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Jake
contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer composes a
romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as such; for
nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than did the golden
apple. Accordingly, he did not think of making a history, but solely a book
to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the beauty of the work has made
it last, every one learns it and talks of it, it is necessary to know it,
and each one knows it by heart. Four hundred years afterwards the witnesses
of these facts are no longer alive, no one knows of his own knowledge if it
be a fable or a history; one has only learnt it from his ancestors, and this
can pass for truth.
Every history which is not contemporaneous, as the books of the Sibyls and
Trismegistus, and so many others which have been believed by the world, are
false, and found to be false in the course of time. It is not so with
contemporaneous writers.
There is a great difference between a book which an individual writes and
publishes to a nation, and a book which itself creates a nation. We cannot
doubt that the book is as old as the people.
629. Josephus hides the shame of his nation.
Moses does not hide his own shame.
Quis mihi det ut omnes prophetent?112
He was weary of the multitude.
630. The sincerity of the Jews.--Maccabees, after they had no more prophets;
the Masorah, since Jesus Christ.
This book will be a testimony for you.
Defective and final letters.
Sincere against their honour, and dying for it; this has no example in the
world, and no root in nature.
631. Sincerity of the Jews.--They preserve lovingly and carefully the book
in which Moses declares that they have been all their life ungrateful to
God, and that he knows they will be still more so after his death; but that
he calls heaven and earth to witness against them and that he has taught
them enough.
He declares that God
Jake
The story that he recited the whole by heart. Josephus and Esdras point out
that he read the book. Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici a Christo Nato ad
Annum 1198, 180: Nullus penitus Hebraeorum antiquorum reperitur qui
tradiderit libros periisse et per Esdram esse restitutos, nisi in IV Esdrae.
The story that he changed the letters.
Philo, in Vita Mosis: Illa lingua ac character quo antiquitus scripta est
lex sic permansit usque ad LXX.
Josephus says that the Law was in Hebrew when it was translated by the
Seventy.
Under Antiochus and Vespasian, when they wanted to abolish the books, and
when there was no prophet, they could not do so. And under the Babylonians,
when no persecution had been made, and when there were so many prophets,
would they have let them be burnt?
Josephus laughs at the Greeks who would not hear...
Tertullian: Perinde potuit abolefactam eam violentia cataclysmi in spiritu
rursus reformare, quemadmodum et Hierosolymis Babylonia expugnatione
deletis, omne instrumentum Judaicae literaturae per Esdram constat
restauratum.[113]
He says that Noah could as easily have restored in spirit the book of Enoch,
destroyed by the Deluge, as Esdras could have restored the Scriptures lost
during the Captivity.
(Theos) en te epi Nabouchodonosor aichmalosia tou laou, diaphthareison ton
Graphon... enepneuse 'Esdra to ierei, ek tes phules Leui tous ton
progegonoton propheton pantas anataxasthai logous, kai apokatastesai to lae
ten dia Mouseos nomothesian. He alleges this to prove that it is not
incredible that the Seventy may have explained the Holy Scriptures with that
uniformity which we admire in them. And he took that from Saint Irenaeus.
Saint Hilary, in his preface to the Psalms, says that Esdras arranged the
Psalms in order.
The origin of this tradition comes from the 14th chapter of the fourth book
of Esdras.