ry tender part of
the Mosaic dispensation. [30]

[Footnote 26: Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 3, has
stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the adversary of
Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.]

[Footnote 261: On the "war law" of the Jews, see Hist. of Jews, i.
137.--M.]

[Footnote 27: Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu:
adversus amnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4. Surely Tacitus
had seen the Jews with too favorable an eye. The perusal of Josephus
must have destroyed the antithesis. * Note: Few writers have suspected
Tacitus of partiality towards the Jews. The whole later history of the
Jews illustrates as well their strong feelings of humanity to their
brethren, as their hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and
the position of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in
mind during the perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated
the ferocity and fanaticism of the Jews at that time; but
insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the humaner virtues,
and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the later Roman
governors. See Hist. of Jews, ii. 254.--M.]

[Footnote 28: Dr. Burnet (Archaeologia, l. ii. c. 7) has discussed the
first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. * Note: Dr.
Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had conducted some of his
arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a learned language for
scholars alone, not for the vulgar. Whatever may be thought of his
success in tracing an Eastern allegory in the first chapters of Genesis,
his other works prove him to have been a man of great genius, and of
sincere piety.--M]

[Footnote 29: The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the Creator, as a
Being of a mixed nature between God and the Daemon. Others confounded
him with an evil principle. Consult the second century of the general
history of Mosheim, which gives a very distinct, though concise, account
of their strange opinions on this subject.]

[Footnote 291: The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated these
plausible objections with so much force as almost to make them his own,
would have shown a more considerate and not less reasonable philosophy,
if they had considered the religion of Moses with reference to the age
in which it was promulgated; if they had done justice to its sublime as
well as its more imperfect views of the divine nature; the humane and
civilizi