a
powerful state of one family. This is unique.
This family, or people, is the most ancient within human knowledge, a fact
which seems to me to inspire a peculiar veneration for it, especially in
view of our present inquiry; since if God had from all time revealed himself
to men, it is to these we must turn for knowledge of the tradition.
This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also singular
by their duration, which has always continued from their origin till now.
For, whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy, of Lacedaemon, of Athens
and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since perished, these
ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many powerful kings who have
a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify, and as
it is easy to conjecture from the natural order of things during so long a
space of years, they have nevertheless been preserved (and this preservation
has been foretold); and extending from the earliest times to the latest,
their history comprehends in its duration all our histories which it
preceded by a long time.
The law by which this people is governed is at once the most ancient law in
the world, the most perfect, and the only one which has been always observed
without a break in a state. This is what Josephus admirably proves, Against
Apion, and also Philo the Jew, in different places, where they point out
that it is so ancient that the very name of law was only known by the oldest
nation more than a thousand years afterwards; so that Homer, who has written
the history of so many states, has never used the term. And it is easy to
judge of its perfection by simply reading it; for we see that it has
provided for all things with so great wisdom, equity, and judge
.
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