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'all dead, under God's covenant off everlasting life.' Again, in the twelfth chapter of the fame book we read that Judas caused offer a fin-offering in Jerufalem for fome, whom he fuppofed flain for the violation of the law, Doing therein very well and ho'neftly, in that he was mindful of the refurrection, ❝ for if he had not hoped, that they that were flain 'fhould have rifen again, it had been fuperfluous ' and vain to pray for the dead.' At the same time it may be observed, that Jofephus (which confirms our account for his more cautious manner of expreffing himself on the subject,) when he relates the fortitude and conftancy of the fame persons in fuffering, in his treatise concerning the Maccabees, or, the government of reason, if that piece be in reality his, is far more fparing in his representation of their faith. For, though he makes them all fay, 'they would ' receive the reward of virtue, and be with God, for 'whom they fuffered, while Antiochus would en'dure eternal torment from divine justice, and that ' when they were dead, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, would receive them into their bofoms, and all the fathers would praise them;' and though he describes one of them, to speak of the glorious life of the pious, whereas another of them told the king, divine juftice referved him to more vehement and eternal fire, which would not leave him for ever; and though he himself says, that the mother preferred piety, which would fave to eternal life, to

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+ Ibid. ver. 24, 36.-Αεννα ζωης ύπο διαθηκην Θεα πεπτωκα

• Vero 43 44 Υπερ αναςάσεως διαλογιζομενος. Ει γαρ μη τις προπεπτωκότας αναςήναι προςεδικα, &c.

the temporary deliverance of her fons; and affirms, that they for their patience now stand by the divine throne, and lead a bleffed life; that these fons of Abraham, with their victorious mother, are gathered together into the chorus of the fathers, having received pure and immortal fouls from God+; he never uses the terms which directly fignify a refurrection fo much as once, as often as they are found in the fecond book of Maccabees. Now, these sufferings are placed 168 years before Chrift, when there is ground to think the Pharifees exifted, at leaft, that many entertained their opinions, as may be seen in the note.

+ De Maccabeis, &c. fect. 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 19, 20.

Mr. Voltaire gives much too late a date to the rise of the sect of the Pharifees among the Jews, into whofe notions about a refurrection we have been inquiring, when he says, Phil. Dictionary, p. 324. Ac

cording to St. Jerome, the fect of the Pharifees began but a very ⚫ little time before Jesus Christ. Rabbi Hillel is accounted its founder, ⚫ and he was cotemporary with Gamaliel, St. Paul's master.' And when he says, Phil. of Hift. chap. 11. p. 52. They (the Perfians) were ⚫ without contradiction the first who framed these ideas of a God,

(he means, a devil, a refurrection, a paradife, and hell;) this was the • moft antient system, and which was not adopted by other nations till ' after many ages; fince the Pharifees among the Jews, did not strongly maintain the immortality of the foul, and the dogma of rewards • and punishments after death, till about the time of Herod.' For, without examining, whether his representation of Jerome's sentiments here be just or not, and whether his affertion, that the Persians first of all men entertained ideas about these objects he enumerates, be well or ill-founded, it is plain he is in a gross mistake about the first appearance of the Pharifees among the Jews. It may not be easy indeed to ascertain the exact era when they fprung up, as fects are often gradually formed; however, they were known long before the time he fixes. for their rife; they were fo powerful about eighty years before Christ, that a fense of their hatred to king Alexander Jannaeus made his queen

The Jewish Pharisees then, at least a number of them,

express great anxiety about herself and her children, when he was upon his death-bed, whereupon he advised her by every method to carefs them, fince that would fecure to her the bulk of the nation, they being altogether revered and believed by the common people: the advantage of which counsel she afterwards reaped, in the establishment of the power of the family; Jofeph. Antiq. 15. 5. and 16. 1. Nay, as they had been, by evil flanders and furmises, causes of open affronts and infurrections to king Jannaeus himself, during his poffeffion of the crown, fo they were fo confiderable, in the time of John Hyrcanus, prince and high-priest of the Jews, who died in the year 107 before the Christian era, that, we are told, he endeavoured to win them to his intereft, by cajoling them, and inviting the heads among them to an entertainment, for they had fuch influence with the multitude, that they immediately believed whatever they faid against the king and 'high-priest.' lbid. 13. 10. 5. 6. Indeed, Jofephus having spoken of the battle of Jonathan with Demetrius's generals, and his victory over them, which is placed 144 years before Chrift, (Ant. Univ. Hift. vol. 10. p. 320.) introduces the mention of them thus, ' About 'this time there were three fects among the Jews, the Pharifees, the ⚫ Sadducees, and the Effenes; xara de Tor Xporov Tutor, &c.' Ibid. 13. 5. 9. and refers to his more accurate account of them, in the fecond book of the Jewish War. He also, on occafion of the disturbances that were raised by Judas the Gaulonite, about the cenfus or valuation of the estates of the Jews, that there might be levied from them a tax proportionable to every man's fsubstance, which happened after the banishment of Archelaus, represents the fect of the Pharifees as one of the three philofophical fects, which had been among his countrymen from antient time, tx 78 яaru apxar. Ibid. 18. 1. 2. and elsewhere he affirms, that the Pharifees introduced the first sect, w πOWTNY EжαYOUTEç diptor. De Bello, 2. 8. 13. The Pharifees then must have been a fect long prior to Hillel, if by Hillel be meant the Pollio of Jofephus, as is thought most reasonable, who is supposed to have flourished only 27 years before Christ. Indeed if they were not more antient than the fect of the Sadducees, which the last quoted words of Jofephus feem to imply, (as much as many learned men have overlooked them, while they make their rife later than that of the

held a +refurrection,as indeed none but those of this fect housed fouls in bodies after death. I do not however mean, that they held it exactly according to our ideas. That they did not extend it to the wicked, but confine it to the righteous, Josephus is clear; for he fays they affirmed the fouls of wicked men were shut upin an eternal‡prison,' and 'that they were subjected to eternal punishment under the earth, but that the foul of good men only paffed into another * body.' Nor, indeed, do Paul's words here require we should fuppose he had the refurrection of the former in his eye, which was not, ftrictly, an object of hope. They fuppofed alfo in part, if not all, as would feem, that the refurrection of good men would be a refurrection to a capacity and enjoyment of fuch animal pleasures as we here partake, if we may judge from the cavil of the Sadducees which puzzled § them, Matt. xxii. 2 3, 31. Perfons of this fect therefore interpofed, fays Lukė, in Paul's vindication, upon his profeffing himself at

Sadducees, upon a very uncertain and precarious argument,) they must have been coeval with this fect. Now, this fect received its denomination from Sadoc, who was scholar to Antigonus of Socho, a person who flourished almost 300 years before the birth of our Saviour. The learned Reland fays, there is mention of the Pharifees in Jewish writings, from the time of Simeon Ben Shetah, who, with Jehudah Ben Tabbai, makes the fourth link in the chain of their Mefchnical doctors, while Hillel appears only as one of the fixth link. Antiq. part 2. cap. 9. fect. 13. Now this Simeon made a figure in Hyrcanus's time.

† See Reland Antiq. Hebr. part 2. cap. 9. fect. 14. Antiq. 18. 1.3.

De Bello, 2. 8. 14 Compare 3. 7. 5.

§ of the fame grofs notion, the exclamation from Luke, xiv. 15. may be thought fome evidence, Blessed is be that shall eat bread in ⚫ the kingdom of God.'

tached to their fentiments, in the article of the refurrection, from zeal for their own doctrine in oppofition to that of the Sadducees, who denied all future existence, and said that fouls perished with the body at death. And indeed it is credible they should have done fo, upon the fuppofition themfelves believed the refurrection, confidering the fiercenefs of the two fects against one another, and their readinefs to take opposite fides in a cause. Whereas it is otherwise altogether unaccountable how they should have expreffed any favour towards him; for who can think they would ever have efpoufed his caufe, on his claiming an agreement in opinion with them, which was wholly without foundation, (as must have been the cafe, if they did not admit a refurrection at all,) or that Luke would have given them the credit of appearing in his intereft, if there had been no ground for it?

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Of his afferting in the fame place, from 1 Theff. iv.

I

that the first Christians made themselves fure they should see the end of the world; and of his faying, that Luke actually foretells it as what should happen in his life-time.

IN the next page of his Dictionary, he hath these reflections concerning St. Paul and St. Luke, St. 'Paul tells the inhabitants of Theffalonica, that the ⚫ second coming of Jesus Christ is for them, and for him; and that they shall be witnesses of it.' After

Page 325.

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