of the dead I am called in queftion,' or brought into judgment, as the word properly fignifies, he still told the truth, his attachment to the doctrine of a bleffed refurrection for holy men being a secret source and spring of the moleftation that was now given him. Indeed he did not tell the whole truth, for there were likewise other causes of his being thus haraffed. But under what obligation was he to do fo in his circumstances? Surely it is lawful for us to conceal a part of the truth, when such reserve does no injury to others, and is conducive to our own benefit. So Grotius, Cumberland, Puffendorf, and other able moralifts, have decided; and fo the beft men have practifed, without incurring any cenfure for want of integrity and uprightness. For Mofes mentioned only to Pharaoh, that he and his people would go three days journey into the wilderness, and facrifice to the Lord their God; not that they would proceed toward Canaan, Exod. viii. 27. And Jeremiah told only to the princes one fubject of his converfation with king Zedekiah, when they inquired concerning it, namely his request that he might not be put into cuftody in Jonathan's house; he was filent about the chief topic thereof, which was to affure him, that, if he would furrender to the Babylonian monarch, his city should not be burnt, nor his own life be destroyed, Jerem. xxxviii. 24-28. Nay, the prophet Samuel, by God's own direction, fhewed the elders of Bethlehem only one of his errands, in his journey to their town, "That he came to facrifice to the Lord;' he forbore to speak of the other, which was to anoint Jeffe's fon unto the kingdom, aware that it would irritate Saul, 1 Sam. xvi. 1. Thus far then the apostle was no way criminal, but altogether innocent. And if he was, it will fcarcely, I believe, be pretended, that he merits any reproach for aiming, by the profeffion he made, while it expreffed the truth, though not the whole truth, to divide his foes, that he might extricate himself from their malice, until a more favourable opportunity, instead of proceeding to open to them all the reafons of his change from Judaism to Christianity, and of his concern about the liberty of the Gentiles from Mofaic ceremonies, when they were in no disposition to give him a patient and candid hearing. I have here supposed, that the Pharifees believed a refurrection of good men unto a life of happiness. For this St. Luke himself may feem a fufficient voucher, fince he appears, through his history in general, well acquainted with the affairs of the Jews, and the principles of their fects. Left however Mr. Voltaire's affertion produced in the laft note, That • the Pharifees adopted the metempsychofis, and not the refurrection;' together with the reasonings there mentioned, in fupport of that opinion, and the appeal that hath been fometimes made to Jofephus in its behalf, should incline any to think, that Luke hath fallen into an error, where he fays the Pharifees held a refurrection, and reprefents as above, that there arofe, upon Paul's avowing his faith of it, a contention between them and the Sadducees, which proved advantageous to him, it will be proper to bestow a fuller confideration on this point. . The inftances then which have been alledged from the New Teftament, and the book of Wisdom, do not, I think, prove that the Pharifees held the doctrine of tranfmigration, that is, of the paffing of fouls from body to body one after another in fucceffion. For as to the question propofed to our Lord, concerning the man born blind, ‘Did this man fin, that he was born blind?' it is only an evidence, that it was a notion entertained by fome, that fouls * pre-existed, and that they were fent into bodies more or less perfect and commodious, according to their conduct in that antecedent state of being. The fame obfervation may be applied to the paffage from the Apocrypha, where the writer fays, Being good,—I came into 'a body undefiled,' Wifd. viii. 20. as indeed the Greek tranflator of the book of Job hath also made God himself, in his addrefs to Job, fpeak upon this notion of the previous existence of fouls; for he turns his words, Job, xxxviii. 21. thus *, ' I know thou ⚫ waft formed then, (when the light was made, namely,) and that the number of thy years are many?' And as to the conjectures made about Jesus Christ, that he was one of the Jewish prophets, or John the Baptift whom Herod had lately beheaded, (befides, that they afford no light what was the belief of the Pharifees, or even of the persons themselves that propofed fuch gueffes, about the ordinary and established course of nature,) they seem to be grounded rather on the supposition of a miraculous refurrection, than of a tranfmigration. For it does not appear how Jefus could be any more Elias, or Jeremias, or one of the antient prophets, because the foul of Elias, or Jeremias, or another of the old prophets, dwelt in his So indeed, thought Philo, De Somniis, pp. 586, 592. and, De Gigantibus, p. 285. ότι τοτε γεγέννησαι, αριθμος δε ετων σε πολύς. body, than fome others had been fuch, whose bodies their fouls must have inhabited, upon the hypothefis of a tranfmigration, in the interval of ages from their refpective demises. And further, it did not at all agree to that scheme, to pronounce Jesus, who was at this time more than thirty years old, John the Baptist,on account of the refidence of John's foul in his body, when he had been only killed, and by confequence, his foul only fet free to remove into another body at its formation, but a few months or weeks before. Accordingly, the Evangelift Luke relates the reply of Chrift's disciples, when he asked them, Whom say the people that I am?' in this manner, ix. 19. They answering, faid, John the Baptift, but fome fay Elias, and others fay that one of the old prophets is rifen* again.' And fuch a refurrection of John, was the fuggeftion of Herod's mind, on hearing the fame of Jefus, inftead of a tranfmigration, He faid unto his fervants, This is John the Baptift, ⚫ he is rifen from the +dead, therefore mighty works do fhew forth themselves in him.' Matth. xiv. 2. No more, in my opinion, do the accounts which Jofephus gives of the fentiments of the Pharifees, concerning the fate of fouls after death, authorize us to say they taught the metempfychofis, or fucceffive tranflation of fouls from body to body, as Mr. Bafnage in this history of the Jews, and others contend. I * Ανεση. + Αυτος ηγέρθη απο των νεκρων. Book 2. chap. 11. page 122. Jofephus's authority, who fpeaks clearly about that matter, ought to prevail over the filence * of the Sadducees, who do not reproach them with holding trans'migration, and even of the gospel, which does not tax them with readily own, that he uses expreffions, in declaring their perfuafion, which are capable of fuch a sense. For when he says, it is their belief, That virtuous fouls § have a power of reviving.' It cannot be denied, that his words, taken apart, may be understood of returning to life by immediate tranfmigration; and when he informs us again, They are convinced 'that the foul of good men-paffes into another 'body t,' this, it will not be queftioned, might have been faid, if they held it paffed into a body, to which it never before bore any relation, as indeed it hath been much infifted on in favour of fuch an union, whatever inclination there may be to doubt or difallow its applicableness, if he intended their faith of its re-entry into the body which it formerly actuated. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the Jewish hiftorian's language here, which neceffitates us to expound this error. He affirms that the Pharifees believed That the fouls " of the wicked were shut up in prison, and there suffered eternal torments, whilst that of good men found an easy return to life, and "went into another body.' This return of the spirit into life cannot 66 be explained by the refurrection, for the immortal soul shall never ⚫ die, nor rise again. Neither can it be faid, that she shall go into ano⚫ther body at the last day, for, befides that she shall put on again, by ⚫ the refurrection, the fame body that she hath animated in this life, and ' that its qualities only shall be changed, the Pharifees did thereby ⚫ represent the different state of good and wicked men immediately af⚫ter death; and, therefore, to make Jofephus point at the refurrectiis to father too quaint a thought upon him; a hiftorian, who re ⚫lates the opinions of a fect, speaks more naturally, and expresses him• felf with more perfpicuity.' on, TW § Ταις δε (αις αρετης επιτηδευσις εν τῷ βίῳ γεγονε) ραςώνην τε arabir. Antiq. 18. 1. 3. + Μεταβαίνειν δε εις έτερον σωμα την (ψυχην) των αγαθών. De Bello. 2. 8. 14. |