ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 69 



that besides the prefiguration of Christ, the mark of the 

 people of God to distinguish them from the Grentiles, 

 the exercise of obedience, and other divine institutions, 

 the most learned of the rabbis have observed a natural 

 and some of them a moral sense in many of the rites and 

 ceremonies. Thus in the law of the leprosy, where it is 

 said, &quot;If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the 

 patient may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any 

 whole flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean&quot; 82 

 one of them notes a principle of nature, viz., that putre 

 faction is more contagious before maturity than after. An 

 other hereupon observes a position of moral philosophy, 

 that men abandoned to vice do not corrupt the manners of 

 others, so much as those who are but half wicked. And 

 in many other places of the Jewish law, besides the theo 

 logical sense, there are couched many philosophical matters. 

 The book of Job 83 likewise will be found, if examined with 

 care, pregnant with the secrets of natural philosophy. For 

 example, when it says, &quot;Qui extendit Aquilonem super 

 vacuum, et appendit terram super nihilum, &quot; the suspension 

 of the earth and the convexity of the heavens are manifestly 

 alluded to. Again, &quot;Spiritus ejus ornavit caelos, et obste- 

 tricante manu ejus eductus est coluber tortuosus;&quot; 84 and 

 in another place, &quot;Numquid conjungere valebis micantes 

 Stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare?&quot; 86 

 where the immutable 86 configuration of the fixed stars, ever 

 preserving the same position, is with elegance described. 

 So in another place: &quot;Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et 

 Hyadas, 87 et interiora Austri,&quot; 88 where he again refers to 



82 Leviticus xiii. 12. 83 See Job xxvi.-xxxviii. 



84 Job xxvi. 7, 13. 8S xxxviii. 31. 



86 That is, to Job, who cannot be supposed to know what telescopes only 

 have revealed, that stars change their declination with unequal degrees of mo 

 tion. It is clear, therefore, that their distances must be variable, and that in 

 the end the figures of the constellations will undergo mutation ; as this change, 

 however, will not be perceptible for thousands of years, it hardly comes within 

 the limit of man s idea of mutation, and therefore, with regard to him, may be 

 said to have no existence. Ed. 



11 The Hyades nearly approach the letter V in appearance. 



88 The crown of stars which forms a kind of imperfect circle near Arcturus. 



