Réflexion générale sur la suite de la Religion
The Unbroken Line of Religion
The Church stands as a perpetual miracle, preserving the ancient records of God's revelation through an unbroken line of tradition.
A general reflection on the continuity of religion and the relationship between the books of Scripture. This Church, always under attack but never conquered, is a perpetual miracle and a brilliant witness to God's unchanging designs. In the midst of human turmoil, she still stands firm with invincible strength; through an unbroken line of nearly seventeen hundred years, we see her reach back to Jesus Christ, in whom she has gathered the succession of the ancient people and finds herself joined to the prophets and the patriarchs. All those astonishing miracles the ancient Hebrews witnessed firsthand still serve today to confirm our faith. What more authentic thing could that great God, who worked them to bear witness to his oneness and his almighty power, do to preserve the memory of them than leave in the hands of an entire great people the records that attest to them, written down in chronological order? This is what we still possess in the books of the Old Testament—the oldest books in the world; the only ancient books that teach the knowledge of the true God and prescribe his worship; the books the Jewish people have always kept so religiously. It is certain that this people is the only one that, from its beginning, knew the God who created heaven and earth; they were, therefore, the only ones meant to be the keepers of the divine secrets. It has also preserved them with a religious care that has no parallel.1 The books the Egyptians and other peoples called divine were lost long ago, and we barely retain any confused memory of them in ancient histories. The sacred books of the Romans, in which Numa, the founder of their religion, had written its mysteries, perished at the hands of the Romans themselves, and the Senate had them burned as tending to overthrow religion. These same Romans eventually let the Sibylline books perish—books so long revered among them as prophetic, and in which they wanted people to believe they found the decrees of the immortal gods concerning their empire—without ever having shown the public a single volume, let alone a single oracle. The Jews have been the only people whose sacred scriptures have been held in all the more veneration the better they have been known. Of all ancient peoples, they are the only ones who have preserved the earliest records of their religion, even though those records are full of evidence of their own unfaithfulness and that of their ancestors.2 And even today this same people remains on the earth to carry to every nation where it has been scattered, along with the ongoing course of the religion, the miracles and the prophecies that make that religion unshakable.3 When Jesus Christ came, and when, sent by his Father to fulfill the promises of the Law, he confirmed his mission and that of his disciples by new miracles, those miracles were written down with the same exact care.✦ The records of them have been published throughout the whole earth; the details of times, persons, and places have made examination easy for anyone careful of their salvation. The world looked into the matter, and the world believed. And however little you have studied the early records of the Church, you will admit that no case was ever judged with more careful reflection and knowledge.4 But there is a difference worth noting in how the books of the two Testaments relate to one another: the books of the ancient people were written at different times. The times of Moses are one thing; those of Joshua and the judges another; those of the kings another still: different again are the times when the people were brought out of Egypt and received the Law, when they conquered the promised land, and when they were restored there by visible miracles. To overcome the unbelief of a people bound to the senses, God took a long stretch of centuries during which he distributed his miracles and his prophets, so that he could often renew the tangible witnesses by which he attested his holy truths. In the New Testament, he followed a different path. After Jesus Christ, he no longer wishes to reveal anything new to his Church. In him is perfection and fullness; all the divine books written under the new covenant were composed in the time of the apostles. That is to say, the witness of Jesus Christ, and of those whom Jesus Christ himself deigned to choose as witnesses of his resurrection, has been enough for the Christian church. Everything that followed has helped build her up, but she has only regarded as divinely inspired what the apostles wrote or confirmed by their authority. Yet, in the difference between the books of the two Testaments, God has always maintained this admirable order: having events recorded as they happened, or while the memory of them was still fresh. So those who knew them wrote them down; those who knew them received the books that bore witness to them; both left them to their descendants as a precious inheritance; and pious posterity preserved them. This is how the body of Holy Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments took shape—Scriptures that were regarded from the start as true in every part, given by God himself, and preserved with such religious care that no one thought it possible, without impiety, to change a single letter.5 They have come down to us this way: always holy, always sacred, and always inviolable. Some were preserved by the constant tradition of the Jewish people, others by the tradition of the Christian people—a tradition made all the more certain because it was confirmed by the blood and martyrdom of both those who wrote these divine books and those who received them. Saint Augustine and the other Church Fathers ask on whose authority we assign pagan books to specific times and authors.6 Everyone answers immediately that these books are identified by their various connections to the laws, customs, and histories of a given era, by a style that bears the distinct mark of particular ages and authors—and, above all, by public trust and constant tradition.7 All these things work together to establish the divine books, to distinguish their times, and to mark their authors; and the more religious care there has been in preserving them intact, the more incontestable is the tradition that preserves them for us.8
The Authenticity of the Sacred Books
The historical integrity of the Old and New Testaments is confirmed by the independent witness of diverse peoples and the internal coherence of the texts.
This has always been acknowledged, not only by the orthodox, but also by heretics and even by unbelievers. Throughout the East, and later the entire world, Moses has always been regarded as the lawgiver of the Jews and the author of the books they attribute to him. The Samaritans, who received them from the ten separated tribes, have preserved them as religiously as the Jews. You have seen their tradition and their history. Two peoples so opposed to each other did not take these books from one another; both received them from their common origin, from the times of Solomon and David. The ancient Hebrew characters that the Samaritans still keep show clearly enough that they didn't follow Ezra, who changed them. So the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Jewish one are two complete originals, independent of each other. The perfect agreement found in the substance of the text vindicates the good faith of both peoples. They are faithful witnesses who agree without having consulted each other—or better said, who agree despite their enmities—and whom nothing but immemorial tradition, on both sides, has united in the same judgment. Those, then, who have wanted to claim—though without any reason—that these books, having been lost or never having existed, were either restored, or composed anew, or altered by Ezra, are contradicted not only by Ezra himself, as one could note in the course of his history, but also by the Pentateuch still found today in the Samaritans' hands, just as Eusebius of Caesarea, Saint Jerome, and the other ecclesiastical writers had read it in the earliest centuries, and just as these peoples had preserved it from their origin; and so weak a sect seems to have lasted so long only to bear this witness to the antiquity of Moses. The authors of the four Gospels receive a testimony that is just as certain from the unanimous agreement of the faithful, pagans, and heretics alike. The vast number of diverse peoples who received and translated these divine books as soon as they were written all agree on their date and their authors. The pagans did not contradict this tradition. Neither Celsus, who attacked these sacred books almost at the dawn of Christianity, nor Julian the Apostate—who overlooked nothing and left out nothing that could discredit them—nor any other pagan ever suspected them of being forgeries. On the contrary, they all attributed them to the same authors as the Christians did.9 The heretics, even though they were crushed by the authority of these books, didn't dare claim that their writers weren't disciples of Our Lord.10 There were, however, heretics among them who had seen the beginnings of the Church and before whose eyes the Gospel books were written. So any fraud, if there could have been one, would have been scrutinized too closely to succeed.11 It is true that after the apostles, and when the Church was already spread throughout the whole earth, Marcion and Manes—consistently the most reckless and the most ignorant of all the heretics—despite the tradition that had come from the apostles, been continued by their disciples and by the bishops to whom they had left their sees and the care of the peoples, and been received unanimously by the whole Christian Church, dared to say that three Gospels were forgeries, and that that of Saint Luke, which they preferred to the others (no one knows why, since it had not come by another route), had been falsified.1213 But what proofs did they offer for it? Just visions, not solid facts. Their only argument was that whatever ran contrary to their views must necessarily have been invented by someone other than the apostles, and for all their proof they put forward the very opinions that were disputed against them—opinions, moreover, so extravagant and so plainly insane that one still doesn't know how they could ever have entered a human mind. But surely, to accuse the Church of bad faith, one needed to have in hand originals different from hers, or some solid proof.14 When called upon to produce any, both they and their disciples remained silent. That silence provided undeniable proof that in the second century of Christianity, when they were writing, there wasn't even a hint of falsity, nor the slightest conjecture that could be set against the tradition of the Church. What shall I say of the agreement of the books of Scripture, and of the remarkable witness that all the ages of God's people give one another? The times of the second Temple presuppose those of the first, and lead us back to Solomon. Peace came only through battles; and the conquests of God's people take us back to the judges, to Joshua, and to the departure from Egypt. When you see an entire people leave a kingdom where they were strangers, you remember how they first entered it. The twelve patriarchs appear at once, and a people that has never thought of itself as anything but a single family naturally leads us to Abraham, who is its stock.15 Is this people wiser and less prone to idolatry after their return from Babylon? That was the natural result of a severe punishment their past faults had brought upon them. If this people glories in having witnessed miracles for many centuries that other nations have never seen, they can also glory in having had a knowledge of God that no other people possessed. What are circumcision, the Feast of Tabernacles, Passover, and the other feasts this nation has celebrated since time immemorial supposed to mean, if not the things we find recorded in the books of Moses? That a people set apart from the rest by so distinctive a religion and by such particular customs—a people that from its origin has kept, on the foundation of creation and on faith in providence, so consistent and elevated a doctrine, so vivid a memory of a long chain of facts so necessarily linked together, ceremonies so regulated and customs so universal—should have gone a thousand years in that state without a history to mark its origin and without a law to prescribe its customs; and that Ezra should then have begun, all at once and under Moses's name, to want to give it, along with the history of its antiquities, the law that shaped its ways, when this people had become captive and seen its ancient monarchy overthrown from the ground up: what more incredible fable could anyone ever invent? And can anyone believe this without combining ignorance with blasphemy? For a people to lose such a law once it has been received, they would have to be wiped out, or through various upheavals have come to retain only a confused idea of their origin, their religion, and their customs. If this misfortune did befall the Jewish people, and if the law so well known under Zedekiah was lost sixty years later despite the care of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Baruch, Daniel, and others—at a time when that law had its martyrs, as the persecutions of Daniel and the three young men show—if, I say, this holy law was lost in such a short time and remained so deeply forgotten that Ezra was free to reestablish it as he pleased, it would not have been the only book he had to fabricate. He would have had to compose all the prophets at the same time, both old and new—that is, those who had written before and during the captivity, those the people had seen writing, as well as those whose memory they still kept. And not only the prophets, but also the books of Solomon, the psalms of David, and all the historical books; since you will hardly find in that entire history a single significant fact, or in all those other books a single chapter, that could stand for a moment if cut off from the Moses we have today. Everything in them speaks of Moses; everything is founded on Moses. And it had to be so, since Moses, his law, and the history he wrote were, in fact, the entire foundation of public and private conduct for the Jewish people. It would have been a truly marvelous undertaking for Ezra, and quite new in the world: to make so many men of different character and style speak at the same time alongside Moses, each in a uniform manner consistent with itself; and all at once to make an entire people believe that these were the ancient books they had always revered, and the new ones they had seen being made—as if they had never heard of anything, and as if knowledge of the present as well as the past had been wiped out in an instant. Those are the wonders you have to believe when you refuse to believe the miracles of the Almighty, or to accept the testimony by which it is established that a whole great people was told it had seen them with its own eyes. But if this people came back from Babylon to their fathers' land so new and so ignorant that they barely remembered they had ever existed, so that they took without examination everything Ezra chose to give them—how, then, do we see in the book Ezra wrote, and in that of his contemporary Nehemiah, all that is said there about the divine books? How could Ezra and Nehemiah have the nerve to speak so publicly and frequently about the law of Moses as if it were common knowledge that everyone already possessed? Why do we see the entire population acting naturally in accordance with this law, as if it had always been right in front of them? Yet, how can it be said at the same time, upon the people's return, that they were amazed by the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy regarding the seventy years of captivity? This Jeremiah whom Ezra had just forged along with all the other prophets—how did he all at once find belief? What kind of trick could persuade an entire nation—including the elders who had actually seen this prophet—that they had always been waiting for the miraculous deliverance he announced in his writings? Even if we assume all that, we are still left with the claim that Ezra and Nehemiah didn't write the history of their own time, but that someone else wrote it under their names; and that those who fabricated the other books of the Old Testament were so favored by later generations that other forgers attributed even more books to them just to give their fraud more credibility.16 People will surely be ashamed of such absurdities. Instead of admitting that Ezra produced so many books, each clearly distinguished by its own style and historical period, they will claim he could have simply inserted the miracles and predictions that make them seem divine. This is an even cruder error than the last, because these miracles and predictions are so woven into every part of these books, repeated so often with such variety and rhetorical force, and so thoroughly constitute their entire structure, that you would have to have never opened these holy books to miss the fact that it is easier to rewrite them entirely than to insert the very things that unbelievers are so frustrated to find there. And even if one had granted them everything they ask for, the miraculous and the divine are so thoroughly the substance of these books that they would still be found there, no matter what one might have done.17 Grant that Ezra, if you like, later added the predictions of things already fulfilled in his own day: as for those that have been fulfilled since then, which you have seen in such great number—who will have added those? Perhaps God will have given Ezra the gift of prophecy so that Ezra's imposture would be more plausible; and people will rather have a forger be a prophet than Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Daniel: or else each century will have produced a lucky forger whom the whole people believed; and new impostors, by an admirable zeal for religion, will have continually added to the divine books, even after the canon had been closed, after they had spread with the Jews throughout the earth, and after they had been translated into so many foreign languages. Wouldn't that have been, in the very effort to establish religion, to destroy it at its foundations? Does a whole people so readily let what it believes to be divine be changed, whether it believes it by reason or by error? Can anyone hope to persuade Christians, or even Turks, to add a single chapter to either the Gospel or the Koran?18 But perhaps the Jews were more docile than other peoples, or less scrupulous about preserving their holy books?19 What monstrous opinions must you put into your mind when you want to shake off the yoke of divine authority and regulate your beliefs, no less than your morals, by nothing but your own straying reason? Don't say that examining these facts is too much trouble; even if it were, you would still have to either rely on the Church's authority and the tradition of so many centuries, or follow the inquiry through to the end—and you shouldn't think you're finished just by saying it takes more time than you're willing to give for your salvation. But ultimately, without the endless labor of pouring over the books of both Testaments, you only need to read the Book of Psalms, where so many ancient songs of the people of God are gathered. There, in the most divine poetry ever written, you will find immortal monuments of the history of Moses, the judges, and the kings, etched into human memory through song and meter. And for the New Testament, Saint Paul's letters alone—so vivid, so original, so steeped in the times, the affairs, and the movements of that age, and finally of so marked a character—those letters, I say, received by the churches to which they were addressed and from there shared with the other churches, would be enough to convince fair-minded minds that everything is sincere and original in the writings the apostles left us. In this way, they support one another with invincible force. The Acts of the Apostles only continue the Gospel; their letters necessarily presuppose it: but so that everything may agree, the Acts, the letters, and the Gospels all call everywhere on the ancient books of the Jews.20 Saint Paul and the other apostles constantly cite what Moses said and wrote, as well as what the prophets said and wrote after him. Jesus Christ calls upon the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms as witnesses that all testify to the same truth.✦ When he explains his mysteries, he begins with Moses and the prophets. By telling the Jews that Moses wrote about him, he uses what was most firmly established among them as his foundation, leading them back to the very source of their traditions.✦✦
The Divine Design in History
The correspondence between the two Testaments reveals a single, eternal design of providence that culminates in the mission of Jesus Christ.
Still, let's look at what is set against such a recognized authority and the consensus of so many centuries. Since people today have dared to publish books against Scripture in every language, we shouldn't hide what they say to disparage its antiquity. So, what do they say to justify the claim that the Pentateuch is a fabrication, and what can they object against a three-thousand-year-old tradition sustained by its own internal force and the course of history?21 Nothing coherent, nothing solid, nothing important—only quibbles over numbers, places, or names. Such observations, which in any other subject would at most pass for empty curiosities unable to touch the substance of things, are here held up as deciding the most serious matter there has ever been. They claim there are difficulties in the history of Scripture. There are some, no doubt, that would not be there if the book were less ancient, or if it had been fabricated, as they dare to claim, by a clever and industrious man; if people had been less scrupulous about handing it on just as they found it, and had taken the liberty of correcting what caused difficulty.22 These are the difficulties that long stretches of time produce: when places have changed names or conditions, when dates are forgotten, when genealogies are no longer known, when there is no longer any remedy for the errors that a slightly careless copy introduces so easily, or when facts that have slipped from human memory leave obscurity in some part of the history. But in the end, does this obscurity lie in the actual sequence of the story, or in the heart of the matter?23 Not at all: everything there is continuous and coherent, and what remains obscure only serves to show, in the holy books, a still more venerable antiquity. But there are alterations in the text: ancient versions don't agree; the Hebrew differs from itself in various places; and the Samaritan text, aside from the word they're accused of having deliberately changed to favor their temple at Gerizim, still differs in other places from the Jewish text. And from that, what will people conclude? That the Jews or Ezra must have forged the Pentateuch after returning from captivity? You ought to conclude exactly the opposite. The differences in the Samaritan text only serve to confirm what we've already established: that their text is independent of the Jewish one. Far from anyone imagining that these schismatics took anything from the Jews and from Ezra, we've seen on the contrary that it was out of hatred for the Jews and for Ezra, and for the first and second temples, that they invented their fantasy of Gerizim. Who can't see, then, that they would have sooner accused the Jews of fraud than followed them? These rebels who scorned Ezra and all the Jewish prophets, along with their temple, Solomon who built it, and David who designated its place—what have they respected in their Pentateuch, if not an antiquity superior not only to that of Ezra and the prophets, but also to that of Solomon and David—in a word, the antiquity of Moses, on which both peoples agree? How undeniable, then, is the authority of Moses and the Pentateuch, which all objections only serve to strengthen? But in the end, where do these variations in the texts and versions come from? Where do they come from, really, if not from the book's own antiquity? It has passed through the hands of so many copyists over so many centuries that the language it's written in is no longer common. But let's leave aside empty disputes and cut the difficulty short, in a word, at the root.24 Let someone tell me whether it isn't certain that from every version, and from the whole text whatever it may be, there will always come out the same laws, the same miracles, the same predictions, the same course of history, the same body of doctrine, and finally the same substance. After that, what harm do the diversities of the texts do? What more did we need than this unalterable foundation of the sacred books, and what more could we have asked of divine providence? And as for the versions, is it a sign of forgery or novelty that the language of Scripture is so ancient that its subtleties have been lost, and that it's difficult to capture all its elegance or force with perfect precision?2526 Doesn't that actually prove its extreme antiquity? And if people want to fuss over little things, let them tell me whether, of so many places where there's difficulty, anyone has restored even a single one by reasoning or by conjecture. People have followed the authority of the manuscripts; and since tradition has never allowed sound doctrine to be altered, they believed that any other faults, if any remained, would only serve to prove that nothing here has been innovated by private ingenuity.27 But finally—and here is the heart of the objection—aren't there things added into Moses's text, and how is it that we find his death at the end of the book attributed to him? Is it any wonder that those who continued his history added his blessed end to the rest of his deeds, so as to make one body of the whole?28 As for the other additions, let's see what they amount to. Is it some new law, some new ceremony, some dogma, some miracle, or some prediction? No one even thinks of that: there isn't the slightest suspicion of it, nor the least sign. That would have been adding to the work of God: the law had forbidden it, and the scandal one would have caused would have been horrible. What then? Perhaps someone continued a genealogy already begun; perhaps someone explained a place-name changed by time; in connection with the manna on which the people were fed for forty years, someone noted the time when that heavenly food ceased, and that fact, written later in another book, remained as a note in Moses's book as a settled public fact of which the whole people was witness; four or five remarks of this kind, made by Joshua, or by Samuel, or by some other prophet of like antiquity—because they concerned only well-known facts where there was plainly no difficulty—naturally passed into the text; and the same tradition brought them down to us with all the rest: and at once everything is lost?29 Ezra will be accused, even though the Samaritan text, where these remarks are found, shows us that they date back not only further than Ezra, but further than the schism of the ten tribes?30 No matter; everything has to fall on Ezra. If these notes came from still earlier, the Pentateuch would be even older than we need it to be; and you could never revere enough the antiquity of a book whose very notes would be of such great age. So Ezra will have done everything; Ezra will have forgotten that he meant to make Moses speak, and will have so clumsily made him write as already past what happened after his time.31 An entire work will be convicted of forgery from this one place alone; the authority of so many centuries and the public trust will no longer do it any good—as if, on the contrary, one did not see that these notes people seize on are fresh proof of sincerity and good faith, not only in those who made them, but also in those who copied them.32 Has anyone ever judged the authority—I don't mean of a divine book, but of any book at all—by such flimsy reasons? But the truth is that Scripture is a book the enemy of the human race; it means to compel people to submit their minds to God and to restrain their disordered passions: it has to perish; and at whatever cost, it must be sacrificed to libertinism.33 Besides, don't think that impiety takes on all the absurdities you've seen without necessity. If, against the testimony of the human race and against every rule of common sense, it insists on stripping the Pentateuch and the prophecies of their long-recognized authors and contesting their dates, it's because dates are everything in this matter, for two reasons. First, because books filled with so many miraculous facts, which you see there clothed in their most particular circumstances and put forward not only as public but also as present—if they could have been contradicted, would have carried their own condemnation with them; and instead of standing by their own weight, they would have fallen of themselves long ago.34 Second, once their dates are fixed, you can't erase the infallible mark of divine inspiration they bear, stamped into the vast number and long succession of memorable predictions that fill them. It's to avoid these miracles and predictions that the ungodly have fallen into all the absurdities that astonished you. But they shouldn't think they can escape God; he has reserved for his Scripture a mark of divinity that no attack can touch. It is the correspondence of the two Testaments.35 At the very least, no one disputes that the entire Old Testament was written before the New.36 There is no new Ezra here who could have persuaded the Jews to invent or falsify their Scripture in favor of the Christians they were persecuting. Nothing more is needed. Through the correspondence of the two Testaments, we prove that both are divine. They both share the same design and sequence: one prepares the way for the perfection the other displays openly; one lays the foundation, and the other finishes the building; in a word, one predicts what the other shows fulfilled. So all the ages are linked together, and an eternal design of divine providence is revealed to us. The tradition of the Jewish people and that of the Christian people form together only one continuous line of religion, and the Scriptures of the two Testaments likewise form only one body and one book. And because the discussion of particular prophecies, though full of light in itself, depends on many facts that not everyone can follow equally, God has chosen some that he has made plain even to the most unlearned.37 These illustrious and striking facts, to which the whole world is a witness, are, my lord, the facts I have tried until now to have you follow—that is, the desolation of the Jewish people and the conversion of the Gentiles, which happened together, both occurring precisely at the same time the Gospel was preached and Jesus Christ appeared. These three things, already united in the order of time, were united even more closely in the order of God's counsels. You've seen them move forward together in the ancient prophecies; but Jesus Christ, the faithful interpreter of the prophecies and of his Father's will, has explained this connection to us even better in his Gospel. He does so in the parable of the vineyard, which is so familiar to the prophets. The master of the house had planted this vineyard—that is, the true religion founded on his covenant—and had given it to workers to cultivate, namely, the Jews. To gather its fruits, he sends his servants again and again—the prophets.✦ These unfaithful workers put them to death.✦38 His goodness leads him to send them his own Son.✦ They treat him even worse than the servants.✦ In the end, he takes his vineyard from them and gives it to other workers; he takes the grace of his covenant from them to give it to the Gentiles. These three things therefore had to come together: the sending of the Son of God, the reprobation of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles.✦ The parable needs no further commentary than the event itself has already provided. You have seen that the Jews admit that the kingdom of Judah and the state of their commonwealth began to fall in the time of Herod, and when Jesus Christ came into the world. But if the changes they made to the law of God brought about such a visible decline in their power, their final desolation, which still continues, had to be the punishment for a greater crime. That crime is clearly their failure to recognize their Messiah, who was coming to instruct them and set them free.39 It is also since that time that an iron yoke has been on their head; and they would be crushed under it if God were not keeping them to serve one day this Messiah whom they crucified.✦ So here already is an established and public fact: the total ruin of the Jewish people's state in the time of Jesus Christ. The conversion of the Gentiles, which was to happen at the same time, is just as well-established. At the same time that the ancient worship is destroyed in Jerusalem along with the Temple, idolatry is attacked from every side; and the peoples who had forgotten their Creator for thousands of years wake from such a long sleep. And so that everything may fit together, the spiritual promises are set forth through the preaching of the gospel at the very time when the Jewish people—who had received only temporal ones, plainly rejected for their unbelief, and captive throughout the earth—have no human greatness left to hope for. Then heaven is promised to those who suffer persecution for righteousness; the secrets of the life to come are preached; and true blessedness is shown to exist far from this dwelling where death reigns, and where sin and every evil abound. If you don't discover here a design that is always upheld and followed through; if you don't see in it the same order of God's counsels, which from the beginning of the world prepares what he completes at the end of the ages, and which under various states, yet with a constant succession, perpetuates before the eyes of the whole universe the holy society in which he wills to be served: then you deserve to see nothing, and to be handed over to your own hardness of heart as the most just and rigorous of all punishments.40 So that this succession of the people of God might be clear even to the least observant, God makes it plain and palpable through facts that no one can ignore, unless they willfully shut their eyes to the truth.41 The Messiah is awaited by the Hebrews; he comes, and he calls the Gentiles, just as it had been foretold. The people who recognize that he has come are incorporated into the people who were awaiting him, without a single moment of interruption between the two: this people is spread throughout the whole earth; the Gentiles never cease to join themselves to it; and this Church that Jesus Christ established upon the rock, despite the efforts of hell, has never been overthrown.✦ What a consolation for the children of God! But what a conviction of the truth, when they see that from Innocent XI, who so worthily fills the first see of the Church today, one goes back without interruption to Saint Peter, established by Jesus Christ as prince of the apostles: from there, tracing back the pontiffs who served under the Law, one goes on to Aaron and to Moses; from there to the patriarchs, and to the origin of the world!42
The Authority of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is the only society that can trace its authority back to the beginning of the world, distinguishing it from all human-founded sects.
What a succession, what a tradition, what a marvelous chain of connection! If our mind, naturally uncertain, and by its uncertainties become the plaything of its own reasonings, needs, in questions where salvation is at stake, to be fixed and determined by some sure authority: what greater authority is there than that of the Catholic Church, which gathers into itself all the authority of past ages, and the ancient traditions of the human race back to its first origin? So the society that Jesus Christ—awaited through all the ages past—finally founded on the rock, and over which Saint Peter and his successors are to preside by his command, justifies itself by its own succession and bears the mark of God's hand in its everlasting duration. It's also this succession that no heresy, no sect, no other society but the one Church of God has ever been able to give itself. False religions have managed to imitate the Church in many ways, especially by claiming, as she does, that God founded them—but that claim is nothing more than empty talk. For if God created the human race, and if, creating them in his image, he has never disdained to teach them how to serve him and please him, then any sect that cannot show its succession from the origin of the world is not from God.✦ Here all the societies and all the sects that men have established inside or outside Christianity fall at the feet of the Church. For example, the false prophet of the Arabs could well claim to be sent by God; and after deceiving utterly ignorant peoples, he could take advantage of the divisions among his neighbors to spread there by force of arms a thoroughly sensual religion. But he neither dared claim that he had been awaited, nor in the end could he give either his person or his religion any real or even apparent link with the ages past.43 The expedient he found to exempt himself from this is new.44 For fear that people would look in the Christian Scriptures for evidence of his mission—like the evidence Jesus Christ found in the Jewish Scriptures—he claimed that Christians and Jews had falsified all their books.✦ His ignorant followers took him at his word six hundred years after Jesus Christ; and he announced himself not only without any prior testimony, but also without either he or his own people daring either to invent or to promise any perceptible miracle that could authorize his mission.45 In the same way, the heresiarchs who founded new sects among Christians have been able to make the faith easier by denying the mysteries that go beyond the senses. They have been able to dazzle people with their eloquence and an appearance of piety, stir them through their passions, bind them by their interests, and draw them with novelty and with license—whether of the mind, or even of the senses; in a word, they have easily been able either to deceive themselves or to deceive others, for nothing is more human. But besides the fact that they could not even boast of having worked any public miracle, or reduce their religion to positive facts of which their followers were witnesses, there is always one unfortunate fact for them that they have never been able to cover up: the fact of their novelty. It will always be plain before the eyes of the whole world that they and the sect they established broke away from that great body and from that ancient Church that Jesus Christ founded, where Saint Peter and his successors held the first place, and in which every sect found them already established.✦ The moment of separation will always be so firmly fixed that the heretics themselves won't be able to deny it, and they won't even dare to claim descent from the source through a succession that no one has ever seen interrupted. That is the inevitable weakness of every sect established by men. No one can change the centuries past, give himself predecessors, or make it so that he found them already in possession.46 The Catholic Church alone fills all the preceding centuries with a succession that cannot be contested against her. The Law comes out to meet the Gospel; the succession of Moses and the patriarchs forms but one and the same succession with that of Jesus Christ: to be awaited, to come, and to be recognized by a posterity that lasts as long as the world—that is the mark of the Messiah in whom we believe.✦✦ Jesus Christ is today, he was yesterday, and he is forever and ever. So, beyond the advantage the Church of Jesus Christ has of being alone founded on miraculous and divine facts that people wrote about openly and without fear of being contradicted at the time they happened, here, for those who did not live in those times, is a miracle that still endures and confirms the truth of all the others: it is the succession of the religion, always victorious over the errors that have tried to destroy it.47 You can add another succession to this: the visible, ongoing chastisement of the Jews who did not receive the Christ promised to their fathers. They are still waiting for him nonetheless, and their expectation, always disappointed, is part of their torment. They wait for him, and by waiting, they make it clear that he has always been awaited. Condemned by their own books, they confirm the truth of the religion; they carry, so to speak, its whole succession written on their forehead: at a single glance one sees what they have been, why they are as we see them, and what they are reserved for.48 So four or five authentic facts, clearer than the light of the sun, show our religion to be as old as the world. They show, consequently, that it has no other author than the one who founded the universe, who, holding everything in his hand, alone was able to both begin and carry through a design that encompasses every age. So we should no longer be astonished, as people usually are, that God proposes for us to believe so many things so worthy of him, and at the same time so impenetrable to the human mind. We should instead be surprised that, with the faith established on such firm and clear authority, there are still blind and unbelieving people in the world. Our disordered passions, our attachment to our senses, and our untamable pride are the cause of it. We’d rather risk everything than restrain ourselves; we’d rather wallow in our ignorance than admit it; we’d rather satisfy a vain curiosity and keep alive in our untamed mind the freedom to think whatever we please than bend under the yoke of divine authority. That is why there are so many unbelievers, and God allows it this way for the instruction of his children. Without the blind, without the savages, without the unbelievers who remain even in the very heart of Christianity, we would not know deeply enough the deep corruption of our nature, nor the abyss from which Jesus Christ has drawn us.49 If his holy truth weren’t contradicted, we wouldn’t see the wonder that has made it last amid so many contradictions, and in the end, we would forget that we are saved by grace.✦ As it is, the unbelief of some humbles the others; and the rebels who oppose God's designs only make more brilliant the power by which, independently of everything else, he fulfills the promises he has made to his Church.✦ So what are we waiting for before we submit? Are we waiting for God always to work new miracles—for him to make them useless by keeping them up—for him to get our eyes used to them the way they're used to the course of the sun and all the other wonders of nature? Or are we waiting for the godless and the obstinate to fall silent; for good people and freethinkers alike to give the same witness to the truth; for everyone, by common consent, to prefer it to their passion; and for the false science that mere novelty makes people admire to stop taking people by surprise?50 Isn't it enough that we can see no one can fight religion without showing, by staggering delusions, that their judgment is upside down—and that they have nothing left to defend themselves with but presumption or ignorance? Will the Church, having triumphed over the ages and over error, be unable to defeat the pathetic arguments raised against her in our own minds? And will the divine promises we see fulfilled in her every day be unable to lift us above our senses? And let no one tell us that these promises are still hanging in the balance, or that because they extend to the end of the world, we can only boast of their fulfillment once the world has ended. On the contrary: what has already happened assures us of what is to come. So many ancient predictions, so clearly fulfilled, show us that nothing will fail to be accomplished. The Church, against which hell can never prevail—as the Son of God promised—will always remain until the end of time, since Jesus Christ, who is true in everything, has set no other limits to her duration. These same promises assure us of the life to come. God, who has shown himself so faithful in fulfilling what concerns the present age, will be no less faithful in fulfilling what concerns the age to come, of which everything we see is only a preparation; and the Church will remain on earth forever unchanging and invincible, until her children are gathered in and she is wholly carried up to heaven, which is her true home.✦ For those who will be shut out of that heavenly city, an everlasting severity is reserved; and after they have lost a blessed eternity through their own fault, nothing will remain for them but a wretched eternity.✦ So God's plans end in an unchanging state; his promises and his threats are equally certain; and what he carries out in time guarantees what he commands us either to hope for or to fear in eternity. That is what the succession of religion, set out in brief before your eyes, teaches you. It leads you through time to eternity. You see a constant order in all of God's designs, and a visible mark of his power in the perpetual endurance of his people. You recognize that the Church has a stem that always endures, from which no one can separate without being lost; and that those who, united to this root, do works worthy of their faith, secure eternal life for themselves.51
A Royal Call to Faith
The author exhorts the prince to imitate his ancestors by upholding the Church and defending the rights of God above all earthly power.
So study, my lord—but study carefully this succession of the Church, which so clearly assures you of all God's promises. Everything that breaks this chain, everything that leaves this succession, everything that rises up on its own and doesn't come by virtue of the promises made to the Church from the beginning of the world, should fill you with horror. Use all your strength to call back into this unity everything that has strayed from it, and to make people listen to the Church, through which the Holy Spirit speaks his oracles. The glory of your ancestors isn't just that they never abandoned her, but that they always upheld her; and by doing so, they earned the right to be called her eldest sons—which is, without a doubt, the most glorious of all their titles.52 I don't need to speak to you of Clovis, Charlemagne, or Saint Louis. Consider only the age you live in, and of what father God has caused you to be born. A king so great in every way stands out more for his faith than for his other admirable qualities. He protects religion inside and outside the kingdom, and even to the ends of the earth. His laws are among the firmest ramparts of the Church. His authority, revered as much for the merit of his person as for the majesty of his scepter, is never better upheld than when it defends the cause of God. You no longer hear blasphemy; impiety trembles before him: he is that king marked out by Solomon, who scatters all evil with a look.53 If he attacks heresy by so many means, and more still than his predecessors ever did, it isn't that he fears for his throne; everything is quiet at his feet, and his arms are dreaded throughout the earth: but it is because he loves his peoples, and because, seeing himself raised by God's hand to a power nothing in the universe can equal, he knows no finer use for it than to put it to healing the wounds of the Church. Follow such a fine example, my lord, and leave it to your descendants. Commend the Church to them even more than that great empire your ancestors have governed for so many centuries. May your august house, the first in dignity the world has known, be the first to defend the rights of God, and to extend throughout the whole universe the reign of Jesus Christ, who makes it reign with such glory.
Read the original Latin
Réflexion générale sur la suite de la Religion, & sur le rapport qu'il y a entre les Livres de l'Ecriture.
Cette eglise toûjours attaquée, et jamais vaincuë, est un miracle perpetuel, et un témoignage éclatant de l’immutabilité des conseils de Dieu. Au milieu de l’agitation des choses humaines elle se soustient toûjours avec une force invincible, en sorte que par une suite non interrompuë depuis prés de dix-sept cens ans nous la voyons remonter jusqu’à Jesus-Christ, dans lequel elle a recueïlli la succession de l’ancien peuple, et se trouve réünie aux prophetes et aux patriarches.
Ainsi tant de miracles étonnans que les anciens hebreux ont veû de leurs yeux, servent encore aujourd’huy à confirmer nostre foy. Ce grand dieu qui les a faits pour rendre témoignage à son unité et à sa toute-puissance, que pouvoit-il faire de plus authentique pour en conserver la memoire, que de laisser entre les mains de tout un grand peuple les actes qui les attestent rédigez par l’ordre des temps ? C’est ce que nous avons encore dans les livres de l’ancien testament, c’est à dire, dans les livres les plus anciens qui soient au monde ; dans les livres qui sont les seuls de l’antiquité où la connoissance du vray dieu soit enseignée, et son service ordonné ; dans les livres que le peuple juif a toûjours si religieusement gardez. Il est certain que ce peuple est le seul qui ait connu dés son origine le dieu créateur du ciel et de la terre ; le seul par consequent qui devoit estre le dépositaire des secrets divins. Il les a aussi conservez avec une religion qui n’a point d’exemple. Les livres que les egyptiens et les autres peuples appelloient divins, sont perdus il y a long-temps, et à peine nous en reste-t-il quelque memoire confuse dans les histoires anciennes. Les livres sacrez des romains, où Numa auteur de leur religion en avoit écrit les mysteres, ont peri par les mains des romains mesmes, et le senat les fit brusler comme tendans à renverser la religion. Ces mesmes romains ont à la fin laissé perir les livres sibyllins si long-temps réverez parmi eux comme prophetiques, et où ils vouloient qu’on crust qu’ils trouvoient les decrets des dieux immortels sur leur empire, sans pourtant en avoir jamais montré au public je ne dis pas un seul volume, mais un seul oracle.
Les juifs ont esté les seuls dont les ecritures sacrées ont esté d’autant plus en venération, qu’elles ont esté plus connuës. De tous les peuples anciens ils sont le seul qui ait conservé les monumens primitifs de sa religion, quoy-qu’ils fussent pleins des témoignages de leur infidelité et de celle de leurs ancestres. Et aujourd’huy encore ce mesme peuple reste sur la terre pour porter à toutes les nations où il a esté dispersé, avec la suite de la religion, les miracles et les prédictions qui la rendent inébranlable. Quand Jesus-Christ est venu, et qu’envoyé par son pere pour accomplir les promesses de la loy, il a confirmé sa mission et celle de ses disciples par des miracles nouveaux, ils ont esté écrits avec la mesme exactitude. Les actes en ont esté publiez à toute la terre ; les circonstances des temps, des personnes et des lieux ont rendu l’examen facile à quiconque a esté soigneux de son salut. Le monde s’est informé, le monde a cru ; et si peu qu’on ait consideré les anciens monumens de l’eglise, on avoûëra que jamais affaire n’a esté jugée avec plus de réflexion et de connoissance.
Mais dans le rapport qu’ont ensemble les livres des deux testamens, il y a une difference à considerer ; c’est que les livres de l’ancien peuple ont esté composez en divers temps. Autres sont les temps de Moïse, autres ceux de Josué et des juges, autres ceux des rois : autres ceux où le peuple a esté tiré d’Egypte et où il a receû la loy, autres ceux où il a conquis la terre promise, autres ceux où il y a esté rétabli par des miracles visibles.
Pour convaincre l’incredulité d’un peuple attaché aux sens, Dieu a pris une longue étenduë de siecles durant lesquels il a distribué ses miracles et ses prophetes, afin de renouveller souvent les témoignages sensibles par lesquels il attestoit ses veritez saintes. Dans le nouveau testament il a suivi une autre conduite. Il ne veut plus rien réveler de nouveau à son eglise aprés Jesus-Christ. En luy est la perfection et la plenitude ; et tous les livres divins qui ont esté composez dans la nouvelle alliance, l’ont esté au temps des apostres.
C’est à dire, que le témoignage de Jesus-Christ et de ceux que Jesus-Christ mesme a daigné choisir pour témoins de sa résurrection, a suffi à l’eglise chrestienne. Tout ce qui est venu depuis l’a édifiée ; mais elle n’a regardé comme purement inspiré de Dieu que ce que les apostres ont écrit, ou ce qu’ils ont confirmé par leur autorité. Mais dans cette difference qui se trouve entre les livres des deux testamens, Dieu a toûjours gardé cét ordre admirable, de faire écrire les choses dans le temps qu’elles estoient arrivées, ou que la memoire en estoit récente. Ainsi ceux qui les sçavoient les ont écrites ; ceux qui les sçavoient ont receû les livres qui en rendoient témoignage : les uns et les autres les ont laissez à leurs descendans comme un heritage précieux ; et la pieuse posterité les a conservez. C’est ainsi que s’est formé le corps des ecritures saintes tant de l’ancien que du nouveau testament : ecritures qu’on a regardées dés leur origine comme veritables en tout, comme données de Dieu-mesme, et qu’on a aussi conservées avec tant de religion, qu’on n’a pas cru pouvoir sans impieté y alterer une seule lettre. C’est ainsi qu’elles sont venuës jusqu’à nous, toûjours saintes, toûjours sacrées, toûjours inviolables ; conservées les unes par la tradition constante du peuple juif, et les autres par la tradition du peuple chrestien d’autant plus certaine, qu’elle a esté confirmée par le sang et par le martyre tant de ceux qui ont écrit ces livres divins que de ceux qui les ont receûs. Saint Augustin et les autres peres demandent sur la foy de qui nous attribuons les livres profanes à des temps et à des auteurs certains. Chacun répond aussitost que les livres sont distinguez par les differens rapports qu’ils ont aux loix, aux coustumes, aux histoires d’un certain temps, par le stile mesme qui porte imprimé le caractere des âges et des auteurs particuliers ; plus que tout cela par la foy publique, et par une tradition constante.
Toutes ces choses concourent à établir les livres divins, à en distinguer les temps, à en marquer les auteurs ; et plus il y a eû de religion à les conserver dans leur entier, plus la tradition qui nous les conserve est incontestable.
Aussi a-t-elle toûjours esté reconuë, non seulement par les orthodoxes, mais encore par les héretiques, et mesme par les infideles. Moïse a toûjours passé dans tout l’Orient, et en suite dans tout l’univers pour le legislateur des juifs, et pour l’auteur des livres qu’ils luy attribuënt. Les samaritains qui les ont receûs des dix tribus separées, les ont conservez aussi religieusement que les juifs. Vous avez veû leur tradition et leur histoire.
Deux peuples si opposez ne les ont pas pris l’un de l’autre, mais tous les deux les ont receûs de leur origine commune dés les temps de Salomon et de David. Les anciens caracteres hebreux que les samaritains retiennent encore, montrent assez qu’ils n’ont pas suivi Esdras qui les a changez. Ainsi le pentateuque des samaritains et celuy des juifs sont deux originaux complets, indépendans l’un de l’autre. La parfaite conformité qu’on y voit dans la substance du texte, justifie la bonne foy des deux peuples. Ce sont des témoins fideles qui conviennent sans s’estre entendus, ou pour mieux dire, qui conviennent malgré leurs inimitiez, et que la seule tradition immemoriale de part et d’autre a unis dans la mesme pensée. Ceux donc qui ont voulu dire, quoy-que sans aucune raison, que ces livres estant perdus, ou n’ayant jamais esté, ont esté ou rétablis, ou composez de nouveau, ou alterez par Esdras ; outre qu’ils sont démentis par Esdras mesme, comme on l’a pû remarquer dans la suite de son histoire, le sont aussi par le pentateuque qu’on trouve encore aujourd’huy entre les mains des samaritains tel que l’avoient leû dans les premiers siecles Eusebe de Césarée, Saint Jerosme, et les autres auteurs ecclesiastiques ; tel que ces peuples l’avoient conservé dés leur origine : et une secte si foible semble ne durer si long-temps que pour rendre ce témoignage à l’antiquité de Moïse.
Les auteurs qui ont écrit les quatre evangiles ne reçoivent pas un témoignage moins asseûré du consentement unanime des fideles, des payens, et des héretiques. Ce grand nombre de peuples divers qui ont receû et traduit ces livres divins aussitost qu’ils ont esté faits, conviennent tous de leur date et de leurs auteurs. Les payens n’ont pas contredit cette tradition. Ni Celse qui a attaqué ces livres sacrez, presque dans l’origine du christianisme ; ni Julien L’Apostat, quoy-qu’il n’ait rien ignoré, ni rien omis de ce qui pouvoit les décrier ; ni aucun autre payen ne les a jamais soupçonné d’estre supposez : au contraire, tous leur ont donné les mesmes auteurs que les chrestiens. Les héretiques, quoy-qu’accablez par l’autorité de ces livres, n’osoient dire qu’ils ne fussent pas des disciples de Nostre Seigneur. Il y a eû pourtant de ces héretiques qui ont veû les commencemens de l’eglise, et aux yeux desquels ont esté écrits les livres de l’evangile. Ainsi la fraude, s’il y en eust pû avoir, eust esté éclairée de trop prés pour réüssir. Il est vray qu’aprés les apostres, et lors que l’eglise estoit déja étenduë par toute la terre, Marcion et Manes constamment les plus temeraires et les plus ignorans de tous les héretiques, malgré la tradition venuë des apostres, continuée par leurs disciples et par les evesques à qui ils avoient laissé leur chaire et la conduite des peuples, et receûë unanimement par toute l’eglise chrestienne, oserent dire que trois evangiles estoient supposez, et que celuy de Saint Luc qu’ils préferoient aux autres, on ne sçait pourquoy puis qu’il n’estoit pas venu par une autre voye, avoit esté falsifié.
Mais quelles preuves en donnoient-ils ? De pures visions, nuls faits positifs. Ils disoient pour toute raison, que ce qui estoit contraire à leurs sentimens devoit nécessairement avoir esté inventé par d’autres que par les apostres, et alleguoient pour toute preuve les opinions mesmes qu’on leur contestoit ; opinions d’ailleurs si extravagantes, et si manifestement insensées, qu’on ne sçait encore comment elles ont pû entrer dans l’esprit humain. Mais certes, pour accuser la bonne foy de l’eglise, il falloit avoir en main des originaux differens des siens, ou quelque preuve constante. Interpellez d’en produire eux et leurs disciples, ils sont demeurez muets, et ont laissé par leur silence une preuve indubitable qu’au second siecle du christianisme où ils écrivoient, il n’y avoit pas seulement un indice de fausseté, ni la moindre conjecture qu’on pust opposer à la tradition de l’eglise.
Que diray-je du consentement des livres de l’ecriture, et du témoignage admirable que tous les temps du peuple de Dieu se donnent les uns aux autres ? Les temps du second temple supposent ceux du premier, et nous ramenent à Salomon. La paix n’est venuë que par les combats ; et les conquestes du peuple de Dieu nous font remonter jusqu’aux juges, jusqu’à Josué, et jusqu’à la sortie d’Egypte. En regardant tout un peuple sortir d’un royaume où il estoit étranger, on se souvient comment il y estoit entré. Les douze patriarches paroissent aussitost, et un peuple qui ne s’est jamais regardé que comme une seule famille, nous conduit naturellement à Abraham qui en est la tige. Ce peuple est-il plus sage et moins porté à l’idolatrie aprés le retour de Babylone ? C’estoit l’effet naturel d’un grand chastiment, que ses fautes passées luy avoient attiré. Si ce peuple se glorifie d’avoir veû durant plusieurs siecles des miracles que les autres peuples n’ont jamais veûs, il peut aussi se glorifier d’avoir eû la connoissance de Dieu qu’aucun autre peuple n’avoit.
Que veut-on que signifie la circoncision, et la feste des tabernacles, et la pasque, et les autres festes célebrées dans la nation de temps immemorial, sinon les choses qu’on trouve marquées dans le livre de Moïse ? Qu’un peuple distingué des autres par une religion et par des moeurs si particulieres, qui conserve dés son origine sur le fondement de la création et sur la foy de la providence, une doctrine si suivie et si élevée, une memoire si vive d’une longue suite de faits si necessairement enchaisnez, des céremonies si reglées et des coustumes si universelles, ait esté sans une histoire qui luy marquast son origine et sans une loy qui luy prescrivist ses coustumes pendant mille ans qu’il est demeuré en estat ; et qu’Esdras ait commencé à luy vouloir donner tout à coup sous le nom de Moïse, avec l’histoire de ses antiquitez, la loy qui formoit ses moeurs, quand ce peuple devenu captif à veû son ancienne monarchie renversée de fonds en comble : quelle fable plus incroyable pourroit-on jamais inventer ? Et peut-on y donner créance, sans joindre l’ignorance au blasphême ? Pour perdre une telle loy, quand on l’a une fois receûë, il faut qu’un peuple soit exterminé, ou que par divers changemens il en soit venu à n’avoir plus qu’une idée confuse de son origine, de sa religion, et de ses coustumes. Si ce malheur est arrivé au peuple juif, et que la loy si connuë sous Sedécias se soit perduë soixante ans aprés malgré les soins d’un Ezechiel, d’un Jéremie, d’un Baruch, d’un Daniel, sans compter les autres, et dans le temps que cette loy avoit ses martyrs comme le montrent les persécutions de Daniel et des trois enfans ; si, dis-je, cette sainte loy s’est perduë en si peu de temps, et demeure si profondément oubliée qu’il soit permis à Esdras de la rétablir à sa fantaisie : ce n’estoit pas le seul livre qu’il luy falloit fabriquer. Il luy falloit composer en mesme temps tous les prophetes anciens et nouveaux, c’est à dire, ceux qui avoient écrit et devant et durant la captivité ; ceux que le peuple avoit veû écrire, aussi-bien que ceux dont il conservoit la memoire ; et non seulement les prophetes, mais encore les livres de Salomon, et les pseaumes de David, et tous les livres d’histoire, puis qu’à peine se trouvera-t-il dans toute cette histoire un seul fait considerable, et dans tous ces autres livres un seul chapitre, qui détaché de Moïse tel que nous l’avons, puisse subsister un seul moment. Tout y parle de Moïse, tout y est fondé sur Moïse ; et la chose devoit estre ainsi, puis que Moïse et sa loy, et l’histoire qu’il a écrite estoit en effet dans le peuple juif tout le fondement de la conduite publique et particuliere. C’estoit en verité à Esdras une merveilleuse entreprise, et bien nouvelle dans le monde, de faire parler en mesme temps avec Moïse tant d’hommes de caractere et de stile different, et chacun d’une maniere uniforme et toûjours semblable à elle-mesme ; et faire accroire tout à coup à tout un peuple que ce sont là les livres anciens qu’il a toûjours réverez, et les nouveaux qu’il a veû faire, comme s’il n’avoit jamais oûï parler de rien, et que la connoissance du temps present aussi-bien que celle du temps passé fust tout à coup abolie.
Tels sont les prodiges qu’il faut croire, quand on ne veut pas croire les miracles du tout-puissant, ni recevoir le témoignage par lequel il est constant qu’on a dit à tout un grand peuple qu’il les avoit veûs de ses yeux.
Mais si ce peuple est revenu de Babylone dans la terre de ses peres si nouveau et si ignorant qu’à peine se souvinst-il qu’il eust esté, en sorte qu’il ait receû sans examiner tout ce qu’Esdras aura voulu luy donner : comment donc voyons-nous dans le livre qu’Esdras a écrit et dans celuy de Nehemias son contemporain, tout ce qu’on y dit des livres divins ? Avec quel front Esdras et Nehemias osent-ils parler de la loy de Moïse en tant d’endroits, et publiquement, comme d’une chose connuë de tout le monde, et que tout le monde avoit entre ses mains ? Comment voit-on tout le peuple agir naturellement en consequence de cette loy, comme l’ayant eû toûjours presente ? Mais comment dit-on dans le mesme temps, et dans le retour du peuple, que tout ce peuple admira l’accomplissement de l’oracle de Jéremie touchant les 70 ans de captivité ? Ce Jeremie qu’Esdras venoit de forger avec tous les autres prophetes, comment a-t-il tout d’un coup trouvé créance ? Par quel artifice nouveau a-t-on pû persuader à tout un peuple, et aux vieillards qui avoient veû ce prophete, qu’ils avoient toûjours attendu la delivrance miraculeuse qu’il leur avoit annoncée dans ses écrits ? Mais tout cela sera encore supposé : Esdras et Nehemias n’auront point écrit l’histoire de leur temps ; quelque autre l’aura faite sous leur nom, et ceux qui ont fabriqué tous les autres livres de l’ancien testament auront esté si favorisez de la posterité, que d’autres faussaires leur en auront supposé à eux-mesmes, pour donner créance à leur imposture. On aura honte sans doute de tant d’extravagances ; et au lieu de dire qu’Esdras ait fait tout d’un coup paroistre tant de livres si distinguez les uns des autres par les caracteres du stile et du temps, on dira qu’il y aura pû inserer les miracles et les prédictions qui les font passer pour divins : erreur plus grossiere encore que la précedente, puis que ces miracles et ces prédictions sont tellement répandus dans tous ces livres, sont tellement inculquez et répetez si souvent, avec tant de tours divers et une si grande varieté de fortes figures, en un mot en font tellement tout le corps, qu’il faut n’avoir jamais seulement ouvert ces saints livres, pour ne voir pas qu’il est encore plus aisé de les refondre, pour ainsi dire, tout-à-fait, que d’y inserer les choses que les incredules sont si faschez d’y trouver.
Et quand mesme on leur auroit accordé tout ce qu’ils demandent, le miraculeux et le divin est tellement le fonds de ces livres, qu’il s’y retrouveroit encore malgré qu’on en eust. Qu’Esdras, si on veut, y ait ajousté aprés coup les prédictions des choses déja arrivées de son temps : celles qui se sont accomplies depuis que vous avez veûës en si grand nombre, qui les aura ajoustées ? Dieu aura peut-estre donné à Esdras le don de prophetie, afin que l’imposture d’Esdras fust plus vraysemblable ; et on aimera mieux qu’un faussaire soit prophete, qu’Isaïe, ou que Jéremie, ou que Daniel : ou bien chaque siecle aura porté un faussaire heureux, que tout le peuple en aura cru ; et de nouveaux imposteurs, par un zele admirable de religion, auront sans cesse ajousté aux livres divins, aprés mesme que le canon aura esté clos, qu’ils se seront répandus avec les juifs par toute la terre, et qu’on les aura traduits en tant de langues étrangeres. N’eust-ce pas esté à force de vouloir établir la religion, la détruire par les fondemens ? Tout un peuple laisse-t-il donc changer si facilement ce qu’il croit estre divin, soit qu’il le croye par raison ou par erreur ? Quelqu’un peut-il esperer de persuader aux chrestiens, ou mesme aux turcs, d’ajouster un seul chapitre ou à l’evangile, ou à l’alcoran ? Mais peut-estre que les juifs estoient plus dociles que les autres peuples, ou qu’ils estoient moins religieux à conserver leurs saints livres ? Quels monstres d’opinions se faut-il mettre dans l’esprit, quand on veut secoûër le joug de l’autorité divine, et ne regler ses sentimens, non plus que ses moeurs, que par sa raison égarée ?
Qu’on ne dise pas que la discussion de ces faits est embarassante : car quand elle le seroit, il faudroit ou s’en rapporter à l’autorité de l’eglise et à la tradition de tant de siecles, ou pousser l’examen jusqu’au bout, et ne pas croire qu’on en fust quitte pour dire qu’il demande plus de temps qu’on n’en veut donner à son salut. Mais au fonds, sans remuer avec un travail infini les livres des deux testamens, il ne faut que lire le livre des pseaumes où sont recueïllis tant d’anciens cantiques du peuple de Dieu, pour y voir dans la plus divine poësie qui fut jamais des monumens immortels de l’histoire de Moïse, de celle des juges, de celle des rois, imprimez par le chant et par la mesure dans la memoire des hommes. Et pour le nouveau testament, les seules epistres de Saint Paul si vives, si originales, si fort du temps, des affaires et des mouvemens qui estoient alors, et enfin d’un caractere si marqué ; ces epistres, dis-je, receûës par les eglises ausquelles elles estoient adressées, et de là communiquées aux autres eglises, suffiroient pour convaincre les esprits bien faits, que tout est sincere et original dans les ecritures que les apostres nous ont laissées. Aussi se soustiennent-elles les unes les autres avec une force invincible. Les actes des apostres ne font que continuer l’evangile ; leurs epistres le supposent necessairement : mais afin que tout soit d’accord, et les actes et les epistres et les evangiles réclament par tout les anciens livres des juifs. Saint Paul et les autres apostres ne cessent d’alleguer ce que Moïse a dit , ce qu’il a écrit , ce que les prophetes ont dit et écrit aprés Moïse. Jesus-Christ appelle en témoignage la loy de Moïse, les prophetes et les pseaumes, comme des témoins qui déposent tous de la mesme verité. S’il veut expliquer ses mysteres, il commence par Moïse et par les prophetes ; et quand il dit aux juifs que Moïse a écrit de luy , il pose pour fondement ce qu’il y avoit de plus constant parmi eux, et les ramene à la source mesme de leurs traditions.
Voyons néanmoins ce qu’on oppose à une autorité si reconnuë, et au consentement de tant de siecles : car puis que de nos jours on a bien osé publier en toute sorte de langues des livres contre l’ecriture, il ne faut point dissimuler ce qu’on dit pour décrier ses antiquitez. Que dit-on donc pour autoriser la supposition du pentateuque, et que peut-on objecter à une tradition de trois mille ans soustenuë par sa propre force et par la suite des choses ? Rien de suivi, rien de positif, rien d’important ; des chicanes sur des nombres, sur des lieux, ou sur des noms : et de telles observations, qui dans toute autre matiere ne passeroient tout au plus que pour de vaines curiositez incapables de donner atteinte au fond des choses, nous sont icy alleguées comme faisant la décision de l’affaire la plus serieuse qui fut jamais. Il y a, dit-on, des difficultez dans l’histoire de l’ecriture. Il y en a sans doute qui n’y seroient pas si le livre estoit moins ancien, ou s’il avoit esté supposé, comme on l’ose dire, par un homme habile et industrieux ; si l’on eust esté moins religieux à le donner tel qu’on le trouvoit, et qu’on eust pris la liberté d’y corriger ce qui faisoit de la peine. Il y a les difficultez que fait un long-temps, lors que les lieux ont changé de nom ou d’estat : lors que les dates sont oubliées : lors que les génealogies ne sont plus connuës ; qu’il n’y a plus de remede aux fautes qu’une copie tant soit peu negligée introduit si aisément en de telles choses ; ou que des faits échapez à la memoire des hommes laissent de l’obscurité dans quelque partie de l’histoire. Mais enfin cette obscurité est-elle dans la suite mesme, ou dans le fond de l’affaire ? Nullement : tout y est suivi ; et ce qui reste d’obscur ne sert qu’à faire voir dans les livres saints une antiquité plus venerable.
Mais il y a des alterations dans le texte : les anciennes versions ne s’accordent pas ; l’hebreu en divers endroits est different de luy-mesme ; et le texte des samaritains, outre le mot qu’on les accuse d’y avoir changé exprés en faveur de leur temple de Garizim, differe encore en d’autres endroits de celuy des juifs. Et de là que conclura-t-on ? Que les juifs ou Esdras auront supposé le pentateuque au retour de la captivité ? C’est justement tout le contraire qu’il faudroit conclure. Les differences du samaritain ne servent qu’à confirmer ce que nous avons déja établi, que leur texte est indépendant de celuy des juifs. Loin qu’on puisse s’imaginer que ces schismatiques ayent pris quelque chose des juifs et d’Esdras, nous avons veû au contraire que c’est en haine des juifs et d’Esdras, et en haine du premier et du second temple qu’ils ont inventé leur chimere de Garizim. Qui ne voit donc qu’ils auroient plustost accusé les impostures des juifs que de les suivre ? Ces rebelles qui ont méprisé Esdras et tous les prophetes des juifs, avec leur temple et Salomon qui l’avoit basti, aussi-bien que David qui en avoit désigné le lieu, qu’ont-ils respecté dans leur pentateuque, sinon une antiquité superieure non-seulement à celle d’Esdras et des prophetes, mais encore à celle de Salomon et de David, en un mot l’antiquité de Moïse dont les deux peuples conviennent ?
Combien donc est incontestable l’autorité de Moïse et du pentateuque que toutes les objections ne font qu’affermir ? Mais enfin d’où viennent ces varietez des textes et des versions ? D’où viennent-elles en effet, sinon de l’antiquité du livre mesme qui a passé par les mains de tant de copistes depuis tant de siecles que la langue dans laquelle il est écrit, a cessé d’estre commune ? Mais laissons les vaines disputes, et tranchons en un mot la difficulté par le fond. Qu’on me dise s’il n’est pas constant que de toutes les versions, et de tout le texte quel qu’il soit, il en reviendra toûjours les mesmes loix, les mesmes miracles, les mesmes prédictions, la mesme suite d’histoire, le mesme corps de doctrine, et enfin la mesme substance. En quoy nuisent aprés cela les diversitez des textes ? Que nous falloit-il davantage que ce fond inalterable des livres sacrez, et que pouvions-nous demander de plus à la divine providence ? Et pour ce qui est des versions, est-ce une marque de supposition ou de nouveauté, que la langue de l’ecriture soit si ancienne qu’on en ait perdu les délicatesses, et qu’on se trouve empesché à en rendre toute l’élegance ou toute la force dans la derniere rigueur ?
N’est-ce pas plustost une preuve de la plus grande antiquité ? Et si on veut s’attacher aux petites choses, qu’on me dise si de tant d’endroits où il y a de l’embarras, on en a rétabli un seul par raisonnement ou par conjecture. On a suivi la foy des exemplaires ; et comme la tradition n’a jamais permis que la saine doctrine pust estre alterée, on a cru que les autres fautes, s’il y en restoit, ne serviroient qu’à prouver qu’on n’a rien icy innové par son propre esprit.
Mais enfin, et voicy le fort de l’objection : n’y-a-t-il pas des choses ajoustées dans le texte de Moïse, et d’où vient qu’on trouve sa mort à la fin du livre qu’on luy attribuë ? Quelle merveille que ceux qui ont continué son histoire ayent ajousté sa fin bienheureuse au reste de ses actions, afin de faire du tout un mesme corps ? Pour les autres additions, voyons ce que c’est. Est-ce quelque loy nouvelle, ou quelque nouvelle céremonie, quelque dogme, quelque miracle, quelque prédiction ? On n’y songe seulement pas : il n’y en a pas le moindre soupçon, ni le moindre indice : c’eust esté ajouster à l’oeuvre de Dieu : la loy l’avoit défendu, et le scandale qu’on eust causé eust esté horrible. Quoy donc, on aura continué peut-estre une génealogie commencée ; on aura peut-estre expliqué un nom de ville changé par le temps ; à l’occasion de la manne dont le peuple a esté nourri durant quarante ans, on aura marqué le temps où cessa cette nourriture celeste, et ce fait écrit depuis dans un autre livre sera demeuré par remarque dans celuy de Moïse comme un fait constant et public dont tout le peuple estoit témoin ; quatre ou cinq remarques de cette nature faites par Josué, ou par Samuël, ou par quelque autre prophete d’une pareille antiquité ; parce qu’elles ne regardoient que des faits notoires et où constamment il n’y avoit point de difficulté, auront naturellement passé dans le texte ; et la mesme tradition nous les aura apportées avec tout le reste : aussitost tout sera perdu ? Esdras sera accusé, quoy-que le samaritain, où ces remarques se trouvent, nous montre qu’elles ont une antiquité non seulement au dessus d’Esdras, mais au dessus du schisme des dix tribus ? N’importe ; il faut que tout retombe sur Esdras.
Si ces remarques venoient de plus haut, le pentateuque seroit encore plus ancien qu’il ne faut ; et on ne pourroit assez réverer l’antiquité d’un livre dont les notes mesmes auroient un si grand âge. Esdras aura donc tout fait ; Esdras aura oublié qu’il vouloit faire parler Moïse, et luy aura fait écrire si grossiérement comme déja arrivé ce qui s’est passé aprés luy. Tout un ouvrage sera convaincu de supposition par ce seul endroit ; l’autorité de tant de siecles et la foy publique ne luy servira plus de rien : comme si au contraire on ne voyoit pas que ces remarques dont on se prévaut sont une nouvelle preuve de sincerité et de bonne foy, non seulement dans ceux qui les ont faites, mais encore dans ceux qui les ont transcrites. A-t-on jamais jugé de l’autorité, je ne dis pas d’un livre divin, mais de quelque livre que ce soit par des raisons si legeres ? Mais c’est que l’ecriture est un livre ennemi du genre humain ; il veut obliger les hommes à soumettre leur esprit à Dieu, et à réprimer leurs passions déreglées : il faut qu’il perisse ; et à quelque prix que ce soit, il doit estre sacrifié au libertinage. Au reste, ne croyez pas que l’impieté s’engage sans necessité dans toutes les absurditez que vous avez veûës. Si contre le témoignage du genre humain, et contre toutes les regles du bon sens, elle s’attache à oster au pentateuque et aux propheties leurs auteurs toûjours reconnus, et à leur contester leurs dates ; c’est que les dates font tout en cette matiere pour deux raisons. Premierement, parce que des livres pleins de tant de faits miraculeux qu’on y voit revestus de leurs circonstances les plus particulieres, et avancez non seulement comme publics, mais encore comme presens, s’ils eussent pû estre démentis, auroient porté avec eux leur condamnation ; et au lieu qu’ils se soustiennent de leur propre poids, ils seroient tombez par eux-mesmes il y a long-temps.
Secondement, parce que leurs dates estant une fois fixées, on ne peut plus effacer la marque infaillible d’inspiration divine qu’ils portent empreinte dans le grand nombre et la longue suite des prédictions mémorables dont on les trouve remplis.
C’est pour éviter ces miracles et ces prédictions que les impies sont tombez dans toutes les absurditez qui vous ont surpris. Mais qu’ils ne pensent pas échaper à Dieu : il a réservé à son ecriture une marque de divinité qui ne souffre aucune atteinte. C’est le rapport des deux testamens. On ne dispute pas du moins que tout l’ancien testament ne soit écrit devant le nouveau. Il n’y a point icy de nouvel Esdras qui ait pû persuader aux juifs d’inventer ou de falsifier leur ecriture en faveur des chrestiens qu’ils persecutoient. Il n’en faut pas davantage. Par le rapport des deux testamens, on prouve que l’un et l’autre est divin. Ils ont tous deux le mesme dessein et la mesme suite : l’un prépare la voye à la perfection que l’autre montre à découvert ; l’un pose le fondement, et l’autre acheve l’édifice ; en un mot, l’un prédit ce que l’autre fait voir accompli.
Ainsi tous les temps sont unis ensemble, et un dessein éternel de la divine providence nous est révelé. La tradition du peuple juif et celle du peuple chrestien ne font ensemble qu’une mesme suite de religion, et les ecritures des deux testamens ne font aussi qu’un mesme corps et un mesme livre. Et à cause que la discussion des prédictions particulieres, quoy-qu’en soy pleine de lumiere, dépend de beaucoup de faits que tout le monde ne peut pas suivre également, Dieu en a choisi quelques-uns qu’il a rendu sensibles aux plus ignorans. Ces faits illustres, ces faits éclatans dont tout l’univers est témoin, sont, monseigneur, les faits que j’ay tasché jusques-icy de vous faire suivre ; c’est à dire, la desolation du peuple juif et la conversion des gentils arrivées ensemble, et toutes deux précisément dans le mesme temps que l’evangile a esté presché, et que Jesus-Christ a paru.
Ces trois choses unies dans l’ordre des temps, l’estoient encore beaucoup davantage dans l’ordre des conseils de Dieu. Vous les avez veû marcher ensemble dans les anciennes propheties : mais Jesus-Christ fidele interprete des propheties et des volontez de son pere, nous a encore mieux expliqué cette liaison dans son evangile. Il le fait dans la parabole de la vigne si familiere aux prophetes. Le pere de famille avoit planté cette vigne, c’est à dire, la religion veritable fondée sur son alliance ; et l’avoit donnée à cultiver à des ouvriers, c’est à dire, aux juifs. Pour en recueïllir les fruits, il envoye à diverses fois ses serviteurs, qui sont les prophetes. Ces ouvriers infideles les font mourir. Sa bonté le porte à leur envoyer son propre fils. Ils le traitent encore plus mal que les serviteurs.
A la fin il leur oste sa vigne, et la donne à d’autres ouvriers : il leur oste la grace de son alliance pour la donner aux gentils. Ces trois choses devoient donc concourir ensemble, l’envoy du fils de Dieu, la réprobation des juifs, et la vocation des gentils. Il ne faut plus de commentaire à la parabole que l’évenement a interpretée.
Vous avez veû que les juifs avoûënt que le royaume de Juda et l’estat de leur république a commencé à tomber dans les temps d’Herode, et lors que Jesus-Christ est venu au monde. Mais si les alterations qu’ils faisoient à la loy de Dieu leur ont attiré une diminution si visible de leur puissance, leur derniere desolation qui dure encore, devoit estre la punition d’un plus grand crime. Ce crime est visiblement leur méconnoissance envers leur messie, qui venoit les instruire et les affranchir. C’est aussi depuis ce temps qu’un joug de fer est sur leur teste ; et ils en seroient accablez, si Dieu ne les réservoit à servir un jour ce messie qu’ils ont crucifié.
Voilà donc déja un fait averé et public ; c’est la ruine totale de l’estat du peuple juif dans le temps de Jesus-Christ. La conversion des gentils qui devoit arriver dans le mesme temps, n’est pas moins averée. En mesme temps que l’ancien culte est détruit dans Jérusalem avec le temple, l’idolatrie est attaquée de tous costez ; et les peuples qui depuis tant de milliers d’années avoient oublié leur créateur, se réveillent d’un si long assoupissement.
Et afin que tout convienne, les promesses spirituelles sont développées par la prédication de l’evangile, dans le temps que le peuple juif qui n’en avoit receû que de temporelles, réprouvé manifestement pour son incrédulité, et captif par toute la terre, n’a plus de grandeur humaine à esperer. Alors le ciel est promis à ceux qui souffrent persecution pour la justice ; les secrets de la vie future sont preschez ; et la vraye béatitude est montrée loin de ce séjour où regne la mort, où abondent le peché et tous les maux. Si on ne découvre pas icy un dessein toûjours soustenu et toûjours suivi ; si on n’y voit pas un mesme ordre des conseils de Dieu qui prépare dés l’origine du monde ce qu’il acheve à la fin des temps, et qui sous divers estats, mais avec une succession toûjours constante, perpetuë aux yeux de tout l’univers la sainte societé où il veut estre servi : on merite de ne rien voir, et d’estre livré à son propre endurcissement comme au plus juste et au plus rigoureux de tous les supplices. Et afin que cette suite du peuple de Dieu fust claire aux moins clairvoyans, Dieu la rend sensible et palpable par des faits que personne ne peut ignorer, s’il ne ferme volontairement les yeux à la verité. Le messie est attendu par les hebreux ; il vient, et il appelle les gentils comme il avoit esté prédit. Le peuple qui le reconnoist comme venu, est incorporé au peuple qui l’attendoit, sans qu’il y ait entre deux un seul moment d’interruption : ce peuple est répandu par toute la terre : les gentils ne cessent de s’y aggreger ; et cette eglise que Jesus-Christ a établie sur la pierre, malgré les efforts de l’enfer, n’a jamais esté renversée. Quelle consolation aux enfans de Dieu ! Mais quelle conviction de la verité, quand ils voyent que d’Innocent Xi qui remplit aujourd’huy si dignement le premier siége de l’eglise, on remonte sans interruption jusqu’à Saint Pierre établi par Jesus-Christ prince des apostres : d’où, en reprenant les pontifes qui ont servi sous la loy, on va jusqu’à Aaron et jusqu’à Moïse ; de là jusqu’aux patriarches, et jusqu’à l’origine du monde !
Quelle suite, quelle tradition, quel enchaisnement merveilleux ! Si nostre esprit naturellement incertain, et devenu par ses incertitudes le joûët de ses propres raisonnemens, a besoin dans les questions où il y va du salut, d’estre fixé et déterminé par quelque autorité certaine : quelle plus grande autorité que celle de l’eglise catholique qui réünit en elle-mesme toute l’autorité des siecles passez, et les anciennes traditions du genre humain jusqu’à sa premiere origine ? Ainsi la societé que Jesus-Christ attendu durant tous les siecles passez a enfin fondée sur la pierre, et où Saint Pierre et ses successeurs doivent présider par ses ordres, se justifie elle-mesme par sa propre suite, et porte dans son éternelle durée le caractere de la main de Dieu.
C’est aussi cette succession, que nulle héresie, nulle secte, nulle autre societé que la seule eglise de Dieu n’a pû se donner. Les fausses religions ont pû imiter l’eglise en beaucoup de choses, et sur tout elles l’imitent en disant, comme elle, que c’est Dieu qui les a fondées : mais ce discours en leur bouche n’est qu’un discours en l’air. Car si Dieu a créé le genre humain, si le créant à son image, il n’a jamais dédaigné de luy enseigner le moyen de le servir et de luy plaire, toute secte qui ne montre pas sa succession depuis l’origine du monde n’est pas de Dieu. Icy tombent aux pieds de l’eglise toutes les societez et toutes les sectes que les hommes ont établies au dedans ou au dehors du christianisme. Par exemple, le faux prophete des arabes a bien pû se dire envoyé de Dieu ; et aprés avoir trompé des peuples souverainement ignorans, il a pû profiter des divisions de son voisinage, pour y étendre par les armes une religion toute sensuelle : mais ni il n’a osé supposer qu’il ait esté attendu, ni enfin il n’a pû donner ou à sa personne, ou à sa religion aucune liaison réelle ni apparente avec les siecles passez. L’expedient qu’il a trouvé pour s’en exempter est nouveau. De peur qu’on ne voulust rechercher dans les ecritures des chrestiens des témoignages de sa mission semblables à ceux que Jesus-Christ trouvoit dans les ecritures des juifs, il a dit que les chrestiens et les juifs avoient falsifié tous leurs livres. Ses sectateurs ignorans l’en ont cru sur sa parole six cens ans aprés Jesus-Christ ; et il s’est annoncé luy-mesme, non seulement sans aucun témoignage précedent, mais encore sans que ni luy, ni les siens ayent osé ou supposer, ou promettre aucun miracle sensible qui ait pû autoriser sa mission.
De mesme les héresiarques qui ont fondé des sectes nouvelles parmi les chrestiens, ont bien pû rendre la foy plus facile, en niant les mysteres qui passent les sens. Ils ont bien pû ébloûïr les hommes par leur éloquence et par une apparence de pieté, les remüer par leurs passions, les engager par leurs interests, les attirer par la nouveauté et par le libertinage, soit par celuy de l’esprit, soit mesme par celuy des sens ; en un mot, ils ont pû facilement, ou se tromper, ou tromper les autres, car il n’y a rien de plus humain : mais, outre qu’ils n’ont pas pû mesme se vanter d’avoir fait aucun miracle en public, ni réduire leur religion à des faits positifs dont leurs sectateurs fussent témoins, il y a toûjours un fait malheureux pour eux, que jamais ils n’ont pû couvrir ; c’est celuy de leur nouveauté. Il paroistra toûjours aux yeux de tout l’univers, qu’eux et la secte qu’ils ont établie se sera détachée de ce grand corps et de cette eglise ancienne que Jesus-Christ a fondée, où Saint Pierre et ses successeurs tenoient la premiere place, dans laquelle toutes les sectes les ont trouvé établis. Le moment de la separation sera toûjours si constant, que les héretiques eux-mesmes ne le pourront desavoûër, et qu’ils n’oseront pas seulement tenter de se faire venir de la source par une suite qu’on n’ait jamais veû s’interrompre. C’est le foible inévitable de toutes les sectes que les hommes ont établies. Nul ne peut changer les siecles passez, ni se donner des prédecesseurs, ou faire qu’il les ait trouvez en possession. La seule eglise catholique remplit tous les siecles précedens par une suite qui ne luy peut estre contestée. La loy vient au-devant de l’evangile ; la succession de Moïse et des patriarches ne fait qu’une mesme suite avec celle de Jesus-Christ : estre attendu, venir, estre reconnu par une posterité qui dure autant que le monde, c’est le caractere du messie en qui nous croyons.
Jesus-Christ est aujourd’huy, il estoit hier, et il est aux siecles des siecles. ainsi outre l’avantage qu’a l’eglise de Jesus-Christ, d’estre seule fondée sur des faits miraculeux et divins qu’on a écrit hautement et sans crainte d’estre démenti dans le temps qu’ils sont arrivez, voicy en faveur de ceux qui n’ont pas vescu dans ces temps, un miracle toûjours subsistant, qui confirme la verité de tous les autres ; c’est la suite de la religion toûjours victorieuse des erreurs qui ont tasché de la détruire. Vous y pouvez joindre encore une autre suite, et c’est la suite visible d’un continuel chastiment sur les juifs qui n’ont pas receû le Christ promis à leurs peres.
Ils l’attendent néanmoins encore ; et leur attente toûjours frustrée, fait une partie de leur supplice. Ils l’attendent, et font voir en l’attendant qu’il a toûjours esté attendu. Condamnez par leurs propres livres, ils asseûrent la verité de la religion ; ils en portent, pour ainsi dire, toute la suite écrite sur leur front : d’un seul regard on voit ce qu’ils ont esté, pourquoy ils sont comme on les voit, et à quoy ils sont réservez. Ainsi quatre ou cinq faits authentiques et plus clairs que la lumiere du soleil, font voir nostre religion aussi ancienne que le monde. Ils montrent par consequent, qu’elle n’a point d’autre auteur que celuy qui a fondé l’univers, qui tenant tout en sa main, a pû seul et commencer et conduire un dessein où tous les siecles sont compris.
Il ne faut donc plus s’étonner, comme on fait ordinairement, de ce que Dieu nous propose à croire tant de choses si dignes de luy, et tout ensemble si impenétrables à l’esprit humain. Mais plustost il faut s’étonner de ce qu’ayant établi la foy sur une autorité si ferme et si manifeste, il reste encore dans le monde des aveugles et des incrédules.
Nos passions desordonnées, nostre attachement à nos sens, et nostre orgueïl indomptable en sont la cause. Nous aimons mieux tout risquer, que de nous contraindre : nous aimons mieux croupir dans nostre ignorance que de l’avoûër : nous aimons mieux satisfaire une vaine curiosité, et nourrir dans nostre esprit indocile la liberté de penser tout ce qu’il nous plaist, que de ployer sous le joug de l’autorité divine. De là vient qu’il y a tant d’incrédules, et Dieu le permet ainsi pour l’instruction de ses enfans. Sans les aveugles, sans les sauvages, sans les infideles qui restent, et dans le sein mesme du christianisme, nous ne connoistrions pas assez la corruption profonde de nostre nature, ni l’abisme d’où Jesus-Christ nous a tirez. Si sa sainte verité n’estoit contredite, nous ne verrions pas la merveille qui l’a fait durer parmi tant de contradictions, et nous oublierions à la fin que nous sommes sauvez par la grace. Maintenant l’incrédulité des uns humilie les autres ; et les rebelles qui s’opposent aux desseins de Dieu font éclater la puissance par laquelle indépendemment de toute autre chose il accomplit les promesses qu’il a faites à son eglise.
Qu’attendons-nous donc à nous soumettre ? Attendons-nous que Dieu fasse toûjours de nouveaux miracles ; qu’il les rende inutiles en les continuant ; qu’il y accoustume nos yeux comme ils le sont au cours du soleil et à toutes les autres merveilles de la nature ? Ou bien attendons-nous que les impies et les opiniastres se taisent ; que les gens de bien et les libertins rendent un égal témoignage à la verité ; que tout le monde d’un commun accord la préfere à sa passion, et que la fausse science, que la seule nouveauté fait admirer, cesse de surprendre les hommes ? N’est-ce pas assez que nous voyions qu’on ne peut combatre la religion sans montrer par de prodigieux égaremens qu’on a le sens renversé, et qu’on ne se défend plus que par présomption, ou par ignorance ? L’eglise victorieuse des siecles et des erreurs, ne pourra-t-elle pas vaincre dans nos esprits les pitoyables raisonnemens qu’on luy oppose ; et les promesses divines que nous voyons tous les jours s’y accomplir, ne pourront-elles nous élever au dessus des sens ? Et qu’on ne nous dise pas que ces promesses demeurent encore en suspens, et que comme elles s’étendent jusqu’à la fin du monde, ce ne sera qu’à la fin du monde que nous pourrons nous vanter d’en avoir veû l’accomplissement. Car au contraire, ce qui s’est passé nous asseûre de l’avenir : tant d’anciennes prédictions si visiblement accomplies, nous font voir qu’il n’y aura rien qui ne s’accomplisse ; et que l’eglise contre qui l’enfer, selon la promesse du fils de Dieu, ne peut jamais prévaloir, sera toûjours subsistante jusqu’à la consommation des siecles, puis que Jesus-Christ veritable en tout n’a point donné d’autres bornes à sa durée. Les mesmes promesses nous asseûrent la vie future.
Dieu qui s’est montré si fidele, en accomplissant ce qui regarde le siecle present, ne le sera pas moins à accomplir ce qui regarde le siecle futur, dont tout ce que nous voyons n’est qu’une préparation ; et l’eglise sera sur la terre toûjours immuable et invincible, jusqu’à ce que ses enfans estant ramassez, elle soit toute entiere transportée au ciel, qui est son séjour veritable. Pour ceux qui seront exclus de cette cité celeste, une rigueur éternelle leur est réservée ; et aprés avoir perdu par leur faute une bienheureuse éternité, il ne leur restera plus qu’une éternité malheureuse.
Ainsi les conseils de Dieu se terminent par un estat immuable ; ses promesses et ses menaces sont également certaines ; et ce qu’il exécute dans le temps asseûre ce qu’il nous ordonne ou d’esperer, ou de craindre dans l’éternité. Voilà ce que vous apprend la suite de la religion mise en abregé devant vos yeux. Par le temps elle vous conduit à l’éternité. Vous voyez un ordre constant dans tous les desseins de Dieu, et une marque visible de sa puissance dans la durée perpetuelle de son peuple. Vous reconnoissez que l’eglise a une tige toûjours subsistante, dont on ne peut se separer sans se perdre ; et que ceux qui estant unis à cette racine, font des oeuvres dignes de leur foy, s’asseûrent la vie éternelle.
Etudiez-donc, monseigneur, mais étudiez avec attention cette suite de l’eglise, qui vous asseûre si clairement toutes les promesses de Dieu. Tout ce qui rompt cette chaisne, tout ce qui sort de cette suite, tout ce qui s’éleve de soy-mesme, et ne vient pas en vertu des promesses faites à l’eglise dés l’origine du monde, vous doit faire horreur. Employez toutes vos forces à rappeller dans cette unité tout ce qui s’en est dévoyé, et à faire écouter l’eglise par laquelle le Saint Esprit prononce ses oracles. La gloire de vos ancestres est non seulement de ne l’avoir jamais abandonnée, mais de l’avoir toûjours soustenuë ; et d’avoir merité par là d’estre appellez ses fils aisnez, qui est sans doute le plus glorieux de tous leurs titres. Je n’ay pas besoin de vous parler de Clovis, de Charlemagne, ni de Saint Loûïs. Considerez seulement le temps où vous vivez, et de quel pere Dieu vous a fait naistre. Un roy si grand en tout se distingue plus par sa foy que par ses autres admirables qualitez. Il protege la religion au dedans et au dehors du royaume, et jusqu’aux extrémitez du monde.
Ses loix sont un des plus fermes remparts de l’eglise. Son autorité réverée autant par le merite de sa personne que par la majesté de son sceptre, ne se soustient jamais mieux que lors qu’elle défend la cause de Dieu. On n’entend plus de blasphême ; l’impieté tremble devant luy : c’est ce roy marqué par Salomon, qui dissipe tout le mal par ses regards. S’il attaque l’héresie par tant de moyens, et plus encore que n’ont jamais fait ses prédecesseurs, ce n’est pas qu’il craigne pour son trône ; tout est tranquille à ses pieds, et ses armes sont redoutées par toute la terre : mais c’est qu’il aime ses peuples, et que se voyant élevé par la main de Dieu à une puissance que rien ne peut égaler dans l’univers, il n’en connoist point de plus bel usage que de la faire servir à guerir les playes de l’eglise.
Imitez, monseigneur, un si bel exemple, et laissez-le à vos descendans. Recommandez-leur l’eglise plus encore que ce grand empire que vos ancestres gouvernent depuis tant de siecles. Que vostre auguste maison, la premiere en dignité qui soit au monde, soit la premiere à défendre les droits de Dieu, et à étendre par tout l’univers le regne de Jesus-Christ qui la fait regner avec tant de gloire.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.5.17 — Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
- ↩Luke.24.44 — Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
- ↩Luke.24.27 — And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
- ↩John.5.46 — For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.
- ↩Matt.21.34-Matt.21.36 — When the season of the harvest drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. Matt.21.35 — And the tenants seized his servants; one they beat, one they killed, and one they stoned. Matt.21.36 — Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did to them likewise.
- ↩Matt.21.35-Matt.21.36 — And the tenants seized his servants; one they beat, one they killed, and one they stoned. Matt.21.36 — Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did to them likewise.
- ↩Matt.21.37 — But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'
- ↩Matt.21.38-Matt.21.39 — But when the tenants saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance.' Matt.21.39 — And they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
- ↩Gal.4.4;John.3.17 — But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, John.3.17 — For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
- ↩Deut.28.48 — and you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things; and he will put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you.
- ↩Matt.16.18 — And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
- ↩Gen.1.26-Gen.1.27 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
- ↩Luke.24.27;John.5.39 — And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. John.5.39 — You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.
- ↩John.21.15-John.21.17 — When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." John.21.16 — He said to him again a second time, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.' He said to him, 'Tend my sheep.' John.21.17 — He said to him the third time, 'Simon son of John, do you love me?' Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, 'Do you love me?' and he said to him, 'Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my sheep.'
- ↩Gal.3.24 — So the law became our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
- ↩Gen.49.10;John.1.41 — The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. John.1.41 — He first finds his own brother Simon and says to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, Christ).
- ↩Eph.2.8 — For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.
- ↩Matt.16.18 — And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
- ↩Matt.16.18 — And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
- ↩Matt.25.46 — And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Notes
- 1 ↩French religion here means scrupulous religious fidelity/care in keeping the deposit, not merely 'a religion' as a system among others; rendered as 'religious care'.
- 2 ↩monumens primitifs rendered as 'earliest records' (documentary memorials), not physical monuments; matches Bossuet's earlier use of monumens for preserved sacred writings.
- 3 ↩suite de la religion is Bossuet's key term for the historical continuity/succession of true religion; rendered 'ongoing course of the religion' rather than a looser 'tradition'.
- 4 ↩si peu qu'on ait consideré rendered as concessive 'however little one has studied' (even the slightest attention suffices for the admission).
- 5 ↩Classical French 'avec tant de religion' means religious reverence or scrupulous piety, not 'religion' as an abstract system; rendered as 'religious care'.
- 6 ↩'sur la foy de qui' means on whose credit/authority/testimony, not personal 'faith' as belief; rendered as 'on whose authority'.
- 7 ↩'foy publique' is public credit or common accepted belief, not personal religious faith; rendered as 'public trust'.
- 8 ↩Here religion means scrupulous religious care/reverence in transmission (as in the previous section's 'avec tant de religion'), not the abstract system of belief.
- 9 ↩supposez rendered as 'forgeries' (spurious/supposititious writings), not mere error.
- 10 ↩ils taken as the books' authors/writers (who could be 'disciples'), not the books themselves.
- 11 ↩éclairée de trop prés rendered as 'examined too closely'; lit. inspected/illuminated from too near.
- 12 ↩constamment taken as intensifying characterization ('consistently/by common account the most...'); chaire as episcopal see, not pulpit.
- 13 ↩supposez again as 'forgeries'; Marcion/Manes prefer Luke yet still call it falsified, while rejecting the other three as spurious.
- 14 ↩"la bonne foy de l'eglise" is rendered as the Church's good faith (honest transmission of the texts), not "the faith" as creed.
- 15 ↩tige rendered as 'stock' in the genealogical sense (stem/root of the line); 'root' or 'stock' both fit.
- 16 ↩Old French «supposer» here means to forge and ascribe falsely (not modern 'suppose' alone); rendered as 'attributed...forged' sense via 'attributed books to them' / earlier 'supposed'.
- 17 ↩«malgré qu'on en eust» is older French; rendered as 'no matter what one might have done' (i.e., despite any attempt to strip the miraculous out).
- 18 ↩«turcs» and «alcoran» kept in the historical sense of the source (Muslims / the Qur'an), not modernized into anachronistic diplomacy.
- 19 ↩«moins religieux à conserver» = less careful/devout in the duty of preserving, not 'less religious' in general character; rendered 'less scrupulous about preserving'.
- 20 ↩réclament: rendered as "call on" (appeal to as authority/witness), not "complain" or "demand back."
- 21 ↩French «supposition» here means fabrication or forgery of a text (the claim that the Pentateuch was invented), not a mere hypothesis.
- 22 ↩«religieux» is rendered as «scrupulous» to capture careful, reverent fidelity in transmitting the text as found, not generic modern «religious».
- 23 ↩«suite» is rendered as «sequence of the story» to keep the parallel with «suivi» (coherent/continuous) in the surrounding sentences.
- 24 ↩« tranchons... par le fond »: settle by cutting through to the substance/root of the difficulty, not by a shallow compromise.
- 25 ↩« supposition » here means fraudulent fabrication of a text (as if ancient), continuing the prior argument against claims that Ezra or the Jews forged the Pentateuch—not logical 'supposition'.
- 26 ↩« dans la derniere rigueur »: with the last strictness/exactness of fidelity in translation.
- 27 ↩foy = trust/faith placed in the received copies (exemplaires = manuscript witnesses), not 'faith' as theological virtue.
- 28 ↩fin bienheureuse: 'blessed end' keeps Bossuet's sense of a holy/happy death, not merely a chronological ending.
- 29 ↩par remarque: rendered 'as a note' for a marginal/parenthetical historical remark later absorbed into the text, not a formal modern footnote apparatus.
- 30 ↩le samaritain: the Samaritan Pentateuch/text, not a Samaritan person.
- 31 ↩Ironic future perfect ('aura... fait'): Bossuet is voicing the critics' charge against Ezra as forgery, not affirming it.
- 32 ↩supposition here is classical critical/legal French for forgery or false attribution, not modern 'supposition' as guess.
- 33 ↩libertinage here is freethinking moral and intellectual license (17th-c. sense), not merely sexual libertinism.
- 34 ↩comme présens: the miracles are presented as contemporary/present events, not remote hearsay—central to Bossuet's public-witness argument.
- 35 ↩French rapport here means mutual correspondence/harmony between the Testaments (prophecy and fulfillment), not a mere report.
- 36 ↩The ne in ne soit écrit is the French ne explétif after a verb of dispute/denial; it does not reverse the sense to 'was not written.'
- 37 ↩«en a choisi quelques-uns» points forward to the striking public facts of s4 (desolation of the Jews, conversion of the Gentiles), not merely to prophecies in the abstract.
- 38 ↩infideles rendered as unfaithful (breach of trust), not as 'infidels' in the modern confessional sense.
- 39 ↩méconnoissance: failure/refusal to recognize or acknowledge; rendered as 'failure to recognize' rather than mere ignorance, to keep the moral force of rejecting the known Messiah.
- 40 ↩endurcissement rendered as hardness of heart (not mere stubbornness), matching the judicial hardening sense in this polemical close.
- 41 ↩suite rendered as succession (Bossuet’s key term for continuous religious continuity), not mere sequel.
- 42 ↩premier siége rendered as first see (Rome’s primacy), not merely first seat/throne in a generic sense.
- 43 ↩« le faux prophete des arabes » is Bossuet’s conventional designation of Muhammad; kept as in the source rather than modernized to a proper name.
- 44 ↩« s'en exempter » points back to the demand for a real or apparent link with past ages (s5).
- 45 ↩« supposer » here rendered as « invent » (claim as fact without basis), paired with « promettre »; both remain under the double « ni... ni » of the source.
- 46 ↩« en possession » means already holding the office/authority when the later founder arrived—i.e., prior incumbents already established in the Church.
- 47 ↩Bossuet's suite de la religion is his technical term for the continuous historical succession of the true religion, not a mere 'continuation' or abstract tradition.
- 48 ↩French suite here continues Bossuet's key term for the unbroken historical succession of the religion (la suite de la religion), not a mere sequel.
- 49 ↩The phrase 'et dans le sein mesme du christianisme' is read as modifying 'les infideles qui restent' (unbelievers who remain even within Christianity itself), not as a separate clause about Christians in general.
- 50 ↩libertins rendered as freethinkers (17th-c. religious freethinker/scoffers), not as merely sexually libertine.
- 51 ↩tige / racine: botanical lineage image for the Church's continuous stock and root; kept as stem and root rather than flattened to abstract institution.
- 52 ↩"ses fils aisnez" (fils aînés de l'Église): traditional title of the kings of France as "eldest sons of the Church."
- 53 ↩«marqué par Salomon» and «dissipe tout le mal par ses regards» point to the proverbial portrait of the just king (commonly linked with Proverbs 20:8).
Discours sur l'histoire universelle companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit