Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/128

 "Water cleansed the stains of body and vestments, fire purified metals; therefore water and fire must purify souls. Thus no temple was without its salutary water and fire. Men plunged into the Ganges, the Indus, the Euphrates, at the time of the new moon and of eclipses; this immersion expiated sins. If they did not also purify themselves in the Nile, it is because the crocodiles would have eaten the penitents.

"Herodotus recounts in his simple way to the Greeks what the Egyptians had told him: but how is it that in speaking to him of nothing but prodigies they omitted to mention the famous plagues of Egypt; of the magical contest between the sorcerers of Pharaoh and the minister of the God of the Hebrews; and of an entire army swallowed up in the Red Sea, under waters raised like mountains to right and left to let the Hebrews pass, which in falling back drowned the Egyptians? It was, assuredly, the greatest event in the world's history; how is it, then, that neither Herodotus, nor Manethon, nor Eratosthenes, nor any other of the Greeks who were so fond of the marvellous, and always in correspondence with Egypt, has spoken of the miracles which ought to live in the memory of all generations. I do not make this reflection to shake the testimony of the Hebrew books, which I revere as I ought; I confine myself to expressing astonishment at the silence of all the Egyptians and all the Greeks. Providence doubtless does not wish that a history so divine should be transmitted to us by any profane hand.

"Though the fall of angels transformed into devils was the foundation of the Jewish and the Christian religion, nothing is, nevertheless, said about it in Genesis, nor in the law, nor in any canonical book. Genesis says expressly that a serpent spoke to Eve and beguiled her. It is careful to remark that the serpent is the most subtle of animals; and we have already observed that all nations had this opinion of the serpent. Genesis notes especially that the hatred of men towards serpents springs from the ill office which that animal did the human race; that it is since that time that he endeav-