world, and that all men might thereby learn a fact so necessary to know,
and which could only be known through that means.
622
[Japhet begins the genealogy.]
Joseph folds his arms, and prefers the younger.[225]
623
Why should Moses make the lives of men so long, and their generations so
few?
Because it is not the length of years, but the multitude of generations,
which renders things obscure. For truth is perverted only by the change
of men. And yet he puts two things, the most memorable that were ever
imagined, namely, the creation and the deluge, so near that we reach
from one to the other.
624
Shem, who saw Lamech, who saw Adam, saw also Jacob, who saw those who
saw Moses; therefore the deluge and the creation are true. This is
conclusive among certain people who understand it rightly.
625
The longevity of the patriarchs, instead of causing the loss of past
history, conduced, on the contrary, to its preservation. For the reason
why we are sometimes insufficiently instructed in the history of our
ancestors, is that we have never lived long with them, and that they are
often dead before we have attained the age of reason. Now, when men
lived so long, children lived long with their parents. They conversed
long with them. But what else could be the subject of their talk save
the history of their ancestors, since to that all history was reduced,
and men did not study science or art, which now form a large part of
daily conversation? We see also that in these days tribes took
particular care to preserve their genealogies.
626
I believe that Joshua was the first of God's people to have this name,
as Jesus Christ was the last of God's people.
627
_Antiquity of the Jews._--What a difference there is between one book
and another! I am not astonished that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor the
Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.
We have only to see how this originates. These fabulous historians are
not contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer
composes a romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as
such; for nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than
did the golden apple. Accordingly he did not think of making a history,
but solely a book to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the
beauty of the work has made it last, every one learns it and talks of
it, it is necessary to know it, and each one knows it by heart. Four
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