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| Chapter XXXVI
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Chapter
XXXVI.
And now, since we have touched upon the subject of the
prophets, what we are about to advance will be useful not only to the
Jews, who believe that they spake by divine inspiration, but also to
the more candid among the Greeks. To these we say that we must
necessarily admit that the Jews had prophets, if they were to be kept
together under that system of law which had been given them, and were
to believe in the Creator of the world, as they had learned, and to be
without pretexts, so far as the law was concerned, for apostatizing to
the polytheism of the heathen. And we establish this necessity in
the following manner.
“For the nations,” as it is written in the law of the Jews
itself, “shall hearken unto observers of times, and
diviners;”3133
but to that people
it is said: “But as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to
do.”3134
And to this
is subjoined the promise: “A prophet shall the Lord thy God raise up unto thee from among thy
brethren.”3135
Since,
therefore, the heathen employ modes of divination either by oracles or
by omens, or by birds, or by ventriloquists, or by those who profess
the art of sacrifice, or by Chaldean genealogists—all which
practices were forbidden to the Jews—this people, if they had no
means of attaining a knowledge of futurity, being led by the passion
common to humanity of ascertaining the future would have despised their
own prophets, as not having in them any particle of divinity; and would
not have accepted any prophet after Moses, nor committed their words to
writing, but would have spontaneously betaken themselves to the
divining usages of the heathen, or attempted to establish some such
practices amongst themselves. There is therefore no absurdity in
their prophets having uttered predictions even about events of no
importance, to soothe those who desire such things, as when Samuel
prophesies regarding three she-asses which were lost,3136
or when mention is made in the third book of
Kings respecting the sickness of a king’s son.3137
And why should not those who desired
to obtain auguries from idols be severely rebuked by the administrators
of the law among the Jews?—as Elijah is found rebuking Ahaziah,
and saying, “Is it because there is not a God in Israel that ye
go to inquire of Baalzebub, god of Ekron?”3138
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