THE

IMPORTANT EXAMINATION:

&c.

CHAP. I.

OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES.

CHRISTIANITY is founded on Judaism; let us, then, examine if Judaism be the work of God. The books of Moses are handed to me, and the first point I have to ascertain is, whether or not these books were actually written by Moses.

In the first place. Is it possible that Moses could have engraven the Pentateuch, or the books of the law, on stone, and that he found engravers and stonecutters in a frightful wilderness, where, it is said, that his people had neither tailors, shoemakers, raiment, nor bread, and where God was compelled to work a continued miracle, for the space of forty years, in order to clothe and feed them?

Secondly. The book of Joshua tells us that Deuteronomy was written on an altar of rough stone,1 covered over with plaster. How could a whole book be written on plaster? Would not the letters soon be effaced by the blood which continually flowed on this altar? And how could this altar, this monument of Deuteronomy, subsist so long, in a country where the Jews had been such a length of time reduced to a

Joshua viii. 31, 32.

state of slavery, which their plunders had so fully justified?

Thirdly. The innumerable geographical and chronological errors and contradictions which we find in the Pentateuch, have compelled many, both Jews and Christians, to declare, that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses. The learned Le Clerc, a number of divines, even our great Newton, have embraced this opinion, which appears, at least, very pro

bable.

I likewise ask any reasonable man, if it be at all likely that Moses, when he was in the wilderness, would have given precepts for Jewish kings, who did not exist for several centuries after him; and if it be possible that, when in the same wilderness, he could have allotted forty-eight cities and their suburbs to the tribe of the Levites alone, independent of the tenths which the other tribes ought to pay them? It is, doubtless, very natural to suppose that the priests would lay hold of every thing, but we cannot imagine that they had forty-eight cities given them, in a little canton where at that time two villages scarcely existed: as many cities would, at least, have been necessary for each of the other Jewish tribes, and the whole would have amounted to four hundred and eighty cities with their suburbs. The Jews have not written their history in any other manner. Each trait is a ridiculous hyperbole, a stupid falsehood, or an absurd fable.

CHAP. II.

OF THE PERSON OF MOSES.

Was there ever such a person as Moses? There is so much of prodigy in him from his cradle to his death, that he appears to be an imaginary personage

like our magician Merlin. If he had really existed, if he had performed the dreadful miracles attributed to him in Egypt, would it have been possible that no Egyptian author should have spoken of these miracles, and that the Greeks, the lovers of the marvellous, had not recorded a single word respecting him? Flavius Josephus, who, to extol his despicable nation, seeks after the testimony of the Egyptian authors who have spoken of the Jews, has not the face to quote one that makes mention of the prodigies of Moses. Is not this universal silence a proof that Moses is only a fabulous personage?

Those who have paid any attention to antiquity, know that the ancient Arabs invented many fables, which succeeding ages made known to other nations. They had imagined the history of ancient Bacchus, whom they suppose to have lived long anterior to the time when the Jews tell us their Moses made his appearance. This Bacchus, or Back, who was born in Arabia, had written his laws on two tables of stone; he was called Misem; a name which has some resemblance to that of Moses; he was picked up in a box on the waters, and the signification of his name is, "saved from the waters;" he had a rod with which he performed miracles, and he could change his rod into a serpent at his own pleasure. This same Misem passed the Red Sea dry shod at the head of his army; he divided the waters of Orontes and Hydaspus, and suspended them to the right and left, and a fiery column lighted his army during the night. The ancient Orphic verses which were sung in the orgies of Bacchus, celebrated a part of these extravagancies. This fable was so ancient, that the fathers of the church believed Misem or Bacchus to have been Noah.1

'We must observe that Bacchus was known in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, a long while before any nation had heard the name of Moses, or even of Noah and the whole of his genealogy. Every thing that belonged exclusively to the Jewish writ

B

Is it not highly probable that the Jews adopted this fable, and that it was written as soon as they had obtained some knowledge of literature under their kings? They must have a little of the marvellous as well as other people, but they were not the inventors; never was there a petty nation more stupid; all their falsehoods were plagiarisms; and all their ceremonies were visibly performed in imitation of those of the Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians.

What they themselves have added appear to be such disgusting stupidities and absurdities, that they excite both our indignation and pity. In what ridiculous romance could we bear to hear of a man changing all the waters into blood by a flourish of his rod, in the name of a God unknown, while the magicians can do the same thing in the name of their local deities? The only superiority that Moses obtains over the king's magicians is, in creating lice, which they were unable to perform. This made a great prince say, that as far as lice were concerned, the Jews could do more than all the magicians in the world.

How did an angel of the Lord come and kill all the cattle in Egypt? How did it happen that the king of Egypt had afterwards an army of cavalry? And how did the cavalry proceed to cross the muddy bottom of the Red Sea? How did the same angel of the Lord slay all the first-born of the Egyptians in a single night? It was then that the pretended Moses ought to have taken possession of this beautiful country, instead

ings, was absolutely unknown to both Eastern and Western nations, from the name of Adam to that of David.

The wretched Jews had their own chronology and fables apart, which bore only a slight resemblance to those of other nations. Their writers, who were very tardy in commencing their labours, ransacked every thing they could find among their neighbours, and disguised their thefts very badly; witness the fable of Moses, borrowed from that of Bacchus, their ridiculous Sampson from that of Hercules, Jephtha's daughter from Iphigenia, Lot's wife imitated from Eurydice, &c.

of running away like a coward and a vagabond, with two or three millions of men, among whom it is said that there were six hundred and thirty thousand combatants. It was this prodigious multitude that he took with him to wander and die in the wilderness, where they could not even find water to drink. To facilitate this grand expedition, his God divides the waters of the sea, which he raises like two mountains to the right and left, in order that his favourite people may perish with hunger and thirst.

All the rest of the history of Moses is equally absurd and barbarous. His quails; his manna; his conversations with God; twenty-three thousand of the people killed by order of the priest; twenty-four thousand massacred at another time; and six hundred and thirty thousand combatants in a wilderness where they could never find two thousand men! Assuredly the whole of this appears to be the height of extravagance; and it has been said, that Orlando Furioso and Don Quixote are geometrical books in comparison with those of the Hebrews. If we could find only a few rational and honest actions in the fable of Moses, we might then in reality believe that such a person had existed.

They have the face to tell us, that the feast of the Passover among the Jews, is a proof of the passage of the Red Sea. At this feast they thanked the Jewish God for his goodness in killing all the first-born of Egypt; and they tell us, that nothing could be more true than this holy and divine butchery.

"Can we conceive," says that declaimer and trifling reasoner, Abbadie," that it was possible for Moses to institute sensible memorials of an event, recognized to be false by more than six hundred thousand witnesses?" Poor man! thou shouldst have said by more than two millions of witnesses, for six hundred and thirty thousand combatants, whether they were fugitives or not, assuredly lead us to suppose that there were more than two millions of inhabitants. Thou sayest, then, that