A treatise of Communion under both species by James Benigne Bossuet.

§ V. A proofe from the observances of the old Testament.

THE matter is more surpri∣sing in the old Testament, where every thing was circum∣stanced and particularised with so much care: yet notwithstan∣ding it is certain that a law writ∣ten with so much exactnesse stood in neede of Tradition and the interpretation of the Syna∣gogue to be well understood.

The law of the Sabaoth alone fournisheth many examples of this.

Every one knowes how strict was the observance of this sa∣cred rest, * 1.1 in which it was for∣bid under paine of death, to prepare their diet or so much as to light their fire. In a word the law forbid so precisely all

manner of worke, that many durst scarce move on this holy day. At least it was certain that none could either undertake or continue a journey; and wee know what hapned to the ar∣my of Antiochus Sidetes, * 1.2 when this Prince stopped his march in favour of John Hyrcanus and the Jewes during two dayes on which their law obliged them to a rest equall to that of the Sabaoth. In this strict obliga∣tion to remain in rest Tradition and custome alone had expli∣cated how far one might go without violating the tranqui∣lity requisite during these holy dayes. From hence comes that manner of speech mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, from such a place to such a place, is a Sabaoth dayes journey. * 1.3 This Tradition was established in the time of our Saviour, nei∣ther

did he nor his Apostles who mentioned it ever repre∣hend it.

The exactitude of this rest did not hinder but that it was permitted to untye a beast and lead it to drinke, * 1.4 or to pull it out if fallen into a ditch. Our Lord who alledges these exam∣ples as publick and notorious to the Jewes, does not only not blame them, but further authorises them, though the law had said nothing concer∣ning them, and that these a∣ctions seemed to be compre∣hended under the generall pro∣hibition.

It must not be imagined that these observances were of little or no importance in a law so severe, and where it was ne∣cessary to take care even to an ïota and the least title, the least prevarication drawing down

most terrible paines and an in∣evitable malediction upon the transgressors.

But behold a thing which ap∣peares yet more important in the time of the Machabees a question was proposed whe∣ther it was permitted to de∣fend ones life upon the Sa∣baoth day; * 1.5 and the Jewes suf∣fered themselves to be killed, til such times as the Synago∣gue had interpreted and decla∣red that selfe defence was per∣mitted, though the law had not excepted that action.

In permitting selfe defence, they dit not permitt an onsett, what advantage soever might thereby arrive to the publick, and the Synagogue durst never go so far.

But after the Synagogue had permitted selfe defence there remained yet one scrupule; * 1.6

(viz) whether it were permit∣ted to repaire a breach upon the Sabaoth. For although it had been decided that they might defend their lives when they were immediately atta∣qued, yet they doubted whe∣ther that permission extended to those occasions where the attaque was not so immedia∣te. The Jewes beseeged in Je∣rusalem durst not extend the dispensation so far, and let themselves be taken by Pom∣pey. The scruple appeared a little to nice, and I bring this Example to shew how many cases might happen in which the law had not provided, and where the declaration of the Synagogue was necessary to the quiet of there consciences.

It was an indispensable law to observe the new Moons to the end they might celebrate

a Feast which the law ordai∣ned precisely upon that day, and might also calculate exact∣ly the other dayes which had their particular observances. There were no Ephemerides regulated in those first times and besides the Jewes never trusted to any thing of that nature, and not being willing to expose themselves to the errours of calculation, they found no other security then to cause some persons to ob∣serve upon the highest moun∣tains when the Moon should appeare. Neither the manner of observing this, nor of co∣ming and declaring this to the Council, nor that of pu∣blishing the new Moone, and the beginning of the Festivall were expressed in the law. Tra∣dition had provided for the∣se; and the same Tradition had

decided that what was requi∣site in order to the observa∣tion and declaration of the new Moon was not contrary to the law of the Sabaoth.

I will not speake of the sa∣crifises, * 1.7 nor of the other cere∣moneyes which were performed upon the Sabaoth day accor∣ding to the law, because the law having regulated them, wee might say it had made an exce∣ption in this point: but there are many other things which were to be done on the Sa∣baoth day in cases which the law had not regulated.

When the Passover fell upon the first day of the weeke, which is our Sunday, there were divers things to be done for the prepa∣ration of the Paschall sacrifise. The victime was to be chosen, it was to be examined by the Priests if it had the qualifica∣tion

requisite, it was to be led to the Temple and to the Altar, to be immolated at the hower prefixed. All these things with many others we∣re done upon the vigil of the Passeover. The levained bread was likewise to be cast away, which according to the preci∣se tearmes of the law, * 1.8 ought not to be found throughout all Israel, when the day of the Pas∣seover begun. The law might have regulated that these things should be done upon the Fry∣day, when the Passeover fel u∣pon Sunday; or otherwise dis∣pense with the observance of the Sabaoth to accomplish them. It would not do it: Tradition alone authorised the Priests to do their fun∣ctions; and wee may say in these cases, as well as in those which our Blessed Saviour has

noted, * 1.9 that the Priests violate the Sabaoth in the Temple, and are without reproach.

And do's he not also appro∣ve what David did, * 1.10 when pres∣sed with hunger he eat the Bread of proposition contra∣ry to the law, * 1.11 and followed the interpretation of the High Priest Achimelec, though it were no where written.

The Passeover and all the Feasts of the Israelites as well as their Sabaoths begun in the evening and at the time of Ves∣pres according to the expresse disposition of the law: but though the true time of Ves∣pres be the setting of the Sun, yet the Vespres were not taken so precisely amongst the Jewes. The law neverthelesse had not determined it, and custome a∣lone had regulated that Ves∣pres or the evening should

begin presently after mid-day, and when the Sun begun to decline.

Neither could it also be de∣termined by the precise tear∣mes of the law what was that time betwixt the two Vespres, which is ordained for the Pas∣seover in the Hebrew text of Exodus, * 1.12 and Tradition alone had explicated that it was all that time which was compre∣hended betwixt the declining of the Sun, and its setting.

It cannot be denyed but that all these things were of an ab∣solute necessity for the obser∣vation of the law; and if it appeare that the law would not foresee them, it ought to be concluded that it would leave the explication of them to custome.

The same thing may be said of divers other ceremonyes,

which, according to the tear∣mes of the law, concurred pre∣cisely at the same time, nei∣ther was it possible to perfor∣me them together. For exam∣ple, the law ordined an eve∣ning sacrifise which ought to be offered every day, and this was that they called the Ta∣mid or the perpetuall sacrifise. There was that of the Sabaoth, and that also of the Passeover which weere all to be perfor∣med at the same hour; in such sort that upon Easter day, ac∣cording to the prescript of the law, these three sacrifises con∣curred togeather: There was neverthelesse but one only Al∣tar for the Sacrifises, and it was neither permitted nor possible to offer all these sacrifises at the same time. Nor did they know how or where to be∣gin; and in so strict an ob∣servance

as the law exacted in all rigour, they might have fal∣len into an unavoidable laba∣rinth, if custome had not ex∣plicated that the more ordina∣ry sacrifise ought to be offered first. So that they were not a∣fraid to anticipate the perpe∣tual sacrifise to give place to that of the Sabaoth, and that also of the Sabaoth to give place to the Passeover.

If wee stick to the precise termes of the law of Moyses, * 1.13 wee finde no mariage with strangers forbidden but only those which were contracted with the daughters of the sea∣ven Nations so often detested in the Scripture. * 1.14 It was these abominable Nations which we∣re to be exterminated without mercy. It was the daughters of these Nations who should seduce the Israelites, and allu∣re

them to the worship of fal∣se Gods; and it was for this reason that the law forbid to marry them. There was no∣thing of this kind said, nei∣ther of the daughters of the Moabites and Ammonites, nor of those of the Egyptians, and so far was marriage from being forbidden with the daughters of the Moabites, * 1.15 that Booz is praysed by the whole Council and by all the people for mar∣rying Ruth who was of that Country. Behold what wee fin∣de in the law, and neverthelesse wee finde that in the time of Esdras it was a thing established amongst the Jewes to number the Egyptians, * 1.16 the daughters of the Ammonites and Moabites, and in a word of all strangers in the same ranke vith the Chana∣nites: in so much that they bro∣ke all the marriages contracted

with these women as abomina∣ble. From whence comes this, if not that since Salomons time a long experience having taught the Israelites that the Egyptians and other strangers did no lesse seduce them then the Chanani∣tes, they beleeved they ought equally to exclude them all, not so much by the letter and prop∣per tearmes, as by the spirit of the law; which they also in∣terpreted contrary to the pre∣cedent practise in respect of the Moabites, the Synagogue alwayes beleeving herselfe to have received from God him∣selfe a right to give decisions, according to occurring neces∣sityes?

I do not beleeve that any one will persuade himselfe that they observed according to the let∣ter and in all sorts of cases, * 1.17 that severe law of Talionis so often

repeated in the Bookes of Moy∣ses. For even to regard these tearmes only eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, bruse for bruse, wound for wound, no∣thing dos appeare to establish a more perfect and a more just compensation; yet nothing is in reality further from it, if wee weigh the circumstances, and nothing in fine would ha∣ve been more unequall then such an equality: nor indeed is it alwayes possible to give to a malefactor a wound altogea∣ther proportionable to that he had given his brother. Practi∣se taught the Jewes that the true dessigne of the law was to make them sensible there ought to be a reasonable com∣pensation, profitable both to particulars and to the publick, which as it consists not in a pre∣cise point, nor in a certain mea∣sure,

the same practise de∣termined it by a just estima∣tion.

It would not be hard to al∣ledge many other Traditions of the antient people as much ap∣proved of as these. The ablest writers of the new reforme do grand it. When therefore they would destroy all unwritten Traditions in generall (under pretense of the words of our Lord where he condemnes tho∣se Traditions which were con∣trary to the tearmes or to the sense and intent of the law, * 1.18 and in short those which had not a sufficiently sollid foundation) there is no sincerity in their discourses: and all men of sen∣ce will agree that there was lawfull traditions though not written, without which the practise it selfe of the law was impossible; in so much that it

cannot be denyed but that they obliged in conscience.

Will the Gentlemen of the Pretended Reformed Religion permit me to mention in this place the Tradition of prayer for the dead? This prayer is manifest by the Book of Ma∣chabees: * 1.19 neither neede wee here enter into dispute with these Gentlemen whether this Booke be canonicall or no, seeing it suffices as to this point that it was certainly writ befo∣re the Gospell. This custome remaines to this day amongst the Jewes, and the tradition of it my be asserted by these words of Saint Paul: * 1.20 What shall they do else who are baptised, that is to say purifyed and mortifyed for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? JESUS-CHRIST and his Apostles had found amongst the Jewes this Tradition of

praying for the dead without reprehending them for it; on the contrary it passed immedia∣tely from the Judaicall to the Christian Church, and Protes∣tants who have writ bookes where they shew this Tradi∣tion was establised in the pri∣mitive times of Christianity, could yet never shew the be∣ginning of it. Notwithstan∣ding it is certain there was no∣thing of it in the law. It came to the Jewes by the same way which handed to them so ma∣ny other unviolable Tradi∣tions.

But if a law which descen∣des to so minute particulars, and which is (as I may say) wholy literall, stood in need, that it might be rightly under∣stood according to its true sen∣ce, of being interpreted by the practise and declarations of the

Synagogue, how much more need have wee in the law of the Gospell where there is a greater liberty in the observan∣ces, and where the practises are lesse circumstanced.

A hundred examples will ma∣nifest the truth of what I say. I will draw them from the ve∣ry practises of the Pretended Reformers themselves, and I will not stick at the same time to relate togeather with them (as a thing which will decide the matter) what passed for current in the antient Church, because I cannot imagine that these Gentlemen can with sin∣cerity reject it.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Exod. 16.23.35.3.
• * 1.2

  Joseph. Ant. 13.16.
• * 1.3

  Act. 1.12.
• * 1.4

  Luk. 13.15.14.5.
• * 1.5

  1. Mach. 2.32.38.40.41. 2. Mach. 15.1.2. &c.
• * 1.6

  Joseph. Ant. 14.8.
• * 1.7

  Levit. 2 4.8. Num. 28.9.
• * 1.8

  Exod. 12.15.
• * 1.9

  Math. 12.5.
• * 1.10

  Ibid. 4.
• * 1.11

  1. Kings. 21.4.
• * 1.12

  Exod. 12.6.
• * 1.13

  Deut. 7.1.2.3.
• * 1.14

  Ibid. 2. Ibid. 4.
• * 1.15

  Ruch. 4.
• * 1.16

  1. Esd. 9.••.10.19. 2. Esd. 18.1.2. &c.
• * 1.17

  Exod. 21.24.28. Lev. 24.19.20. Dont. 19.21.
• * 1.18

  Math. 15.3. Mark. 7.7. &c.
• * 1.19

  2. Mach. 11.43.46.
• * 1.20

  1. Cor. 15.29.