transmigration and Hebrew traditions

Edwards Miscellanies 969 an 973

In ibid., pp. 323–26, Prideaux states that Pythagoras when in Egypt studied with Zoroastres and the Magians, learned of the immortality of the soul, and was the first Greek to teach it—though he corrupted the doctrine by saying immortality consisted in transmigration of the soul from one body to another. See further, No. 973.

973. TRADITIONS OF THE HEATHEN FROM THE ANCIENT AND JEWS.

In the margins of this entry are the following headings: "Revelation; Future State of Rewards and Punishments; Fall of Man; Right Notions of God; Revelation." Add this to No. 969. "The author of the book De Mundo (dedicated to Alexander) says thus, ''Tis an ancient saying, and running the race of all men, that from God all things, and by God all things were constituted, and do consist.'" Barrow's Works, vol. 2, p. 89.Barrow, Works, 2, 89. The quote occurs in The Christian Faith Explained and Vindicated, in Several Sermons upon the Chief Articles of it contained in the Apostles Creed, Sermon VIII, "The Being of God Proved from Universal Consent."

"Plato, in his Timaeus, p. 105, says, "'We must yield credence to them, who first avouched themselves the offspring of God, and did sure clearly know their own progenitors; it is indeed impossible to distrust the children of the gods, although otherwise speaking without plausible, or necessary demonstrations; but, following law, we must believe them, as testifying about matters peculiarly belonging to themselves.'" Barrow's Works, vol. 2, p. 90.

Plato, speaking of the immortality of the soul and a future state of rewards and punishments, says, "'We must believe the reports of this kind, being so many, and so very ancient.' 

And Cicero says, 'We suppose that souls abide after death, from the consent of all nations.' And again saith he, 'I cannot assent unto those, who have lately begun to discourse, that souls do perish together with bodies, and that all things are blotted out by death; the authority of the ancients doth more prevail with me.' 

And Seneca saith, 'When we dispute concerning the eternity of souls, the consent of men either fearing or worshipping the inferi'" (i.e. the state of things after death) "'hath no slight moment with us.' 

Even Celsus himself (an Epicurean philosopher, and great enemy of our faith) confesses, 'that divine men have delivered it, that happy souls should enjoy an happy life hereafter.'

"The opinion concerning man having sometimes been in a better state (both in regard to complexion of mind, and outward accommodations of life), but that he did by his willful miscarriages fall thence into this wretched condition of proneness to sin, and subjection to sorrow, was an ancient doctrine (if we take Plato's word); and concerning it Cicero hath these remarkable words: 

'From which errors and miseries of human life we may conclude, that sometime those ancient prophets, or interpreters of the divine mind in the delivery of holy mysteries, who have said. that we are born to undergo punishments for the faults committed in a former life, may seem to have understood somewhat' 

('Tis true those authors assign this fall to the souls [of] singular persons in a state of preexistence; but it is plain enough, how easy it might be to mistake and transform the story.)" Barrow's Works, vol. 2, pp. 91–92.

There were some things that were very general among the heathen nations that they did not receive from the first fathers and founders of nations, but from the Jews or their ancestors, as particularly the practice of "paying tithes (that very determinate part) of the fruits of the earth, of the spoils of war, of the gains of trade, by way of acknowledgment and thankfulness to the donor and disposer of all things." See Dr. Barrow, vol. 2, p. 93. 

Aristotle's words in his Metaphysics, 12:8, are very remarkable: "'There were,' saith he, 'things conveyed traditionally by the primitive and ancient men, and left in a fabulous dress to their posterity; that there are these gods, and that divinity maintains (or encompasses) all nature: but other things were to these fictitiously superinduced for persuasion of the vulgar sort, and for the use of laws and public commodity: hence they speak of the gods, as having an human shape, or resembling other living creatures, and other things consequent upon, or agreeable to these sayings; from which things, if we separate that only which was first delivered, that they deemed the gods the first beings, we may suppose what they said divinely spoken. 

And 'tis according to probability, all art and philosophy being, as might possibly, often invented and lost again, that even these opinions of them have as relics been preserved until now: the opinion then of our fathers, and that which came from the first men, is only thus far manifested to us.' 

Thus did that philosopher, with a sagacity worthy so great a man, discern that through that coarser ore, consisting in great part of dross and feculency, a pure vein of truth did run down from the source of primitive tradition." So Dr. Barrow, vol. 2, pp. 94–95.

"'There is,' saith Cicero, De Divinatione, 'an ancient opinion, drawn even from the heroical times,[…] that there is among men a certain divination, which the Greeks call prophecy (or inspiration), that is a presensionI.e. foreknowledge or foresight. and knowledge of future things.'" Barrow's Works, vol. 2, p. 99.Barrow, Works, 2, 99, in The Christian Faith Explained and Vindicated, Sermon IX, "The Being of God Proved from Supernatural Effects."

This is a very great argument that the heathen nations borrowed many things from the Jews and Jewish patriarchs in their principles and practices, that several great nations used the rite of circumcision, which undoubtedly began with Abraham, as appears both by sacred and profane accounts (see what the Phoenicians say of Saturn's being circumcised and all his friends in note on Genesis 1:27, which is evidently taken from the story of Abraham).

The "Blank Bible" note on Genesis 1:27 paraphrases Gale, Court of the Gentiles, 1, Pt. 1, Bk. 2, ch. 3, p. 32, including this and other parallels between Saturn and Abraham as well as parallels between Saturn and Adam. Herodotus says "that the Colchians, Egyptians and Ethiopians, and the Phoenicians and Syrians that lived in Palestine used circumcision"; and questions whether the Egyptians borrowed the custom from the Ethiopians, or the Ethiopians from the Egyptians. And Diodorus Siculus speaks of the Colchians and Egyptians as using circumcision. This is taken from an extract of Shuckford's History, in the Republic of Letters, vol. 5, pp. 53–54.The Present State of the Republick of Utters. For January 1730. Vol. V (London, 1730), 53–54, in Article 3, an excerpt from Samuel Shuckford, The Sacred And Profane History Of The World, vol. 1 (London, 1728).

Another argument that the heathen derived much from the Jews is that the name of Jupiter, or Iao Pater, was derived from Jehovah, which name was not revealed or at least not much known before Moses. 

So the heathen songs to Bacchus and Apollo that began with ελελω were evidently derived from the Jews' hallelujah. See No. 1012. See note on Psalms 106:1.The "Blank Bible" note on Psalms 106:1 explains that the Hebrew "Hallelujah" was usually rendered in pagan hymns to Apollo and Bacchus as "Eleleus." (Gale, Court of the Gentiles, 1, Pt. I, Bk. 2, ch. 4, pp. 39–40, and Pt. I, Bk. 3, ch. 1, pp. 13–14.)

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