P. 118, l. 4. The five suns, etc. Montaigne, from whom this is taken, Essais, l. iii. ch. iv., probably borrowed it from some Spanish book now forgotten.
P. 119. Of the Jewish People. This position in his intended treatise, before the sections on the Sacred Books and on Prophecy, is that which Pascal himself designed for his remarks on the Jews.
P. 123, l. 5. The Masorah. The unwritten tradition of the Jews.
P. 126, l. 9. Quis mihi det. Num. xi. 29. The true reading is, Quis tribuat ut omnis populus prophetet.
P. 126, l. 17. If the story in Esdras is credible. In the 14th Chapter of the Second Book of Esdras God appears to Esdras in a bush, and orders him to assemble the people and deliver the message. Esdras replies, "I will go as thou hast commanded me, and reprove the people which are present, but they that shall be born afterward who shall admonish them?... For thy law is burnt, therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee, or the works that shall begin. But if I have found grace before thee, send the Holy Ghost into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning." ... Then God ordered him to take five scribes, to whom for forty days he dictated the ancient law.
The authenticity of this story, coming into conflict as it does with many passages of the prophets, and specially with Jeremiah, appeared open to such grave doubts, that at the Council of Trent the last book of Esdras, called in the Catholic Church, Esdras IV., by Protestants Esdras II., was then rejected from the Canon.
P. 126, l. 27. Jeremiah gave them the law. See 2 Maccabees, ch. xi.
P. 128, l. 31. Qui justus est justificetur adhuc. Apocal. xvii. 4.
P. 129, l. 18. a thousand and twenty-two. This was the number of stars comprised in the Catalogue of Ptolemy, according to the system of Hipparchus.