the vulgar tongue, lest some men should in consequence be led to think and judge, about what was proposed to them only to adore. We are certainly justified in concluding hence, that those who thoroughly understand this book should tolerate those who do not understand it at all; for if the latter understand nothing of it, it is not their own fault: on the other hand, those who comprehend nothing that it contains should tolerate those who comprehend everything in it. ence. Learned and ingenious men, full of their own talents and acquirements, have maintained that it is impossible Moses could have written the book of Genesis. One of their principal reasons is, that in the history of Abraham, that patriarch is stated to have paid for a cave he purchased for the interment of his wife in silver coin, and the king of Gerar to have given Sarah a thousand pieces of silver when he restored her, after having carried her off for her beauty at the age of seventy-five. They inform us, that they have consulted all the ancient authors, and that it appears very certain that at the period mentioned, silver money was not in existBut these are evidently mere cavils, as the church has always firmly believed Moses to have been the author of the Pentateuch. They strengthen all the doubts suggested by Aben-Ezra and Baruch Spinoza. The physician Astruc, father-in-law of the comptrollergeneral Silhouette, in his book (now become very scarce) called "Conjectures on the Book of Genesis," adds some objections, inexplicable undoubtedly to human learning, but not so to a humble and submissive piety. The learned, many of them, contradict every line, but the devout consider every line sacred. Let us dread falling into the misfortune of believing and trusting to our reason; but let us bring ourselves into subjection in understanding as well as in heart.* "And Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, and -the King of Gerar took her for himself." We admit, as we have said under the article ABRA * See the article MOSES. HAM, that Sarah was at this time ninety years of age, that she had been, already carried away by a king of Egypt, and that a king of this same horrid wilderness of Gerar likewise, many years afterwards, carried away the wife of Isaac, Abraham's son. We have also spoken of his servant Hagar, who bore him af sons and of the manner in which the patriarch sent her and her son away. It is well known how infidels triumph on the subject of all these histories, with what a disdain ful smile they speak of them, and that they place the story of one Abimelech falling in love with Sarah whom Abraham had passed as his sister, and of another Abi melech falling in love with Rebecca, whom Isaac also passes as his sister, even beneath the thousand and one nights of the Arabian fables. We cannot too often remark, that the great error of all these learned critics is their wishing to try everything by the test of our feeble reason, and to judge of the ancient Arabs as they judge of the courts of France or of England. "And the soul of Sichem, king Hamor's son, was bound up with the soul of Dinah, and he soothed her: grief by his tender caresses, and he went to Hamor his father, and said to him, give me that woman to be my wife." Here our critics exclaim in terms of stronger disgust than ever. What! say they; the son of a king is desi rous to marry a vagabond girl; the marriage is cele brated; Jacob the father, and Dinah the daughter, are loaded with presents; the king of Sichem deigns to receive those wandering robbers called patriarchs within his city; he has the incredible politeness or kindness to undergo, with his son, his court, and his people, the rite of circumcision, thus condescending to the superstition of a petty horde that could not call half: a league of territory their own! And in return for this astonishing hospitality and goodness, how do our holy patriarchs act? They wait for the day when the process of circumcision generally induces fever, when Simeon and Levi run through the whole city with poignards in their hands, and massacre the king, the prince his son, and all the inhabitants. We are precluded from the horror appropriate to this infernal counterpart of the tragedy of St. Bartholomew, only by a sense of its ab'solute impossibility. It is an abominable romance; but it is evidently a ridiculous romance. It is impossible that two men could have slaughtered in quiet the whole population of a city. The people might suffer in a slight degree from the operation which had preceded; but notwithstanding this, they would have risen in 'defence against two diabolical miscreants; they would have instantly assembled, would have surrounded them, and destroyed them with the summary and complete vengeance merited by their atrocity. But there is a still more palpable impossibility. It is, that according to the accurate computation of time, Dinah, this daughter of Jacob, could be only three years old; and that, even by forcing up chronology as far as possible in favour of the narrative, she could at the very most be only five. It is here, then, that we are assailed with bursts of indignant exclamation!— What! it is said, what! is it this book, the book of à rejected and reprobate people; a book so long unknown to all the world; a book in which sound reason and decent manners are outraged in every page,—that is held up to us as irrefragable, holy, and dictated by God himself? Is it not even impious to believe it? or could anything less than the fury of cannibals urge to the persecution of sensible and modest men for not believing it? To this we reply,-The church declares its belief in it. The copyists may have mixed up some revolting absurdities with respectable and genuine histories. It belongs to the holy church only to decide. The profane ought to be guided by her. Those absurdities, those alleged horrors, do not affect the substance of our faith. How lamentable would be the fate of mankind, if religion and virtue depended upon what formerly happened to Sichem and to little Dinah! These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before the children of Israel had a king." This is the celebrated passage which has proved one of the great stumbling stones. This it was which de cided the great Newton, the pious and acute Samuel Clarke, the profound and philosophic Bolingbroke, the learned Le Clerc, the ingenious Freret, and a host of other enlightened men, to maintain that it was impossible Moses could have been the author of Genesis. We admit, that in fact these words could not have been written until after the time that the Jews had kingst It is principally this verse that determined Astruc to give up the inspired authority of the whole book of Genesis, and suppose the author had derived his ma terials from existing memoirs and records. His work is ingenious and accurate, but it is rash, not to say audacious. Even a council would scarcely have ventured on such an enterprise. And to what purpose has it served Astruc's thankless and dangerous labour -to double the darkness he wished to enlighten? Here is the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of which we are all so desirous of eating. Why must it be, that the fruit of the tree of ignorance should be more nourish ing and more digestible? But of what consequence can it be to us, after all, whether any particular verse or chapter was written by Moses, or Samuel, or the priest (sacrificateur) who came to Samaria, or Esdras, or any other person?.. In what respect can our government, our laws, our fortunes, our morals, our well-being, be bound up with the unknown chiefs of a wretched and barbarous country called Edom or Idumea, always inhabited by rob bers. Alas! those poor Arabs, who have not shirts to their backs, neither know nor care whether or not we are in existence! They go on steadily plundering caravans and eating barley bread, while we are perplexing and tormenting ourselves to know whether any petty kings flourished in a particular canton of Arabia Petrea, before they existed in a particular canton adjoining the west of the lake of Sodom! O miseras hominum curas! O pectora cœca! LUCRETIUS, book ii. v. 14. GENII. THE doctrines of judicial astrology and magic have spread all over the world. Look back to the ancient Zoroaster, and you will find that of the genii long established. All antiquity abounds in astrologers and magicians; such ideas were therefore very natural. At present we smile at the number who entertained them: if we were in their situation,-if like them we were only beginning to cultivate the sciences, we should perhaps believe just the same. Let us suppose ourselves intelligent people, beginning to reason on our own existence, and to observe the stars. The earth, we might say, is no doubt immoveable in the midst of the world; the sun and planets only revolve in her service, and the stars are only made for us; man therefore is the great object of all nature. What is the intention of all these globes, and of the immensity of heaven thus destined for our use? It is very likely that all space and these globes are peopled with substances, and since we are the favourites of nature, placed in the centre of the universe, and all is made for man, these substances are evidently destined to watch over man. The first man who believed the thing at all possible, would soon find disciples persuaded that it existed. We might then commence by saying, genii perhaps exist, and nobody could affirm the contrary; for where is the impossibility of the air and planets being peopled? We might afterwards say, there are genii, and certainly no one could prove that there are not. Soon after, some sages might see these genii; and we should have no right to say to them, You have not seen them; as these persons might be honourable, and altogether worthy of credit. One might see the genius of the empire or of his own city; another that of Mars or Saturn; the genii of the four elements might be manifested to several philosophers; more than one sage might see his own genius; all at first might be little more than dreaming, but dreams are the symbols of truth. |