SEVENTEENTH DISPUTATION. Whether Abraham was always a worshipper of the true God, or whether he was at some time polluted with the superstition of Idolatry — Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume II

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SEVENTEENTH DISPUTATION. Whether Abraham was always a worshipper of the true God, or whether he was at some time polluted with the superstition of Idolatry.¹

DECIMA SEPTIMA DISPUTATIO. Semperne Abraham veri Dei cultor fuerit, an verò superstitione Idolatriae aliquando pollutus sit.

VISUS [est] Abraham aliquando superstitione Idolatriae velut adflatus & infectus, docet Genebrardus in sua Chronologia, auctoritate Hebraeorum id affirmantium, ex sententia duorum nobilium Rabbinorum, Iohanan & Haninae; à quibus proditum est Abraham quadragesimo octavo aetatis anno coepisse agnoscere verum Deum, omnemque Idolatriae superstitionem abiecisse. Id autem, secundum Chronologiam Hebraeorum (de qua superiori libro decimo quinto diximus), contigisse eo tempore quo facta est linguarum divisio: siquidem eam ipsi factam volunt extremo vitae anno Phaleg, qui fuit aetatis Abraham quadragesimus octavus annus.

That Abraham was at some time as it were breathed-upon and infected by the superstition of Idolatry, Genebrardus teaches in his Chronology, by the authority of the Hebrews who affirm it, from the opinion of two noble Rabbis, Iohanan and Hanina; by whom it is reported that Abraham in the forty-eighth year of his age began to recognize the true God, and cast off all superstition of Idolatry. And this, according to the Chronology of the Hebrews (of which we spoke in the previous fifteenth book), happened at the time when the division of tongues was made: since they hold it was made in the last year of Phaleg's life, which was the forty-eighth year of Abraham's age.²

IN hanc quoque sententiam propensior videtur Andreas Masius, qui aetate nostra commentarios edidit in librum Iosue, non minus sanè Catholicos & pios quàm eruditos & disertos. In his explanans verba illa Iosue capitis vigesimi quarti, Trans flumen habitaverunt…

To this opinion also Andreas Masius seems more inclined, who in our age published commentaries on the book of Joshua, no less Catholic and pious than learned and eloquent. In these, explaining those words of Joshua chapter twenty-four, ‘Beyond the river they dwelt…’³

…patres vestri ab initio, & servierunt diis alienis, ita scribit: Valet haec oratio Iosue ad explicandam Dei benignitatem quam ille in populum Israeliticum contulit. Quod porrò ait maiores ipsorum trans flumen coluisse deos alienos, non ad Sem & Noë aliosque remotiores, sed ad proximos maiores tantùm pertinet. Hoc enim solùm agitur, ut constet gratuitò ipsos esse à Deo adoptari pro populo; neque gratia solùm, verùm cùm etiam maioribus suis divinum cultum atque honorem non vero Deo cui debebatur, sed alienis falsisque diis adhibuerint. Nominatim autem ponitur ante oculos Thare, & duo eius filii Abraham & Nachor, quòd ex his universi populi Hebraei stirps esset prognata, namque à Nachor maternum genus duxit per Rebeccam, Liam & Rachelem. Neque enim eos audire possum qui magno conatu Abrahamum ab hoc Idolatriae turpissimo scelere vindicare nescio quibus argutiis student. Quasi verò non tantò illustrior sit Dei gratia qua illum complexus est, quantò ipse fuit sceleratior minusque tantò dignus favore. An non pro admirabili beneficio Dei toties commemorat atque inculcat animis nostris sacra historia, quòd illum quasi manu arreptum è patria atque Idolatrarum consortio extraxerit? Nam Iudaei qui fabulam de Ur Chaldaeorum (hoc est igne quem Abrahamus noluerit patriis ritibus adorare) commenti sunt, refelli non merentur, cùm sit certissimum Ur loci nomen esse. Sic Masius. Apparet igitur eum putasse Abrahamum, cùm esset in Chaldaea priusquam à Deo vocaretur, patrio more deos eius gentis coluisse.

“…your fathers from the beginning, and they served strange gods,” he writes thus: “This oration of Joshua avails to explain the benignity of God which He conferred on the Israelite people. As for what he says, that their ancestors beyond the river worshipped strange gods, it pertains not to Sem and Noah and others more remote, but only to the nearer ancestors. For this only is at issue: that it be established that they were gratuitously adopted by God as a people; and not by grace only, but the more since even their ancestors had given divine worship and honor not to the true God, to whom it was owed, but to strange and false gods. And by name Thare is set before our eyes, and his two sons Abraham and Nachor, because from these the stock of the whole Hebrew people was begotten; for from Nachor the maternal line was drawn through Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. For I cannot listen to those who, with great effort, strive by I-know-not-what subtleties to vindicate Abraham from this most base crime of idolatry. As if the grace of God by which He embraced him were not the more illustrious the more wicked he himself was, and the less worthy of such favor. Does not sacred history so often commemorate and inculcate in our minds, as an admirable benefit of God, that He drew him out, as if seized by the hand, from his fatherland and the fellowship of idolaters? For the Jews who invented the fable about Ur of the Chaldees — that is, the fire which Abraham refused to worship by ancestral rites — do not deserve to be refuted, since it is most certain that Ur is the name of a place.” Thus Masius. It appears, therefore, that he thought Abraham, when he was in Chaldea before he was called by God, worshipped the gods of that nation after the manner of his fathers.⁴

HANC etiam opinionem apertissimis verbis confirmare videtur Philo, in libro qui inscribitur Abraham. Philo enim sic ait: Chaldaei, exercitati scientia siderali, omnia tribuentes stellarum motibus, à quibus dispensari credunt mundi potentias quae constant ex numeris eorumque proportionibus, venerabantur visibilia, non percipientes invisibilia & intelligibilia; atque ita, ex conversionibus stellarum tam errantium quàm inerrantium, & anni in quatuor tempora distincti ordinatis vicibus, miroque rerum caelestium ac terrestrium consensu, Mundum ipsum existimabant esse Deum, profana sanè opinione creaturam facientes Creatori similem. Huic innutritus dogmati Abraham, & per tempus longum Chaldaico imbutus delirio, tanquam post altum somnum aperto mentis oculo, postquam puram lucem pro densis tenebris coepit intueri, secutus eius splendorem, animadvertit quod prius non viderat: praeesse Mundo quendam aurigam gubernatoremque qui sui operis saluti provideat.

This opinion also Philo seems to confirm in the plainest words, in the book entitled ‘Abraham.’ For Philo says thus: “The Chaldees, exercised in the science of the stars, attributing all things to the motions of the stars (by which they believe the powers of the world, which consist of numbers and their proportions, are dispensed), venerated visible things, not perceiving the invisible and intelligible; and thus, from the revolutions of the stars, both wandering and fixed, and from the year distinguished into four seasons by ordered changes, and from the wonderful consent of celestial and terrestrial things, they thought the World itself to be God — by a profane opinion indeed making the creature like the Creator. Nourished in this dogma, Abraham, and for a long time imbued with the Chaldaic madness, as if after a deep sleep with the eye of the mind opened, after he began to behold the pure light instead of dense darkness, following its splendor, perceived what he had not seen before: that a certain charioteer and governor presides over the World, who provides for the welfare of his own work.”⁵

[praeesse Mundo gubernatorem] qui non totius modò, sed eius quoque partium omnium curator tutorque sit: Mundum autem, omnium opus maximum atque pulcherrimum, à quo velut partes pendeant omnia, [absurdum esse] destitutum esse rectoris sui providentia, per quam & incolumis conservetur ipse & legitimè administretur. NEC verò non maximè facit ad huius rei confirmationem, quod legitur Deum apparuisse Abrahae cùm primùm ille profectus est ex Chaldaea: videlicet prius non fuerat ei notus, quando more Chaldaeorum intentus siderum cursibus, supra Mundum sensibilem nullam prorsus esse naturam intelligentem credebat. At postquam solum vertit, statim agnoscit Mundum esse subditum non dominum, nec regere sed regi ab auctore suo. Nam prius sensibilia magna…

[that a Governor presides over the World] who is the curator and guardian not only of the whole but also of all its parts; but that the World, the greatest and most beautiful work of all, from which all things hang as parts, [it is absurd] should be destitute of the providence of its ruler, by which it is both kept safe and lawfully administered. Nor indeed does it not greatly serve for the confirmation of this matter, that it is read that God appeared to Abraham when he first set out from Chaldea: namely, He had not been known to him before, when, after the manner of the Chaldees, intent on the courses of the stars, he believed there was no intelligent nature at all above the sensible World. But after he changed his soil, he immediately recognized that the World is subject, not lord, and does not rule but is ruled by its author. For before, the great sensible things…⁶

…magnam ei caliginem offuderant: quam ubi discussit, tandem potuit, veluti in serenitate pura, ea quae prius latuissent cernere. Deum verò pro sua benignitate venientem ad se illum non est aversatus; quin etiam ultro ei procedens obviam, ostendit naturam suam quatenus videri poterat. Quamobrem non dicitur Abraham vidisse Deum, sed Deus apparuisse Abrahae: non enim quisquam per se ipsum potuisset videre eum qui verè est, nisi ille se ultro videndum praebuisset. Hactenus ex Philone. Ex cuius verbis palam est existimasse eum, priusquam Abraham, vocatus à Deo, demigraret ex Chaldaea, in Chaldaeorum errore atque idolatria esse versatum.

…had cast a great darkness over him: which, when he had dispelled it, he could at last, as in pure serenity, discern those things which before had lain hidden. But God, coming to him in His benignity, he did not turn away from; nay, [God] going forth of His own accord to meet him, showed His nature so far as it could be seen. Wherefore it is not said that Abraham saw God, but that God appeared to Abraham: for no one could of himself see Him who truly is, unless He of His own accord offered Himself to be seen. Thus far from Philo. From whose words it is plain that he thought that, before Abraham — called by God — departed from Chaldea, he had been involved in the error and idolatry of the Chaldees.⁷

SUFFRAGARI huic sententiae non parum videtur locus ille Iosue supra toties memoratus: duo enim inibi dixit Iosue; altero quidem, patres Hebraeorum habitasse trans fluvium; altero verò, eos servisse diis alienis; & utrumque de illis similiter dixit. Inter illos autem patres Hebraeorum nominatim posuit Thare, Nachor & Abraham: ad illos igitur tres referri debet quod dictum est tam de habitatione trans flumen, quàm de cultu deorum alienorum: sicut enim tres illos habitasse trans flumen negari non potest, ita quoque eosdem illos tres aliquando servisse diis alienis concedendum esse videtur. Ac de Thare quidem paulò suprà probatum est; de Nachor autem concesso omnium manifestum est: neque igitur de Abraham id negandum videtur. Quò enim Iosue mentionem Abrahae intulisset, docens maiores Hebraeorum servisse aliquando diis alienis, & benignitate Dei ad sui nominis agnitionem & cultum & possessionem terrae Chanaan esse adductos, si nunquam Abraham servisset diis alienis, nulloque tempore non veri Dei cultor fuisset? Atque haec est istorum opinio.

That passage of Joshua, so often mentioned above, seems to favor this opinion not a little: for Joshua there said two things; by the one, that the fathers of the Hebrews dwelt beyond the river; by the other, that they served strange gods; and he said both alike of them. Now among those fathers of the Hebrews he expressly placed Thare, Nachor, and Abraham: to those three, therefore, ought to be referred what is said both about dwelling beyond the river and about the worship of strange gods. For just as it cannot be denied that those three dwelt beyond the river, so also it seems must be conceded that those same three at some time served strange gods. And concerning Thare it was proved a little above; and concerning Nachor it is manifest by everyone's concession: nor therefore does it seem that it should be denied concerning Abraham. For to what end would Joshua have introduced mention of Abraham — teaching that the ancestors of the Hebrews at some time served strange gods, and by God's benignity were brought to the recognition and worship of His name and to the possession of the land of Chanaan — if Abraham had never served strange gods, and at no time had failed to be a worshipper of the true God? And this is the opinion of these [authors].⁸

VERUM contraria huic sententia, & longè probabilior, mihi non solùm semper magis placuit, sed ita meo in animo penitus insedit, ut à nullis auctoritatibus nullisque argumentis evelli possit. Arbitror igitur nunquam falsorum deorum superstitione occupatum & infectum esse Abraham, sed ab initio usque ad extremum spiritum verum Deum coluisse. Et mecum quidem stat Iosephus, qui primo libro Antiquitatum de Abraham ad hunc modum scribit: Fuit, inquit, Abraham vir sapiens aequè ac eloquens, & in coniectando sagax. Cùmque ob virtutem eximiam sapiens esse prae cunctis habitus, ausus est vulgo receptam de Deo opinionem convellere, & in melius vertere. Ergo primus omnium clara voce praedicavit unum esse Deum universitatis rerum conditorem; quae autem ad felicitatem conferunt, à nobis non nostris viribus, sed eius benignitate contingere. Namque ex terrae ac maris siderumque observatione argumentabatur, vim esse quandam ac potestatem quae deorum horum omnium curam gerat omniaque decenter administret: quae cessante, nihil utilitatis nostris [rebus contingeret], cùm nihil suapte virtute polleant, sed universa omnipotenti ipsius voluntati obsecundent: quapropter huic uni bonorum acceptorum gratias agi oporteret. Quamobrem cùm Chaldaei & Mesopotamitae contra ipsum insurgerent, consilium ille cepit inde migrandi…

But the contrary opinion to this, and far more probable, has not only always pleased me more, but has so deeply settled in my mind that it can be torn out by no authorities and no arguments. I think, therefore, that Abraham was never occupied and infected by the superstition of false gods, but from the beginning to his last breath worshipped the true God. And Josephus indeed stands with me, who in the first book of the Antiquities writes about Abraham thus: “Abraham was a man wise as well as eloquent, and shrewd in conjecturing. And since, on account of his eminent virtue, he was held wise above all, he dared to overturn the commonly received opinion about God, and to turn it to the better. Therefore he first of all proclaimed with a clear voice that there is one God, the creator of the universe of things; and that the things which confer felicity come to us not by our own powers, but by His benignity. For from the observation of earth and sea and stars he argued that there is a certain power presiding, which takes care of all these [seeming] gods and administers all things becomingly: which ceasing, nothing of utility [would come] to our affairs, since they avail nothing by their own power, but all obey His omnipotent will: wherefore to this One alone thanks ought to be given for goods received. And so, when the Chaldees and Mesopotamians rose up against him, he took the resolve of migrating thence…”⁹

…grandi; & voluntate ac favore Dei adiutus, terram Chananaeam tenuit, ubi, sedibus positis, Deo struxit aram & hostias mactavit. Sic Iosephus.

…greatly; and, aided by the will and favor of God, he held the land of Chanaan, where, his seats being established, he built an altar to God and slew victims. Thus Josephus.¹⁰

IOSEPHO autem consona & simillima tradit Suidas: namque in vocabulo Abraham, inter alia sic de eo scribit: Abraham è Chaldaeorum terra oriundus fuit, qui in observatione stellarum earumque rerum quae in sublimi sunt aetatem omnem consumpsit. Exercitatus igitur more patrio in siderum motibus observandis, sagaciter animadvertit magnificentiam rerum conditarum non sua vi constare, sed aliquem habere opificem à quo esse, moveantur & regantur. Quocirca non in his rebus cogitationes & desiderio substitit, sed ultra sidera enixus, animo permagnatus, non antè destitit anhelando inquirendo, quàm is se patefecisset, typis nempe quibusdam atque imaginibus, & iis rationibus quibus is qui cerni non potest conspiciendum praebet. Cùmque cultus imaginum, coeptus à Sarug, usque ad Thare patrem eius viguisset, Abraham natus annos quatuordecim, Dei cognitione illustratus, patrem iis verbis compellabat: Quid seducis homines, lucri causa? non est alius Deus nisi coelestis ille, totius mundi opifex. Itaque cùm videret homines creaturae cultum deserentes, unum ipse Deum animo religioso exquirebat. Tandem illi Deus apparuit, & de terra sua exire iussit: cuius ille praeceptis obtemperans, sumptis patris imaginibus & simulacris, iisque partim confractis partim exustis, patriam dereliquit. Hactenus ex Suida.

To Josephus, Suidas hands down consonant and very similar things: for in the entry ‘Abraham,’ among other things he writes thus of him: “Abraham was sprung from the land of the Chaldees, who in the observation of the stars and of those things which are on high consumed his whole youth. Exercised therefore after his fathers' manner in observing the motions of the stars, he shrewdly perceived that the magnificence of created things does not subsist by its own power, but has some maker by whom they are, and are moved, and are governed. Wherefore he did not stop at thoughts and desire in these things, but, straining beyond the stars, greatly stirred in mind, did not cease panting and inquiring until He had revealed Himself — namely by certain figures and images, and by those reasons by which He who cannot be seen offers Himself to be beheld. And when the worship of images, begun from Sarug, had flourished down to Thare his father, Abraham, being fourteen years old, illumined by the knowledge of God, addressed his father with these words: ‘Why do you seduce men for the sake of gain? There is no other God than that heavenly One, the maker of the whole world.’ And so, when he saw men deserting the worship of the Creator, he himself with a religious mind sought out the one God. At last God appeared to him, and bade him go out from his land: obeying whose precepts, having taken his father's images and idols, and these being partly broken, partly burned, he abandoned his fatherland.” Thus far from Suidas.¹¹

FIDES quoque adiungi potest huic sententiae ex iis quae Iudaeos dixisse narrat Ioannes in Evangelio capite octavo. Ubi cùm Dominus noster dixisset eis, Si Filius vos liberaverit, verè liberi eritis, & vos ex patre diabolo estis, & opera patris vestri vultis facere; responderunt illi: Nos semen Abraham sumus, & nemini servivimus unquam… [&] non ex fornicatione nati sumus, unum patrem habemus Deum. Ubi vocabulum fornicationis, ut saepe alias in scriptura, positum est pro cultu Idolorum. Illis autem verbis significare voluerunt Iudaei nec se Idolatras esse, nec ex Idolatris genus & ortum ducere: quippe cùm principem generis sui, auctorem & parentem, agnoscant Abraham, qui nunquam falsis diis servierat, sed perpetuus fuerat veri Dei cultor.

Credit may also be added to this opinion from those things which John in the Gospel, chapter eight, narrates the Jews to have said. Where, when our Lord had said to them, “If the Son makes you free, you shall be truly free; and you are of your father the devil, and you wish to do the works of your father,” they answered him: “We are the seed of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone… [and] we are not born of fornication; we have one Father, God.” Where the word ‘fornication,’ as often elsewhere in scripture, is put for the worship of idols. By those words the Jews wished to signify that they were neither idolaters, nor drew their race and origin from idolaters: since they acknowledge as the founder of their race, their author and parent, Abraham, who had never served false gods, but had been a perpetual worshipper of the true God.¹²

ET verò si aliquando fuisset Abraham impia falsorum deorum superstitione obstrictus & contaminatus, & fuisset ex ea per Dei gratiam extractus, eius rei tam memorabilis & tam insignis, ad commendationem divinae misericordiae erga peccatores, exemplum & documentum non fuisset tacitum in sacris literis vel novi vel veteris Testamenti. Usus est in primis Paulus in Epistola ad Romanos, cùm illud disputat: Omnes peccaverunt, & egent gloria Dei; iustificati gratis per gratiam ipsius. Et quemadmodum exemplo Abrahae argumentatur Paulus hominem non haberi iustum apud Deum ex propriis ipsius operibus, sed per gratiam Dei gratuitò condonantis peccata hominemque in suam gratiam & amicitiam recipientis; ita eiusdem Abrahae usus esset exemplo ad demonstrandam inenarrabilem Dei benignitatem, qui ex impio faciat iustum, ex hoste amicum…

And truly, if Abraham had at some time been bound and contaminated by the impious superstition of false gods, and had been drawn out of it by God's grace, the example and document of so memorable and so signal a thing — for the commendation of divine mercy toward sinners — would not have been kept silent in the sacred letters of either the New or the Old Testament. Paul especially uses [Abraham] in the Epistle to the Romans, when he argues that: “All have sinned, and need the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace.” And just as Paul argues, by the example of Abraham, that a man is not held just before God by his own works, but by the grace of God freely forgiving sins and receiving the man into His grace and friendship; so he would have used the same Abraham as an example to demonstrate the unspeakable benignity of God, who makes the just out of the impious, a friend out of an enemy…¹³

…ex mancipio diaboli, filium Dei. Et cùm paulò pòst disputet, Ubi abundavit delictum, ibi superabundavit & gratia, ad id vel comprobandum vel illustrandum huiusmodi exemplum Abrahae mirificè accommodatum fuisset. Denique sicut ipse fatetur ingenuè & prae se fert se contumeliosum, blasphemum & persecutorem Ecclesiae fuisse, sed misericordiam esse consecutum à Deo, ut per ipsum Deus inaestimabiles bonitatis & clementiae suae erga peccatores divitias ostenderet; ita quoque tam illustri exemplo Abrahae id ipsum confirmasset.

…a son of God out of a slave of the devil. And since he disputes a little afterward, “Where the offense abounded, there grace did more abound,” for proving or illustrating this, such an example of Abraham would have been wonderfully fitting. Finally, just as he frankly confesses and proclaims that he himself had been contumelious, a blasphemer, and a persecutor of the Church, yet had obtained mercy from God, that through him God might show the inestimable riches of His goodness and clemency toward sinners; so too he would have confirmed this same thing by so illustrious an example of Abraham.¹⁴

NEQUE verò locus ille Iosue adversatur vel officit quicquam huic sententiae. Nam quod ibi dicitur patres Hebraeorum servisse diis alienis, intelligi debet de patribus qui praecesserunt Thare, & de ipso Thare postquam ex Chaldaea venit in Mesopotamiam, ut supra declaratum est. Nominatur autem Thare pater Abraham & Nachor, non quod uterque fuerit cultor Idolorum, sed quod ex his duobus universus populus Hebraeus genus exortum est, ex illo paternum, ex hoc autem maternum. Sed praecipua ratio cur ibi nominetur Abraham ea videtur fuisse, quod, cùm is habitaret in Mesopotamia, scilicet trans flumen Euphratem, inde translatus à Deo fuerit in terram Chananaeam, cuius terrae possessionem ei & semini eius Deus attribuit: quocirca post illa verba proximè subiecit Iosue: Tuli ergo patrem vestrum Abraham de Mesopotamiae finibus, & adduxi eum in terram Chanaan, &c. FINIS.

Nor indeed does that passage of Joshua oppose or hinder this opinion at all. For what is there said — that the fathers of the Hebrews served strange gods — ought to be understood of the fathers who preceded Thare, and of Thare himself after he came from Chaldea into Mesopotamia, as was declared above. And Thare is named the father of Abraham and Nachor, not because each of them was a worshipper of idols, but because from these two the whole Hebrew people took its origin — from the one [Abraham] the paternal line, from the other [Nachor] the maternal. But the chief reason why Abraham is named there seems to have been this: that, since he dwelt in Mesopotamia (namely beyond the river Euphrates), he was thence translated by God into the land of Chanaan, the possession of which land God attributed to him and to his seed: wherefore, after those words, Joshua immediately subjoined: “I took therefore your father Abraham from the borders of Mesopotamia, and led him into the land of Chanaan, etc.” THE END.¹⁵

Translator’s notes

Disp. 17 title (the fifth and last question of the Third Part's Praefatio). Whether Abraham was ever an idolater. ↩
§255. The case that Abraham WAS once an idolater: Genebrardus (Chronology), citing the Hebrews and two Rabbis (Yohanan and Hanina), says Abraham first recognized the true God and renounced idolatry at age 48 — at the time of the division of tongues (Phaleg's death year = Abraham's 48th). Margin: 'Genebrardus.' ↩
§256 (begins). Andreas Masius (commentary on Joshua) also leans to Abraham's former idolatry, expounding Joshua 24:2 (continues next page). Margin: 'Andreas Masius.' ↩
§256 (concl.). Masius (on Joshua 24:2) forcefully holds Abraham WAS an idolater before his call: Joshua names the nearer ancestors (Thare, Abraham, Nachor — sources of the Hebrew stock; Nachor via Rebecca, Leah, Rachel) as idol-worshippers, magnifying God's gratuitous grace in adopting them. He scorns attempts to vindicate Abraham (grace is the more glorious for rescuing a sinner) and dismisses the Ur=fire fable. Margin: 'Genesis 25 & 29; Philo.' ↩
§257. Philo (On Abraham) likewise: the Chaldees, star-scientists, made the visible World itself God (creature like Creator); Abraham, long ‘imbued with the Chaldaic madness,’ awoke as from deep sleep to behold the true light and recognize a Governor presiding over the World. Margin: 'Philo.' ↩
§257 (concl.) + §258 (begins). Philo finishes: the World, hanging together as parts, cannot lack a ruling providence. §258: a further confirmation — God ‘appeared’ to Abraham only when he first left Chaldea, unknown to him before, when as a Chaldean star-gazer he believed nothing intelligent existed above the sensible World; on leaving, he saw the World is ruled, not ruler (continues next page). ↩
§258 (concl.). Philo's account finished: Abraham dispelled the Chaldaic darkness and beheld the truth; God ‘appeared to’ him (not he to God), since the truly-existent can be seen only if He offers Himself. Pererius notes this shows Philo too believed Abraham was an idolater before his call. ↩
§259. The pro-idolatry side's strongest argument: Joshua 24:2 names Thare, Nachor, AND Abraham together as both dwelling beyond the river and serving strange gods; since the first two clauses bind all three, so should the second — so Abraham too was once an idolater (else why name him among those rescued by grace?). ↩
§260 (begins). Pererius's own settled view (the contrary, far more probable): Abraham was NEVER an idolater, but worshipped the true God from first to last. Josephus (Antiquities 1) supports it: Abraham, wise and eloquent, first proclaimed one God (the creator), arguing from nature against the received star-religion — and when the Chaldees rose against him, resolved to migrate (continues next page). Margin: 'The author's truer opinion: that Abraham never worshipped false gods; Josephus on Abraham's wisdom and religion; Abraham first discerned and wrote against the gods of the nations.' ↩
§260 (concl.). Josephus's account finished: aided by God, Abraham settled in Canaan and built an altar to God (a true worshipper, never an idolater). ↩
§261. Suidas (entry ‘Abraham’) agrees: Abraham, a Chaldean reared on star-watching, reasoned from creation to one Maker; at age 14, enlightened, he rebuked his father's idol-trade (‘there is no God but the heavenly maker of the world’), sought the one God, and at God's call broke and burned his father's idols and left — confirming that Abraham opposed idolatry from youth and was never an idolater. Margin: 'Suidas; Genesis 12.' ↩
§262. A further confirmation from John 8: the Jews' boast ‘we are not born of fornication, we have one Father, God’ (‘fornication’ = idolatry, as often in Scripture) means they were not descended from idolaters — since their founder Abraham never served false gods but was a perpetual worshipper of the true God. Margin: 'A passage of John ch. 8.' ↩
§263 (begins). A strong argument from silence: had Abraham been a converted idolater, Scripture (especially Paul, who makes Abraham THE example of justification by grace in Romans) would not have omitted so signal an instance of mercy toward a sinner (continues next page). Margin: 'Romans 3; Romans 4.' ↩
§263 (concl.). Paul, who cited his own past (blasphemer and persecutor turned vessel of mercy) and argued ‘where sin abounded, grace abounded more’ (Rom 5:20), would surely have used a converted-idolater Abraham as his prime example had it been true. His silence confirms Abraham was never an idolater. ↩
§264 (final section of the commentary). Pererius answers the Joshua 24 objection (§259): ‘served strange gods’ applies to the ancestors before Thare, and to Thare after Mesopotamia — not to Abraham. Abraham is named only because God brought him from Mesopotamia to Canaan, as the very next verse says (Josh 24:3, ‘I took your father Abraham… and led him into Chanaan’). This concludes Disputation 17, the Third Part, Liber XVI, and the whole second volume. FINIS. ↩