ject of the nation's hope. His disciples, his adherents, and afterwards their successors, have found means to apply to their master the ancient prophecies, wherein he seemed the least perceptibly designed. The Christians, docile and full of faith, have had the good fortune to see the founder of their religion predicted in the clearest manner throughout the whole Old Testament. By dint of allegories, figures, interpretations, and commentaries, their doctors have brought them to see in this shapeless compilation all that they had an interest in pointing out to them. When passages taken literally did not countenance deceit agreeable to their views, they contrived for them a twofold sense; they pretended, that it was not necessary to under stand them literally, but to give them a mystical, allegorical, and spiritual meaning. To explain, therefore, these pretended predictions, they continually substituted one name for another; they rejected the literal meaning, in order to adopt a figurative one; they changed the most natural signification of words; they applied the same passages to events quite opposite; they retrenched the names of some personages plainly designed, in order to put in their place that of Jesus; and in all this, they did not blush to make the most crying abuse of the principles of language.*

* Any thing may be found in the Bible, if it be read with the imagination of St. Augustine, who pretended to see all the New Testament in the Old. According to him, the death of Abel is a type of that of Christ; the two wives of Abraham are the synagogue and the church: a piece of red cloth, held up by an harlot, who betrayed Jericho, signifies the blood of Christ ; the lamb, goat, and lion, are figures of Jesus Christ; the brazen serpent represents the sacrifice on the cross. Even the mys steries of the Christian religion are announced in the Old Tes

The third chapter of Genesis furnishes us with a strik ing example of the manner in which the doctors of the Christian religion have allegorised passages of scripture, in order to apply them to Jesus. In this chapter God says to the serpent, convicted of having seduced the woman, the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head. This prophecy appears with so much the more difficulty to apply to Christ, that these words follow the preceding-and thou shalt bruise his heel. We are much embarrassed to comprehend, why that seed of the woman must be understood of Jesus. If he was the Son of God, or God himself, he could not be produced from the seed of the woman; if he was man, he is not pointed out in a particular manner by these words; for all men, without exception, are produced from the seed of women. According to our interpreters, the serpent is sin; the seed of the woman that bruises it, is Jesus incarnate in the womb of Mary. Since the coming of Christ, however, sin, typified by the ser

tament: Manna represents the Eucharist, &c.-Vide St. Aug. Serm. 18, & Ep. 156.

How can a man, in his senses, see in the Immanuel announced by Isaiah, the Messiah, whose name is Jesus? How discover in an obscure and crucified Jew, a leader who shall govern Israel ? How see a royal deliverer and restorer of the Jews in one, who, far from delivering his nation, came only to destroy their laws? and, after whose coming, their land was desolated by the Romans? A man must be sharp-sighted indeed to find the Messiah in their predictions. Jesus himself does not seem to have been more clear or happy in his. In St. Luke (c. 21), he speaks of the last judgment; he mentions angels, who at the sound of the trumpet, assemble mankind before him; he adds, " verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away until these things are accomplished." The world, however, still stands, and Christians have been expecting the last judgment for years!

pent, has at all times subsisted; from which we are warranted to conclude, that Jesus Christ has not destroyed it, and that therefore the prediction is neither literally nor allegorically accomplished.

In the twenty-second chapter of Genesis, God promises to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. What we stile prosperity, the Hebrews termed blessings. If Abraham and his race enjoyed a continued prosperity, it was only for a very short period; the Hebrews became afterwards the slaves of the Egyptians, and were, as has been seen, the most unfortunate people on earth. Christians have also given a mystic sense to this prophecy :-they substitute the name of Jesus in place of that of Abraham, and it is in him that all the nations shall be blessed; the advantages they shall enjoy will be persecutions, calamities, and misfortunes of every kind; and his disciples, like himself, shall undergo the most painful punishments. Hence we see, that, following our interpreters, the word blessing has changed its meaning; it no longer implies prosperity; it signifies what in ordinary language, is termed curses, disasters, afflictions, troubles, divisions, and religious wars-calamities with which the Christian nations have been continually blessed since the establishment of the church.*

Christians believe that they see Jesus expressly announced in the 49th chapter of Genesis. The patriarch Jacob there promises sovereign power to Judah. "The sceptre (says he) shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." It is thus that several interpreters translate the

See chapter XVIII. of this work.

tenth verse of the 49th chapter of Genesis. Others have translated it thus, "the authority shall for ever be in Judah, when the Messiah shall have come." Others read," the authority shall be in Judah, till the messenger receive in Shiloh the sovereign power." Others again render the passage in this manner, "the people of Judah shall be in affliction, till the messenger of the Lord comes to put an end to it ;" and according to others, " till the city of Shiloh be destroyed."

This diversity in the translation of the same passage ought unquestionably to render the prophecy very suspicious. First, we see that it is impossible to determine the signification of the word Shiloh, or to ascertain, whether it be the name of a man or a city. Secondly, it is proved, by the sacred books, received equally by Jews and Christians, that the sovereign power is gone from Judah; was wholly annihilated during the Babylonish captivity, and has not been reestablished since. If it is pretended, that Jesus came to restore the power of Judah, we assert, on the contrary, that, in the time of Christ, Judah was without authority, for Judah had submitted to the Romans. But our doctors have again recourse to allegory:-according to them, the power of Judah was the spiritual power of Jesus over Christians, designed by Judah.

They, in like manner, see Christ announced by Balaam, who by the bye was only a false prophet. He thus expresses himself in the 24th chapter of Numbers (16, 17)". He hath said, who heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, who saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see him but not now; I shall behold him but not nigh; there shall come a star out of Jacob,

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and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel," &c. In this unin telligible jargon, they pretend to shew Christians a clear prediction of the founder of their religion. It is he who is the star, because his luminous doctrine enlightens all minds. This sceptre, which shall rise out of Israel, is the cross of Christ, by the aid of which he has triumphed over the Devil, who, in spite of this victory, ceases not to reign still on earth, and to render useless the triumph of Jesus.*

But of all the prophecies contained in the Old Testament, there is not one to which the Christian doctors have attached more importance than that found in Isaiah, chap. vii. 14. A virgin, or a young woman, (for the Hebrew word signifies both,) shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. To find out Jesus Christ in this prediction, it is first of all necessary to be convinced, that this virgin or woman is Mary; next, it is necessary, not to entertain a doubt, whether Immanuel be the same with Jesus. It has been objected, and will always be objected, against this pro

* Devils are considered as the enemies and seducers of the human race, and perpetually busied in drawing them into sin. A power is attributed to them of performing miracles, similar to those wrought by the Most High; and, above all, a power that counteracts the Almighty, and renders all his projects abortive. Though the Christian religion did not formerly allow the same power to the Devil as to God, it supposed that that malevolent Being prevented mankind from entering into the enjoyment of the felicity destined them by the goodness of God, and led most of them into eternal perdition. Christians, however, now virtually attribute to the Devil an empire much more extensive than that of the Supreme Being. The latter with difficulty saves a few elect; while the former carries off, in spite of him, the greater part of mankind, who listen to his destruc tive temptations rather than the absolute commands of God.