which are not of charity, we shall see that they are types.
All these sacrifices and ceremonies were then either figures or absurdities. But there are things which are clear, and yet too lofty for us to think them absurdities.
Adam _forma futuri_. Six days to form the one, six ages to form the other. The six days which Moses represents for the formation of Adam, are but the representation of the six ages to form Jesus Christ and the Church. If Adam had not sinned, and Jesus Christ had not come, there had been only one covenant, only one age of men, and the creation would have been represented as done at one single time.
The six ages, the six Fathers of the six ages, the six miracles at the opening of the six ages, the six mornings at the opening of the six ages.
_Types._--The Jewish and Egyptian peoples were visibly foretold by the two men whom Moses met, the Egyptian beating the Jew, Moses avenging him and slaying the Egyptian while the Jew was ungrateful.
The conversion of the Egyptians, Isaiah xix. 19. An altar in Egypt to the true God.
The sabbath was only a sign, Exodus xxxi. 13, and in memory of the deliverance from Egypt. Deut. v. 19. Therefore it is no more necessary, for we ought to forget Egypt.
Circumcision was only a sign, Gen. xvii. 13, therefore it came to pass that in the desert they were not circumcised, because they could not be confounded with other peoples, and after Jesus Christ came it was no longer needful.
Those who ordained these sacrifices knew their uselessness, and those who have declared their uselessness, ceased not to practise them.
Your name shall be accursed to my elect, and I will give them another name.
Harden their heart. How? By flattering their lust, and making them hope to accomplish it.
_Fac secundum exemplar quod tibi ostensum est in monte._ The Jewish religion then was formed on its likeness to the truth of the Messiah, and the truth of the Messiah was recognised by the religion of the Jews which was the figure of it.
Among the Jews the truth was only prefigured. In heaven it is revealed.
In the Church it is hidden, yet recognised by its correspondence with the type.
The type was made according to the truth, and the truth is recognised according to the type.
Saint Paul says himself that people would forbid to marry, and he himself speaks to the Corinthians, in a way which is a trap. For if a prophet had said the one, and Saint Paul had afterwards said the other, he would have been accused.
_Typical._--Make all things like unto the pattern which was showed thee in the mount. On which Saint Paul says that the Jews shadowed forth heavenly things.
_Typical._ The key of the cipher. _Veri adoratores. Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi._ _That the law was typical. Types._--The letter kills. All happened in a figure. This is the cipher which Saint Paul gives us. Christ must suffer. An humiliated God. Circumcision of the heart, a true fast, a true sacrifice, a true temple. The prophets indicated that all these must be spiritual.
Not the meat which perishes, but that which perishes not.
You shall be free indeed. Then the former liberty was only a type of liberty.
I am the true bread from heaven.
_Particular types._-- A double law, double tables of the law, a double temple, a double captivity.
The Synagogue did not perish because it was a type, but because it was no more than a type it fell into servitude. The type subsisted till the reality came, in order that the Church should be always visible, either in the representation which promised it, or in the substance.
In the time of the Messiah the people were divided. Those that were spiritual embraced the Messiah, the carnal remained to serve as witnesses of him.
_OF THE TRUE RELIGION AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS._ _For Port Royal. The Beginning, after having explained the incomprehensibility._--Since the greatness and the vileness of man are so evident, it is necessary that the true religion should declare both that there is in man some great principle of greatness, and a great principle of vileness.
It must therefore explain these astonishing contradictions.
In order to make man happy, it must show him that there is a God; that we ought to love him; that our true happiness is to be in him, our sole evil to be separated from him; it must recognise that we are full of darkness which hinders us from knowing and loving him; and that thus, as our duties oblige us to love God, and our lusts turn us from him, we are full of injustice. It must explain to us our opposition to God and to our own good; it must teach us the remedies for these infirmities, and the means of obtaining them. We must therefore examine all the religions of the world from this point of view, and see if there be any other than the Christian which is sufficient for this end.
Shall it be that of the philosophers, who proposed as the only good the good which is in ourselves? Is this the true good? Have they found a remedy for our evils? Is the pride of man cured by equalling him with God? Have those who would level us to the brutes, or the Mahomedans who present us with pleasures of the world as the sole good, even in eternity, found any remedy for our lusts? What religion then will teach us to cure our pride and our lust? What religion will teach us our good, our duty, the infirmity which turns us from it, the cause of this infirmity, the remedies which can cure it, and the means of obtaining those remedies? All other religions have failed, let us see what the wisdom of God can do.
"Look neither for truth," she says, "nor consolation from men. I am she who framed you, and who alone can teach you what you are. But you are not now in the state in which I framed you. I created man holy, innocent, perfect; I filled him with light and intelligence; I communicated to him my glory and my wondrous acts. The eye of man beheld then the majesty of God; he was not then in the darkness which blinds him, nor subject to death and the miseries which afflict him.
But he could not bear so great a glory without falling into pride.
He would make himself his own centre, and independent of my aid. He withdrew himself from my rule; and when he made himself equal to me by the desire of finding his happiness in himself, I gave him over to self. Then setting in revolt the creatures that were subject to him, I made them his enemies; so that man is now become like the beasts, and removed from me until there scarce remains to him a confused ray of his Creator, so far has all his knowledge become extinguished or disturbed. His senses, never the servants, and often the masters of reason, have carried him astray in pursuit of pleasure. All creatures either torment or tempt him; and have dominion over him, either as they subdue him by their strength, or as they melt him by their charms, a tyranny more terrible and more imperious.
"Such is the present state of man. There remains to him some feeble instinct of the happiness of his primitive nature, and he is plunged in the misery of his blindness and his lusts, which have become his second nature.
"From this principle which I have here laid open to you, you may discern the cause of those contradictions which, while they astonish all men, have divided them among such various opinions. Now mark all the movements of greatness and glory which the trials of so many miseries are unable to stifle, and see if the cause of them must not be in another nature..."
_For Port Royal to-morrow. Prosopopæa._--"It is in vain, O men, that you seek from yourselves the remedy for your miseries. All your light can only enable you to know that not in yourselves will you find truth or good. The Philosophers promised you these, but gave them not. They neither apprehend what is your true good nor what is..."How could they then apply remedies to your diseases, since they did not even know them? Your chief maladies are pride, which alienates you from God, and lust, which binds you down to earth; and they do nought else but nourish one or the other of these disorders. If they presented God as your end it was only done to gratify your pride; by making you think that you are by nature like him and conformed to him. Those who saw the extravagance of such an assertion did but set you on an opposite precipice, by tempting you to believe that your nature was of a piece with that of the beasts, and by inclining you to seek your good in the lusts which are shared by brutes. This is not the way to cure you of your unrighteousness, which these sages never knew. I alone can teach you who you are..."If you are united to God it is by grace, not by nature.
"If you are abased it is by penitence, not by nature. So this twofold capacity..."You are not in the state wherein you were created.
"These two states being presented to you, you cannot but recognise them.
"Follow your own movements, observe yourselves, and see if you do not trace the lively characters of these two natures.
"Could so many contradictions be found in a subject that was simple?"
I do not mean that you should submit your belief to me without reason, neither do I aim at your subjection by tyranny. I do not aim at giving you a reason for everything. And to reconcile these contradictions, I wish to make you see by convincing proofs, those divine tokens in me, which will assure you who I am and will verify my authority by wonders and proofs which you cannot reject; so that you may then have a reasonable belief in what I teach you, when you find no other ground for refusing it, but that you cannot know of yourselves whether it is true or not.
The true nature of man, his true good, true virtue and true religion are things of which the knowledge is inseparable.
_After having understood the whole nature of man._--That a religion may be true, it must show knowledge of our nature. It must know its greatness and meanness, and the cause of both. What religion but the Christian has shown this knowledge?
The true religion teaches our duties; our weaknesses, pride and lust; and the remedies, humility and mortification.
The true religion must teach greatness and misery; must lead to the esteem and despising of self; to love and to hate.
The note of true religion must be that it obliges man to love his God. This is very right, and yet no other religion than ours has thus commanded; ours has done so. It must also be cognizant of man's lust and weakness, ours is so. It must have applied remedies for these defects; one is prayer. No other religion has asked of God the power to love and obey him.
If there be one only origin of all things, there must be one only end of all things; all by him, all for him. The true religion then must teach us to adore him only, and to love him only. But since we find ourselves unable to adore what we know not, or to love aught but ourselves, the same religion which instructs us in these duties must instruct us also of this inability, and teach us also the remedies for it. It teaches us that by one man all was lost, and the bond broken between God and us, and that by one man the bond has been repaired.
We are born so contrary to this love of God, and it is so necessary that we must be born sinful, or God would be unjust.
Every religion is false which as to its faith does not adore one God as origin of all things, and as to its morals does not love one sole God as the object of all things.
In every religion we must be sincere, true heathens, true Jews, true Christians.
_THE EXCELLENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION._ When I see the blindness and the misery of man, when I survey the whole dumb Universe, and man without light, left to himself, and lost, as it were, in this corner of the Universe, not knowing who has placed him here, what he has come to do, what will become of him when he dies, and incapable of any knowledge whatever, I fall into terror like that of a man who, having been carried in his sleep to an island desert and terrible, should awake ignorant of his whereabouts and with no means of escape; and thereupon I wonder how those in so miserable a state do not fall into despair. I see other persons around me, of like nature, I ask them if they are better informed than I am, and they say they are not; and thereupon these miserable wanderers, having looked around them, and seen some objects pleasing to them, have given and attached themselves to these. As for me, I cannot attach myself to them, and considering how strongly appearances show that there is something else than what is visible to me, I have sought to discover whether this God have not left some impress of himself.
I see many contrary religions, and consequently all false but one.
Each wishes to be believed on its own authority, and menaces the unbeliever, but I do not therefore believe them. Every one can say the same, and every one can call himself a prophet. But I see the Christian religion fulfilling prophecy, and that is what every one can not do.
Without this divine knowledge what could men do but either uplift themselves by that inward conviction of their past greatness still remaining to them, or be cast down in view of their present infirmity? For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or idleness, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it by cowardice, or escape it by pride. For if they were aware of the excellency of man, they were ignorant of his corruption, so that they very easily avoided idleness, but only to fall into pride.
And if they recognized the infirmity of nature, they knew not its dignity, so that though they might easily avoid presumption, it was only to plunge into despair.
Thence come the various sects of the Stoics and Epicureans, the Dogmatists, Academicians, etc. The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these two distempers, not so as to drive out the one by the other according to the wisdom of the world, but so as to expel them both by the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous that it lifts them even to a participation of the divine nature; that in this exalted state they still bear within them the fountain of all corruption, which renders them during their whole life subject to error and misery, to death and sin; and at the same time it proclaims to the most wicked that they can receive the grace of their Redeemer. Thus making those tremble whom it justifies, and consoling those whom it condemns, religion so justly tempers fear with hope by means of that double capacity of grace and of sin which is common to all, that it abases infinitely more than reason alone, yet without despair; and exalts infinitely higher than natural pride, yet without puffing up: hereby proving that alone being exempt from error and vice, it alone has the office of instructing and of reforming men.
Who then can withhold credence and adoration to so divine a light?
For it is clearer than day that we feel within ourselves indelible characters of goodness; and it is equally true that we experience every hour the effects of our deplorable condition. This chaos then, this monstrous confusion, does but proclaim the truth of these two states, with a voice so powerful that it cannot be resisted.
The Philosophers never prescribed feelings proper to these two states.
They inspired motions of simple greatness, and that is not the state of man.
They inspired motions of simple vileness, and that is not the state of man.
There must be motions of abasement, yet not from nature, but from penitence, not to rest in them, but to go onward to greatness. There must be motions of greatness, not from merit, but from grace, and after having passed through abasement.
This double nature of man is so evident, that there are those who have imagined us to have two souls.
One single subject seemed to them incapable of so great and sudden variations from unmeasured pride to an horrible dejection of spirit.
All these contradictions which seemed to have taken me further from the knowledge of religion, are what most rapidly led me into truth.
Did we not know ourselves full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery and injustice, we were indeed blind. And if knowing this we did not desire deliverance, what could be said of a man...What then can we feel but esteem for that Religion which is so well acquainted with the defects of man, and desire for the truth of a religion which promises remedies so precious.
The corruption of reason is shown by the number of differing and extravagant customs; it was necessary that truth should come in order that man should no longer live in himself.
_Incomprehensible._--Not all that is incomprehensible is therefore non existent. Infinite number. An infinite space equal to a finite.
_It is incredible that God should unite himself to us._--This consideration is drawn only from the view of our vileness. But if it be sincere, follow it as far as I have done, and recognise that we are in fact so vile as to make us by ourselves incapable of knowing whether his mercy may not render us capable of him. For I would know how this animal, who is aware of his weakness, has the right to measure the mercy of God and set to it bounds suggested by his fancy. He knows so little what God is that he does not even know what himself is, and troubled with the view of his own state, boldly declares that God cannot render man capable of communion with him.
But I would ask if God demands aught else from him than to know him and to love him, and why, since man is by nature capable of love and knowledge, he believes that God cannot make himself known and loved by him. He certainly knows at least that he is, and that he loves something. Therefore if he see anything in his darkness, and if among the things of earth he find any subject of his love, why, if God impart to him some ray of his essence, should he not be capable of knowing and of loving him in the manner in which it shall please him to communicate himself to us? There must be then an intolerable arrogance in these sort of arguments, though they seem founded on apparent humility, which is neither sincere nor reasonable, unless it makes us confess that not knowing of ourselves what we are, we can learn it from God alone.
For myself, I declare that so soon as the Christian religion reveals the principle that human nature is corrupt and fallen from God, my eyes are opened to see everywhere the characters of this truth: for nature is such that she everywhere indicates, both within man and without him, a God whom he has lost and a corrupt nature.
Whatever may be said, it must be conceded that the Christian religion has something astonishing in it. Perhaps someone will say: "This is because you were born in it." It may be: then I stiffen myself against it by this very reason, for fear this prejudice should bias me; but although I am born in it I cannot but find it so.
The whole course of things must have for its object the establishment and the grandeur of Religion: that there should be implanted in men sentiments conformable to its precepts, and in a word, that it should be so completely the aim and the centre to which all things tend, that whoever understands its principles can give an explanation as of human nature in particular, so in general of the whole order of the world.
Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned, and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it is not all this which causes us to belong to it; this makes us indeed condemn those who are not of it, but is not the cause of belief in those who are. It is the cross that makes them believe, _ne evacuata sit crux_. And thus Saint Paul, who came with wisdom and signs, says that he came neither with wisdom nor with signs, for he came to convert. But those who come only to convince may say that they come with wisdom and with signs.
That religion, great as she is in miracles, with holy and blameless Fathers, learned and great witnesses, with martyrs and kings, as David, and Isaiah, a prince of the blood; great as she is in science, after having displayed all her miracles and all her wisdom, rejects it all, and says she has neither wisdom nor signs, but only the cross and foolishness.
For those, who by these signs and that wisdom have deserved your belief, and who have proved to you their character, declare to you that nothing of all this can change you, and render you capable of knowing and loving God, but the power of the foolishness of the cross without wisdom and signs, and not the signs without this power. Thus our Religion is foolish when we consider the effective cause, wise when we consider the wisdom which has prepared it.
How strange is Christianity! It enjoins man to acknowledge himself vile, even abominable, and enjoins him to aspire to be like God.
Without such a counterpoise, this elevation would make him horribly vain, or that vileness would make him terribly abject Misery counsels despair, pride counsels presumption.
The incarnation shows man the greatness of his misery by the greatness of the remedy of which he stood in need.
Not a vileness such as renders us incapable of good, nor a holiness exempt from evil.
No doctrine is more suited to man than this; for it teaches him his double capacity of receiving and losing grace, because of the double peril to which he is always exposed, of despair and of pride.
No other religion has enjoined hate of self. No other religion then can be pleasing to those who hate themselves, and who seek a Being wholly to be loved. And these, if they had never heard of the religion of an humiliated God, would embrace it at once.
No other has recognised that man is of all creatures the most excellent. Some, having apprehended the reality of his excellence, have blamed as mean and ungrateful the low opinion which men naturally have of themselves, and others, well aware how real is this vileness, have treated with haughty ridicule those sentiments of greatness which are no less natural to man.
"Lift your eyes to God," say these, "see him in whose image you are, who has made you to worship him. You can make yourselves like unto him; wisdom will equal you to him if you will follow it." But others say: "Bend your eyes to the earth, poor worm that you are, and look upon the brutes your comrades." What then will man become? Will he equal God or the brutes? What an awful gulf! What then shall we be?
Who does not see from all this that man has gone astray, that he has fallen from his place, that he seeks it with disquiet, that he cannot regain it? And who shall direct him, since the greatest men have not availed?
What men could scarcely know by their greatest light, this Religion has taught to babes.
Other religions, as those of heathendom, are more popular since they consist only in externals, but they have no effect on the educated. A purely intellectual religion would be more adapted to the educated, but it would be of no use to the people. The Christian religion alone is fitted for all, being composed of externals and internals. It elevates the people to interior acts, it abases the proud to external rites, and it is not complete without both, for the people must understand the spirit which is in the letter, and the educated must submit their spirit to the letter.
Philosophers have consecrated vices in attributing them to God himself, Christians have consecrated virtues.
_OF ORIGINAL SIN._ There are two truths of faith equally sure: the one, that man in the state of creation, or in that of grace, is raised above all nature, is made like unto God and is a sharer in divinity; the other, that in the state of corruption and sin, he has fallen from the higher state and is made like unto the beasts. These two propositions are equally firm and certain. The Scripture declares it plainly, as when it says in certain places: _Deliciæ meæ, esse cum filiis hominum.
Effundam spiritum meum super omnem carnem. Dii estis, etc._; and when it says in others: _Omnis caro fænum. Homo comparatus est jumentis insipientibus, et similis factus est illis. Dixi in corde meo de filiis hominum, ut probaret eos Deus et ostenderet similes esse bestiis, etc._ The wicked, who abandon themselves blindly to their passions, without the knowledge of God, and without taking the trouble to seek him, themselves confirm this foundation of the faith which they attack, that the nature of man is corrupt. And the Jews, who so obstinately assail the Christian religion, again confirm that other foundation of the same faith which they assail, namely, that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah, who has come to redeem men, and deliver them from the corruption and misery in which they were, as much by the condition in which we see them at this day, and which was foretold by the prophets, as by these same prophecies which they possess and keep so inviolably as the tokens whereby the Messiah is to be recognised.
I would ask them if it is not true that they themselves confirm this foundation of the faith they assail, which is that the nature of man is corrupt.
Marton sees indeed that nature is corrupt, and that men are opposed to honourable conduct, but he knows not why they cannot fly higher.
The meaning of the words _good_ and _evil_.
Original sin is foolishness to men, but it is admitted to be so. This doctrine must not then be reproached with want of reason, since I admit that it has no reason. But this foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom of men, _sapientius est hominibus_. For without this how can we say what man is? His whole state depends on this imperceptible point, and how should it be perceived by his reason, since it is a thing against reason, and since reason, far from finding it out by her own ways, revolts from it when it is offered her?
There is nothing on earth which does not show either human misery or divine mercy; either the weakness of man without God, or the power of man with God.
Thus the whole universe teaches man, either that he is corrupt, or that he is redeemed; every thing teaches him his greatness or his misery; the abandonment by God is shown in the heathen, the protection of God is shown in the Jews.
Nature has her perfections to show that she is the image of God, and her defects to show that she is no more than his image.
Men being unaccustomed to form merit, but only to recompense it when they find it formed, judge of God by themselves.
When we wish to think of God, there is a something which turns us aside, and tempts us to think on other subjects; all this is evil and born with us.
Lust has become natural to us, and has made our second nature. Thus there are two natures in us, one good, the other evil.--Where is God? Where you are not, and the kingdom of God is within you.--_The Rabbis._ It is then true that everything instructs man concerning his condition, but the statement must be clearly understood, for it is not true that all reveals God, and it is not true that all hides him. But it is true both that he hides himself from those who tempt him, and that he reveals himself to those who seek him, because men are both unworthy and capable of God; unworthy by their corruption, capable by their original nature.
We cannot conceive the glorious state of Adam, nor the nature of his sin, nor the transmission of it to us. These things took place under the conditions of a nature quite different to our own, transcending our present capacity.
The knowledge of all this would be of no use in helping us to escape from it, and all we need know is that we are miserable, corrupt, separate from God, but ransomed by Jesus Christ, and of this we have on earth wonderful proofs.
Thus the two proofs of corruption and redemption are drawn from the wicked, who live indifferent to religion, and from the Jews who are its irreconcilable enemies.
All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morality in lust and in grace.
Shall he only who knows his nature know it only to his misery? Shall he alone who knows it be alone miserable?
He must not see nothing whatever, nor must he see so much as to believe he possesses it, but he must see enough to know that he has lost it; for to be aware of loss he must see and not see, and that is precisely the state in which he is by nature.
We wish for truth, and find in ourselves only uncertainty.
We seek after happiness, and find only misery and death.
We cannot but wish for truth and happiness, and we are incapable neither of certainty nor of happiness. This desire is left to us, as much to punish us as to make us feel whence we are drawn.
Will it be asserted that because men have spoken of righteousness as having fled from the earth, therefore they knew of original sin?--_Nemo ante obitum beatus est._--That therefore they knew death to be the beginning of eternal and essential happiness?
The dignity of man while innocent consisted in using and having dominion over the creatures, but now in separating himself from them, and subjecting himself to them.
_Source of contradictions._--A God humbled, even to the death of the cross, a Messiah by his death triumphing over death. Two natures in Jesus Christ, two advents, two states of human nature.
_Of original sin.--Ample tradition of original sin according to the Jews._ On the word in Genesis, viii. 21. The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.
R. Moses Haddarschan: This evil leaven is placed in man from the time that he is formed.
_Massechet Succa_: This evil leaven has seven names in Scripture.
It is called evil, an unclean prepuce, an enemy, a scandal, a heart of stone, the north wind; all this signifies the malignity which is concealed and ingrained in the heart of man.
_Midrasch Tillim_ says the same thing, and that God will free the good nature of man from the evil.
This malignity is renewed every day against man, as it is written, Psalm xxxvii. The wicked watcheth the just, and striveth to kill him, but God will not abandon him.
This malignity tries the heart of man in this life, and will accuse him in the other.
All this is found in the _Talmud_.
_Midrasch Tillim_ on Ps. iv.: "Stand in awe and sin not." Stand in awe and be afraid of your lust, and it will not lead you into sin.
And on Ps. xxxvi. "The wicked has said in his heart: Let not the fear of God be before me." That is to say that the malignity natural to man has said that to the wicked.
_Misdrasch el Kohelet_: "Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king who cannot foresee the future." The child is virtue, and the king is the malignity of man. It is called king because all the members obey it, and old because it is in the heart of man from infancy to old age, and foolish because it leads man in the way of perdition which he does not foresee.
The same thing is in _Misdrasch Tillim_.
_Bereschist Rabba_ on Ps. xxxv.: "Lord, all my bones shall bless thee, who deliverest the poor from the tyrant." And is there a greater tyrant than the evil leaven? And on Proverbs xxv., "If thine enemy be hungry, feed him." That is to say, if the evil leaven hunger, give him the bread of wisdom of which speaks Prov. ix., and if he be thirsty, give him the water of which speaks Isaiah lv.
_Misdrasch Tillim_ says the same thing, and that the Scripture in that passage speaking of our enemy, means the evil leaven, and that in giving it that bread and that water, we heap coals of fire on his head.
_Misdrasch Kohelet_ on Ecclesiastes ix. "A great king besieged a little city." This great king is the evil leaven, the great engines with which he surrounds it are temptations, and there has been found a poor wise man who has delivered it, that is to say virtue.
And on Ps. xli. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor."
And on Ps. lxxviii. The spirit goeth and returneth not again, whereof some have taken occasion of error concerning the immortality of the soul; but the sense is that this spirit is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till death, and will not return at the resurrection.
And on Ps. ciii. the same thing.
And on Ps. xvi.
The citations of pages are from the book _Pugio_.
Page 27, R. Hakadosch, _anno_ 200, author of the Mischna or vocal law, or second law.
Commentaries on the Mischna, _anno_ 340: The one, _Siphra_.
_Barajetot._ _Talmud Hierosol._ _Tosiphtot._ _Bereschit Rabah_, by R. Osaiah Rabah, commentary on the Mischna.
_Bereschit Rabah, Bar Naconi_, are subtle and agreeable discourses, historical and theological. The same author wrote the books called Rabot.
A hundred years after the _Talmud Hierosol. anno_ 440, was made the _Babylonian Talmud_, by R. Ase, by the universal consent of all the Jews, who are necessarily obliged to observe all that is contained therein.
The addition of R. Ase is called the _Gemara_, that is to say the commentary on the _Mischna_.
And the _Talmud_ as a whole comprises the _Mischna_ and the _Gemara_.
_THE PERPETUITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION._ _Perpetuity._--That religion has always existed on earth, which consists in believing that man has fallen from a state of glory and of communion with God into a state of sorrow, penitence, and estrangement from God, but that after this life we shall be restored by a Messiah who was to come. All things have passed away, and this has subsisted for which are all things.
Men in the first age of the world were carried away into every kind of misconduct, and yet there were holy men, as Enoch, Lamech and others, who awaited with patience the Christ promised from the beginning of the world. Noah saw the evil of men at its height; and he was found worthy to save the world in his person, by the hope of the Messiah of whom he was the type. Abraham was compassed round about by idolaters, when God revealed to him the mystery of the Messiah, whom he greeted from afar. In the days of Isaac and Jacob abomination was spread over the whole earth, but these holy men lived in faith, and Jacob dying and blessing his children, cried in a transport which made him break off his discourse, "I await, O my God, the Saviour whom thou hast promised. _Salutare tuum expectabo, Domine_." The Egyptians were infected both with idolatry and magic, even the people of God were led astray by their example. Yet Moses and others saw him whom they saw not, and adored him, looking to the eternal gifts which he was preparing for them. The Greeks and Latins then enthroned false deities, the poets made a hundred divers theologies, the philosophers separated into a thousand different sects, and yet in the heart of Judæa were always chosen men who foretold the advent of this Messiah, known to them alone. He came at length in the fulness of time, and since then, notwithstanding the birth of so many schisms and heresies, so many revolutions in government, such great changes in all things, this Church, adoring him who has ever been adored, has subsisted without a break. It is a wonderful, incomparable and wholly divine fact, that this Religion which has ever endured, has ever been assailed. A thousand times has it been on the eve of an universal ruin, and whenever it has been in that state God has restored it by extraordinary manifestations of his power. This is marvellous, so also that it has survived without yielding to the will of tyrants. For it is not strange that a State