Literary and Philosophical Essays · Michel de Montaigne
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Thus enlightened respecting the treasures which they had possessed, without knowing it, they returned, and became quite another people, whose first care it was to give permanency to this illumination amongst themselves. Soon an apostacy and idolatry among them was out of the question. For it is possible to be faithless to a national deity, but never to God, after He has once been recognised. The theologians have tried to explain this complete change in the Jewish people in a different way; and one, who has well demonstrated the insufficiency of these explanations, at last was for giving us, as a true account--"the visible fulfilment of the prophecies which had been spoken and written respecting the Babylonish captivity and the restoration from it." But even this reason can be only so far the true one, as it presupposes the, by this time, exalted ideas of God. The Jews must by this time have recognised that to do miracles, and to predict the future, belonged only to God, both of which they had ascribed formerly to false idols, by which it came to pass that even miracles and prophecies had hitherto made so weak an impression upon them. Doubtless, the Jews were made more acquainted with the doctrine of immortality among the Chaldeans and Persians. They became more familiar with it too in the schools of the Greek Philosophers in Egypt.
However, as this doctrine was not in the same condition in reference to their Scriptures that the doctrines of God's Unity and Attributes were--since the former were entirely overlooked by that sensual people, while the latter would be sought for:--and since too, for the former, previous exercising was necessary, and as yet there had been only hints and allusions, the faith in the immortality of the soul could naturally never be the faith of the entire people. It was and continued to be only the creed of a certain section of them. An example of what I mean by "previous exercising" for the doctrine of immortality, is the Divine threatenings of punishing the misdeeds of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. This accustomed the fathers to live in thought with their remotest posterity, and to feel, as it were, beforehand, the misfortune which they had brought upon these guiltless ones. By an allusion I mean that which was intended only to excite curiosity and to occasion questions. As, for instance, the oft- recurring mode of expression, describing death by "he was gathered to his fathers." By a "hint" I mean that which already contains any germ, out of which the, as yet, held back truth allows itself to be developed. Of this character was the inference of Christ from the naming of God "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This hint appears to me to be unquestionably capable of being worked out into a strong proof. In such previous exercitations, allusions, hints, consists the positive perfection of a Primer; just as the above-mentioned peculiarity of not throwing difficulties or hindrances in the way to the suppressed truth constitutes the negative perfection of such a book.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.