history of the Jews written by Cleodemus, which was, "agreeable to the history of Moses their legislator (o)." Diodorus Siculus (p) mentions Moses as the legislator of the Jews in three dif ferent places of his remaining works in the first book of his history, where he is speaking of the written laws of different nations, he says, that

among the Jews Moses pretended to have received his laws from a God called Iao (q)." In a fragment of the thirty-fourth book he mentions "the Book of the Laws given by Moses to the Jews;" and in a fragment of the fortieth book, after giving some account of the conduct and laws of Moses, he says, that "Moses concludes his laws by declaring, that he had heard from God the things which he addresses to the Jews." Strabo speaks of the description which Moses gave of the Deity, and says that he condemned the religious worship of the Egyptians. His statement is by no means accurate, but it is sufficient to shew that he considered the Penta ́teuch as written by Moses (r). The accounts

(0) Jos. Ant. lib. 1. cap. 15.

(p) He lived in the time of Augustus. Vide vol. I. p. 105. vol. 2. p. 525 & 543. Edit. Wesseling.

tus.

(9) That is Jehovah.

(r) Geog. lib. 16. He lived in the time of Augus

which

which Justin (s) and Tacitus (t) have left of the Jews are also very erroneous; but it is evident that they both admitted the Pentateuch to be the work of Moses. Pliny the elder (u) mentions "a system of magic," as he calls it, which was derived from Moses. Juvenal (r) the satirist speaks of the volume of the law written by Moses. The illustrious physician and philosopher Galen (y) compares the account given by Moses with the opinion of Epicurus concerning the origin of the world, and in that comparison he plainly refers to the book of Genesis. Numenius, a Pythagorean philosopher of the second century, says, that Plato borrowed from the writings of Moses his doctrines concerning the existence of a God, and the creation of the world (%). Longinus (a), in his treatise upon the Sublime, says, "So likewise the Jewish

(s) Trogus Pompeius, whose history Justin abridged, lived in the time of Augustus. Vide lib. 36.

(t) Hist. lib. 5. He lived at the end of the first century after Christ.

(u) Hist. Nat. lib. 30. cap. 1. He lived in the reign of Vespasian.

(x) Sat. 14. He lived in the reign of Domitian. (y) De Usu Part. lib. 11. He lived in the middle of the second century after Christ.

(z) Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacræ, b. 3. c. 2.

(a) Longinus lived towards the end of the third century after Christ. Vide sect. 9.

legislator,

legislator, no ordinary person, having conceived a just idea of the power of God, has nobly expressed it in the beginning of his law; 'And God said,'—What?— Let there be light, and there was light. Let the earth be, and the earth was'." Porphyry (b), one of the most acute and learned enemies of Christianity, admitted the genuineness of the Pentateuch, and acknowledged that Moses was prior to the Phoenician Sanchoniathon, who lived before the Trojan war; he even contended for the truth of Sanchoniathon's account of the Jews, from its coincidence with the Mosaic history. Nor was the genuineness of the Pentateuch denied by any of the numerous writers against the Gospel in the first four centuries, although the christian fathers constantly appealed to the history and prophecies of the Old Testament, in support of the divine origin of the doctrines which they taught. The power of historic truth compelled the emperor Julian, whose apparent favour to the Jews proceeded only from his hostility to the Christians, to acknowledge that persons instructed by the Spirit of God once lived among the Israelites; and to confess, that the books which bore the name of Moses, were genuine, and that the facts which they contained were worthy of (b) He lived in the third century after Christ.

VOL. I.

D

credit.

credit. Mahomet maintained the Inspiration of Moses, and revered the sanctity of the Jewish laws; and when we consider the avowed enmity and professed contempt of the pretended prophet of Arabia for both Jews and Christians, it cannot be imagined that any thing short of his. conviction of the impossibility of lessening the general esteem, in which these books were held, in a country which had kept up a constant intercourse with the Israelites from the earliest times, could have drawn from him that concession in favour of the foundation of their faith.

To this testimony from profane authors we may add the positive assertions of the sacred writers both of the Old and New Testament. Moses frequently (c) speaks of himself as directed by God to write the commands which he received from him, and to record the events which occurred during his ministry; and at the end of Deuteronomy he expressly says, "And Moses wrote this Law, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel (d)" and afterwards, in the same chapter, he says still more fully; "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing

the

(c) Ex. c. 17. v. 14. c. 24. v. 4. Numb. c. 33. v. 2. (d) Deut. c. 31. v. 9.

the words of this Law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee (e)." In many subsequent books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch is repeatedly quoted, and referred to under the name of "The Law," and "The Book of Moses;" and in particular we are told "that Joshua read all the words of the Law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel (f)." From which passage it is evident, that the Book of the Law, or Pentateuch, existed in the time of Joshua, the successor of Moses. In the New Testament also the writing of the Law, or Pentateuch, is expressly ascribed to Moses: "Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, we have found him of

whom

(e) Deut..c. 31. v. 24. &c. No person who had forged the Pentateuch, or even written it in a subsequent age from existing materials, would have inserted these passages, which must have excited inquiry, and have caused the fraud to be detected.

(f) Joshua, c. 8. v. 34