him to mean, that the Pharifees were in the scheme of a metempfychofis, or tranfmigration, and not of a refurrection. For that a foul revives, may be affirmed of it, when it is reunited to its former body, as well as when it animates a new body. Aralaw is applied thereunto in the New Teftament itself, Rom. xiv 10. Rev. xx. 5. on which account, it is needlefs to mention examples of that use of it in ecclefiaftical writers, otherwise it might easily be done; Why therefore might not Arabiow, which is Jofephus's word? as indeed it is so taken in a passage hereafter quoted, Maccab. vii. 9. And that a foul 'paffes into another body,' is true, when it goes into a body altered and changed in its qualities, though the fame, in regard of its substance and general figure, with that to which it was in a paft period joined, as well as when it goes into a body, totally different from that which it before refided in, and ufed as its inftrument of operation; Tepor being a term which occurs where is merely a circumftantial, as well as where there is an effential variation, as may be feen Luke, ix. 29.

Is there then any thing in Jofephus, to deliver us from hesitation and uncertainty, whether he teaches that the Pharifees held tranfmigration, that is, the tranfition of fouls from body to body, in fucceffion, as they were diflodged, and to guide us as a clew into a more precise discovery of their principles? I apprehend, there is enough to fatisfy us, that such tranfmigration was not their hypothefis; for in the paffage whence the firft quotation is taken,

* Και ειδος το προσωπο αυτό έτερον.

he declares,' There are rewards under+ the earth for

fouls that have in this life been careful to practise virtue,' ere he speak of their power of reviving. Further, where he acquaints us, that he diffuaded fome of his country-men from killing themselves in the cave, into which they had fled with himself for concealment, after the taking of the city Jotapata by the Romans, that they might not fall into Vefpafian's hands, he tells us he urged this confideration upon them, That pure and obedient fouls continue to exift, having received a most holy place in heaven, and thence, after the revolution of ages, are ' again housed in clean bodies; but that the fouls of those who have offered violence to their bodies, are ' lodged in the darkest * Hades.' Finally, in his second book against Apion, he writes thus, That 'their lawgiver had foretold, (and God had afforded 'the strongest proof of it,) that God granted to them 'who have obferved his laws, and died if it was ne'ceffary with chearfulness for them, to be born again, and to receive a better life in a future period; where the term rendered to be born again,' is fimilar to that which in Mat. xix. 28. is interpreted by Mede, Capellus, and others, to fignify, 'the refurrecti'on of the dead,' and is unquestionably to be fo Sunder

† Ὑπο χθονος δικαιώσεις.

** Καθαραι бе και επηκοοι μένωσιν αι ψυχαί, χωρον ερανό λαχα και τον αδιωτατον, ενθεν εκ περιτροπης αιώνων αίνοις παλιν αντενοια κίζονται σωμασιν, &c. De Bello, 3. 7. 5.

+ -Γενέθαι τε παλιν και βιον αμεινω λαβειν εκ περιτροπής fect. 30.

§ Thus Eufeb. Hiftor. Ecclef. 5. 1. fub fine. Say the churches of Lyons and Vienne in Gaul, in their letter to their Christian bre

ftood fometimes in other authors. Herein, however, Jofephus muft have reafoned, and declared Mofes's doctrine, as a Pharifee, being himself of the fect of the Pharifees, according to his own narrative; for he* tells us, that, after making experiment or trial of the different fects among his nation, he embraced that of the Pharifees, in the nineteenth year of his age. Now, thefe obfervations being laid together, it seems clear, it was not his intention to represent that the Pharifees, who maintained the immortality of fouls in general, taught the transmigration of virtuous fouls, or their paffing from body to body in continual train. For, according to his profeffed account of their creed, compared with his explication of the lawgiver's doctrine, and of his own fentiments in his address to the companions of his concealment, good fouls were happy after death, in a state of separation from body, instead of being appointed immediately to actuate other bodies on earth one after another, and after the revolution of ages, they were born again, they entered another body, and they then lived a still more excellent and bleffed life. There is then no fufficient reason, from Jofephus's reprefentation of the principles of the Pharifees, more than from the places of Scripture and Apocrypha above produced, to fay that the Pharifees believed a metempfychofis or tranfmigration, and not a refur

thren through Phrygia and Afia, The enemies burnt the bodies of the martyrs, and threw their ashes into the Rhone, as able to overcome God, and to take away from them a resurrection, xæ aqɛο λεπθαι αυτών την παλιγγενεσίαν.” Nor are other inftances of fuck acceptation of the phrase wanting, Epiphan. Haeref. 37. 1. &c. • Vita, fect. 2.

rection: nor, by confequence, to infinuate, that Paul advanced a falfhood to gain friends, when he said, I am a Pharifee, viz. by the hope of a refurrection of the dead; and that Luke gave a wrong account of their opinions, in writing they confeffed a refurrection.

It is true, he does not fay, these bodies, which virtuous fouls will at a future diftant season inhabit, fhall be their old ones, in reference to their materials redeemed from the grave, and fitted up again into a mansion for them in that happier life which fhall then commence; nor even that they shall be immortal bodies, in express words. And, perhaps, he chose to be on the reserve, both because there was some variety of fentiments among the persons who followed this fect upon that point, as we may learn from Philo's writings, and because there was no small danger of fcorn and ridicule from the Greeks* and Romans against the Jews, by an explicit mention of their faith in the refurrection of the dead. But, though for these reasons he may have spoken more generally, and accommodated more his phraseology to that which heathen people and philofophers employed, he hath faid nothing which will authorife us to say they did not hold the resurrection, especially

The refurrection of the dead, was an article peculiarly offensive to them. See Acts xvii. 32. Pliny ranks it among impossibilities, in respect of the power of God. Nat. Hist. lib. 2. cap. 7. Nec poteft • Deus revocare defunctos.' Confer. Ibid. lib. 7. cap. 55. Et Minut. Felix. page 10.

Such appears to me a just representation of Jofephus's fenfe, though Grotius and others have fuppofed him to fay, the Pharifees believed a refurrection.

after fo credible an author as Luke hath affirmed they confeffed it. Moreover, we have other pofitive evidence that the Jews, in a former age, though ftill fo late as to leave little room to doubt that the fect of the Pharifees was then known, believed a refurrection of the dead. For in the fecond book of Maccabees we read, that the fecond of the seven brothers, when through torment, because he would not eat swines flesh against the law of God, he was at the last gafp, faid to the king, (Antiochus) Thou, ⚫ like a fury, takeft us out of this present life, but the king of the world fhall raise us up, who have 'died for his laws, unto everlasting life*.' After him was the third made a mocking stock. And when he was required, he put forth his tongue, and that right foon, holding forth his hands manfully, and 'faid courageously, Thefe I had from heaven, and for • his laws I despise them, and from him I hope to re⚫ceive them again+.' The fourth, when he was ready to die, faid thus, 'It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up‡again by him. As for thee, (the king) thou shalt have 6 no refurrection unto life.' And the mother exhorted every one of them,- Doubtlefs the Creator of the 'world-will also, of his own mercy, give you breath ' and life § again.' In particular, fhe encouraged her youngest fon, inftead of diffuading him, as the king exhorted her, and afterward told the king' they were

* Chap. vii. 9. Αποθανοντας ήμας—εις αιώνιον αναβίωσιν ζωής ήμας αναστήσει.

+ Ibid. 10. 11. Ταυτα---παλιν κομιζέσθαι.

† Παλιν αναςτησεσθαι ὑπ αυτο---αναστασις εις ζωήν.

§ Ibid. v. 23. Το πνεύμα και την ζωην αποδώσει ύμιν παλιν.