sensum inferis dando, & manes " colendo, deumque faciendo, qui jam etiam homo <( esse desierit— —Qua3 (rnalum) ista dementia, " iterari vitam morte ? Quaeve genitis quies unquam, " si in sublimi SENSUS ANIM^E manetf."
PLUTARCH was amongst the Greeks, what Cicero was amongst the Latins, as far as concerned the business of delivering and digesting the various opi nions of the Philosophers. In his famous tract of SUPERSTITION, he uses their COMMON arms to com bat that evil ; and expresses himself with uncommon force where he speaks of a future state as an error essential to superstition, and what the general voice of Reason, interpreted by sound Philosophy, dis-
* Tusc. Disp. lib. i. c. 34 — 36.
t Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 55.
claims,
122 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. claims. " Death is the final period of our being. " But SUPERSTITION says NO. - She stretches "' out life beyond life itself. Her fears extend further " than our existence. She has joined to the idea •" of death, that other inconsistent idea of eternal " life in misery. For when all things come to an •" end, then, in the opinion of Superstition, they " begin to be endless *." --
I will beg leave to conclude this section with two observations relative to the general argument, i . We have just given a passage from the oration for Clu- entius, in which, Cicero having ridiculed the popu lar fables concerning a future state, he subjoins, if these be false, as all men see they are, what hath death deprived him of, besides a SENSE o£_J>am t f
* — -sTEfa; In .j3/8 wei&ow avQf virus o Savo?©- tug OE
TOV @o£ov, ^ trwaTfltttroi TV hriwiav aQavxruv' xj ore wai/slai qsp&yjtotTQy' ap%fff6etji
*[* Quee si falsa sunt, id quod omnes intelligimt, quid ci tandem aliud mors eripuit praeter SENSUM doloris? — • Seneca reasons in the same manner. Mors contemni debet magis quam solet : multa enim de ilia credimus, Mnltorom ingeniis certalum est ad augendam ejus in^ famiam. Descriptus est career Lnfernus, 8c perpetua jic.cte oppressa regie, in qua
- " ingens janitor orci," &c.
Sed etiam cum persuaseris istas fabulas esse, nee quic- quam defunctis superesse quod timeant, subit alius metus, seque enim tiinor ne apucl inferos sint; quam ne nusquam. Ep. 83.
From
Sect. 3-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 123
From this inference of the Orator, it appears that we have not concluded amiss, when, from several quotations, interspersed throughout this work, in which a disbelief of the common notion of a future
state of rewards and punishments is implied, we have inferred the writer's disbelief of a future state of rewards and punishments in general. 2. We have seen the Philosophers of every Sect, one while speaking directly for, and at another, as directly against a future state of rewards and punishments, without intimating the least change in their prin ciples, or making the least hesitation in their pro fessions : So that either we must hold them guilty of the most gross and impudent contradictions, which their characters will not suffer us to conceive of them ; or else admit the explanation given above of the DOUBLE DOCTRINE, and the different methods of their exoteric and esoteric discipline.
Yet to all this it hath been said, " If the Philo- " sophers disbelieved the popular Divinities, and " yet really believed the being of a God; why " might they not reject the popular 'opinions of a " future state, and yet, at the same time, hold a « future state of real rewards and punishments ? " Now as they who did not believe Hercules and " JEsculapius to be Gods, did not for that reason " disbelieve the existence of a governing Mind; so " they that did not believe /Eacus or Minos to be " judges of Hell, did not for that reason disbelieve
« all
124 THE DIVINE LEGATION [BookUL
1 all future rewards and punishments*." I answer, the two cases are nothing alike ; the common fate of this Writer s Parallels.
i. At the very time the Philosophers discard the popular Divinities, they declare for the bqingj>f a Cod. Thus when Varro had said that Hercules and /Esculapius, Castor and Pollux, were not Gods; he adds, they only have a right notion of God, who conceive him to be a Soul, actuating and governing all things by his power and wisdorn f. But now, when these Philosophers exploded Styx, Acheron, and Coc3^tus, did they ever substitute any other future state of rewards and punishments in their place?
2. The Philosophers give the popular stones of the infernal regions, as the only foundation and support of future rewards and punishments ; so that, if they explode the popular stones, they must explode the things themselves. And what is more,
THEY TELL US THAT THEY DID SO. But W8S * Dr. Sykes.
f Quae sunt an tern ilia, quae prolata in multitudinem noccrit ? Haec, inquit, non esse Deos Herculem, ^Escu- Japium, Castorcm, Pollucem. Proditur enim a doctis, quod homines fuerint, et humana conditione defecerint. • — But the same Varro says, — Quod hi soli ei videantur animadvertisse, quid esset Deus, qui crediderunt eum csse animam, motu et ratione mundum gubernantem. Apud August, de Civ. Dei, 1. iv. c. 27 — 3 1.
this
Sect. 4.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 125 this the case concerning their popular Divinities? Do they ever represent these as the only foundation and support of the belief of a Deity?
3. Lastly, The Philosophers held a PRINCIPLE (arid we are now about to enter upon that matter) which was inconsistent with a future state of re wards and punishments : in consequence of which, they formally, and in express words, disclaim and reject all such state and condition. But I know of no principle they held, inconsistent with the belief ofja God; nor of any declarations they ever made against such belief. We conclude, therefore, that the two cases are altogether dissimilar and unrelated.
SECT. IV.
NOTWITHSTANDING this full evidence against the PHILOSOPHERS; I much doubt, the general prejudice in their favour, supported by the reason ableness of the doctrine itself, will be yet apt to keep the reader's opinion on this point suspended.
I shall therefore, in the last place, explain the CAUSES which withheld the Philosophers from be- lieving : and these will appear to have been certain fundamental PRINCIPLES of the ancient Greek Phi losophy, altogether inconsistent with the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments.
But to give this its due force, it will be proper to premise, that the constitution of that Philosophy,
being
126 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III. being above measure refined and speculative, it was always wont to judge and determine rather on ME TAPHYSICAL than on MORAL maxims; and to stick to all consequences, how absurd soever, which were seen to arise from the former.
Of this, we have a famous instance in the ancient Democritic Philosophy: which holding, that not only sensations, but even the cogitations of the mind, were the mere passion of the Thinker ; and so, all knowledge and understanding, the same thing with sense; the consequence was, that there could not be any error of false judgment ; because all passion was true passion, and all appearance true appear ance. From hence it followed, that the sun and moon were no bigger than they seemed to us : and these men of reason choae rather to avow this con clusion, than to renounce the metaphysic principle which led them into it.
So just is that censure which a celebrated French writer passes upon them : when the Philosophers once besot themselves with a prejudice, they are even wore incurable than the People themselves ; because they besot themselves not only with the prejudice, but with the false reasonings employed to support it *.
* Quand les philosophes s'entetent une fois d'un pre- juge, ils sont plus incurables que le peuple meine; parce qu'ils s'entetent egalement & du prejuge & des fausses raisons dont ils le soutiennent. Fontenelle, Hist, des Oracles.
The
Sect 4.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 127
The regard to metaphysk principles being so great, the Greek Philosophers (as we shall see) must needs reject the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, how innumerable and invincible soever the moral arguments are which may be brought to support it For now we come to shew, that there were two METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLES concerning GOD and the SOUL, universally embraced by all, which necessarily exclude.all notion of a future state of reward and punishment.
The FIRST PRINCIPLE, which led the Philoso phers to conclude against such a state was, THAT
GOD COULD NEITHER BE ANGRY NOR KURT
ANY ONE. This, Cicero assures us, was held uni versally ; as well by those who believed a Provi dence, as by those who believed not: At hoc " quidem COMMUNE EST OMNIUM PHILOSOPHO: " RUM, non eorurn modo, qui Deurn nihil habere " ipsum negotii dicunt, & nihil exhibere alteri : sed " eorum etiam qui Deum semper agere aliquid & " moliri volunt, NUMQ.UAM NEC IRASCI DEUM: " NEC NOCERE*." What conclusion the Epicu- cureans drew from hence (those who, he here says, held, Deum nihil habere ipsum negotii), he tell in another place, by the mouth of Velleius their spokesman. " Intelligitur eniin" (an expression de noting that, in this point, the philosophers were agreed) " a beata, immortalique natura, & iram " £ oratiam segregari : quibus remotis, nullos a
* Offic. lib. iii. cap. 28.
" s opens
128 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III, " superis impendere METUS *." And that the other Sects drew the same conclusion (which infers the denial of a future state of rewards and punishments) we shall now see by Cicero himself, who speaks for them all.
He is here commending Regulus for preferring the public good to his own, and the honest to the profitable ; in dissuading the release of the Cartha ginian prisoners, and returning back to certain misery, when he might have spent his age at home in peace and pleasure. All this, he observes, was done out of regard to his oath. But it may, perhaps* says he, be objected, what is there in an oath ? The violator need not fear the wrath of Heaven ; | for all Philosophers hold, that God cannot be angry nor hurt any one. He replies, that, indeed, it was # consequence of the principle of God's not being angry, that the perjured man had nothing to fear from divine vengeance : but then it was not this fear, which was really NOTHING, but justice and good faith, which made the sanction of an oath.
The learned will chuse to hear him in his own words.
•
" M. Atilius Regulus Carthaginem rediit: neque
" eum caritas patrire retinuit, nee suorum. Neque
" vero turn ignorabat se ad crudelissimum hostem,
" & ad exquisita supplicia proficisci : Sed jus-
" jurandum conservandum putabat. Quid est igi-
" tur, dixerit quis, in jurejurando ? Nurn iratum
" timemus jovem? At hoc quideui commune
* De Nat. Deor. 1, i. c. 17.
" est
Sect. 4-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 129
" est omnium philosophorum. — NUMQUAM NEC " IRASCI DEUM, NEC NOCERE. — Hoec quidem " ratio non magis contra Regulum, quani contra " omne jusjurandum valet : Sed in jurejurando, " non qui metus, sed quas vis sit, debet intelligi. " Est enim jusjurandum affirmatio religiosa : Quod " autem affirmate, quasi Deo teste, promiseris, id " tenendum est : Jam enim non ad iram Deorum, " quag NULL A EST ; sed ad justitiam & ad finem " pertinet *." It is true, the same Tully says f , " deos placatos pietas efficiet et sanctitas," which looks as if he thought the Gods might be angry ; and that, therefore, by qu<z nulla est., in the words above, he did not mean, what the words imply,— qua vana et cowmentitia est ; but, what they do not imply — quci nlhil ad rcm pertinet. Bu t placatos is not here used in the strict specific sense of ap peased, which inters preceding anger ; but in the more loose generic sense of propitious, which infers no such thing. And my reason for understanding the word in this sense, is, that, two_ or three lines afterwards, he declares it to be the opinion of the Philosophers (to which he agrees) Deos non nocere : But this opinion was founded on that other, in question, Deos non irasci.
Here then, we see, Tully owns the consequence of this universal principle; that it overthrew the notion of divine punishments : And it will appear
* Cap. 26, 27, 28, 29. f Offic. ii. 3.
VOL. III. K presently,
130 THE DIVINE LEGATION [BookllL
presently, that he was no^singular in this concession; but spoke the sense of his Grecian masters.
A modern reader, full of the philosophic ideas of these late ages, will he surprised, perhaps, to be told, that this consequence greatly embarrassed Antiquity ; when he himself can so easily evade it, by distinguishing between the human passions of anger and fondness, and the divine attributes of justice and goodness ; on which the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is invin cibly established. But the ancients had no such precise ideas of the divine Nature.
Dacier, who understood the genius of Antiquity very well, was of the same opinion, as appears from his comment on these words of Antoninus— If there be Gods, then leaving the world is no such dreadful thing ; for you may be sure they uill do you no , harm — a p\v -9W tl<r», aVb $wfo xaxj yap <rf ijx av T&tpi&ct,Xoiev. — Comme les Stoiciens mivoient aucune idee ni de peines, ni de recom penses eternelles apres la mort, et que le plus grand caractere qn'ils reconnoissoient en Dieu, estoit une BONTE INFJNIE, ils cstoient persuadez qu'apres cette vie on n'avoit rien a craindre, et que c'estoit une chose entierement opposee a la nature de Dieu, de faire du mal. La veritable religion a tire les homtnes d'une securite si pernicieuse, &c. — The learned Critic, indeed, expresses himself very ill, confounding the premisses and conclusion, the cause and effect, all the way, one with another; but his
meaning
Sect. 4.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 131
meaning is plain enough, that (in his opinion) the Ancients were very inexpert in their attempts to sever (if ever they attempted it) anger from God's justice, w\A fondness from his goodness. We shall shew, by an illustrious instance, that he was not mistaken ; lest the reader should suspect that, of an obscure speculative Principle, we have feigned one of general credit and influence.
LACTANTIUS, from a forensic Lawyer, now be come an Advocate for Christianity, found nothing so much hindered its reception with the Learned, as the doctrine of a FUTURE JUDGMENT ; which, their universal principle, that God could not be angry, directly opposed. To strike at the root of this evil, he composed a discourse, which Jerom calls, pulcherrimum opus, intitled, BE IRA DEI : For lie had observed, he tells us, that this Princi ple vvas now much spread amongst the common People * ; he lays the blame of it upon the Philo sophers f ; and tells us, as Tully had done before, that all the Philosophers agreed to exclude the . passion of anger from the Godhead £.
So that the general syllogism, Lactantius pro posed to answer, was this :
If God hath no affections of fondness or hatred,
love or anger ; he cannot reward or punish. But he hath no affections ; Therefore, S^c.
* Animadvert! PLURIMOS existimare non irasci Deum. f lidem tarnen a Philosophis irretiti, &falsis argumen- tationibus capti.
% Ita omnes Philosophide ira consentiunt.
K 2
Let
132 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book IIL let us see then, how he manages : For although; his knowledge in the true genius of Christianity was, perhaps, very imperfect, he was exquisitely well skilled in the strong and weak side of Pagan Philosophy. A modern answerer would certainly have denied the major ; but that was a Principle received by all parties, as Laetantius himself gives us to understand, when he says, that the Principle of God's not being angry destroyed^ all religion, by taking away a future state *. He had nothing left then but to deny the minor : And this, he tell? us, is his purpose to undertake '\.
His business is to prove, that God hatb human passions : And though, by several expressions, drop ped up and down, lie seems to be fully sensible of the grossness of this Principle; yet, on the other hand, all Philosophy agreeing to make it the ne cessary support of a liiture state, he sets upon his task in good earnest, avoids all refinements, and maintains that there are in God, as there are in man, the passions of loi'c and hatred. These in deed are of two kinds in man, reasonable and unreasonable ; in God, the reasonable only are to be found. But, to make all sure, and provide a proper subject for these passions, he contends strongly
* Qui sine ira Deum esse credentes, dissolvimt omnern religionem — Sive igitur gratiam Deo, sive iram, sive- utrtimque detraxeris, religionem tolli necesse est. .
f Ha?c [nempe ut irascatur Deus] tuenda nobis, 8c asserenda seritentia est : in ca enim summa omnis &
cardo relisionis pietatisque versatur*.
for
Sect. 4.] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 133
for God's having a "human form : No discreditable notion, at that time, in the Church ; and which, if I might be indulged a conjecture, I would suppose, was first introduced for that very purpose, to which Lactantius here enforces it.
But it is very observable, that our Author in- troduceth this monstrous notion of God's having a human form, with an artful attempt, supported by all his eloquence, to discredit human reason', in order to dispose the Reader to believe him, that nothing could be known of God but by Revelation: This is an old trick of the Disputers of ail times, to make reprisals upon Reason; which when found too upright to deflect, must be represented as too weak to judge. And when once we find an Author, who would be valued for his logic, begin with de preciating Reason ; we may be assured he has some very unreasonable paradox to advance. So when the learned Huetius would pass upon his readers a number of slight chimerical conjectures for De monstrations, he introduces his work by cavilling at the certainty of the principles of Geometry,
I. Here we see how the Orthodox evaded this conclusion of Pagan Philosophy, against a state of future punishment. Would you know how the Heretics managed ? They went another way to work, which it may be just worth while to mention. The Creator of the invisible world (or the first Cause) the Marcionites called the GOOD; and the
K 3 Creator
134 THE DIVINE LEGATION [Book III.
Creator of the visible world, the JUST. Si de Marcionis argueris hasresi, quae alterum bonum, alteruni justum Deum ferens, ilium invisibilium, hunc yisibilium creatorem — Hieron. Ep. ad Pam- mach. Now they agreed in this, with the Pagans, that the GOOD could not punish, but that the JUST would ; whose office it was to execute ven geance on the wicked. And, at the same time, holding an EVIL PRINCIPLE, they called this Just, the MIDDLE, whose office is thus described in the dialogue against Marcion — To those who conform themselves to the GOOD, the MIDDLE PRINCIPLE gives peace ; but to those who obey the EVIL, the MIDDLE inflicts tribulation and anguish. 'H w pi<n K^XP vTM68<rt TW ayaOw avtrw «J*cta<n7, U5T»jxo8<ri St TU •zsroi/n^w S^iiJ/ii/ tf/&W*. Thus did these Heretics divest the first Cause, or the GOOD, of his attribute of justice ; and gave it to the Middle Principle, be cause they were not able to sever it from anger. Upon the whole, as Lactautius, himself a Philoso pher, was admirably well versed in all the pagan Systems, lie could not but understand a Principle^ which all the Philosophers held ; nor coulql he mistake a Consequence, which they all drew from it. And as St. Jerom has dignified this tract de ira Dei, with the title of PULCHERRIMUM OPUS, we must Deeds conclude that the method. Lactantius took to support a future judgment was strictly conformable to THE OLD POSTURE OF DEFENCE, and approved by the Orthodox of that time.
I. But
JSect. 4-] OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 135
I. But it may be objected, perhaps, that this principle, of God's not being angry, only concluded against a future state of punishments, and not of rewards : Many of the philosophers holding the affection of grace and favour ; though they all denied that of anger ; as Lactantius expressly as sures us : Ita omnes philosophi dc ira consentiunt, de gratia discrepant. To this I reply,
i. That, when the sanction of punishment is taken off, the strongest influence of a future state is destroyed. For while the Ancients made the rewards of Elysium only temporary, "Has omnes, ubi millerotam volvere per annos,"&cv they made the punishments of Tartarus eternal ;
" Sedet, aeternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus." - - -
This, Plato teaches in several places of his works *. And Celsus is so far from rejecting it, that he ranks it in the number of those doctrines which should never be abandoned, but maintained to the very lastf.