Chapter Xviii
eee ertullian's A pology for the Christians.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING THE SEPTUAGINT, OR THE WRITINGS OF THE PROPHETS
TRANSLATED INTO GREEK BY THE ENDEAVOURS OF PTOLEMY
PHILADELPHUS.
Burt in order to bring men to a more perfect and powerful knowledge of the divine nature, and also of the methods of His — wisdom, and the laws of His will, God has added to the light of nature an instrument in writing of these things, for the instruction of those who are willing to be at the pains of inquiring after Him,} and desirous to find Him in their inquiries, and to believe Him when found, and serve Him when believed.
For this end, the most just and innocent persons, such who have lived up most faithfully to the instructions of nature, and consequently the most becoming or the best prepared subjects for larger communications of divine knowledge, such, I say, were sent out from the beginning with mighty effusions of the Holy Spirit to preach to the world that there is but one only God, that it is He who created all things and formed man out of the earth (for He indeed is the true Prometheus),
' who methodized the world into this variety Of seasons, and in succeeding ages published His divine majesty and vengeance by a deluge of water, and fire, and brimstone from heaven, who has positively determined the laws He will-be served by, if we will serve
Him with acceptance ; which laws you know nct and will not learn ; but to the observers of them has destined rewards, who, when He comes to judgment at the last day, having raised «ll the dead ? that have been dead from the beginning of the world, and restored to "every man his body, and summoned the whole world before. Him to examine and render to all according to their works, He will recompense His true worshippers with life eternal, but will sentence the wicked into perpetual running streams of fire everlasting:
1 S¢ gud velit de Deo inguirere, etc.
'Revelation was added for the assistance of corrupted nature, but then it was so wisely tempered with light and darkness, that those only who search the Scriptures with an honest heart, in order to believe and obey what they find, will be the better for them,
Whoever reads them with such a disposition will find himself necessitated to believe them ; according to that of our Saviour, ''If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."
2 Suscitatis omnibus ab initio defunctis. Here again we find Tertullian, as well as Justin Martyr, expressly against Mr. Dodwell's notion of a limited resurrection founded upon the natural mortality of the soul.
Se ee i ' a"
Tertulhian's Apology for the Christians.
These things were once the subject of our wit and drollery,' as they are now of yours ; we have been heathens, as you are, for men are not born, but made Christians.
As to those excellent personages I mentioned, so extraordinarily assisted to preach the world into the notion of one only God, they were called prophets from their office of foretelling things to come.
The oracles they delivered, and the miracles they wrought for the confirmation of divine truth, were con-_ signed to writing, and the books treasured up, and are preserved to this day ; for the most learned of the Ptolemys, surnamed Philadelphus, and the most curious man living in all sorts of literature, and rivalling Pisistratus,? I suppose, in the glories of a library, among other choice pieces which he hunted after, famed either for their antiquity or the rarities they contained, by the advice of his librarykeeper, Demetrius Phalereus, the most approved grammarian and 1 Hac et nos risimus aliguando, de vestris fuimus. From these words we find that Tertullian had been a heathen, and such a one too as had made very merry with the Christian religion.
He had as quick and pointed a wit, and as good a knack at rallying and ridicule as the best of them, and his talent this way, and his course of life (which by his own confession was none of the chastest), no doubt provoked all his satire against a doctrine so new, and so cross to his inclinations.
However, upon serious consideration, and weighing matters well together, he was ~ overpowered by the goodness and evidence of divine truth, in spite of his passions.
And the libertines and unbelievers of our own age (who are by no means beforehand with our Tertullian either in point of wit or reason), would they but as impartially examine the proofs of Christianity, they would find themselves as unable to withstand them as our author confesses himself to be.
; * Pisistratum opinor, etc.
The libraries of Ptolemy and Pisistratus the tyrant are both mentioned by A. Gellius, lib. vi. cap. 17, but Tertullian speaks doubtfully whether Ptolemy Philadelphus erected his library in imitation of Pisistratus or no, and not without reason, because it is probable that the king of Pergamus, in imitation of whon; Ptolemy set up his library, was Eumenes.
All the ancient Fathers have believed after Josephus and. Philo, that the version not only of the Pentateuch but of the whole Bible commonly called the Septuagint, was composed by seventy-two Jews sent to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who desired to have the Jewish books in Greek to adorn his magnificent library at Alexandria, under © the care and 'supervisal of Demetrius Phalereus, an Athenian.
What the critics have since urged against this opinion of the Fathers, and against the authority of Aristeeus and Aristobulus, upon whom (say they) the Fathers took this story in trust, would be too tedious to insert here, and therefore I refer the reader to the learned Du Pin's preliminary Dissertati, 1 about the authors of the Bible, vol. i. sec. 3, p. 35.
However, I cannot but say that I do verily believe that there was a Greek version of the Bible made in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus ; for to me it does not seem credible that the authors of the books which pass under the titles of Aristzeus and Aristobulus entirely forged the whole story; muchmore
reasonable is it to believe that these authors only dressed up a certain matter of fact with some additions of their own.
F. Simon conjectures that this version was called the Septuagint, because it was approved by the Sanhedrim ; but this, like most of his conjectures, is wild, and without any foundation.
See likewise B.
Stillingfleet's Orig, Sac. lib. i. cap. 3. oa