Shem, who saw Lamech, who saw Adam, saw also Jacob, who saw those who saw Moses; therefore the deluge and the creation are true. This is conclusive among certain people who clearly understand it.
Josephus conceals the shame of his nation.
Moses does not conceal his own shame nor....
Quis mihi det ut omnes prophetent?
He was tired of the people.
When the creation of the people began to stand at a distance, God provided a single contemporary historian, and appointed a whole people as the guardians of this book, in order that the history might be the most authentic in all the world, that all men might learn a thing so necessary to know, yet so impossible to be known in any other way.
If the story in Esdras is credible, then it must be believed that Scripture is Holy Scripture. For this story is founded only on the authority of those who allege that of the Seventy, which shows that the Scripture is holy.
Therefore if the tale be true, we find our proof therein, if not we have it elsewhere. Thus those who would ruin the truth of our Religion, founded on Moses, establish it by the same authority by which they attack it. Thus by this providence it still exists.
On Esdras.—The story that the books were burnt with the temple shown to be false by The Book of Maccabees. Jeremiah gave them the law.
The story that he recited the whole by heart. Josephus and Esdras note that he read the book. Baronius, Ann. 180. Nullus penitus Hebræorum antiquorum reperitur qui tradiderit libros periisse et per Esdram esse restitutos, nisi in IV. Esdræ.