always exist on the earth;
that their law has a double signification; that during sixteen hundred years
they have had people, whom they believed prophets, foretelling both the time
and the manner; that four hundred years after they were scattered
everywhere, because Jesus Christ was to be everywhere announced; that Jesus
Christ came in the manner, and at the time foretold; that the Jews have
since been scattered abroad under a curse and, nevertheless, still exist.

619. I see the Christian religion founded upon a preceding religion, and
this is what I find as a fact.

I do not here speak of the miracles of Moses, of Jesus Christ, and of the
Apostles, because they do not at first seem convincing, and because I only
wish here to put in evidence all those foundations of the Christian religion
which are beyond doubt and which cannot be called in question by any person
whatsoever. It is certain that we see in many places of the world a peculiar
people, separated from all other peoples of the world and called the Jewish
people.

I see then a crowd of religions in many parts of the world and in all times;
but their morality cannot please me, nor can their proofs convince me. Thus
I should equally have rejected the religion of Mahomet and of China, of the
ancient Romans and of the Egyptians, for the sole reason that none having
more marks of truth than another, nor anything which should necessarily
persuade me, reason cannot incline to one rather than the other.

But, in thus considering this changeable and singular variety of morals and
beliefs at different times, I find in one corner of the world a peculiar
people, separated from all other peoples on earth, the most ancient of all,
and whose histories are earlier by many generations than the most ancient
which we possess.

I find, then, this great and numerous people, sprung from a single man, who
wo