Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

[Resp. affirmative.

Proof. 1° from what has been said in the preceding articles, whereby it is demonstrated : 1° that this religion was constituted directly by God himself ; 2° that all things were ordered to preparing the advent of the redeemer promised to mankind after the fall ; 3° that the Israelite people was truly the anticipated Christian Church.

Proof. 2° from miracles, both in the physical order and in the intellectual order.

1° The miracles of the physical order were wrought first to establish the Mosaic religion, then to confirm it. 1° Many and most illustrious miracles were done, by which the divine mission of Moses was most evidently demonstrated. Of these let it suffice to recount the ten plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna descending from heaven, with which the Israelites were nourished for forty years in the desert, the destruction of Core, Dathan and Abiron, whom, at the command of Moses, the earth swallowed up, in punishment of their rebellion, etc. Moses himself, before these rebels went down alive into hell, said to the people, Num., XVI, 28 et 29 : In this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all things that you see, and that I have not brought them forth of my own heart. If these men die the common death of men, and are visited by a plague such as the others are wont to be visited by, the Lord did not send me. By the same right he could have invoked the other miracles which he himself worked in favor of his mission. 2° Countless are the miracles which Josue, the Judges and the prophets afterwards worked, especially Elias and Eliseus. Moreover, by all these the Mosaic religion was confirmed, since they were accomplished for no other end. But these miracles are historically certain facts and evidently divine, as exceeding the laws and powers of nature. Therefore the religion which they champion is divine.

2° The miracles of the intellectual order are the prophecies. And indeed the history of the people of God was prophesied long beforehand far in advance of the individual events. 1° Before Moses, God promises Abraham, already advanced in age, Gen., XV, 16 et 18, that his seed or posterity shall not be numbered for multitude. The people sprung from him will be a stranger in a land not his own, that is, in Egypt, where he will be subjected to servitude and afflicted four hundred years, after which he will go out with great substance. From him kings will come forth, and the land of his sojourning will be given to him, and all the land of Chanaan, for a possession. Jacob, dying, promulgates this most illustrious prophecy, confirmed by an event which he could not naturally foreknow, Gen., XLIX, 10 : « The scepter shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a leader from his thigh, until he come who is to be sent, and he will be the expectation of the nations. » 2° Moses himself announces to the Israelites, Num., XIV, 29 et 30, that all who were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and murmured against the Lord, shall not enter into the promised land, except Caleb and Josue. Which came to pass, as is narrated ibid., XXVI, 65 ; Deuter., I, 35 seqq.; Iosue, XIV, 6 seqq. He promises to Phinees and his sons the priesthood forever, Num., XXIV, 13, and the fulfillment of this promise is noted Psal. CV, 13 ; Eccli., XLV, 30 ; 1 Machab., II, 54. Many other predictions could be cited. 3° There are prophecies published after Moses well-nigh innumerable. Foretold : by Ahias, the division of the kingdom of Solomon; by Osee and Amos, the devastation and destruction of the Israelite kingdom after forty years. More stupendous are the prophecies which concern the Babylonian captivity, in which both the time and the duration of this captivity are determined, and Cyrus is designated by name as the liberator of the people. Isaias, Ieremias and Daniel describe so clearly the overthrow of Babylon, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the fates of empires, that they seem to narrate past things rather than announce future ones : whence Porphyrius did not hesitate to assert that these prophecies, or at least many of them, were composed after the event. But all these prophecies, uttered directly or indirectly in favor of the Mosaic religion, are evidently divine. Therefore.

It is necessarily supposed that the books in which the aforesaid miracles are narrated and the prophecies enunciated above are read, are authentic and intact, and were divinely inspired. But this is demonstrated by the writers who devote themselves to sacred hermeneutics.

The divinity of the Mosaic religion can moreover be proved from the nature of the constitution of the people, both political and religious, and from the excellence of the doctrine which that nation professed, whence neither can come except from God. But these things have been sufficiently set forth above.]