:&'?HS3ti jfcMtt.>. ; UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE GIFT OF MAY TREAT MORRISON IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER F MORRISON ' v /- IN 31. THE PHILOLOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL ESQUIRE, OF LINCOLN'S-INN. IX FIVE VOLUMES. VOL. I. CONTAINIXG HOPwE BIBLIC^E. LONDON; PRINTED FOR W. CLARKE & SONS, PORTUGAL-STREET, LIXCOLN'S-IXK. 1817. Quare quis tandem me rcprebeiidat, si quantum caeteris ad festos dies ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates, ct ad ipsam requiem, animi et corporis conceditur temporis : quantum alii tempestivis conviyiis quantum aleas, quantum pilae, taiitum milii cgomet, ad li;vc stadia reco lenda, sumpsero. Cic. PRO AKCHIA . Le changcracut d'etudc est toujours un delassement pour moi. D'ACUESSIAU. Printed by Luke Hansard & Son, ncur Liiiculn's-Imi Fields, London. 3)1 TO HIS FRIEND, SIR JAMES GRAHAM, BART. THESE WORKS, jjf THE EMPLOYMENT, DURING MANY YEARS, OF BITS AND SCRAPS OF TIME, STOLEN FROM THE UNCEASING DUTIES OF A LABORIOUS AND NEVER-NEGLECTED PROFESSION, AND WHICH HE FOUND IT A GREATER RELAXATION TO EMPLOY IH THIS, THAN IN ANY OTHER MANNER, ARE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, BY THE AUTHOR, Lincoln's-Inn, 1817. VOL. I. +- a 2 HOR^E BIBLIC^; PART I. CONTAINING AN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT, EARLY VERSIONS, AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT, OR 1HE SACRED BOOKS OF THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS. FIFTH EDITION. PART n. CONTAINING AN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ACCOUNT OF THE KORAN, ZEND-AVESTA, VEDAS, KINGS, AND EDDA, OR THE BOOKS ACCOUNTED SACRED BY THE MAHOMETANS, PARSEES, HINDUS, CHINESE, AND SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS. FOURTH EDITION. WITH TWO DISSERTATIONS: I. ON THE GREAT COUNCIL, SAID TO BE HELD BY THE JEWS ON THE PLAIN OF AGEDA, IN HUNGARY, IN 1650. II. AN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY OUTLINE OF THE DISPUTES ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE VERSE OF THE THREE HEAVENLY WIT- NESSES, I. JOHN, CHAP. V. VER. VII. IN THREE LETTERS TO THE RIGHT REVEREND HERBERT LORD BISHOP OF LANDAFF. ( vii ) CONTENTS TO VOLUME THE FIRST. BIBLIC^E. PART I. CONTAINING AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT, EARLY VERSIONS, AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT, OR THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS. INTRODUCTION. The Hebrew Language used by all the Descendants of Abraham ---------- page 5 1. Subdivided into the South Chanaanitic - - - 6 2. And Aramaean Dialects -.--... y 3. The Mishna and Gemara, Talmud and Targums 8 II, The Septuagint - - 11 1. Its Style ib. 2. And History ----------- 14 3. Other ancient Versions from the Hebrew into the Greek ----------- 19 4. BiblicaJ Labours of Origen ------ so 34 CONTENTS 'TO [Horar III. Style of the Books of the _New Testament - page 21 1. Its Hebraisms ib. 2. Its peculiarity, from the Rabbinical doctrines current in Judaea --------- 23 3. From frequent reference to the tenets of the Gnostics and Sabians ------- 27 4. From the limited extent of Jewish Literature - 28 5. From its occasional Latinism ----- 29 6. From the intercourse of the Jews with the neighbouring nations ------- 30 7. And from the difference of their Dialects - - 31 IV. Biblical Literature of the Middle Ages - - - - 34 1 . Biblical Studies of the Clergy during this period 35 2. Transcriptions of the Scriptures by the Monks 36 3. And of the Old Testament by the Jews - - 38 V. Care of the Jews to preserve the genuineness of its Text ---------__- *' . ! * V THE KINGS, OR BOOKS ACCOUNTED SACRED BY THE CHINESE. I. Origin and Antiquity of the Empire of China- - 313 II. Its Geography ----------- 314 III. Political relations between Rome and China - - ib. IV. Principal Writers on China -------316 V. TheKingt .,.-.. 318 ' THf EDDA, OR BOOK ACCOUNTED SACRED BY THE SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS. I. Ancient History of Iceland -------381 H. The Edda - - - - - 322 III. Edda of Saemund, or Ancient Edda - - - - 3123 IV. Edda of Snorro, or Modern Edda 326 V. JEra. and Contents of the Edda 329 TWO DISSERTATIONS.- I. On the Truth of the Narrative of a Great Council of the Jews on the Plain qfAgeda, in Hungary, published in The Phoenix, in 1707, luith the Narrative sub- joined page 337 II. An Historical Outline of the Disputes respecting the authenticity of The Verse of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, i John, chap. v. ver. 7. in Three Letters to the Right Reverend Herbert Lord Bishop of Landaff . , -, - ,-..-. - - - - page 365 NOTES to the Hores Biblica 49 ERRATA. Page Line 22 ' - 8 instead of God" "for "very, read God," for "very 47 - - 16 for them, he. read them. He 111 - - 18 for In 1796 the first read In 1796 the first, and in 1806 the second 112 - - 18 for The last read Another 273 - - 1 1 dele not In page 255, the writer, in mentioning the misfortunes of the Knights Templars observes, that they had the fairest trial. Since this was written, two works have been seen by the writer, The Memoires stir les Templiers, par Ph. G. Purls, 1805, and Monumens Historiques relatifs a la condemnation des Chevaliers du Ttmple et a ("abolition de leurs ordre, Paris, 1813. These have convinced him, that nothing could be more unfair than the trial of the Knights, and that the tortures inflicted on them, and the promises held out to induce them to acknowledge their guilt, destroy entirely the credibility f their confessions, aliuosf the only evidence brought against them. THE LIFE F E N E L O N, ARCHBISHOP OF CAMBRAY. b2 Alban Butler.] VOLUME THE THIRD. ix CHAP. XIII. President of the English college at St. Omer's Inde- fatigable attention to its duties Passion for Read- ing His general knowledge - - - - - XIV. Forebodes a Revolution in France - - - - XV. Projects other Works -------- XVI. Epistolary Correspondence, Character, His Opinions on various subjects ----- 570 XVII. His Death and Epitaph 583 VOL. III. HOR^E BIBLIC^. PART I. CONTAINING, AN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT, EARLY VERSIONS, AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. VOL. I. WITH a view to impress on the memory the result of some miscellaneous reading on different subjects of BIBLICAL LITERATURE, the following Notes were committed to paper. It may be found, that they give, I. Some history of the rise and decline of the Hebrew language, including an account of the Mishna, the Two Gemaras, and the Targums : II. Some account of the Hellenistic language, principally with a view to the Septuagint version of the Bible : under this head, mention will be made of the early versions of the Old Testament, and the biblical labours of Origen : III. Some observations on the effect produced on the style of the New Testament, 1st, by the Hellenistic idiom of the writers ; 2dly, by the Rabbinical doctrines current in Judaea at the time of Christ's appearance on earth, and by the controversies among the sects, into which the learned were then divided : 3dly, by the literary pursuits of the Jews being confined to their religious tenets and observances ; 4thly, by the political subserviency of the Jews to the B 2 4 HOILE BIBLIC^E. Romans ; 5thly, by their connexions and inter- course with the neighbouring nations j and 6thly, by the difference of the dialects, which prevailed among the ,' Jews themselves : IV. Some account, 1st, of the biblical literature of the middle ages; 2dly, of the industry of the Monks ; and 3dly, of the industry of the Jews, in copying Hebrew manuscripts : V. Some notion of the Masorah, and the Keri and Ketibh : VI. Some notion of the controversy respecting the nature, antiquity and utility of the vowel points : VII. Some general remarks, 1st, on the history of the Jews after their return from the Babylonish captivity to the birth of Christ ; 2dly, on the persecutions suffered by the Jews ; 3dly, on their present state ; 4thly, on their religious tenets ; 5thly, on the appellations of their doctors and teachers ; 6thly, on the dis- tinction between the Tanaits or Rabanists and Caraits, and on the actual state of the Pharisees and Sadducees : ythly, on the Cabala ; Sthly, on their writers against the Christian religion ; and Qthly, on their principles respecting religious toleration : VIII. Some observations on the nature of the Hebrew manuscripts, and the principal printed editions of the Hebrew Bible : IX. Some account of the principal Greek manuscripts of the New Testament : X. Of the Polyglott editions of the New Testament : XI. Of the principal Greek editions of the New Testament : XII. Of the ver- sions of the New Testament into the Romeika, or HOIUE BIBLIC^S. 5 Modem Greek: XIII. Of the Oriental Versions of the New Testament; and the Ancient Versions of it into the Northern Languages : XIV. Of the Latin Vulgate : XV. Of the English translations of the Bible : XVI. And of the division of the Bible into chapters and verses : XVII. Some general observa- tions will be offered on the nature of the various readings of the sacred text, so far as they may be supposed to influence the questions respecting its purity, authenticity, or divine inspiration : XVIII. Mention will then be made of the principal works made use of by the writer, in the course of his enquiries. I. THE claim of THE HEBREW LANGUAGE to high antiquity cannot be denied : its pretensions to be the original language of mankind, and to have been the only language in existence before the confusion at Babel, have, by many respectable writers, been thought not inconsiderable. It may be asserted confidently, that it was, at least, a dialect of that language, and that, in the strictest sense of the word, it is the oldest language, in which, any work now extant was written. In a general sense it denotes the language used by the descendants of Abraham, in all the variations of their fortune, before and after they became possessed of the pro- mised land j during their captivity in Babylon ; from their return to their final dispersion ; and from B 3 6 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. their final dispersion, so far as they have retained a peculiar language of their own, to the present time. But it may be more accurately considered, under the three distinct idioms of South Chanaanitic, Aramaean and Talmudical. I. l. It evidently received the appellation of South Chanaanitic, from its being the idiom of the inhabitants of the land of Chanaan : and, as no material alteration took place in it, during the long period which elapsed, from Abraham's arrival in Chanaan, till the captivity, it is known, through the whole of this period, by that appellation. Nice observers have professed to find, that it arrived at its perfection in the reign of Solomon, and to remark in it some degree of falling off from that time, and have therefore pronounced his reign to be .the golden, and the prophesyings of Isaiah to be the silver age of the Hebrew Language : but, unless this observation be understood with some qualifi- cation, it appears to have more of fancy than of truth. During the captivity of the Jews in Ba- bylon, their language was far from being wholly forgotten by them. On their return it was greatly their wish to restore it : but their commixture with the natives of the country, where they had been captives, the residence of many of them in the neighbouring nations, their intercourse and habits with the subjects of other kingdoms, and their frequent political connections with the Seleucidan monarchs, introduced into it a multitude of foreign HORjE BIBLIC-ffi. 7 words and foreign idioms. In the progress of time they debased it altogether, and, in a manner, converted it into another language. I. 2. In this state, it is known by the appellation of Aramcean, from Aram, one of the sons of Sem. His descendants inhabited the Mediterranean re- gion, between the Tigris and Euphrates, and extended north to Armenia, and south to Shinaar, Babylon and Chaldaea. To the East were the descendants of Ashur, another of the sons of Sem, called the Assyrians j their chief city stood upon the Tigris, and was called Ninive ; beyond them were the people of Media. There is reason to suppose that the descendants of Aram never ex- tended themselves beyond the Tigris. But they passed the Euphrates, west, and occupied the territory known to us by the name of Syria. Aram Zobah and some other places were denominated from them. In consequence of the circumstance above adverted to, the Aramaean language became, after the captivity, the general language of Pales- tine. It branched into two dialects, differing in pronunciation Tather than in words, the Chaldee, or East Aramaean, and the Syriac, or West Aramaean. The East Aramaean was spoken at Jerusalem and Judaea ; the West, in the Galilaea Gentium. The learned, however, still cultivated the study of the old Hebrew or South Chanaanitic, and it was used in the service of the synagogue. Thus it continued the language of literature and religion, but th* B4 8 HOR^E BIBLICjE. language of common discourse was the Aramaean. That, therefore, was the language of the Jews, at the time of the birth of Christ ; it was spoken by him, in his familiar instructions and conversations ; and, with some variation, it continued the language of Judaea, till the final dispersion of the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem. I. 3. Notwithstanding the destruction of that city, a large portion of the Jews remained, or esta- blished themselves, in Judaea. By degrees they formed themselves into a regular system of govern- ment, or rather subordination, connected with the various bodies of Jews, dispersed throughout the world. They were divided into the Western and Eastern Jews. The Western inhabited Egypt, Judaea, Italy and other parts of the Roman empire ; the Eastern were settled in Babylon, Chaldaea, and Persia. The head of the Western Jews was known by the name of Patriarch ; the head of the Eastern Jews was called, Prince of the Captivity. The office of Patriarch was abolished by the imperial laws, about the year 429 : from which time, the Western Jews were solely under the rule of the chiefs of their synagogues, whom they called Pri- mates. The princes of the captivity had a longer and more splendid sway. They resided at Babylon or Bagdad, and exercised their authority over all the Jews who were established there, or in the adjacent country, or in Assyria, Chaldaea or Par- thia. They subsisted as late as the twelfth century. HOR^E BIBLICLE. 5 In the midst of their depression and calamities, the Jews were attentive to their religion and lan- guage. With the permission of the Romans, they established academies ; the most famous of them were those of Jabne and Tiberias. About the reign of Antoninus Pius, Rabbi Jehuda Hakkadosh published a collection of Jewish traditions, called the Mishna, the style of which seems to shew, that their attempts to restore their language had not been unsuccessful. Surenhusius published the original, with a Latin version, and the commentaries of Maimonides and Bartenora, in six volumes folio, at Amsterdam, 1698 1703. It has been translated into German by Rabe ; his translation was published at Onolzbach, in 1 760 1 763, in six volumes quarto. As a supplement to this, the first Gemara was written, for the use of the Jews of Judaea, whence it is called the Gemara of Jerusalem. The style of it is so abrupt and barbarous, that the most pro- found Hebraists almost confess their inability to understand it. After the death of Antoninus Pius, a fresh persecution broke out against those Jews, and they were expelled from their academies within the Roman empire. The chief part of them fled to Babylon and the neighbouring countries ; and there, about the fifth century, published what is called the Second or Babylonish Gemara, in which there is less of barbarism and obscurity, than in the former. A translation of it was begun in 10 HOR.& BIBLIC^E. Germany by Rabe. The Mishna and Gemara form what is called the Talmud, and the idiom of this collection is called the Talmudical. From there being two Gemaras, there are two Talmuds, the Jerusalem and Babylonish : the former con- sists of the Mishna and Jerusalem Gemara ; the latter, of the Mishna and Babylonish Gemara. The former is preferred by the Christians, as con- taining fewer fables and trifles ; the latter is pre- ferred by the Jews, as descending most into particu- lars. When they mention the Talmud generally, they understand by it, the Babylonish Talmud. The Talmudical language was used by many of their writers. About the year 1038 the Jews were expelled from Babylon. Some of the most learned of them passed into Africa, and thence into Spain. Great bodies of them settled in that kingdom. They assisted the Saracens in their conquest of it. Upon that event, an intimate connection took place between the disciples of Moses and the disciples of Mahomet. It was cemented by their common hatred of the Christians, and subsisted till their eommon expulsion. This is one of the most bril- liant epochas of Jewish literature, from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Even in the darkest ages of their history, they cultivated their language with assiduity, and were never without skilful gram- marians, or subtle interpreters of Holy Writ. But, speaking generally, it was only during their union with the Saracens in Spain, and in the flourishing HORJE BIBLIC^E. 11 ages of the Caliphs of Bagdad, that they ventured into general literature, or used, in their writings, a foreign, and consequently in their conceptions, a profane language. In the literature of the Jews, the Targums fill a considerable space. These are paraphrases, which, at different times, and by different hands, have been made, in the Chaldee language, of all the Hebrew parts of the Old Testament. They have various degrees of merit. What is called the Tar- gum of Onkelos is confined to the Pentateuch, and is far better executed than any of the others. There are strong grounds for supposing, that all the Targums are subsequent to the Version of the Seventy. II. THE only instance, in which, before the birth of Christ, the Jews appear to have used a profane language, was in THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE MADE BY THE SEVENTY. II. i . With respect to the Style : It has been observed, that the policy of the Romans to extend, with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin language, was attended with greater success in their western, than in their eastern conquests ; so that, while the language of Rome was readily adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, and Pannonia, the Greeks preserved their language ; and it continued to be spoken in their various colonies, from the Hadriatic 12 HOR1E BIBLIC^. to the Euphrates and the Nile, and in the numerous cities in Asia and Egypt, founded by the Mace- donian kings. All of them abounded with Jews. They were known by the name of Grecian or Hellenistic Jews, from the application which the Jews made of the term Hellenistic, to describe them as residing in Grecian cities, and speaking the Greek language. Alexandria, upon many accounts, was, in regard to them, the capital of the countries they inhabited. By living among the Greeks, they naturally acquired their language ; but they incorporated into it numberless words and phrases of their own. This must always be the case where foreigners acquire a knguage. It was so in a particular manner with the Jews, as they acquired the Greek language by practice rather than grammar and as they did not live promiscuously among the natives, but separately, in large com- munities, among themselves. Besides, they had a more than common reverence for the sacred book. It comprised all their religion, all their morality, all their history, all their politics, and whatever was most excellent of their poetry. It may, therefore, be said to have contained all their language and its phrases. Unavoidably they would be led to adopt its idiom, even in their ordinary discourse, and to introduce it into their writings. The consequence was, that, always bearing in their minds the idiom of their mother tongue, they moulded the Greek words into HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 13 Hebraic phrases, and sometimes even used words, which resembled certain Hebrew terms in their sound, in an Hebraic sense. The effect of this was the more striking, as no languages are more dissimilar than the Hebrew and the Greek j the copiousness and variety of the latter forming a strong contrast to the simplicity and penury of the former. Hence, when the Jews came to translate the Sacred Writings into Greek, their version carried, in every part of it, the strongest tincture of their native idiom : so that, though the words were Greek, the phraseology was, every where, Hebrew. This was greatly increased by the scrupulous, not to say superstitious, attach- ment of the Jews to the Holy Writings, by which they were led to translate them in the most servile manner. To this must be added, that the whole tenor of the Holy Writings relates to facts and circumstances peculiar, in many respects, to the chosen people. Besides, the duties which they inculcate, and the sentiments they contain or raise, were unknown to the writers of Greece. In expressing them, therefore, the translators were often at a loss j and then, for want of a corre- sponding or equivalent word to convey their author's meaning fully, they were constrained to do the best they could, by approximation. The letter written by the German Jews, residing in England, to their foreign brethren, recommending Doctor Kennicott to their protection and assistance in 14 HOPLE BIBLICjE. his Biblical pursuits, inserted by him in his Dis- sertatio Generalis, (a valuable edition of which, with many additions, was published by Bruns, in octavo, at Brunswick, in 1783), is a curious specimen of the language of a Jew, when he at- tempts to express modern, and, in respect to him, foreign ideas, in the Hebrew language. One of the most striking peculiarities in the Greek Tes- tament is, the total absence of the dual number. Mr. Marsh's observations on this singular circum- stance, (see his note 67, toch. 4. 55. of Michaelis), deserve great consideration. II. 2. With respect to the History of the Sep- tuagint, There scarcely is a subject of literature upon which more has been written, or of which less, with any degree of certainty, is known. The popular account of its being made in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, at the suggestion of Aris- teas, and under the direction of Demetrius Pha- lereus, by seventy or seventy-two Jews, shut up in cells, appears to be generally exploded. The prevailing opinion is, that it was made at Alexan- dria, at different times, and by different inter- preters; but that all of them were Jews. The Pentateuch, the book of Job, and the Proverbs, are the parts of the version most admired. The principal editions are,- Aldus's, published in 1518, from several manuscripts, with frequent glosses, and some mixtures from the other versions ; the Roman, published in 1587, from the Vatican HOR^E BIBLIC^). 15 Manuscript, but not exactly, some readings of consequence having been transferred to it, and some chasms in it having been filled up, from other manuscripts; Mr. Grabe's, printed at Oxford in 1707, from the famous Alexandrine Manuscript ; and Professor Breitinger's, pub- lished at Zurich, in Switzerland, in 1730 1732, in four volumes quarto. The last edition is par- ticularly valuable, because it not only contains the text of Grabe's edition, or the Alexandrine Manuscript, but because, in the margin at the bottom of the page, it has the principal variations of the Roman edition of 1587, or the Vatican Manuscript. To these editions should be added, the Complutensian, published in 1515. Dr. Owen says, that it adheres to no particular copy ; but that, taking out of all, the readings which came nearest to the Hebrew text, it may be looked upon rather as a new translation, than the antient Greek version of the Seventy. Before him Mon- sieur Huet had observed, (Dissertations Recueillis par Monsieur V Abbe de Tilladet, Paris 1712, vol. i. p. 473 475,) that, " when the version of " the Seventy was printed in the Bible of Com- " plutum, the Editors did not follow the Ancient " Manuscripts of that version, but altered the " copy before them, from citations in the " writings of the fathers, so that the text pub- " lished by them was irregular, confused, and " made up of citations ; and therefore, when at a 16 HOIUE BIBLICJE. " subsequent time it came to be compared with '* the Ancient Manuscripts, which ought to have " been done by the Editors, it lost its authority." The version of the Septuagint is generally cited by the fathers. Respectable writers, as Salmasius, Bochart, Capellus and Abarbanel, have asserted, that it was the text made use of by Josephus, in the composition of his Hebrew Antiquities : the contrary opinion is maintained by Dr. Hody, but he concedes that Josephus followed it on some occasions : and it seems generally admitted that it was always followed by Philo. That the Evange- lists sometimes cite the version of the Seventy, even in places where it differs from the present Hebrew Text, is clear : but, as the writer of the critique on this Work in the British Review for December 1799 justly observes, " we must not " therefore conclude, that Christ himself quoted " from the Septuagint. He conversed with the " Jews of Palestine in the language of their " country, that is the Aramaean ; his quotations " therefore were in that language ; and, if he did " not use the words of an established Targum, " which however is not improbable, he must be " supposed to have given his own Aramaean trans- " lation, not of a Greek version, but of the " Hebrew original. On the other hand, in Greek " Gospels, written for the use of Greek Chris- " tians, quotations from the Old Testament, even " such as had been made by Christ himself, were HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 17 " frequently delivered in the words of the esta- " Wished Greek version, in the same manner as " an English translator, in rendering a German " theological work, would use the words of the " established English version of the Bible, where " the author had quoted that of Luther." Mon- sieur Huet, (de darts interpretibus}, observes, that the Asiatic Jews, whose metropolis was Ba- bylon, used the Paraphrase of Onkelos; the western Jews, whose capital was Alexandria, used the version of the Septuagint ; the Jews of Pales- tine used the Targum of Jerusalem. It may not be improper, in this place, to observe, that it is by no means clear, what lan- guage was generally spoken in Palestine, in the time of our Saviour. Some, as de Rossi in Italy, and Pfankuche in Germany, maintain it was the Syriac or Aramaean ; others, as Diodati of Naples, contend it was the Greek: a middle, and cer- tainly a very probable opinion, is that of Professor Paulus, who, in his two Programmata, lately published at Jena, with the title, " Verosimilia " de Judeis Palestinensibus, Jesu etiam atque " Apostolis, non Aramcea diakcto sed Grcecd " quoque Aramceaizante, locutis" seems to prove, that, though the Aramaean was, at the time, the mother language of Palestine, the Greek, or He- braeo-Greek, was likewise so current in Galilee, and still more at Jerusalem, that our Saviour and his apostles, might, when they judged it best VOL. i. c is HOR^E adapted to their purposes, employ it in their con- versations or writings, equally with or in preference to the Syriac. A splendid edition of the Septuagint is now preparing at Oxford, under the care of Dr. Holmes. It is an imitation of Dr. Kennicott's Bible, con- taining a collation, from manuscripts found in the different libraries, both in this country and on the continent. Those collations have, of course, in general been made, and the descriptions given, by persons resident in the several places, and Dr. Holmes has certainly employed, for this purpose, men of distinguished literary character. The first volume, comprizing the whole Pentateuch, is pub- lished, and presents a great number of various readings ; the comparative claims of which to genuineness, we hope some future Griesbach will estimate : but it will be a most arduous task, on account of the probable intermixture of the other versions with that of the Septuagint. Dr. Holmes has also published Daniel in the Versions of Theodotion and the Seventy, with various read- ings of manuscripts, printed editions, fathers, and ancient versions. Something of the same compre- hensive kind as Dr. Holmes's collation, should be attempted for the ancient Latin versions j but this, on account of their variety, will be a still more arduous enterprize. The Septuagint has always been of the highest authority in the church of Rome : but in the HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 19 middle ages, it was little known, and hardly ever used. It is the authentic version of the Greek church ; the early Latin versions were generally translations from it. In many instances it differs materially from the Hebrew. In the Pentateuch, the version of the Seventy approaches nearer to the Samaritan, than to the Hebrew text. The dif- ference between it and the Hebrew has not yet been accounted for on satisfactory grounds. At first, it was unfavourably received by the Jews. But the number of Hellenistic Jews increasing, and a Greek translation of the Sacred Writings being necessary for them, it came into use among them, and was sometimes used in the Synagogues in Judaea. The ancient fathers generally referring to it in their controversies with the Jews, it grew out of favour with them : and some of the Talmud- ists have spoken of it, in the strongest terms of repro- bation. They declare, that the day in which it was made, was as fatal to Israel, as that of the golden calf: that, in consequence of it, the earth was, for three days, covered with darkness ; and an annual fast, on the 8th of December, was established. II. 3. Connected with the history of the Sep- tuagint. are, tJie History of the other Versions made of the Old Testament, from the Hebrew into Greek, in the early ages of Christianity, and the Biblical labours of Origen. The first of these versions was made by Aquila, who from a Christian became a Jew, and was accused of designedly mis- c 2 20 HORJE BIBLIC^E. translating those passages of the Old Testament, which establish the divine mission and character of Christ. He published two distinct translations j the first was free ; the last and most in use, was servile, he was followed by Symmachus, whose translation is supposed to have been clear and elegant ; and by Theodotion, whose translation was thought to be more liberal than the second of Aquila, but more strict than the version of Symmachus. A fifth, a sixth, and a seventh version of some parts of the Old Testament were made ; the authors of them are unknown. II. 4. The Biblical labours of Origen are known under the appellation of his Tetraples, Hexaples, Octaples and Enneaples. The Tetraples contained, in four columns, the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. Having discovered two other versions, he added them to the Tetraples. They constituted together the Hexaples. By prefixing to them the Hebrew text, and transcribing it, in a separate column, in Greek letters, he increased them to Octaples. He afterwards added to them a separate version of the Psalms. With that, they are called his Enneaples. So that, the first column contained the Hebrew text in Hebrew letters ; the second, the Hebrew in Greek letters ; the third, the version of Aquila ; the fourtl^ the version of Symmachus : the fifth, the Greek text of the Septuagint ; the sixth, the version of Theodotion j the seventh, his HOILE BIBLIC^:. 21 fifth Greek edition ; the eighth, his sixth Greek edition ; the ninth, his last version of the Psalms. In all his labours, he appears to have directed his attention principally to the Septuagint, with a view to make it conform to the Hebrew text. For this purpose, leaving the text itself of the Sep- tuagint untouched, he shewed, by certain marks, the differences between it and the Hebrew text. His admirers and followers are accused of want of a similar respect for the text of the Septuagint ; they are charged with altering the text itself, to make it conform to the Hebrew. If the charge be founded, there may be a wide difference between the present and the original text of the Septuagint ; and the discovery of a manuscript anterior to the time of Origen, or bearing evident marks of ex- pressing the original text of such a manuscript, would be an invaluable acquisition. m. III. i. This leads to THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Most probably all of them were originally written in Greek, except the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews. The Style of the writers has a consi- derable affinity with that of the Septuagint version ; but it is much more free from Hebraisms, and ap- proaches somewhat nearer to the Greek idiom : in each, however, the Hebrew phraseology is dis- cernible. To mention some particulars, in each, 22 nORM BIBLIC^E. the same use is made of the double substantive, to supply the Jewish want of adjectives, as " king- " dom and glory" to express a "glorious kingdom ;" " mouth and wisdom" to express a " wise dis- " course." In each, the words, " of God," are used to denote the superlative degree, in com- parison ; as " the mountains of God" and " the " cedars of God" "for " very high mountains" and " very high cedars." In each, we observe the difficulty, and, on many occasions, the impractica- bility of accommodating the conjugations of the Hebrew language to the Greek modes and voices, and the Hebrew connectives to the Greek particles and prepositions. But, besides a peculiarity of style, from the perpetual recurrence of Jewish phraseology, the New Testament has, in common with the Old, the leading features of the Oriental style of instruction, short aphoristic sentences, and frequent use of allegory and parable. In each, extreme simplicity of phrase is joined, throughout, to extreme boldness and pomp of imagery ; and both are rendered the more striking by their proximity. This is frequently seen in the most familiar discourses recorded of Christ by the Evan- gelists. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, the subject and the simile are often united in a manner which the nations of the West have never employed out of poetry. In these, and in many other instances, a considerable degree of similitude is discoverable between the Greek of the Septuagint, HORjE BIBLIC^E. 23 and the Greek of the New Testament : in some respects, however, the Greek of the New Testa- ment has strong peculiarities. III. 2. One of the most striking of these was a consequence of the Rabbinical doctrines and dis- putes, which, at the time of Christ's mission, pre- vailed in Judaea. Notwithstanding the unsocial temper and habits of the Jews, and their decided aversion from intercommunity with strangers, it was impossible that such numbers of them should inhabit the cities of Greece, without imbibing some- thing of the literary and inquisitive spirit of that people. The consequence was, that they gave into a variety of disputes. The principal sects, into which they were divided, were those of the Phari- sees and the Sadducees. The former had subsisted one hundred and fifty years before the birth of Christ : they gave too much to tradition, and deluged the plain simplicity of the Mosaic law in a multitude of scriptural glosses and comments. They affected great austerity of morals, and prac- tised numberless superstitions. They held the chief offices in church and state, and had the greatest influence over the common people. The Sadducees were a more ancient sect : they were distinguished by their adherence to the word of the Sacred Writings, interpreting it always in its most literal sense, and rejecting, with contempt, all traditionary reasonings and observances. But at the same that they professed a strict, not to say c 4 24 HOR,E BIBLICJE. a bigoted adherence to the Law of Moses, they held, by a strange contradiction, the loosest opi- nions. They denied a future state, and, as far as is consistent with any belief in the Holy Writings, were Epicureans both in practice and theory. In opposition to the Pharisees, who inclined to fatalism, they maintained f ihe freedom of the human will. They avoided interfering in public concerns, and were few in number, but of the highest quality. The Scribes had originally their name from trans- cribing, or making copies of the Law. By degrees, they became the expounders of it. They may be considered as the public teachers of the Jewish theology. Like all others, who held offices, or interfered in public concerns, they were under the guidance, and obliged to profess the principles and imitate the manners, of the Pharisees. The Herodians were not so much a religious as a political sect, attached to Herod, during his life, and to his sons, after his decease. Herod, whether an Idumaean by birth, or descended, as many suppose, from one of the Jewish families, who returned from the Babylonish captivity, unques- tionably belonged to a family which had long professed the Jewish religion, and was ranked among the tribe of Judah. But he seems to hare had neither external reverence, nor internal re- spect for the religious institutions of his country. He built temples in the Grecian taste ; erected statues for idolatrous worship; adopted, in his HOR^E BIBLIC^E. -25 ordinary habits of life, Roman manners and Roman usages ; and, in his public capacity, was absolutely devoted and subservient to Roman politics. This brought upon him the hatred of the Pharisees, who were zealously attached to the independence of their country, and bore the Roman yoke with the utmost indignation. But many of the Jews, particularly of the Sadducees, embraced his politics, and, on that account, received from their country- men the name of Herodians ; an appellation, in the general notion of the Jews, of the highest contumely. The Essenes differed from all the sects we have mentioned, as they estranged themselves not only from politics and public affairs, but, as much as the nature of man and the constitution of society admit, from the common concerns and intercourse of private life. " They held," says the Bishop of Dromore, " 1st, that God was surrounded by " Demons or Angels, who were mediators with " God, and therefore to be worshipped : 2. that " the soul is defiled by the body ; that all bodily " enjoyments hurt the soul, which they believed "to be immortal, though they seem to have " denied the resurrection of the Body, as it would " only render the soul sinful by being re-united " to it. 3. That there was a great mystery in " numbers, particularly in the number seven : " they therefore attributed a natural holiness to " the seventh or sabbath day, which they observed 26 HOILE BIBLICjE. " more strictly than the other Jews. They spent " their time mostly in contemplation j abstained " from marriage and every gratification of the " senses." They were divided into classes, were governed by superiors, and were chiefly employed in agriculture. The principal points in dispute, among the sects we have mentioned, respected the law of Moses, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, future rewards and punishments, and the nature of virtue. All admitted the divine autho- rity of the law of Moses : the Pharisees added to it, a body of traditionary law, which, they said, was equally of divine authority and entitled to equal respect : this traditionary law was wholly rejected by the Sadducees and Essenes. According to the Pharisees, the sacred text had a double sense ; one, expressed by the plain natural mean- ing of the words ; the other", enveloped in their mysterious import. The Sadducees rigidly ad- hered to the natural meaning of the words : the Essenes contended, that the words of the law, in their natural meaning, were void of all power ; and that the things, expressed by them, were images of holy and celestial objects j they pro- fessed to renounce the outward letter, and to consider the law as an allegorical system of spiritual and mysterious truth. The Sadducees denied the resurrection and a future life ; the Pharisees believed in the immortality of the HOILE BIBLIC^:. 27 and a future state of rewards and punishments, which extended both to soul and body ; the Essenes believed in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of rewards and punishments ; but maintained that they extended to the soul alone. The Pharisees courted popular applause by an ostentation of public sanctity, and a rigid attention to the ceremonies of the written and traditionary law. The Sadducees treated the sanctity and ceremonies of the Pharisees with contempt, as marks of weakness and superstition, and rested their own claim to respect on good actions and elegant manners. The Essenes placed religion in contemplative indolence, which they thought debased by any social attachment to man. The doctrines of the Pharisees were popular with the multitude, those of the Sadducees with the great. The Essenes were little known out-of their own communities. It is observable that while the Gospel abounds with reproofs of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Essenes are not once named in it : but it is supposed that St. Paul, in his first Epistle to Timothy, and his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, often refers to them. III. 3. It deserves attention that Michaelis, (Intr. Vol. III. Part I. 2, 3, 4, 5,) and other German writers have shown, that some passages, both of the Old and New Testament, and parti- cularly the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel, refer to the tenets of the Gnostics and Sabians. The 28 HOIUi fonner were a species of Manichajans, who existed in the east, long before the birth of Christ ; and several of their errors were fancifully accommodated by some of the earliest Christians to the second person of the Trinity, and the mysteries of the Incarnation and Passion. The principal error of the latter, was, that they ascribed to St. John the Baptist, a greater authority, than to Christ. Michaelis contends, that, St. John the Evangelist begins his gospel with a series of aphorisms, as counterpositions to the doctrine of these heretics, and afterwards relates several speeches and miracles of Christ, which the truth of these aphorisms pointedly confirms. The whole passage deserves the reader's serious attention. Such was the state of the religious sects among the Jews at the time of -the birth of our Saviour. The Rabbins, or the teachers of each sect, de- fended their tenets with the greatest zeal and pertinacity. III. 4. All of them, however, agreed in thinking that their religious tenets and observances were the only objects worthy of their attention. It followed, that their literary controversies, instead of embracing, like those of the philosophical sects of the Pagans, the wide circle of general literature, were directed and confined to their religion and religious institutions, and were exhausted in ques- tions and discussions immediately, or remotely re- ferrible to those objects. They were sometimes HOR-ffi BIBLIC^E. 29 striking by their refinement and abstruseness, but were often idle and visionary. These religious contentions necessarily produced a considerable effect on the language of the Jews ; and, whether they expressed themselves in Greek or in Hebrew, led them to adopt new terms and expressions. These, which may be called Rabbinisms, fre- quently occur in the New Testament. III. 5. Another peculiarity of the language of the New Tastament, is its occasional Latinism. This was originally owing to their political sub- serviency to the Romans. The celebrated prophecy of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 10.) had foretold, " that the sceptre should not depart from Judah, " nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until the " Shiloh should come." Both antient and mo- dern Jews agree, that the Messiah was designed by the Shiloh. When the Assyrian monarch led the ten tribes of Israel into captivity, the sceptre departed from them, and the lawgiver from their feet. But, when the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin were carried captives to Babylon, they were permitted to live as a distinct people, under their own rulers and governors : and we find, that Cyrus ordered the vessels of the temple to be delivered to the Prince of Judah ; l Esdras i. 8. Thus the sceptre and the lawgiver were preserved to Judah, and remained to him, till Judasa was reduced to a Roman province. The first inter- ference of the Romans, as conquerors, in the 30 HOEJE BIBLICJE. affairs of Judaea, was in consequence of their conquest of Syria. From that time, they appointed the High Priests. Still, though they changed the order of succession at their pleasure, they uniformly confined their choice to one of the sacerdotal family. In other respects, they left the Jews in the full possession, both of their civil and ecclesi- astical government, till the death of Archelaus, the immediate successor of Herod. The year after his death, they reduced Judaea into a Roman pro- vince. Then it was, that the power of life and death was taken from the Jews, and justice was, from that time, administered in the name and by the laws of Rome. Then, therefore, but not till then, the sceptre departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from his feet. The precise year, when this event happened, it may be difficult to ascer- tain : but the judicial forms, professed to be observed on the trial and condemnation of our Saviour, and the exclamation of the Jews, " we " have no king but Caesar," irrefragably shew, that it had then arrived. It may easily be con- ceived what effect the overpowering influence and dominion of Rome would have, both on the written and the spoken language of Judaea. III. 6. The New Testament abounds also with expressions introduced into it, in consequence of the unavoidable intercourse of the Jews with their Asiatic, Syrian and Arabian neighbours. It is observable, that here, as in most other instances, HOR^E BIBLICiE. 31 where Asia is spoken of, with a reference to the New Testament, the word denotes a very small part of the territory generally included under that denomination. It denotes, in its largest sense, the continent of the world, on the eastern front of Europe ; in a less large sense, the great penin- sula between the Pontus Euxinus, or the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean; in a more confined sense, the proconsular Asia, or the Asia Propria of Ptolemy, comprising Lydia, Ionia, Caria, Mysia, Phrygia and the proconsular Hellespont: but, in the New Testament, it generally denotes a still narrower tract of country, that part only of the proconsular Asia, which comprises the country of Ephesus and Lydia. In many parts of this country the Jews settled : and the industry of commentators has traced in some parts of the Epistles of St. Paul, certain marks of the Cilician dialect. In other instances they have traced the language of Persia, Arabia, and particularly of Syria. III. 7. It should also be observed, that, among the Jews themselves, there 'was a considerable difference of dialect. The first division of the country was that by Joshua, of the whole land>of Canaan among the twelve tribes. To this, a total end was put, by the destruction of the ten tribes by Salmanasar, and of the two remaining tribes by Nebuchadnezzar. After the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, and at least as 32 HORjfc BIBLICA early as their government under the Asmonamn princes, the nation was distinguished by a fourfold distinction. The first was Judaea, including Idu- maea; the second, was Samaria; the third, was Galilaea, distinguished into the Galilaea Superior, or the parts bordering on Phrenicia and Syria, and the Galilsea Inferior, comprising Tiberias, Nazareth, Caphernaum, the Itabyrian Mountain, and the Decapolisj the fourth, was Peraea, which comprised, with some increase, the portion of the Promised Land, occupied by the tribes of Ruben and Gad. All of them were under the govern- ment of Herod the Great. Upon his death, Augustus allotted Judaea, Idumaea and Samaria, to his son Archelaus, under the title of Ethnarch ; Galilsea and Peraea, to Herod Antipas, another of his sons, under the title of Tetrarch ; and Iturasa and Trachonitis, and the greatest part of the country beyond the Jordan, to Philip, his other son, under the same title. Some time afterwards, Archelaus and Herod Antipas were banished, and the territories in their governments were reduced into a Roman province. On the death of Philip, the territory in his government was added to the proconsulate of Syria. Each of these divisions had its own provincial dialect. The speech of Peter, when Christ appeared before the tribunal of Caiphas, betrayed him to be a Galilaean. But a difference of dialect was the slightest of the many points of difference between the Samaritans and HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 33 the general body of the Jews. They. were of a different origin ; the Samaritans being a mixed body of people, chiefly Cuthites, but all of hea- thenish extraction, sent by the king of Assyria to repeople the kingdom of the ten tribes, whom he had carried into banishment. Some time after their arrival in the land of Israel, they embraced the worship of the true God, and built a temple to his honour on mount Gerizim, asserting against the Jews, that it was the place consecrated by God himself to his worship. It is supposed, that they worshipped several heathen deities in conjunction with the true God. Religious hatred seems never to have been carried further than it was between the Jews and the Samaritans. They admitted the divine authority of the Pentateuch, but rejected the other books of the Old Testament. The Samaritan Pentateuch has been a subject of much discussion. Care must be taken to dis- tinguish between the Pentateuch in the Hebrew language, but in the letters of the Samaritan alpha- bet, and the version of the Pentateuch, in the Samaritan language. One of the most important differences between the Samaritan and the Hebrew text, respects the duration of the period between the deluge and the birth of Abraham. The Sa- maritan text makes it longer by some centuries than the Hebrew text ; and the Septuagint makes it longer by some centuries than the Samaritan. It is observable, that, in her authentic translation VOL. i. D 3* HOILE of the Latin Vulgate, the Roman Catholic Church follows the computation expressed in the Hebrew text : and in her Martyrology, follows that of the Seventy. See an excellent Dissertation, by Father Tournemine, De Annis Patriarcharum, at the end of his edition of Menochius, 2 vol. fol. Paris, 1719. The arguments of Don Pezron (I'Anti- quite des Temps retablie t and Defense de I'Anti- quite des Temps}, in favour of the Chronology of the Septuagint, are very strong, and are counte- nanced by every probable system of the chronology of oriental nations. A shorter period than that of the Septuagint, is scarcely reconcileable with their chronology. Such was the general state of the Jews, as far as it may be supposed to have influenced their language, at the time of the arrival of Christ. Whatever influence it had on their language when they expressed themselves in Hebrew, the same, and not in a less degree, it had on it, when they expressed themselves in Greek. IV. THE Biblical labours of Origen and St. Jerom are well known, and are mentioned in these ob- servations. FROM THE DEATH OF ST. JEROM, TO THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS UNDER THE PONTIFI- CATE OF LEO THE Xth, a period of about one thousand years, now conies under consideration. HOR^E BIBLICyfc. 35 IV. i. The comparatively low state of literature, and of the arts and sciences, during this middle age, must be acknowledged ; but justice claims our gratitude to the venerable body of men, who strove against the barbarism of the times, and to whose exertions we principally owe the precious remains of sacred or prophane antiquity, which survived that calamitous aera. For whatever has been preserved to us of the writers of Greece or Rome ; for all we know of the language of those invaluable writers ; for all the monuments of our holy religion ; for the sacred writings which con- tain the word of God ; and for the traditions of the wise and good respecting it, we are almost wholly indebted, under providence, to the zeal and exertions of the priests and monks of the church of Rome, during the middle age. If, during this period, there were a decay of taste and learning, it is wholly to be ascribed to the general ruin and devastation, brought on the Christian world, by the inroads and conquests of the barba- rians, and the other events, which were the causes or consequences, of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. Besides, while we admit and lament, we should not exaggerate, the literary degradation of the times we speak of. Biblical literature, the immediate subject of the present inquiry, was by no means entirely neglected. Dr. Hody, in his most learned Historia Sckolas- ticq Hebraici Textus Versionumque Greece? et D 2 36 HORjE BIBLlCiE. Latince Vulgatce, places this circumstance beyond the reach of controversy. He proves, that there never was a time, even in the darkest ages, when the study of the original language of the Holy Writings was wholly neglected. In England alone, the works of Venerable Bede, Holy Robert of Lincoln and Roger Bacon, shew how greatly it was prized and pursued there. On the mathema- tical learning of the middle age, see Montucla: Athelard in the 12th century translated Euclide, IV. 212. IV. 2. Copies of works were not then multiplied, at the party's will, by the instantaneous operation of the press. They were transcribed by the labour of individuals, a task of infinite pains and persever- ance, and to which, (for gain was out of the question), nothing but the conscientious and un- wearied industry of a religious copyist was equal. To this Gerhardus Tychsen, professor of philosophy and oriental literature, formerly at Butzow, now at Rostock, (the two Universities of Butzow and Rostock being united), in his Tentamen de variis Codicum Hebrceorum Veteris Testamenti MSS. Rostockii, 1772, bears ample testimony. He ob- serves, that all manuscripts of the Masorah, with figures of dragons, sphinxes, bears, hogs, or any other of the unclean animals ; all manuscripts of the Testament, with the Vulgate translation, or corrected to it, or corrected to the Septuagint version ^ all manuscripts, not written with black HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 37 ink, or in which there are words written in gold letters, or where the words or the margin are illu- minated ; and all manuscripts, where the word Adonai is written instead of the word Jehovah, were written by Christians, and not by Jews. " I " am sensible," says he, " that it is the general " opinion, that the study of the fine arts was " buried during the middle ages. It is not, how- " ever, less certain, that, while during many ages, " literature was crushed every where else, she " found a refuge in monasteries. From unex- " ceptionable evidence, it may be shewn, that, " while some of the monks applied themselves to " the study of divinity, medicine, or dialectic, " others made themselves thoroughly acquainted " with the Hebrew language, in order to con- " found the Jews, in their disputes with them, by " producing the original text : others, (of whom " some were proselytes from the Jewish religion), " attained the highest skill in Calligraphy, and " copied Hebrew manuscripts," " I cannot deny," he says in another part of his work, " that in Spain, " formerly the paradise and nursery of monks, " Calligraphy arrived at its summit of excellence, " particularly in monasteries. The Jews, with " whom Spain at that time abounded, appear to " have learnt it from them. In proof of this " assertion, I may appeal to some Hebrew manu- " scripts, which I myself have seen, where the " letters throughout are so equal, that the whole D 3 38 HOILE BIBLIC^. " has the appearance of print. Frequently, after " reflecting on this singular circumstance, I have " been inclined to think, that the monks, who " cultivated the study of Calligraphy with great " eagerness, had the forms of all the letters of the " alphabet, impressed into or engraved out of thin " plates ; that whole pages or columns of these " plates were placed under the parchment or " vellum, on which it was intended to write, so " that, by drawing a pencil over them, the monks " were able to produce this surprising equality of " letters ; or, it may have been that the shapes or " forms of the letters were first imprinted upon " the parchment or vellum, and afterwards filled " up." The monks of England equally excelled in sacred Calligraphy. " There was not one " religious person at Woolstrop, but that he could " and did use, either embrothering, writing book " with very fair hand, making their own garments, " carving, painting or grafting." Strype's Me- moirs, vol. i. 255. Such is the acknowledged merit of the monks as transcribers of the Holy Writings. IV. 3. The Jews bestowed on the copies made by them, even an excess of care. It has been a constant rule with them, that, whatever is con- sidered as corrupt, shall never be used, but shall be burnt, or otherwise destroyed. A book of the law, wanting but one letter, with one letter too much, or with an error in one single letter, written with HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 39 any thing but ink, or written on parchment made of the hide of an unclean animal, or on parchment not purposely prepared for that use, or prepared by any but an Israelite, or on skins of parchment tied together by unclean strings, shall be holden to be corrupt : that no word shall be written, without a line first drawn on the parchment ; no word written by heart, or without having been first pronounced orally by the writer : that, before he writes the name of God, he shall wash his pen ; that no letter shall be joined to another ; and that, if the blank parchment cannot be seen all around each letter, the roll shall be corrupt. There are settled rules for the length and breadth of each sheet, and for the space to be left between each letter, each word and each section. These Maimonides mentions, as some of the principal rules to be observed in copy- ing the sacred rolls. Even to this day, it is an obligation on the persons who copy the Sacred Writings, for the use of the Synagogue, to observe them. Those who have not seen the rolls, used in the Synagogues, can have no conception of the exquisite beauty, correctness and equality of the writing. v But the attention of the Jews was by no means confined to the writing of the copies of the Holy Word ; they made almost incredible exertions to preserve the GENUINENESS AND INTEGRITY OF THE TEXT. 04 40 HORJE BIBLICjE. V. i. This produced what has been termed the Masorah, the most stupendous monument in the whole history of literature, of minute and per- severing labour. The persons who were employed in it, and who afterwards received from it the name of Masorites, were some Jewish literati, who flourished after the commencement of the Christian aera. With a reverential, not to say superstitious attention, of which history does not furnish an instance, to be urged in comparison with it, they counted all the verses, words and letters, of all the twenty-four books of the Old Testament, and of each of those twenty-four books, and of every sec- tion of each book, and of all the subdivisions of each section. " The matter of the Massora" says Mr. Lewis, in his Origines Hebrcece, vol. iv. p. 156, " consists in critical remarks upon the " verses, words, letters, and vowel points of the " Hebrew text. The Massorets were the first " who distinguished the books and sections of " books into verses, and marked the number of " the verses, and of the words and letters in " each verse; the verses, where they thought " there was something forgot; the words, which " they believed to be changed ; the letters, which " they thought superfluous ; the repetitions of the " same verses; the different reading the words " which are redundant or defective; the number *' of times that the same word is found in the be- " ginning, middle, or end of a verse ; the different HOKJK " significations of the same word; the agreement " or conjunction of one word with another ; the " number of words that are printed above ; which " letters are pronounced, and which are turned " upside down ; and such as hang perpendicular ; " and took the number of each; it was they, in " short, who invented the vowel points, the ac- ** cents, and made divers critical remarks upon " the punctuation, and abundance of other things " of equal importance.'* " A great part of the labour of these Jewish " Doctors consisted in counting the letters of the " Hebrew text; and the letter Nun in the word " Gehon, is in the Talmud observed to be in the " very middle of the Pentateuch. Father Simon " gives an account of a manuscript copy, which " he saw, where that part of the Massora that " belonged to the letters, was to this purpose. " " There are twelve parscioths, or great sections, " in Genesis: there are forty-three of those which " are called sedarim, or orders : there are one " thousand five hundred and thirty-four verses, " twenty thousand seven hundred and thirteen " words, seventy-eight thousand one hundred " letters ; and the midst of the book consists in " these words, Ve al harbeka tihieh, in chap. " xxvii. ver. 40. There are five points (these are " points made on the top of some letters men- " tioned by St. Jerom). Exodus has eleven par- *' scioths, thirty- three sedarim, one thousand two 42 HOR^E BIBLIC^. " hundred and nine verses, sixteen thousand five " hundred and thirteen words, sixty-three thou- '* sand four hundred and sixty-seven letters ; and " these words, Elohim lo tekallel, in chap. xxii. " ver. 27. are in the very middle of this book> " There are in Leviticus ten parscioths, twenty- " five sedarim, eight hundred and fifty-nine " verses, eleven thousand nine hundred and two " words, forty-four thousand nine hundred and " eighty-nine letters; and these words, Vehan- " nogia bibesar, in chap. xv. ver. 7. are the middle " words. There are in Numbers ten parscioths, " thirty-three sedarim, one thousand two hundred " and eighty-eight verses, sixteen thousand seven " hundred and seven words, sixty- two thousand " five hundred and twenty-nine letters ; and these " words, Ve haia-is asher ebehar, in chap. xvii. " ver. 20. are the middle words. There are in " Deuteronomy ten parscioths, thirty-one se- " darim, nine hundred and fifty-five verses, six- " teen thousand three hundred and ninety-four " words, fifty-four thousand eight hundred and " ninety-two letters ; and the middle words of " this book are, Ve ascita alpi hadavar, in chap. " xvii. ver. 10." Such is the celebrated Masorah of the Jews. Originally it did not accompany the text: after- wards the greatest part of it was written in the margin. To bring it into the margin, it was ne- cessary to abridge the work itself. This abridg- HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 43 ment was called the Masorah Parva. Being found too short, a more copious abridgment of it was inserted. This, in contradistinction to the other Masorah, was called the Masorah Magna. The omitted parts were added at the end of the text, and this was called the Masorah Finalis. V. 2. In the Jewish manuscripts and printed editions, a word is often found with a small circle annexed to it, or with an asterisk over it, and a word written in the margin of the same line. The former is called the Kethibh, the latter the Keri. In these, much mystery has been discovered by the Masorites. Some have supposed them coeval with the text; and that they were communicated, verbally, by Moses himself: so that he instructed the people generally, and the Levites, his own people, in particular, that the word he had written in such a manner, should be understood in such another manner, and communicated his reasons for it. This, they say, came by oral tradition to the Masorites, who committed it to writing;. The o prevailing opinion is, that they are partly various readings, collected from the time of Esdras, and partly critical observations, or, as they have been called, insinuations, of the Masorites, to substi- tute proper or regular for improper and irregular, and sometimes decent for indecent expressions, in the text. It is observable, that none of them occur in the prophecy of Malachi. BIBLIC^. VI. THE next care of the Jews was to ascertain and fix the pronunciation. (See Fourmont's Disser- tation^ Mem. de V Academie^ vol. 30. p. 432.) With this view they invented the Vowel Points. To understand this, it may be proper to observe, that every language necessarily consists of those sounds, which are produced by the mere act of opening the mouth, and which are therefore called vowels ; and of those, which are produced both by opening the mouth, and by particular application of its three principal organs, the lips, the teeth, and the tongue ; and which, from the joint opera- tion necessary to produce them, are called conso- nants. In most languages, the marks or signs, made use of in writing, to denote the vowel sounds, do not exceed five. But each of these is susceptible of the different inflections of the grave, the slender, and the close ; and those require a still further subdivision. Now the natural, or as they may be termed, the original sounds of the vowels, may be taught by precept ; but their further modes, or at least the application of those modes, can only be acquired by practice. The consequence has been, that, in every language, the marks or signs used to denote the vowel sounds, by no means reach all their inflections, or shew their particular application. The object of the vowel points, ' was to fix a written symbol of HOR BIBLIC^E. 45 every sound, which the Hebrew vowels assumed in pronunciation, and to ascertain the particular sound, which each vowel should have in the syl- lable or place where it was used ; so that a reader might find the exact sound by his eye, without any resort to usage, or any necessity for further instruction, than what a complete knowledge of the vowel points furnished. In the Hebrew al- phabet, the vowel characters were but three, the Aleph, the Vau, and the Jod, corresponding to the A, the U, and the I, of the Romans. These, from the assistance they gave to the enunciation of a vast variety of words, were called the matres lectionis, or the mothers of reading. But they sufficed to denote a very small number only, of the many vowel sounds. Besides, there are many words in Hebrew, which consists entirely of con- sonants; and of which, therefore, without the assistance of vowels, there could be no enunciation. To remedy this inconvenience, the Masorites in- vented the vowel points. They first settled the sounds of each of the matres lectionis, and laid down general rules to fix the positions, where they should be sounded, and where they should be silent. They then appropriated to their pur- pose two symbols, the point and the straight line. These they multiplied and combined, both sepa- rately and together, into a variety of positions and forms, and assigned to eacK of them the sound 46 HOR & BIBLICAL. of a particular vowel. Thus, leaving nothing to be acquired by use, or even by oral instruction, (except so far as it extended to the doctrines of the vowel points), they established a corresponding and appropriate sign for all the vowel sounds in the Hebrew language, and all their inflections and modifications. At first view, it must be thought, that the effect of the Masorah in preserving the integrity of the text of the Hebrew, and the effect of the vowel points in ascertaining and fixing its pronunciation, must have been very great. But several writers of great biblical name have abso- lutely and explicitly denied their utility. They assert both to be a modern invention; that the Masorah has only served to perpetuate the corrup- tions and imperfections of the text ; and that the application of the vowel points to the pronuncia- tion of the language, is a work of useless labour, and involves the learner in a maze of perplexing and disheartening difficulty. The Jews themselves have never admitted the vowel points into the rolls or manuscripts used for religious worship, in their Synagogues ; and some of their ablest and most intelligent writers have joined in the opinion, that they are a modern invention, and that, so far from facilitating, they perplex and increase the difficulty of the pronunciation of the Hebrew. Few literary controversies have been agitated with mqpe learn- ing, or greater warmth. Capellus was first in HOJLE BIBLICJE. 47 time, and certainly among the first in learning and ability, who contested the antiquity and utility of the Masorah, and the vowel points : they had strenuous defenders in the two Buxtorfs. In the opinion of many writers of the first ^eminence, (among whom are reckoned Houbigant, L' Advocat, the late Bishop Lowth, Dr. Kennicott, and Dr. Geddes), the victory is decided in favour of Capellus. Still, however, some writers of respecta- bility are strenuous advocates in their favour. The rejection of the vowel points made it necessary to substitute something of equal power in their room. Here Capellus was at a loss : but, some time after the beginning of the present cen- tury, Monsieur Masclef, a Canon of Amiens, * , found a substitute for them* ,O considered the Aleph, He, Vau, Jod, Heth, and Ain, to be the original Hebrew vowels. These he directed to be pronounced, wherever they occurred : and, when two or more consonants followed, without any of these supposed vowel letters, he directed, that, after each of the consonants, that vowel should be sounded, which is its auxiliary sound in the alphabet ; as an E after a Beth ; an I after a Ghimel j an U after a Nun ; and an A after a Thau. Modern writers have improved on this system, by supposing the Ain of the Hebrew alphabet to correspond to the Roman O. This makes the number of Hebrew vowels complete. To explain the two systems more clearly, the following English 4S HOR.E characters, supplied with Hebrew points, as below, Gv, s, ths d r dl brd, : " * v vt render, as nearly as the sounds of the two lan- guages admit, the petition in our Lord's Prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread." The same letters, read after the Masclefian system, would be pronounced, Give sa thas da re dala bered. It must be admitted, that, if the pronunciation of the Hebrew, according to the vowel points, be the right pronunciation, the pronunciation of them, according to the Masclefian system, is mise- rably defective. But it is absolutely denied, by the advocates for the Masclefian system, that the pro- nunciation, according to the vowel points, is the true pronunciation. A concise statement of the arguments for and against the vowel points, may be found in Houbigant's preface to his Ratines Hebraiques, Paris 1732. Those, who wish to investigate the subject further, must have recourse to the writings of Capellus, and the two Buxtorfs, who, though first in the controversy, completely exhausted the subject. It should be added, that Masclef never thought of restoring the pronunciation of the living lan- guage : he knew the attempt to be desperate ; and its impracticability was his defence. Giving up, therefore, the original pronunciation as irre- coverable, he carried his views no further, than to devise some mode of pronunciation, easily to be HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 40 acquired, by which the reader of the Hebrew might give some utterance, right or wrong, it mattered not, to every word. He admitted, that his own was a false pronunciation : but he contended, that the Masoritic was equally false, and that the sort of falsehood which obtained in his mode of pronunciation, was far less mischievous than that of the Masoritic. However, few of those who disregard the vowel points, at this time, follow Masclef entirely. When a vowel is to be supplied between two consonants, (which is not always necessary), some make it a rule to sound between them an a or an e : others, whichever of the five vowels unites best with the letters of the word. The latter mode produces a tolerably good pronunciation, if care be taken to sound the supplied vowels short, and the original vowels of the alphabet, when they occur, long. To acquire a consummate knowledge of the vowel points, and of the rules for their application, and to be able to pronounce the Hebrew language, according to them, readily, is an arduous under- taking. Extreme perfection is seldom attained in it, by a person not born and educated a Jew. But some progress in it is necessary, even to a mode- rate knowledge of the language. The vowel points form a sort of cypher, conveying to those, who will take the pains to understand it, a per- petual comment upon the sacred text of the Old Testament, by the Jewish literati. VOL. I. E 50 HORJE BIBLICAL Doctor Semler, (Apparatus ad liberalem V. T. interpretationem, Halce 1773), expresses this very forcibly : Jus fas non est, temere projicere atque negligere ista interpretum publica ministe- ria ; sed nee Judaico stupore et vand reHgione nostros implere decet. VII. VII. i. An attention to the study of the lan- guage, naturally produces a desire to be acquainted with the HISTORY OF THE JEWS. The Sacred Writings, which compose the Old Testament, lead the reader to the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, and their wars under the Asmonsean princes: thus far also the works of Flavius Josephus accompany him ; thence they lead him on to the time of their final dispersion. Few parts of ancient history are less attended to, than that which comprehends the period of time, which intervened between the return of the Jews from the captivity, and the birth of Christ. Yet, on many accounts, it deserves particular attention. Year By the decree of Cyrus, Zerubbabel, the wJr'id. prince or chief of the Jews, was sent to rebuild the temple in - - 34^9 Joshua, son of Josedeck, lineally de- scended from Aaron, was at that time high priest j and the priesthood remained in his HOR^E BIBLIOffi. 51 family, till it was assumed by Judas Mac- chabaeus, and by that means passed into the family of the Asmonaeans. This was a pe- riod of 369 years - - - -3838 It continued in the Asmonaean family, till they were destroyed by Herod a period of 1 29 years. In the last year of his reign Christ was born - 39^7 The three following genealogical Tables will serve to explain this period. The first is a genealogical account of the high priests, who, after the captivity, officiated in the temple built by Zerubbabel, or, as it is generally called, the Second Temple; from him, it is en- titled Stemmata Zerubbabellano-Pontificia. The second is a genealogical Table of the Mac- chabaean, or, as they are more properly called, the Asmonaean princes ; from them, it is entitled Stemmata Asmonceana. The third is a genealogical Table of Herod's family; from his Idumaean extraction, it is en- titled Stemmata Idumceana. It should be observed, that they contain the names of those persons only, of whom particular mention is made, in the Jewish history, and of those, through whom the descent to them is de- duced : so that, except in this point of view, the Stemmata produced here are very incomplete. Those who wish to see them at full length, will find them in Anderson's Royal Genealogies,, E 2 52 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. The Idumasan pedigree is excellently stated in Relandus's Palestina, in the second volume of Brother's Tacitus, and more at length in Noldius's Historia Idumcea, published in Havercamp's edi- tion of Josephus. Josedeck, the first of the high priests mentioned in the Stemmata Zerubbabellano-Pontificia, was high priest when the captivity began. His son assisted Zerubbabel in rebuilding the Temple. Eliashib was contemporary with Artaxerxes Lon- gimanus, called in Scripture, Ahasuerus, who married Esther the adopted daughter of Mordecai. Johannan slew his brother Jesus. Manasseh, their brother, retired to Samaria, and built the Temple on mount Gerizim. In the time of the priesthood of Jadduah, Alexander passed into Asia, and put an end to the Persian empire, by the victories he obtained over Darius. The Jews thereupon became sub- jects of the kings of Macedon. This was in 3670. They continued such, till, in 3700, Ptolemy Soter declared himself king of Egypt ; and then they became a part of his subjects. In 3806, Antiochus Magnus, king of Syria, defeated the Egyptian army in the battle of Paneas, and seized all Cocle-Syria and Palestine. The Jews then became subjects of the kings of Syria. STEMMATA ZERUBBABELLANO-PONTIFICIA. JOSEDECK. JOSHUA. JOACHIM. ELIASHIB. JOIADAH. JOHANNAN. JADDUAH. I JESUS. MANASSBH. r ONI AS I. SIMON I. surnamed the Just. MANASSEH ruled, because his nephew, Simon the Just, was under age. ONI AS II. SIMON II. ELEAZAR . ONIAS HI. JASON. MENELAUS LYSIMACHTJS deposed by Anti- succeeded Jason, succeeded Menelaui. ochus Epiphanes, who gave the of- fice to his brother. ONIAS IV. OnJudasMaccha- baeus's assuming the priesthood, he went to Egypt, and built a Jewish temple at Helio- polls. 54 UOEJE BIBLIC^E. The family of Joarib was the first class of priests of the sons of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the high priest. Some time after the captivity, one of the family was called Asmonaeus. From him the fa- mily received the name of Asmonceans. Antiochus Epiphanes began the severe persecution of the Jews, which occasioned Mattathias, a leader in the family, to rise in arms against him. This was in 3836. The victories of his sons made the Jews independent of the Syrian monarch. The victories of Pompey the Great over Ti- granes gave the Romans a pretence, and a quarref which happened in 3940, between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, the sons of Alexander Janna?us, gave them an opportunity of interfering in the affairs of the Jews. From this time the Jews became sub- jects of the Romans. STEMMATA ASMON^ANA. MATTATHIAS dwelt at Modin, and took up arms against Antiochus Epiphanes. - I I I I .Tri->\-., JONATHAN SIMON ELEAZAR 3d son. succeeded Judas, succeeded Jonathan, died in battle. JOHN, snmanied HYRCANUS, succeeded Simon his father. r i ARISTOBULUS I. ALEXANDER J succeeded his father. succeeded ARISTOBVXUS. HYKCANUS. ARISTOBULUS IL ALEXANDER. ANTIGONCS. ^ I ARISTOBULVS III. called the noble Asmo- neean,as she lived to be the sole representative of that noble family. 56 HOR.E BIBLIC.E. When the Jews were carried captives to Babylon, the Edomites, or Idumceans, possessed themselves of the southern part of the lands occupied by the tribe of Judah. John Hyrcanus, the Asmonsean prince of that name, conquered them in 3875, and made them embrace the Jewish religion. Antipas, the grandfather of Herod, was an Idu- mcean Jew. Herod began his reign in 3967. He married Mariamne, the sole representative of the noble family of the Asmonaeans, and thence called by her contemporaries the noble Asmonaean. He enlarged, adorned, and in a manner rebuilt the temple of Zerubbabel. As it was built on the same foundation, and with the same materials, as far as they could be used, it was not considered as a new temple, distinct from that of Zerubbabel. In the thirty-third year of his reign, Christ was bora. The following year Herod died. STEMMATA IDUM^ANA. ANTIPAS. ANTIPATER. _J 2d daughter of Simon. ARISTOBULUS, Put to death by his father's orders a few days before his decease; which gave rise to the saying of Augustus, that he would rather be He- rod's swine than his child. HERODES PHILIPPUS, mentioned by St. Mark, vi. 17. Perhaps the same person as Philip the Tetrarch, men- tioned Luke, iii. i. ARCHELAUS, succeeded his father in Judfea, Samaria, and Idnmjea, under the title of Eth- narch, mentioned by Matthew, ii. 2. HERODES-ANTIPAS = to whom Christ was sent by Pi- late. AORIPPA I. St. Peterimprisoned in bis life-time. He put to death James, the brother of John. He was struck with death at the public shows. TT JB First the wife of Philip the letrarch, then of Herodes Antipas. SALOME, whose dancing pleaied Herodes Antipas, and prevailed on him to put St. John the Bap- tist to death. AGBIPPA n. before whom St. Paul pleaded. Acts xxvi. Dnrsvs. BERENICE, before whom St. Paul pleaded. the Proconsul, before whom St. Paul plead- ed. Actoxxiv. BIBLIC^E. The following is a catalogue of the High Priests, from the beginning of Herod's reign, till the final destruction of the temple. They had no heredi- tary right, but were set up and removed at the pleasure of Herod and his successors. Ananclus, Jesus. Simon. Josephus. Joazar. Eleazar. Jesus. Joazar. Anna or Annas- Ishmael. Eleazar. Simon. Annas, and Caia- phas his son-in- law, colleagues at the time of Christ's passion. Annas alone: Acts iv. & v. Jonathas. Theophilus. Simon. Matthias. ^Elionaeus. Joseph. Ananias, called by St. Paul a white wall. Ishmael. Josephus. Anna. Jesus. Jesus. Matthias. Phannias. Phannias was high priest when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Titus Vespasian. This was in the 7oth year of the Christian aera. Since that time the Jews have neither had temple, nor high priest, nor holy city. HOR^E BIBLIC^:. 59 VII. 2. With respect to the present state of the Jews, their history, from the death of Christ to the present century, has been ably written by Monsieur Basnage. It presents a scene of suffer- ing and persecution unparalleled in the annals of the world. Wherever the Jews have been esta- blished, they necessarily have borne their share of the evils of the age in which they lived, and the country in which they resided. But, besides their common share in the sufferings of society, they have undergone a series of horrid and unutterable calamities, which no other description of men have experienced in any age or any country. " What " have ye done, O ungrateful men!" exclaims Bossuet; " slaves in every country, and under " every prince, still ye serve not strange gods. " Why then has God, who chose you, forgotten " you? Where are his ancient mercies? What " crime, what atrocity more heinous than ido- " latry, has brought on you a punishment, that " even your repeated idolatries did not bring " upon you? Ye are silent! Ye see not what " makes your God thus inexorable ! Then recol- " lect the words of your fathers, Let HIS blood " be on us and on our children ; WE will have no " other King than Caesar. Be it so: the Messiah " shall not be your King, continue slaves of " Caesar, slaves of the sovereigns of the earth, " till the Church shall be filled with the Gentiles! " Then only shall Israel be saved." But while 60 HOR/R we reverence, in their sufferings and calamities, the prophecies which foretold them, so long before they happened ; while, in humble silence and sub- mission, we adore the inscrutable and unsearchable decrees of God, who thus terribly visits the sins of fathers on their children, we shall find, that, in judging between them and their persecutors, it is a justice due to them from us, to acknowledge, that, if on some occasions they may be thought to have deserved their misfortunes by their private vices or public crimes, it has oftener happened, that they have been the innocent victims of avarice, rage, or mistaken zeal. Res est sacra, m^er. Their sufferings alone entitle them to compassion j and our compassion for them should rise to an higher feeling, when, to use the language of St. Paul, (Rom. ix. 4, 5, and 6), we consider, ** that theirs was the adoption, the glory, the co- " venants, the law, the worship, the promise, " and the fathers, and that from them descended " the Christ according to the flesh, who is God " overall, blessed for ever" (Rom. xi. 26, 28); " that the hour approaches, when all Israel shall " be saved, when the deliverer shall come out of " Zion, and shall turn away ungodliness from " Jacob j" and that, even in their present state of rejection, " they are beloved of God, for their " fathers* sake." To the honour of the See of Rome, it must be said, that the Roman Pontiffs, with a small BIBLIC^E. 61 exception, have treated them with lenity, de- fended them against their persecutors, and often checked the mistaken zeal of those, who sought o to convert them by force. St. Gregory the Great always exhorted his clergy and the other parts of his flock, to behave to them with candour and tenderness. He repeatedly declared, that they should be brought into the unity of faith, by gentle means, by fair persuasions, by charitable advice, not by force: and, that, as the law of the state did not allow their building new synagogues, they ought to be allowed the free use of their own places of worship. His successors, in general, pursued the same line of conduct. The persecutions ex- cited by the Emperor Heraclius against the Jews, were blamed at the fourth council of Toledo, which declared, '* that it was unlawful and un- " christianlike to force people to believe, seeing " it is God alone who hardens and shews mercy " to whom he will." St. Isidore of Seville was a strong advocate for mild treatment of them. There is extant a letter from St. Bernard, to the Arch- bishop of Mentz, in which he strongly condemns the violence shewn them by the crusaders. At a latter period, Pope Gregory the IXth, a zealous promoter of the crusade itself, observing, that the crusaders in many places began their expedition with massacres of the Jews, not only loudly repre- hended them, but took all proper methods of pre- venting such barbarity. Pope Nicholas the lid 62 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. protected them, in his own dominions, even against the inquisition: and sent letters into Spain, to prevent their being compelled to abjure their re- ligion. Pope Alexander the Vlth, (a greatly injured character), received with kindness, and recommended to the protection of the other Italian states, the Jews who came to Rome or other parts of Italy, on their banishment from Spain and Por- tugal. Paul the Hid shewed them so much kindness, that Cardinal Sadolet thought him blameable for carrying it to an excess. By the bulls of Pius V. and Clement the VHIth, they are banished from the papal dominions, except Rome, Ancona, and Avignon. Pope Innocent the Xlth gave them several marks of his favour. " Popish Rome," says Barrios, " hath always *' protected the Jews, ever since Titus destroyed " Jerusalem." Of the state of the Jews during the middle ages, we have curious and interesting accounts by Benjamin of Tudela in Navarre, and Rabbi Pitachah ; two learned Jews, who, in the twelfth century, visited the principal cities of the East, where the Jews had synagogues, and returned through Hungary, Germany, Italy, and France. A wish to magnify the importance of their brethren, is discernible in the writings of both; and, for their extreme credulity, both are justly censured. But, after every reasonable deduction is made on these accounts, from the credibility of HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 03 their narratives, much will remain to interest even an intelligent and cautious reader. At different times, the Jews have been banished from France, from Germany, from Spain, from Bohemia, and from Hungary. We have particular accounts of the miseries of those, who were banished from the last of these kingdoms. They were banished from England in the reign of Edward the First, but were permitted to return by Oliver Cromwell. Numbers of them are settled in Persia, in the Turkish Empire, in Fez, Morocco, Barbary, in many parts of the East Indies, in some part of Germany, in some of the Italian states, in Poland, in Prussia, and the Hanse towns. Their condi-' tion is most flourishing in England and Holland ; but Poland is the principal seat of their literature. They have no accurate deduction of their descent or genealogy. They suppose, that, in general, they are of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, with some among them of the tribe of Levi ; but the Spanish and Portuguese Jews claim this descent, exclusively for themselves, and, in consequence of it, will not by marriage, or otherwise, incorporate with the Jews of other nations. They have sepa- rate synagogues j and if a Portuguese Jew should, even in England or Holland, marry a German Jewess, he would immediately be expelled the synagogue, deprived of every civil and ecclesias- tical right, and ejected from the body of the nation. They found their pretensions on a sup- 64 HOIUE BIBL1CJB. position, which prevails among them, that many of the principal families removed, or were sent into Spain, at the time of the captivity of Babylon. See the Reflexions Critiques, added to the second letter, in the incomparable collection, intitled, Lettres de quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands, et Polonais, ti M. de Voltaire. It is certain, that a large body of Jews is established in China ; the best account of them is in Brotier's Tacitus, vol. iii. p. 567. All Jews, say the authors of the Universal History, from Basnage, feel the dignity of their origin, recollect their former pre-eminence, with conscious elevation of character, and bear with indignation their present state of degradation and political subserviency. But they comfort them- selves with the hope, that their hour of triumph is at hand, when the long expected Messiah will come, will gather them from the corners of the earth, will settle them in the land of their fathers, and subject all the nations of the earth to his throne. VII. 4. With respect to the religious tenets of the Jews ; they are thirteen in number, and are as follows 1. " I believe with a true and perfect faith that " God is the Creator, (whose name be blessed), " governor and maker of all creatures, and that " he hath wrought all things, worketh and shall " work for ever. HOR/E BIBLIC^E. 65 2. "I believe with a perfect faith, that the *' Creator, (whose name be blessed,) is one, and " that such an unity as in him, can be found in " none other; and that he alone hath been our " God, is and for ever shall be. 3. " I believe with a perfect faith, that the " Creator, (whose name be blessed), is not cor- " poreal, not to be comprehended with any bodily " properties ; and that there is no bodily essence " can be likened unto him. 4. " I believe with a perfect faith, the Crea- " tor, (whose name be blessed), to be the first " and the last, and that nothing was before him, " that he shall abide the last for ever. 5. " I believe with a perfect faith, that the " Creator, (whose name be blessed), is to be " worshipped, and none else. 6. " I believe with a perfect faith, that all the " words of the prophets are true. 7. "I believe with a perfect faith, that the " prophecies of Moses, (our master, may he rest " in peace), were true. That he was the father " and chief of all wise men, that lived before him " or ever shall live after him. 8. "I believe with a perfect faith, that all the " law, which, at this day, is found in our hands, " was delivered by God himself, to our master " Moses, (God's peace be with him). 9. " I believe with a perfect faith, that the " same law is never to be changed, nor any VOL. I. F 66 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. " other to be given us of God, (whose name be " blessed). 10. " I believe with a perfect faith, that God, " (whose name be blessed), understandeth all the " works and thoughts of men: as it is written in " the prophets; He fashioneth their hearts alike ; " He understandeth all their works. 11. " I believe with a perfect faith, that God " will recompense good to them who keep his " commandments, and will punish those who " transgress them. 12. " I believe with a perfect faith, that the " Messiah is yet to come j and, although he " retard his coming, yet I will wait for him till " he come. 13. " I believe with a perfect faith, that the " dead shall be restored to life, when it shall seem " fit unto God the Creator, (whose name be " blessed, and memory celebrated world without " end, Amen)."* VII. 5. The doctors and teachers of the Jews have been distinguished by different appellations. Those employed in the Talmud were, from the high authority of their works, among the Jews, called Aemourdim, or Dictators. They were suc- ceeded by the Seburoim, or Opinionists, a name given them, from the respect which the Jews had for their opinions ; and because they did not dic- tate doctrines, but inferred opinions by disputation * Note I. HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 67 and probable arguments. These were succeeded by the Gheonim, or the Excellent ; who received their name, from the very high esteem, and even veneration, in which they are held by the Jews. They subsisted till the destruction of the academies of the Jews in Babylon, by the Saracens, about the year 1038. From that time the learned among the Jews have been called Rabbims, or the Masters. It is seldom, that a Jew applies himself to pro- fane literature. Even the lawfulness of it has been generally questioned. Some have greater respect than others for the Talmudical doctrines. In consequence of using in his writings some free expressions concerning them, a violent storm was raised against Maimonides. Kimchi, and, ge- nerally speaking, all the Spanish and Narbonnese doctors, took part with him. The others, led on by R. Solomon, the chief of the synagogue of Montpellier, opposed him. Both parties were equally violent, and the synagogues excommuni- cated each other. This dispute commenced about the middle of the twelfth, and lasted till nearly the thirteenth century. VII. 6. But the great distinction of the Jewish Rabbins is that of the Tanaits or Rabbanists and Caraites. The first are warm advocates for the traditionary opinions, generally received among the Jews, particularly those of the Talmud ; and for the observation of several religious ceremonies and duties, not enjoined by the law of Moses: F 2 68 HOR^E BIBLIC^T. the second absolutely reject all traditionary opinions, and hold all rites and duties, not enjoined by the law of Moses, to be human institutions, with which there is no obligation for a Jew to comply. Some writers consider the Tanaits, or Rabban- ists and Caraits, as Pharisees and -Sadducees, under other names. Hottinger, Thesaurus Philologicus, sen claris Scripturce, printed at Zurich in 1649, p. 26, says, " At nondum hodie expirasse Pha- " risasorum ordinem recenti et memorabili plane " historia probat Joh. Myll. Rabb. p. 71. Ego, -" existimo, nee Pharisaeos primis illis per omnia " aequales, nee Sadducaeos hodie in nostris oris, " (in orientalibus enim Climatibus sub Muhamme- " tismo prsesertim, multos delitescere Sadducaeos, " probare forte proclivius esset; vide Taarich Pers. " Schikh. p. 134, & Geog. Nubiens. Par. 7. " Clim. 3.) superesse: na^u^i/JWf tamen Phari- " S330S dici quos Rabbanistas melius vocaris ; Sad- " ducaeos, qui Karraei vulgo appellantur." In this general sense, the traditions in the Talmud, being now so extensively received by the Jews, Pharisaism may be considered the prevailing doc- trine i^the Hebrew religion. VII. 7. The Cabala is divided into three sorts: By the first, the Jews extract from the words of Scripture recondite meanings, which are some- times ingenious, but always fanciful. The second, is a sort of magic, in employing the words and letters of the Scripture, in certain combinations, & HORM BIBLIC^. 69 which, they suppose, have power to make the good and evil spirits of the invisible world familiar to them. The third, which is properly the Cabala, is an art, by which they profess to raise mysterious expositions of the Scripture, upon the letters of the sentences, to which they apply them. The whole is fancy and imagination. This, some even among the Jews, acknowledge. VII. 8. When Rousseau says in his Emile, " Je ne croirai jamais avoir bien entendu les rai- " sons des Juifs, qu'ils n'aient une etat libre, des " ecoles, des universites, ou ils puissent parler et " demeurer sans risque ; alors seulement, nous "" poui'rons s^avoir ce qn'ils ont a dire," he evi- dently writes on a subject, of which he is perfectly ignorant. At all times, the Jews have had schools, and numberless are the works they have published, in defence of Judaism, and against the Christian religion. The most celebrated of these are the Toledoth Jeshu, a work replete with the boldest blasphemy ; and the Chizzouk Emounah, or buckler of faith, a work of great ability. These and some other writings of the Jews against Christianity, are collected, and an ample refutation of them published, in the Tela Ignea Satance, of Wagen- seil, Altdorphi Noricorum, 1681. The Pugio Fidei of Raymundus Martinus is considered to be a learned and powerful defence of the Christian religion, against the arguments of the Jews; and, though it be not free from the literary defects of 70 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. the times in which it was written, it still preserves its reputation. The Arnica Collalio de veritate Reltgionis Christiana; cum erudito Judceo, of Lim- borch, and the papers published with it, form one of the most interesting and entertaining works of controversy, that have appeared upon any subject. La Croze's Entretiens sur divers sujets de I'his- toire, de literature, de religion, et de critique, Cologne, 1711, 8vo. contain a supposed dialogue between a Christian and a Jew, which gives some notion of the principal objections of the Jews to the Christian religion, and their manner of urging them. VII. 9. It is a mistake to suppose the Jews an intokr ant people. They hold all men obliged to observe, what are called the seven precepts of the sons of Noah. These are 1st, not to com- mit adultery; 2dly, not to blaspheme; 3dly, to appoint just and upright judges; 4thly, not to commit incest; 5thly, not to commit murder; 6'thly, not to rob or steal ; and ythly, not to eat a member of any living creature. But they hold the Jews alone obliged to conform to the Sinaitic covenant, or law of Moses. They say, it was a covenant between God and the Jews ; that the Jews therefore are bound to the performance of it ; but that it is not binding on the rest of mankind. Those, who forsake idolatry, and profess to follow the precepts of Noah, are called by them, Prose- lytes of the Gate ; and, while the Jewish govern- HOR^E BIBLIC-ffi. 71 ment existed, were permitted to live among them. Those, who take on them the observance of the whole law, are called Proselytes of Justice or Righteousness ; they are initiated to it, by ablu- tion, sacrifice, and circumcision; and are thence- forth considered to be Jews, for all purposes, except intermarriage, from which some nations are excluded for ever, others till after the third generation. VIII. With respect to the HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE HEBREW TEXT I VIII. i. It is observable, that no extensive collation of the Hebrew manuscripts of the sacred text was made till the last century. This was owing, in a great measure, to the notion which had been formed, of the integrity of the sacred text, in consequence of its supposed preservation from error, by the wonder-working Masorah. In the annals of literature, a more striking instance, perhaps, does not occur to shew, how unsafe it is to adopt received opinions without examination, than the general acquiescence of the learned in that opinion. The Rabbins boldly asserted, and the Christians implicitly believed, that the Hebrew text was free from error, and that, in all the manuscripts of it, not an instance of a various reading of impor- tance could be produced. " Qua latissime patent " oriens et occidens, uno ore, uno modo, verbum F4 72 HOR^ BIBLIC^E. " Dei legitur ; et omnium librorum, qui in Asia, " Africa, vel Europd sunt, sine ulld discrepan- (t tid f consonans harmonia cernitur." Such is the astonishing^ language of Buxtorf, in his Ti- berias. The first, who combated this notion in the form of regular attack, was Ludovicus Capellus. From the difference he observed between the Hebrew text and the version of the Seventy, and between the Hebrew and the Samaritan Pentateuch, from the manifest and palpable corruptions he thought he saw in the text itself, and from the many reasons, which made him suppose the vowel points and the Masorah were both a modern and an useless invention, he was led to question the general integrity of the text, and even his enemies allowed, that, in his attack upon it, he discovered extreme learning and ingenuity. Still, however, he admitted the uniformity of the manuscripts. When this was urged against him by Buxtorf, he had little to reply. At length, (what should have been done before any thing had been said or written on the subject), the manuscripts themselves were examined, and innumerable various readings in them discovered. From this time the Biblical criticism of the sacred text took a new turn : manuscripts were every where collated, were ex- amined with the same attention, the various readings of them were discussed with the same freedom, and their respective merits ascertained by the same rules of criticism, as had been before used in HOR^E BIBLIC/B. 73 respect to manuscripts of profane authors. The celebrated collation of Dr. Kennicott was begun in the year 1760. He undertook to collate all the manuscripts of the sacred text in England and Ireland; and, while he should be employed in this, (which he supposed might be about ten years), to collate, as far as the expence would admit, all the Hebrew manuscripts of importance, in foreign countries. The first volume was printed in 1776; the second, and only other, in 1780. Dr. Ken- nicott himself collated two hundred and fifty ma- nuscripts : under his direction, and at his expence, Mr. Bruns collated three hundred and fifty: so that the whole number of manuscripts collated, on this occasion, was six hundred. There is, how- ever, reason to suppose, that some of the manu- scripts were confounded and numbered more than once : on this ground it has been asserted, that the number of them should be reduced "to about five hundred and eighty. Dr. Kennicott mentions in his Preface several manuscripts, which it was not in his power to collate. It appears, that, in his opinion, fifty-one of the manuscripts collated for his edition were from six hundred to eight hundred, and that one hundred and seventy-four were from four hundred and eighty to five hundred and eighty years old. Four quarto volumes of various readings have since been published by M. De Rossi of Parma, from more than four hundred manuscripts, some of which are said 'to be of the seventh or 74- HOR^E BIBLIC.E. eighth century, as well as from a considerable num- ber of rare and unnoticed editions, under the title of Varies Lectiones Veteris Testamenti, ex im- mensd manuscriptorum editorumque codicum con- gerie, haustce et examinatoe^ Parma? , 1786. The matter, however, is far from being exhausted, particularly if the possible treasures of the East be taken into calculation. The consequence of these extensive collations has been, to raise a general opinion among the learned, 1st, that all the ma- nuscript copies of the Hebrew Scriptures now extant may, in some sort, be called Masoritic copies, because none of them have entirely escaped the rude hands of the Masorites : 2dly, that the most valuable manuscripts, generally speaking, are those, which are oldest, written at first without points or accents, containing the greatest number of real vowels, or matres lectionis, exhibiting marks of an accurate transcriber, and conforming most to the ancient versions, and, with regard to the Pentateuch, conforming most to the Samaritan exemplar and the Greek uninterpolated version: 3dly, that the Masoritic copies often disagree, and that, the further back they go, the greater is their disagreement from the present printed copy : 4thly, that the synagogical rolls disagree the least from the printed copies, so that they are of little value in ascertaining the text: (the late Dr. Geddes mentioned to the writer, that he would not change the smallest fragment of an old manuscript, of the HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 75 tenth age, for the finest synagogical roll in Eu- rope:) 5thly, from all this, they conclude, that the surest sources of emendation, are a collation of manuscripts and parallel places; a comparison of the text with the ancient versions, and of these with one another; grammatical analogy; and, where all these fail, even conjectural criticism. The merit of Dr. Kennicott's labours is generally acknowledged; his opinions on the state of the Hebrew text are generally received : and the high pretensions of the Masorah are generally rejected. Still, however, the ancient opinions have some advocates. They do not go so far as to assert, that a collation of Hebrew manuscripts is perfectly useless; but they think it may be prized higher than it deserves : that, when manuscripts of an earlier date than the Masorah are sought for, it should not be forgotten, that the Masorites had those manuscripts, when they settled the text; and what hopes can there be, they ask, that, at the close of the eighteenth century, after the He- brew has long ceased to be a spoken language, a Christian, so much of whose time is employed in other pursuits, and distracted by other cares, can make a better use of those manuscripts than was actually made of them, by the Masoritic literati, whose whole time, whose every thought, from their earliest years to their latest age, was devoted to that one object ; who lived among the people, and almost in the country, where the events, 76 HOILfc BIBLICM. recorded by them, happened, who saw, with their own eyes, the manners they describe, and daily and hourly spoke and heard a language kindred to that, in which they are written? But, if there must be a collation of manuscripts, then, say they, no manuscript written by any other than a Jew, or wanting any one of the before mentioned marks of authenticity, should be taken into account : and, trying the question of the integrity of the text by these, which they call the only authentic manu- scripts, no question, they assert, will remain of the perfect integrity, and perfect freedom from corruption, of the present text. Where it can be shewn, that the text of the Masorah is corrupt, the genuineness of the Bible reading may be doubted: but where there is no reason to impeach the Masorah, the text y as they assert, is beyond controversy.. Wolfius, Bibl. Hebraea, torn. ii. 332, boldly says, " Conger antur in cumulum, si quis " subnasci unquam potest, omnes varietates, et " omni ego pignore contender e ausim, eas magis " ad stabiliendam quam dubiam reddendam lec- " tionem hodie receptam inservituras esse." Opitius, in the last page but one of his Preface, says, still more confidently, " Quin, si vel omnes " impressi, vel manuscripti codices convenirent " in asserendd kctione quddam, contrarium vero " pronunciaret Masora, confidenter ejus secuti " sumus auctoritatem, si modo nobis constaret " illam esse genwnam." The same opinion is UOEM BIBLIC^E. 77 adopted by Tychsen, in his work already cited ; and to enforce it, appears to have been his chief object in writing that work. The Titres Primi- tifs of Fabricy, Rome 1772, contain much curious learning, urged with a considerable degree of in- genuity, in favour of the Masoritic system. Tantas non nostrum est componere lites. VIII. 2. With respect to the printed editions of the Hebrew Bible, those, which have appeared to deserve particular attention, are, the edition at Soncino, in 1488, from its being the first printed edition of the whole Bible ; the edition at Brescia, in 1494, from its being the edition used by Luther, in his translation; the edition printed in 1517, without the name of any place. These three edi- tions are called the Soncinates, being printed by Jews of a family, which came originally from Ger- many, and established themselves at Soncino, a town in Lombardy, between Cremona and Brescia. They were the first Hebrew printers. Some of them afterwards established themselves in Bologna, Brescia and Rimini. Their edition of 1488, as being the first printed edition of the whole Bible, is in great request ; there are not known to be more than nine copies of it in Europe ; one of them is in the library of Exeter college, in Oxford ; it is printed very incorrectly. Their edition of 1494 is less incorrect ; it contains many various readings, not to be found in the 7S HOR^E BIBLIC^E. subsequent editions; these often account for the differences in Luther's version. Bomberg's edition was printed five times, and is distinguished by the beauty of the type; but, not being divided into chapters and verses, is unfit for general use. The first of his editions was printed in 1518, the last in 1545: they were all printed at Venice, and are all in 4*. A person acquiring the fourth of them, would have a great typographical curiosity, as it is only known to exist from the title of the fifth. Robert Stephens' s i6 mo edition is most elegantly printed. It is in seven volumes, and was printed at Paris 1544 1546. He had before printed a 4" edition at Paris, in four volumes, 1539 1 544 Of that of Menasseh ben Israel, in 4*, pub- lished at Amsterdam, in 1635, father Simon ob- serves, that it has the advantage not only of being very correct, but likewise of being printed in two columns. The celebrated edition of Athias, a Jew, and printer at Amsterdam, was published in that city, first in 1661, and afterwards in 1667, with some corrections and a learned preface : it is remarkable for being the first edition in Hebrew, in which the verses are numbered. It was beautifully reprinted by Everardhus Vander Hooght, in two volumes 8 TO , 1705. Concerning this edition, Jablonski says in the preface to his own of 1696, p. 3, BIBLIC^E. 79 " Biblia ilia Athiae, nitidissima sunt : in literis " quidem perraro, in verbis frequentius, in voca- " libus ssepissime aberrare deprehenduntur." This edition has the general reputation of great accu- racy. Some have called its accuracy in question ; but the elegance of the type, the beauty of the paper, and the fine glossy blackness of the ink, cannot be denied. His text was adopted by Dr. Kennicott, in his edition. The Doctor observes, that the variations between the edition printed in 1488, and the edition of Vander Hooght, amount, upon the whole, to above twelve thousand. The states of Holland rewarded Athias's labours, with a present from them of a golden chain, and a golden medallion pendent from it. The Plantinian editions have considerable merit for their neatness and accuracy. The edition of Nunes Torres, with the notes of Rasche, was begun in 1700, was printed in 1 705, and has always been the favourite edition of the Jews. Most of the former editions were surpassed by that of Michaelis in 1 720, in octavo, quarto and folio ; the first critical, and a most useful edition, exhibiting various readings, not only in the conso- nants, but likewise in the vowels and accents. The editions, of which we have been speaking hitherto, are of the Hebrew alone, without any translation. The most celebrated edition of the Hebrew with a Latin translation, was that of 80 HOR^E ElBIACJE. Sebastian Munster. The first volume of the first edition was printed in 1534, * ne second volume in *535 > the second edition was printed in 1546. It was the first Latin translation by any of the sepa- ratists from the see of Rome. Santes Pagninus was the first of the communi- cants with that see, who made an entirely new Latin version. It was published at Lyons, in 1528, and has often been republished. That it is an accurate and faithful translation, all acknow- ledge ; that the Latinity is barbarous, cannot be denied ; but, as it was the author's plan, to frame a verbal translation, in the strictest and most literal sense of that word, its supposed barbarism was unavoidable, and cannot, therefore, be imputed to it, as a fault. With some improvement, and ac- companied by the New Testament in Greek, and the vulgate translation of it in Latin, it was pub- lished with notes in 1542, by the celebrated Ser- vetus. Arias Montanus printed it, with many corrections, in the Antwerp Polyglott: and this corrected translation has gone through a multitude of editions. Of these, the edition of Geneva in 1619 is the best. An edition, little known in this country, but, in many respects, highly valuable, is that, pub- lished by Lewis de Biel, a Jesuit at Vienna, in 1743, in four volumes large octavo. It contains the Hebrew and two Latin versions, that of the vulgate edition, in 1592, and that of Arias 81 Montanus. It is ornamented with vignettes, and the initial letters are on engravings, representing some fact of sacred history, to which the immedi- ate subject is applicable. The celebrated edition of the Rev. Charles Francis Houbigant, an oratorian, was published in four volumes folio, with a Latin version and prolegomena, at Paris, in 1753. The expense of printing this edition amounted to 35,ooo livres, though little more than three hundred copies of it were printed ; it is now become scarce. The pro- legomena and the Latin version have been printed separately. The merit of this edition is celebrated by all, who are not advocates for the Masorah : by those it is spoken of, in the very harshest terms. Several manuscripts were occasionally consulted by the author : but it is evident, that he did not col- late any one manuscript throughout. Mention has been already made of Dr. Kenni- qott's edition, and the subsequent labours of De Rossi. Prior to Houbigant's edition, was that of ReinecciuSj at Leipsic, in 1725, reprinted there in 1 739. A new edition of it was printed in 1 793, under the inspection of Dr. Doederlein, and Pro- fessor Meisner. It contains the most important of the various readings collected by Dr. Kennicott and M. de Rossi, printed under the text. For the purpose of common use, it is an excellent edition, and supplies the want of the splendid but VOL. i. G ftt HOR^E expensive editions and collations, of Houbigant, Kennicott and De Rossi. Those who extend their Biblical researches to the Chaldee Paraphrases and Rabbinism, are re- commended, by the learned in those too much neglected branches of Biblical literature, to the Bibtia Rabbmica of Bomberg and Burtorf, to the Biblia Rabbmica of Rabbi Moses, published at Amsterdam, in four volumes, folio, in 1724 1727 ; and particularly to that printed at Mantua in 1742 1744, by Rabbi Jediah Solomon Moses. It is in four volumes 4to. but little known ; and contains a collation of some ancient Manuscripts, and of the oldest printed editions of the Hebrew text, extracts from both the Thalmuds, the Me- draschim, the most ancient Jewish annotators, an excellent critical commentary, and much other useful matter. The purchasers of the Biblia Rab- bmica of Rabbi Moses should see, that the copy offered to them contains the treatise of the Rabbi Abdias Sporno, de Scopo Legis, which, in the copies designed for sale to Christians, is generally omitted. IX. IX. i. "With respect to the GREBK MANU- SCRIPTS, it should be premised, that there is no reason to suppose, that the Autographs, or Ori- ginal manuscripts of the sacred Penmen of the HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 83 New Testament, existed in the third century. See Griesbach, Historia Textus Epistolarum Pauli. Various readings of the New Testament were noticed as early as St. Clement of Alexandria : he remarks the double reading of ivharKptvoi, and x (a work of much more real importance than either), Doctor Walton's Introductio ad kctionem Linguarum HOR^E BIBLIC^. 9 orientalium, 8$c. London 1654, I^THO. reprinted with additions in the following year. This, to use Mr. Clarke's words, was the harbinger of the inestimable Polyglott. Inestimable the Polyglott certainly is ; and our wonder at the spirit and perseverance, with which it was conducted, will increase, if we recollect that it was begun and completed, in the midst of the public and private distress and dismay of the country, during the usurpation. That there is some incorrectness in the original texts, and some inaccuracy in the translations, must be admitted ; but those will readily excuse them, who know the minute attention required for collations, the weari- someness inseparable from such a task, and the inconceivable difficulty of a first translation from a dead language. Besides, we have now an abund- ance of materials for such a work, which Walton and his associates were not possessed of. " Who then," let us exclaim with Mr. Clarke, " is that Maecenas bishop, who will step forth, and " invite the clergy, the laity, and even the govern- " ment itself, to assist him in publishing a second " edition of the English Polyglott, as far superior " to the present, as that is to all other works of " the kind ? Let such an one shew himself, and " he shall not lack encouragement and support : " and may the hand of his God be upon him for " good!" H 2 100 HOR.E BIBLIC.3B. It is observable that in the first set t>f treatises forming the Apparatus Criticus, in the London Polyglott, there is an anonymous treatise, intitled, Explicatio Idiotismorum sen Proprietatum linguce Hebraicce et Grcecce quce scepius in scripturis occurrant. The author asks, in what manner the sense of scripture is to be determined : to this ques- tion he gives five answers. Over the Fourth and Fifth answers, a paper containing other Fourth and Fifth answers is pasted. The original Fourth and Fifth answers are expressed in the language of a Roman Catholic ; the Pasted Fourth and Fifth answers are expressed in the language of an High- church Protestant of the Church of England. Who was the Author of the Treatise is unknown. In the last page of sheet B of the preface, Doctor Walton says, " His annectimus variorum auctorwn " tractatus utilissimos, Edxvardi JBrerewood, Ja- " cobi Tyrini, fyc. fyc. de veterum nummis, " Hebrceis, Greeds, Latinis, et de ponderibus et " mensuris-, (quibus qucedam de variis siclorum " Jiguris eorumque explicatione exprojniis obser- " vationibus adjecimus} ; de Idiotismis etiam " prcecipuis et proprietatibus scriptures peculi~ " aribus." It seems, therefore, clear, that the treatise in question was not written by Walton; and, as it is mentioned in the last sentence, ' it was probably written by some unknown hand, included by Walton in the et cetera after Jacobi Tyrini* lor The Original Text is thus expressed. Quartd, ex traditions, vel interpretatione S. Ec- clesice, ex decretis conei$bhbn,''fael Surrimorum Pontificum, ex consensu SS^Pafrym' t iet;hQ?&rrel multorum vel paucorum, 'sdnctitate et eruditione prcelustrium, ex unanimi conspiratione Doctorum et Interpfetum, scepe constare potest de vero et Hterali sensu scriptures. Quinto, conferre antecedentia et consequentia cum loco, cujus sensus est dubius, plurimum juvat ad eundem elucidandum : et, si quidem omnia recte congruant, sensum habebis genuinum et literalem. Quod si omnia cum pluribus sensibus recte con- veniant, plures erunt loci illius sensus literales : et vel omnes ceque immediate intenti a spiritu sancto, vel unus primarid, vel alii secundario, sen mediant^ priore sensu, cujus quodammodo sunt appendices. Ubi hcec omnia adminicula vel desunt, vel non juvant, ex idiotismis Hebraicis Grcecisve, guosjam exposui, subsidia queer antur :, queer antur etiam ex decursu commentarii. Spero nullum Bibliorum locum non sat enodatum elucidatumve, quantum fert humani ingenii tenuitas, ab accurato lectore deprehensum iri. The Pasted Text is thus expressed. Quartd. Ex traditione, vel interpretattone S. Eccksice ex decretis concittorum, c. ex consensu H3 102 HOR^ BIBLIC^E. SS, Patrum, et horum vel multorwn vel paucorum sanctitate et eruditione prwlustrium, ex unanimi comp'iratione Doctorum et Interpretum, scepe constafie . potest- jfcfyfa et liter ali sensu sacrce Quinto. Conferre atitecedentia et consequentia cum loco, cujus sensus est dubius plurimum con- fert ad eundem elucidandum, 8$c. Ubi hcec omnia admmicula vel desunt vel non juvant, ex idiotismis Hebraicis Grcecisve, quosjam exposui, subsidia qucerantur* Every copy of the Polyglott examined by the writer or his friends has a Pasted text : lie has lieard that twelve copies, and twelve copies only, are without it. It is observable that some bibliographers and booksellers mention copies of Walton's Polyglott, which have a double dedication, one to the Pro- tector, the other to Charles the Second . this double dedication has been strongly denied ; and Mr. Clarke observes that " so far is a double ** Dedication from the truth, that the work has " no Dedication at all." This certainly is the case of all the copies which have fallen under the writer's observation : but, a literary gentleman has assured him, that he himself has seen a copy with the Dedication to Charles the Second. Such a Dedication may have been inserted in the copy presented by Walton to the king, and in a few more copies. BIBLIC^B. 103 The Leipsic Polyglott is comprised in three volumes folio, 1747, 1750, 1751. The first vo- lume comprises the New Testament : it was first printed at Leipsic, in 1713, folio, and reprinted, or perhaps only republished with a new title, in 1 747. It contains the Greek text between the Syriac and Vulgar Greek translations; Schmidt's Latin and Luther's German versions, with various readings from Mill and Kuster's editions ; Latin Notes, and a large critical Appendix. The two last volumes comprize the Old Testament : the text of it accord- ing to the Masoritic revision, with the points, the Septuagint from Grabe's edition of the Alexan- drine manuscript, corrected as far as could be, by Origen's asterisks and obeluses ; with a Latin translation of it by Schmidius,' and with Luther's translation, and notes of the various readings of the Vatican and other principal manuscripts, and with philological and explanatory notes. The cheap- ness of this edition makes it an useful substitute for the former Polyglotts. XI. The first -of the GREEK PRINTED EDITIONS of the New Testament, in point of time, was that of Erasmus, with a new Latin translation. He pub- lished five editions of it, in the years 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535. The edition of 1519 is most esteemed. The two last were altered in many places, especially in the Revelation of St. John, H4 104 HOILE BIBLICjE. from the Complutensian edition. A brief to Eras* mus from pope Leo the Xth is prefixed to it. Albertus, Cardinal and Archbishop of Mentz, writ him a most obliging letter, upon his edition, highly commending it, and desiring to see him. He sent him, with the letter, a golden cup, " amplum et, " grave," says Erasmus, " et opere spectandum. " Quin et nomen indidit. Ait vocari poculum " amoris, ex quo, qui biberint, protinus benevo- " lentia mutua conglutinari. Si vera sunt hasc, " utinam theologi Lovanienses ex ea mecum potas- " sent ante annos duos !" It is observable, that the Greek text of Erasmus latinises, or, in other words, is made to conform to the Vulgate transla- tion, even more than that of Complutum, against which he strongly urged the charge of latinising. TJiis edition involved Erasmus in a quarrel with the divines of Louvain, and with the Spanish divines, employed on the Complutensian Polyglott. The principal of these was Stunica, a man of real learn- ing. The controversy between him and Erasmus is instructive and interesting. In many instances Stunica had the advantage over Erasmus : but Erasmus had greatly the advantage over Lee, his English antagonist. We have mentioned Erasmus as the first editor of the Greek New Testament. The Compluten- sian edition was printed in 1514, two years before the first edition of Erasmus : but it was not pub- lished till 1517 j and Erasmus did not get a copy HOILE BIBLIC^E. 105 of it till 1522, after the publication of his third edition. De Missy, in his unfinished Essay on the Complutensian Polyglott, published at the end of the second edition of Bowyer's Origin of Print- ing, suggests that the Complutensian New Testa- ment was antedated " from a jealousy of the editors " of appearing as earlier editors of so notable a " work than Erasmus." This appears to deserve examination. The next edition of the New Testament in Greek, is that inserted in the Complutensian Poly- glott. The learned agree in wishing the editors had described, or, at least, specified the manuscripts they made use of. The editors speak highly of them : but this was, when the number of known manuscripts was small, and manuscript criticism was in its infancy ; so that, without impeaching either their candour or their judgment, their asser- tions, in this respect, must be understood with much limitation. It has been charged on them, that they sometimes altered the Greek text, with- out the authority of a single manuscript, to make it conform to the Latin. Against this charge they have been defended by Goeze, and, to a certain extent, by Griesbach and Marsh. The strongest proof in support of the charge is, that, after Stunica had reproached Erasmus in the bitterest terms, with his omission of the celebrated verse of The Heavenly Witnesses, * and Erasmus, with equal * Note II. 106 HOR,E BIBLIC^E. vehemence, had challenged Stunica to produce a single Greek manuscript in its support, Stunica did not cite one Greek manuscript for it, but per- sisted in arguing from the authority of the Latin. This, the late Dr. Travis, the zealous defender of the verse, owns himself unable to account for satis- factorily. The fate of their manuscripts has been already mentioned. The edition of de Colines, or Colinaeus, Paris 1534, 8vo. formed from manuscripts collected by himself, as we learn from Mill and Griesbach, in his Symbolce Criticce, was considered by the late Dr. Harwood, an excellent judge, to exhibit a more perfect text than any other edition. The editions of Robert Stepliem are next to be considered. It is observable, that, while almost every other art has, from the time of its first inven- tion, been in a state of gradual improvement to the present time, the art of printing, very soon after its first appearance, attained a degree of perfection, in many respects superior to its present state. Of this, the Greek editions of the New Testament by Robert Stephens, are a striking example. For exquisite beauty and delicacy of type, elegance and proper disposition of contractions, smoothness and softness of paper, liquid clearness of ink, and even- ness of lines and letters, they have never been surpassed, and, in the opinion of many, never equalled. Four editions of them were published by himself, in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551 j his HOR1E BIBLIC^E. 107 son published a fifth in 1 569 ; the third of Robert Stephens' s editions is in folio, and has the readings of sixteen manuscripts, in the margin ; the two first are in i6mo ; and, of those, the first is the most cor- rect. An address, by Robert Stephens, to his readers, beginning, " O mirificam regis nostri optimi et " prsestantissimi principis liberalitatem," is pre- fixed to them ; and from this has been given them the general appellation of the Mirificam editions. Their correctness is equal to their beauty. Till lately, an opinion generally prevailed, that the types were absolutely lost ; but in the Essai Historique sur forigine des characteres orientaux de I'impri- merie royale, et sur les characteres Grecs de Francois I", appelles communement Grecs du Rot, published by Mr. de Guignes, in the first volume of the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du Rot, it appears that the puncheons and matrices, used by Robert Stephens in these celebrated editions, are still preserved in the Im- primerie Royale at Paris. From the same work we learn, that in 1700 the University of Cambridge applied to the King of France to have a cast of the types ; that a proposal was made them on the part of the king, that in the title-pages of the works printed by them, after the words " typis academicis" there should be added, caracteribus Greeds e typo- grapheio regio Parisiensi : that the University refused to accede to the proposal ; and that, in con- sequence of the refusal, the negociation went off. 108 HOILE BIBLIC^E. The first edition of Beza was printed in 1565; he principally follows in it the third edition of Robert Stephens. He printed other editions in 1576, 1582, 1589, 1598. They do not contain, every where, the same text. In his choice of read- ings he is accused of being influenced by his Calvinistic prejudices. The celebrated edition of the Elzevirs was first printed at Leyden, in 1624. It was printed from the third edition of Robert Stephens : where it varies from that edition, it follows, generally, the edition of Beza. By this edition, the text, which had fluctuated in the preceding editions, acquired a consistency. It was generally followed in all the subsequent editions. It has deservedly, therefore, obtained the appellation of E ditto recepta. The editors of it are unknown. The celebrated edition of the Rev. John Mill was published at Oxford in 1 707, after an assiduous labour of thirty years. He survived the publication of it only fourteen days. He inserted in his edition, all the collections of various readings, which had been made before his time; he collated several original editions; procured extracts from Greek manuscripts, which had never been collated ; and, in many instances, added readings from the ancient versions, and from the quotations of them in the works of the ancient fathers. The whole of the various readings collected by him, are said, without any improbability, to amount to thirty thousand. He HOR& BIBLIC^E. 109 lias enriched his work with most learned prolego- mena, and a clear and accurate description of his manuscripts. He took the third edition of Stephens for his text. He shews the highest reverence for the Vulgate, but thinks slightly of the Alexandrine manuscript. His work formed a new aera in Bibli- cal criticism. It was reprinted by Ludolph Kuster, at Rotterdam, in 1710, with the readings of twelve additional manuscripts. While sacred criticism lasts, the learning, indefatigable industry and modest candour, of Doctor Mill, will be spoken of with the highest praise. The edition of John Albert Bengel, Abbot of Alspirspack, in the dutchy of Wurtemberg, was published in 1734. He prefixed to it his " Intro- " ductio in Crisin Novi Testamenti ;" and sub- joined to it, his " Apparatus Criticus Sf Epilogus." He altered the text, where he thought it might be improved j but, except in the Apocalypse, studi- ously avoided inserting in the text any reading, which was not in some printed edition. Under the text, he placed some select readings, reserving the whole collection of various readings, and his own sentiments upon them, for his Apparatus Cri- ticus. He expressed his opinion of these marginal readings by the Greek letters, , |3, y, , 1763, 4to. XIII. 8. The Russian or Slavonian version was made from the Greek. It is observable that, except the Arabians, no people has been so extensively diffused as the Sla- vonians ; they have spread themselves over all the countries between the Adriatic and the Frozen Ocean, and from the Baltic, over the whole length of northern Asia, to America. The most ancient copy of the whole Bible, in the Russian language, was written in the year 1499, in the time of the Grand Duke Wasiljewitch. But of the New Testament there are copies of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth cen- turies. A still more ancient manuscript of the New Testament was given by the Czar Iwan Wasil- jewitch to Garabunda, secretary to the dutchy of Lithuania ; it was written in the time of the Grand Duke Wlademir, who reigned from 972 to 1015. The oldest printed edition is that of Prague, in K4 136 HOR^E BIBLICuE. 1519. It has been since printed at Ostrog, in 1581; at Moscow, in 1663, 1751, 1756, 1757, 1 766, in folio ; in 1 759, in large octavo ; and at Kiow, in 1758, in folio. Accurate extracts from this version have been given by Professor Alter, in his edition of the Greek Testament, 8vo. Vienna, 1787 : but the best account of this version is given by Debrowsky in Michaelis, Oriental und exeget Biblioth. Th. viii. pp. 155 167. Concerning the Georgian Version, which was published at Moscow, in 1743, folio, the reader may consult a tract, Uber die Georgianische Lit- teratur, Vienna 1798, written by Professor Alter, who collated the version for Dr. Holmes's edition of the Septuagint. XIV. To obtain an accurate notion of what is called THE LATIN VULGATE TRANSLATION of the Scrip- tures, (a term often used inaccurately, when it is not particularly explained), it is necessary to enquire into the nature of the Latin versions, made before the time of St. Jerom, particularly the ver- sion called the Vetus Italica, or Itala, existing probably before the middle of the second century, and to consider the different versions published by St. Jerom, as they came immediately from his hands, as they were corrupted in the middle ages, and as they have been corrected and promulgated by papal authority. HOR^E BIBLICLE. 137 XIV. i. Two passages in different parts of the works of St. Augustine clearly shew the nature of the Vetus Italica, and the other Latin versions, prior to tlie time of St. Jerom. In his treatise de Doctrmd Christiana, lib. ii. cap. xi. St. Augustine says, " that the number of those, who had trans- " lated the Scriptures from the Hebrew into the " Greek, might be computed ; but that, the num- " ber of those, who had translated the Greek " into the Latin, could not. For immediately " upon the first introduction of Christianity, if a " person got possession of a Greek manuscript, " and thought he had any knowledge of the two " languages, he set about translating the Scrip- " tures." In another part of his works, Lib. ii. cap. xv. he says, " in ipsis interpretationibus, Itala " cceteris prceferatur y nam est verborum tenacior, " cum perspicuitate sentential" It should seem difficult to mistake the import of these expressions, yet they have given rise to much controversy. One .side, with a view to rob the Vulgate of all preten- sion, even to a remote affinity with the translation pointed at by St. Augustine, in this place, has, in stern defiance of all manuscripts and all printed editions, proposed to read "ilia" for "Itala;" and, (to make sense and grammar of the passage, of which the alteration in question, if it were to stand alone, would totally bereave it), to substitute " quae" for "nam," an emendation, certainly not of the gentlest touch. The other side, to exalt 138 HORJE BIBLICAL the Vulgate, has supposed it may be fairly inferred, from the passage in St. Augustine, that there was a version, which, having been first sanctioned by the Roman pontiff, was received by the whole Latin Church, and was generally used in the service of the Church. But this is carrying his words much beyond their natural import, as they certainly nei- ther express nor imply more, than that there was a version called the Italic, and that in St. Augustine's opinion, it ought to be preferred to all the other Latin versions. The high terms of commendation, in which St. Augustine expresses himself of the Vetus Italica, have raised a general wish, that it should be discovered and published, particularly as it might materially assist in ascertaining the read- ings of the Antehexaplar Septuagint version. The first publication of the kind is that of Flaminius NoUlius, printed at Rome in 1588, in one volume folio, under the auspices of Sixtus Quintus. But, as this work, which was reprinted in the London Polyglott, was intended only to be a Latin transla- tion of the Septuagint version, published in the preceding year by the same authority, and as there- fore no more of the Itala was adopted than what agreed with that version, while the rest was either supplied by Flaminius Nobilius himself, or from the Vulgate, without any distinction of the respec- tive parts, it can, with the exception of the notes only, be of little or no critical use. Of more value on this account are the editions of the Psalm*, HORJE BIBLJGtf:. 139 according to this version, published by Faber Sta- pulensis, in his Psalterium Quintuplet 1 , Paris, 1568, folio; by Joseph Maria Carus, Rome, 1683 ; by Cardinal Thomasius, 1697, also at Rome ; and by Blanchini, with other Parts, in his Prodromus, and in his Vindicice Canonicorum Scriptorum, Rome, 1740, folio. In 1695, Dom Martianay, the learned editor of the works of St. Jerom, (the first volume of which contains the Psalms and- Job, with Asterisks and Obeluses, ac- cording to this version), published at Paris, in octavo, what he supposed was the Vetus Italica of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and of St. James's Epistle. In 1743, Peter Sabatier published at Rheims, in three large volumes folio, his " Biblio- " rum sacrorum Latino? rer stones antiques, sen " vetus Italica, et cceterce qucecumque in codicibus " manuscriptis et antiquorum libris reperiri po- " tuerunt, quce cum vulgatd Latind et cum textu " Grceco comparantur." Where in his manu- scripts there were chasms, he supplied them from the Vulgate. He published a new edition of his work in 1749 1751. The last publication of the kind is by Father Joseph Blanchini, an orato- rian ; " Evangelistarium quadruples Latino? " versionis antiqtice, seu veteris Italica?, ex codi- '* cibus manuscriptis aureis, argenteis, purpureis, " alnsque plusquam millenarice antiquitatis, Roma?, " 1748," two volumes large folio. It contains five, or rather four manuscripts of a Latin version. UO HOR^E BIBLIC^E. In many places they differ ; and Blanchini's argu- ments, that the differences are merely errors of the transcribers, are, by no means, conclusive. It seems generally believed, that they are four distinct ver- sions. The value of the work is greatly enhanced by several learned dissertations, and curious plates. The various citations made in the Gospel by Christ, the Apostles and Evangelists, of passages in the Old Testament, are brought together, as they stand in the Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Vulgate and the old Italic, with a view of ascertaining the im- portant and much contested point, whether Christ, the Apostles and the Evangelists, cited them from the Hebrew or the version of the Seventy. It was printed at the expence of the king of Portugal, at the instigation of Cardinal Corsini, and, till Dr. Kennicott's Collation appeared, was thought the most splendid work that had issued from the press, during the present century. It is most earnestly wished, that a new edition of this and Sabatier's work were published in such a form as would make the price of them more suitable to the generality of readers ; and that, to the edition of Montfaucon's Hexapla, by Bahrdt, were added, as a supplemental volume, those which he has injudiciously omitted. A Latin translation, perhaps anterior to that of St. Jerom, is published by Dr. Kipling, with the Codex Bezae. That this and the other translations we have mentioned, may be anterior to $t. Jerom, all ttORJE BIBLICAL 1 41 allow ; that any one of them is the Vetus Italica, no satisfactory evidence, no convincing argu- ment, has yet been produced : but there is reason to suppose, that in the generality of these ver- sions, there is more of the Vetus Italica, than of any other. XIV. 2. The great multiplicity of versions, and the confusion which prevailed among them, were the motives which first urged St. JEROM to his Biblical labours. He began by correcting the Psalms ; but the people at large, being accustomed to their old version, could not be induced to lay it aside, in favour of St. Jerom's. He therefore pub- lished another edition. In that, he made few alterations in the text itself, but shewed, by obeluses and asterisks, where it differed from the Septuagint, or the Hebrew. From this last edition, and the old Italic, is formed the Vulgate edition of the Psalms, which is now used in the Roman Catholic Church. St. Jerom's original correction of the Psalms never came into public use. On the same plan, on which he made that correction, he cor- rected the Proverbs of Solomon, the Ecclesiastes, the Canticum Canticorum, the book of Job and the Paralipomena. He afterwards undertook, and executed with the greatest applause, a complete version into Latin of all the Old Testament. He translated also the New Testament from the Greek into the Latin. This translation, made by St. Jerom, of the Old Testament from the 142 HORjfc BIBLICjE. Hebrew, (including the books of Judith und Tobit, which he translated from the Chaldee), and of the New Testament from the Greek, is the origin or stock of our present Vulgate, except with respect to the Psalms ; which, we have observed, rests on St.'Jerom's second edition of the old translation. The genuine version of St. Jerom of the Old and New Testament, from a beautiful manuscript at Paris, was published there, in 1693, by Dom Martianay, and Dom Pouget, under the title, " S. Eusebii HieronymiStridonens. Presbyteri Operum Tom.I. sen Divina Bibliotheca antehac inedita, complec- tens Translationes V. et N. Testament^ cum ex Hebrceis turn e Greeds fontibus derivatas, in- numera quoque scholia marginalia antiquissimi Hebrcei cujusdam scriptoris anonymi, Hebrceas voces pressius expr'imentis. Prodit e vetustissimis MSS. codicibus Gallicanis, Vaticanis, 8$c. Studio et labore Monachorum ordinis S. Benedicti e con- gregatione S. Mauri. Parisiis apud Ludov. Boulland 1693, fol" This version has been reprinted in the edition of the works of St. Jerom, by Dominic Vallarsi and Scipio Maffei, at Verona, 1734 1742, in 11 volumes, folio. St. Jerom's version had the fate of many considerable works of genius : it had warm advocates, particularly among the truly learned ; and violent enemies, particularly among the ignorant. By degrees its merit was universally acknowledged, and it almost universally superseded every other version. Such was the HOR.E BIBLIC^E. US Vulgate translation, as it came originally from the hands of St. Jerom. XIV. 3. It did not escape the general fate of manuscripts during the middle age. Partly by the mistakes or errors of transcribers, partly by correc- tions made by unskilful persons, partly by alterations from the citations in the works of the fathers, and partly by insertions made in it by way of explana- tion, the text was exceedingly disfigured and corrupted in many places. One circumstance in particular introduced variations into every part of it. The old uncorrupted version was intermixed with it throughout. Cassiodorus, and after him Alcuin, used their utmost endeavours to restore the version to its pristine purity. The library of the College of Dominicans at Paris contained a manuscript copy of the Latin Bible, made in the thirteenth century, . by some French religious of that order. It is comprised in four large volumes in folio, and is written on fine parchment, in the half Gothic letter. By a regulation of the general chapter of the order held in 1236, directions were given, that all the Bibles of the order should be corrected and made to conform to that copy : and at a general chapter, held in 1748, a transcript of it was ordered to be made by the Students in the noviciat. The labours of Lanfranc, the archbishop of Canterbury, in procuring correct copies, both of the Old and New Testament, are mentioned by Baronius, Cave, Dupin and Wetstein. At the 144 HORJE BIBLICA. revival of letters, several persons of learning exerted themselves to procure a good edition of the Latin Vulgate. The chief editions of it published on this plan, are those of Robert Stephens, in 1540, 1545, and 1546; that of Hentenius, in 1547, accurately and elegantly reprinted at Frankfort on the Mayn, 1566, folio; and that of the Louvain Divines, 1573, in three volumes, both in octavo and duodecimo, reprinted in 1580, in quarto and octavo, with the addition of the valuable notes of Lucas Brugensis, by whom those editions were chiefly conducted. XIV. 4. It was afterwards revised and promul- gated by papal authority. The Council of Trent took the state of the versions into consideration. It declared the ancient and common edition should be considered the authentic edition ; and that the Bible should be printed as correctly and as expe- ditiously as possible, principally according to the Ancient and Vulgate edition. In consequence of this, it was published by Sixtus Quinlus, in 1590. He himself watched over the work with admirable attention and zeal ; he perused every sheet, both before it was committed to the press, and after it was printed off. The principal persons employed in this edition were, Cardinal Caraifa, Flaminius Nobilius, Antonius Agellius, Petrus Morinus, and Angelus Rocca. But his edition scarcely made its appear- ance, before it was discovered to abound with errors. The copies therefore were called in, and HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 145 a new edition was printed by Clement the VHIth, his immediate successor, in 1 592 ; and afterwards, with some variations, in 15,93. The difference be- tween the two papal editions is considerable. Dr. James, in his celebrated Bellum Papale, reckons two thousand instances, in which they differ ; Father Henry de Bukentop, a Recollet, made a similar collection, but denied the consequences which Dr. James professed to draw from the variations. Lucas Brugensis has reckoned four thousand places, in which, in his opinion, the Bible of Clement the VII Ith may be thought to want correction. Cardinal Bellarmin, who had a prin- cipal part in the publication of the edition, praised his industry, and wrote to him, that those con- cerned in the work had not corrected it with the utmost accuracy, and that intentionally they had passed over many mistakes. " Scias velim," says his eminence, " BibUa vulgata non esse a nobis " accuratissime castigata : multa enim de indus- " trid, justis de causis, pertranstmmus" When it is examined critically, it evidently appears the work of several hands. A scrupulous adherence to the text is observable in most parts of it ; but in some it is carried further than in others, and some- times it apparently leads to barbarous expressions, and absolute solecisms j as dominantur eorum repletce sunt nuptice discumbentium videns quo- mam (for quod} illusus esset a Magis noluit consolari benedixit eos ubi erugo et 'tinea VOL. I. L 146 HOfLE BIBLtC^E. demoliunt edunt, for ediderunt fructus suos, illuminare his, qui in tenebris, nihil nos nocebit, vapulabis multis. Other accusations of sole- cisms or barbarisms of a similar nature might be produced. Many of these expressions are defended by Father Filesacus, in his Versio sacrce Scripture? Latina Vulgata Defensa, published at the end of Father Tournemine's edition of Menochius. At any rate they do not detract from its general merit. Not only Roman Catholics, but separatists from the Church of Rome, agree in its praise. It is universally allowed, that it does not suffer in a comparison with any other version. Dr. Mill, whose whole life was spent in the study of the manuscripts and printed editions of the original and the translations from it, professes the greatest esteem for the Vulgate, and, in his choice of read- ings, defers considerably to it. Grotius speaks of it highly ; Walton and Bengel praise it much. In his Histoire Critique du Texte et des Versions du Nouveau Testament, Father Simon has pointed out its real merit. The Church of Rome treats it with the greatest veneration. Some divines have supposed it to be absolutely free from error, and that no one is at liberty to vary from it, in transla- tion or exposition. This is going to an extreme : the Council of Trent, in pronouncing it to be authentic, did not pronounce it to be inspired or infallible : but, where the dogmas of faith or morals are concerned, the Council must be con HORJE BIBLIC^E. 147 sidered to have pronounced it to be inerrant. In this decision every Roman Catholic must acquiesce, as he receives the Scripture from the Church, under her authority, and with her interpretation. See Natalis Alexander, de Vulgatd Scriptures 'versions, qucestio 5, utrum et quo sensu Vulgata editio sit authentica ; et qucestio 6, de sphalmatis et mendis qua, in Vulgatd versione Latind Bib- liorumjussu dementis VIII. emendatd, etiamnum supersunt, quce ecclesice auctoritate corrigi pos- sunt ; a note in Fabricy, Titres primitifs, T. II. p. 164. and Father Mariana's Dissertatio pro editione Vulgatd, published by Father Tournemine at the end of his edition of Menochius, a treatise which clearly proves that our ancestors were fur- ther advanced in Biblical criticism than is generally thought. Some Roman Catholic and even Pro- testant writers of eminence have contended, that, considering the present state of the Greek text, the Vulgate expresses more of the true reading of the originals, or autographs of the sacred penmen, than any Greek edition that has yet appeared, or can now be framed. Among the modern editions of the Vulgate, that printed by Didot, Paris, 1785, in four vo- lumes octavo, is particularly recommended by the neatness of its typography. L 2 us HOR;E XV. We now come to THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. XV. i. There are many Anglo-Saxon versions of different parts of the Old and New Testament. Of the Translation by the Archbishop Elfric, in 1 the tenth century, we have, of the Old Testa- ment, the Heptateuch, published by Edmund Thwaites, at Oxford, 1699, and, of the .New Testament, the Gospels only, by Matthew Parker, London, 1571, 4to. These were reprinted by Franciscus Junius and Thomas Marshall, at Do- drect, with the Maeso-Gothic Version, 1665, 4to. reprinted at Amsterdam, 1684. As this Anglo- Saxon version is supposed by some to have been made from the Latin version in use before St. Jerom, it is highly valued by those who are curious after the readings of the Old Italic. But Professor Alter, (Memorabil. VI. St. No. IX. and VIII. St. p. 185), considers it to have been made from the Vulgate, as the Anglo-Saxon ver- sion of the Psalms, published by Spelman, certainly was. An imperfect account of the former of these versions is given in the following work ; A Saxon Treatise concerning the Old and New Testament, written about the time of King Edgar, by Adel- fricus Abbas, published by William Lisle, London, 1623, 4to. which was afterwards reprinted with this title : " Diverse Antient Muniments, in the HOR^E BIBLICAL 149 Saxon Tongue, written seven hundred years ago, 1638. It may be added, that Elfric's translation is so very loose as to make it difficult to collect any ancient readings from it. XV. 2. The most ancient English translation is that of Wickliff. It was finished about the year 1367. It was revised by some of his followers. Both the original and the revised translation are still extant in manuscript : the printed copies of it are not uncommon. The manuscript copies of the latter are more rare than those of the former. XV. 3. The principal printed editions are, 1st, those of Tyndal and Cover dak ; 2d, the Genevan Bible, or the translations made by the English, who fled to Geneva, to avoid the persecutions of Queen Mary ; 3d, the Episcopal translation, made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, under the direction of Matthew Parker, the celebrated arch- bishop of Canterbury ; 4th, King James's Bible : it was printed in 1611, and is that, which is at present used in all the British dominions ; the original copy, with the manuscript corrections, is in the Bodleian library; 5th, the English trans- lations made by the Roman Catholics. The chief of these are, the Rhemish Testament, printed at Rheims in 1582. In the year 1589, Dr. Fulke, master of Pembroke- Hall, Cambridge, reprinted this translation, together with the Bishop's Bible, in two columns. It is a curious performance, and very much deserves the attention of those who 150 HOR^E BIBLKLE. study the subjects in controversy between the Ro- man Catholics and Protestants, particularly such as turn on Scriptural interpretation. The Doway Bible is printed in two volumes quarto, in 1609, 1610. It is said to be made from " the authentic Latin." A new edition of it was published in five volumes octavo, in 1750, by the late Dr. Challoner. Besides these, a translation in two volumes large octavo was published at Do way, in the year 1730, by Dr. Witham. It is enriched with useful and concise notes. XVI. It remains to observe a striking peculiarity of the Old and New Testament, its division into CHAPTERS AND VERSES. XVI. i. The division of the Hebrew text into chapters was made by the Jews, in imitation of* the division of the New Testament into chapters. But the chapters spoken of in this place must not be confounded with their Paraschioths or greater and less sections, into which, for the regular read- ing of it in the synagogue, they have divided the Pentateuch, a much more ancient division, and still retained in the rolls of the synagogue. Their division of the Old Testament into verses, was more ancient than the division of it into chapters, being probably of the same date as their invention of the vowel points. Much of the labour of the Masorites was consumed in calculating the verses, HORJE BIBLIC^E. 151 and their literal peculiarities. Thus they disco- vered, that the verses in the book of Genesis amounted to 1534; that its middle verse was the fortieth of the twenty-seventh chapter ; that the whole Bible contained twenty-three thousand two hundred and six verses ; that the Pentateuch con- tains two verses, all the words of which end with a Mem ; that three verses consist of eighty letters ; that fourteen verses consist of three words ; twenty- six, contain all the letters of the alphabet; one, contains all the final letters, &c. &c. XVI. 2. The ancients divided the New Testa- ment into two kinds of chapters. The TTAO, or larger portions, are written either in the upper or lower margin, and generally in red ink ; the xipaAaia, or small portions, are numbered on the side of the margin. They are clearly represented in Erasmus's edition, and in R. Stephens's edition of 1550. These chapters differ in different copies. The most celebrated, and one of the most ancient divisions, was that of Ammonius. From him it had the appellation of the Ammoniart sections. Eusebius retained them, and adapted to them his ten canons or tables. But by the example and influence of Cardinal Hugo de S. Caro, the old division was entirely laid aside in the Latin Church, and in Latin manuscripts : Greek manuscripts continued to be written with the old divisions to the end of the fifteenth century; when that, in present use, was adopted. Robert Stephens was L4 152 HOIUE BIBLIC^E. the inventor of the verses into which the New Testament is now divided. The division into chapters is sometimes liable to objection ; the di- vision into verses is still more objectionable: but it is now too late to reject them. In most of the later editions of note, the text is continued, with- out any distinction of verses ; but the verses are numbered in the margin. XVI. 3. The punctuation of the Bible is a modern invention. In the ancient manuscripts no marks are found, except a point and a blank space. The comma was invented in the eighth century ; the semicolon in the ninth ; the other stops were discovered afterwards. The spirits and accents are said to have been introduced by Aristophanes of Byzantium before the Christian aera ; but, unless the Codd. Vaticanus and Covilianus be exceptions, they are found in no Greek manuscript written before the seventh century. XVII. It should now be considered, WHETHER THE VARIOUS READINGS OF THE SACRED TEXT HAVE ANY INFLUENCE ON ITS PURITY OR AUTHENTICITY, OR IN ANY MANNER AFFECT ITS CLAIM TO DIVINE INSPIRATION. By the sacred text we do not here understand, the autograph or original manuscript, as it was written or dictated by the Holy Penman, but the general text of the manuscripts and printed copies of it, which are in our possession. HORjE BIBLIC^S. 153 XVII. i. To discuss this, it is necessary to ascertain what are various readings, and to form an exact notion of their nature and number. A various reading, in the most extensive sense of that word, is every reading, which differs from the text adopted by the writer. In one sense it is impossible to say of any various reading, or of any class of various readings, that it is absolutely un- important. For, though one person may think it unimportant, another may think it important : and though it may be of no value in comparison of the reading given in the text, it may have its weight in settling the value of the manuscript from which it is taken. It frequently however happens, that, when a various reading is to be weighed against the re- ceived text, the value of it sinks to nothing. 1st, Such are the various readings which evi- dently and unquestionably appear owing to the mistake of the copyist, as the reading of 0ap for Zapa, in Matt. ch. i. v. 3. 2dly, The same may be said of the various readings, which evidently and undeniably proceed from the copyist's wilfully departing from the text. They may be divided into those, which are de- signedly made for an improper purpose, as to impugn a truth acknowledged by the party himself; and those, which being well, but not wisely meant, may be said to proceed from honest bigotry. To alter the text, with a bad design, is certainly 154- HORJE BIBLIC^E. an heinous offence against religion and truth : no person, therefore, should be charged with it, unless on the strongest evidence. In the heat of con- troversy, the charge has often been made, and very seldom proved. Among other charges, which have been urged against the Jews, must be ranked that of falsifying the Hebrew text : but of this, St. Jerom, (Comment, cap. VI. Isaice, operum Tom. III. col. 64), and St. Augustine, (de civil. Dei, lib. XV. cap. XIII. Oper. Tom. VIII. col. 392), entirely acquit them. When the ancient fathers appear to accuse them of it, they will be found, generally speaking, to charge them with corrupting the Septuagint or wilfully mistranslating the text ; but not to charge them with altering the text itself. This Tryphon in his dialogue with St. Justin, professes to consider as equally criminal, with adoring the Golden Calf, a consecrating children to idols, making children pass through fire, or killing prophets. Where the alteration is made from honest motives, as from a notion of altering the text for the sake of improving it, if the altera- tion be held out, by the person making it, as part of the exemplar, he is evidently guilty of deceit, and deserves at least, that censure, to which pious frauds are justly obnoxious. Such are the altera- tions made by transcribers for the purpose of evad- ing an objection made to a fact or a sentiment expressed in the received text : as the alteration in almost all the manuscripts and printed texts, except HORM BIBLIC^E. 155 the Codex Cantabrigiensis, the Codex Cyprius, and the Vulgate of the owe aVaGa/Vw, John vii. 8. into OUTTW avaCai'w, to avoid the apparent contra- diction objected to this passage by Porphyry and other adversaries of Christianity. But, if the party himself confess the alteration, he may want dis- cernment, yet he is free from criminality. Still further removed from criminality are those, who, transcribing a version of the text, avowedly alter it, in their transcript, from a notion, that the sub- stituted word more faithfully or happily expresses the original. Such, in the Hebrew manuscripts, has frequently been the substitution of the Ketibh for the Keri ; and, in the Latin versions, the generality of the alterations made in them during the middle ages. 3dly, Equally insignificant are the differences which are found in the spelling of words, where custom allows of two modes of writing the same word. This remark applies particularly to Hebrew manuscripts ; where the vowel, diacritic, tonic and extraordinary points and the quiescent letters may often be inserted or omitted, at the writer's plea- sure, without affecting even the pronunciation of the word : or, at least, without affecting more than its pronunciation. 4thly, As unimportant are the various readings, produced from translations, where the words of the translation differ only in form, (as Gjesmard in the Persic version for T^ If av0W7n$ cuVox*a." This rendered into Latin, gives, " Gloria in altissimis Deo et in " terra pax in hominibus" (or rather, apud ho- mines) bona voluntas." Another reading is that adopted in the edition of the Latin Vulgate, iv Jtj/ifoi? 0w x tVi TJJ? yyg ilgrivn ai*9 WTOI? " Gloria in altissimis Deo et in '* terra pax hominibus bonce voluntatis." A third reading is produced by an alteration of the punctu- ation ; omitting the comma after " Deo," and placing it after " Terra :" tlie sentence will then stand, " Gloria in altissimis Deo et in terra, pax " hominibus bonce voluntatis." Thus there are, at least, three readings of this important text ; to these must be added the reading in the Roman Liturgy, and some Latin manuscripts, of " cxcelsis" for " altissimis:" but this is evidently a different version of the same word, and therefore does not affect the text. In each reading the sentence is most beautiful ; in each, it is such as angels might HOR^E BIBLIC-E. 159 sing, and heaven and earth rejoice to hear: but the sense of each is different. Now every person, to whom the Sacred Oracles are dear, must wish to have the true reading of the sentence, or the very words written by the Evangelist himself, ascertained. To come at this, it must be observed, that the chief variations lie in the omission of the " ii/" before " a'k9fVo?," and in the case of the last word, whether it should be read " *J he received great assistance from Mr. Bowyer's Origin of Printing. The nature of the work made it necessary to compress into a small compass what occurred to him, in favour of that persecuted and injured body of men, the Jews. On many accounts their gene- ral character entitles them to a high degree of esteem. Their charities to the poor of their own communion are immense ; their care to adjust their differences in civil concerns amicably among them- selves, is edifying : banks and bills of exchange, the two greatest supports of commerce, are of their invention. And let it not be forgotten, that if, on any account, they are justly censurable, our un- worthy treatment of them may have forced them into the very acts we censure. To what the writer 'has said on the authenticity of the Old Testament, he was chiefly led by Calmet, Huet, an excellent Discourse of Mr. Marsh on the authenticity of the Jive Books of Moses, and Mr. Hooke's Principia Religionis Naturalis et Revelatce, a work greatly admired on the con- tinent, for its elegance, precision, and solidity, and which- jdeserves to be printed in England. In writing ft, Mr. Hooke availed himself much of the labours of English divines, in support of natural and revealed religion, particularly that profound and useful book, Bishop Butler's Analogy. 188 HOIUE The diort view of the nature of the works written by the Jews against the Christian religion, was taken from a cursory perusal of WagenseiVs Tela ignea Satance, referred to in the body of the work. Dr. Kennicott's Dissertatio Generalis, his Dissertations on the state of the Hebrew Text, and the publications of De Rossi, furnished the writer with most of what he has said on the manu- scripts and printed editions of the Hebrew Bible ; and he received some assistance on this subject from Wakhlus's Bibliotheca Theologica Sekcta. What he has said on the Greek manuscripts, and printed editions, and the oriental versions, is chiefly compiled from Simon, Le Long, Calmet, Michaelis, his excellent Translator, and the Prolegomena of Walton, Mill, Wetstein, and Griesbach. In framing his account of the Antehieronyman versions, besides the writers mentioned in that part of his work, he had the advantage of the information so ably collected, and so agreeably conveyed, by Mons. Huet, in his learned and entertaining Dialogues De claris Interpretibus, and De optima Genere Interpretandi. They were also of use to him in every other part of his work, which treats of the versions either of the Old or New Testament. He is sensible, that his account of the English versions is very short ; but he begs leave to observe, that, as these versions throw no light on the state HORJE BIBLICjE. 189 of the text, the mention of them did not enter into the plan of his work, and nothing therefore called for a fuller account of them. In the parts of it, in which a short chronological account is attempted to be given of the history of the Jews, from their return from captivity to the birth of Christ, the writer was guided by Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History, one of the noblest efforts of the human mind. What is said on the religious credence and opinions of the Greek and Oriental Christians, is taken from Father Simon and Smith's Account of the Greek Church, from the more modern account of it by Dr. King, Goar*s Euchologion Grcecum, and the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, particu- larly the Letters written by Father Sicard, to whom Mr. Gibbon's wish, respecting Volney, " that he might travel all over the world," might have been applied with greater reason. In this article use was also made of the three following treatises, in the collections of Bollandus, Tractatus Prceliminaris Jo. Baptists Sollerii ad Tom. V. Junii, de Patriarchis Alexandrinis : Tractatus Historico-Chronologicus de Patriarchis Antioche- nis : Gulielmi Cuperi ad Tom. I. Aug. Tractatus Prceliminaris de Patriarchis Constantinopolitanis ab initio istius Cathedra? ad cetatem usque nostram, The title of Bollandus's Collection is, Acta Sanc- torum, quotquot toto orbe coluntur vel a Catholicis scriptoribus celebrantur* It evidently deserves to 190 HORjE BIBLIC^E. be more known in England, and to find a place in most of her great public libraries. The plan of this vast work was originally conceived by Father Ros- weide, a Jesuit. It was first carried into execution by Father Bollandus, of the same society. The two first volumes, comprising the lives of the Saints of the month of January, were published in 1643. It was continued by different religious of the same society, through fifty volumes folio, to the volume which extends to and includes the Saints celebrated by the Church of Rome on the seventh day of October. The lives of the Saints, and the various memorials respecting them, of which the body of the work is composed, form an immense mass of historical information. It may be said to relate chiefly to ecclesiastical history : but when the in- timate connexion between civil and sacred history is considered, this will not detract from its estima- tion, even with those whose attention is directed to civil history. All the writers engaged in this work are allowed to have possessed deep and extensive learning. Father Papebroch, who conducted it for forty-two years, is considered to have been a writer of the first strength j one of those superior men, who exist but once in a century ; or, as Scaliger called them, homines centenarii. The Spanish Inquisition, to its eternal disgrace, condemned the volumes which contained the months of March, April and May, as erroneous, offensive to pious ears, heretical and injurious to the Holy See, the HQRjE BIBLIC^E. 191 Dominicans and Cannes. Among other charges against the publishers of these volumes, it was alleged, that they* called in question the descent of St. Dominic from the noble family of the Guz- mans, and the descent of the Cannes from Elias. It is scarcely worth mentioning, that the sentence was revoked in 1718. The principal dissertations interspersed in the work have been published together, in three volumes folio, at Venice, 1749 1751, under the title, Thesaurus Ecclesiasticce AntiquitatiSy et sacrce et prqfance Eruditionis, in quo Dissertationis, Tractatus, Diatribce prcelimi- nareSy aliaque prcestantia Monumenta, quce a Jo. Bollando cceterisque Societatis Jesu Hagio- logis AntwerpiensibuSy in omnibus fere de Actis Sanctorum Voluminibus conscripta, sparsim occur- runty conjunctim exhibentur. Some of the late society, with the assistance, it is said, of two Bene- dictine monks, were employed on the work, in the Abbey of Tongerloo, near Antwerp, when the enemies of all that is sacred arrived there under the command of Pichegru. The last of the three trea- tises referred to contains some particulars of the famous Cyrillus Lucaris. Several curious facts respecting the hierarchy of the Greek Church in Russia and Turkey appear in Hofmanrfs Preface to the Catechism of the Greek Church, published by Mogila, the Metropolitan of Kiow, with the approbation of three Russian Bishops, his suffra- gans. It was afterwards approved with great 192 HOR^E BIBLIC^. solemnity by the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem; by the Bishops of Ancyra, Larissa, Chalcedon, Adrianople, Berrea, Rhodes, Methymna, Lacedemon and Chio ; and by several of the chief officers of the Greek Church in Constantinople. An edition of it in the Greek, Latin and German languages was published at Wratislaw, in octavo, in 1751. An ordinance of Peter the Great, of the Patriarchs of Moscovy and the perpetual Synod, declared it to express the religious credence of the Russian Church ; and that the doctrine of it should be universally followed and taught. In what is said on the inspiration of the Holy Writings, the author principally considered what has been collected on that subject by Dr. Doddridge and Calmet. He wished to see the treatise written on it by Jac- quelot, the powerful antagonist of Bayle : but he could not procure that treatise. Both Catholics and Protestants speak of it in high terms of commendation. END OF THE FIRST PART. HOR^E BIBLICLE. PART II. CONTAINING A CONNECTED SERIES OF NOTES ON THE KORAN, ZEND-AVESTA, VEDAS, KINGS AND EDDA. VOL. I. O \ViTH a view to impress on the memoiy, ihe result of some miscellaneous reading on different subjects, relating to THE KORAN, THE ZEND- AVESTA, THE VEDAS, THE KINGS AND THE EDDA, the books accounted sacred by the Mahometans, the Parsees, the Hindus, the Chinese and the Scandinavian descendants of the Scythians, the following notes were committed to paper. I. They begin with the Mahometans, and offer a short view of the ancient history of the countries conquered by Mahomet and his first dis- ciples, and the actual state of them, at that period. Under this head will be given some account of the ancient history, 1st, of Syria; 2 dly, of Persia; and 3dly, of Africa ; connecting the aeras, mentioned in the account of Syria, with the rise and fall of Nineve, Babylon, Rome and Constantinople, to which Syria was successively subject ; and the aeras, mentioned in the account of Persia, with the lead- ing events of Greece and Rome, antecedent to the same period ; and, in the account of Africa, shortly O2 196 HOR^ BIBLIC^E. pointing out the principal occurrences in the his- tory of that country, before its invasion by the disciples of Mahomet : II. Some mention will then be made of the .events which facilitated the conquest of the east by the religion and arms of Mahomet; these are, 1st, the political weakness of the western and eastern empires ; and 2dly, tha religious disputes among the Christians of the east : III. Some account will then be given of the rise and first progress of the Mahometan religion ; containing a view, 1st, of the Geography, 2dly, of the Early History of Arabia; 3dly, of the Hegira and the mode of computing it ; and 4thly, of the extent of the conquests made by Mahomet and his immediate successors : IV. Mention will then be made of the principal Mahometan states ; containing an account of the dynasties and fortunes, 1st, of the Universal Caliphs ; 2dly, of the Sul- tans and Sophis of Persia ; 3dly, of the Sultans and Mamlouc Governors of Egypt ; 4thly, of the Caliphs and Sheriffs of Morocco and the States of Barbary ; 5thly, of the Caliphs of Spain ; 6thly, of the Mahometan Princes, who have reigned in Hindustan ; and ythly, of the Ottoman Emperors : V. The irruptions of the Mogul Tartars under Gengiskhan and Timour into the Asiatic territo- ries, conquered by the disciples of Mahomet, will then be mentioned : VI. Notice will then be taken of some of the principal attempts of the princes of Christendom to repel the Mahometans j HOR/E BIBLICvB. 197 \nider this head mention will be made, 1st, of the Crusades ; 2dly, of the military orders established for the defence of Christendom against the Maho- metans ; and 3dly, of the most important victories which have been gained by the Christians over the Mahometans since the Crusades : VII. A view will then be given of the religious tenets and lite- rary history of the Mahometans ; comprising an account, 1st, of the creed, opinions, and rites of the followers of Mahomet ; 2dly, of the Koran ; 3dly, of the Sects of the Mahometans ; 4thly, of the Turkish Language j and 5thly, of Turkish Literature : VIII. A short view will then be offered of the actual extent and state of the coun- tries where the Mahometan Religion is professed : IX. Mention will then be made of the principal authors, from whose writings the account of the Koran has been compiled : Articles will follow, comprising some account of the Zend-Avesta, the Vedas, the Kings and the Edda. In perusing these sheets, the reader will de- rive much assistance from a Map, published by Mr. Wilkinson, with the title, " Eslam, or the " Countries, .which have professed the Faith of " Mahomet." T - With respect to the ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE COUNTRIES, WHERE THE RELIGION AND EMPIRE OF MAHOMET TOOK THEIR RISE: I. i . The modern word, answering to the country 198 HOR^E BiBLIC^E. called Syria, is Barr-el-sham, or the country to the left, with a reference to Mecca. It is bounded by the Mediterranean on the west, by the Euphrates on the east, and from north to south it fills the space between Cilicia and Mount Amanus, to a line which may be supposed to be drawn from Gaza to the desert. A chain of mountains runs through it from north to south, with many ramifi- cations : its most elevated point is the Lebanon, lender the Roman Empire it was divided into four parts, Commagene, Seleucis, or the Syria Pro- pria; Crele- Syria, or the hollow Syria, from its being inclosed between the Lebanon and the An- tilebanon, a mountain that runs parallel with it, and Phoenicia. Ccele-Syria contains Damascus, and the ruins of Palmyra ; Palestina was added to Syria in later times. The scripture informs us that Achaz, the king of Judah, being powerfully attacked by Razin the king of Syria, and by Phaceas, son of Romelias, the king of Israel invited Theglatphalasar, the king of Assyria or Nineve, to his assist- ance, and that he possessed himself of the Christ - greatest part of Syria 742 His son Salmanazar conquered Judaea, and carried the ten tribes into captivity to Nineve. Major Rennell, (Geography of Herodotus, sec- tion 15), has produced strong arguments to prove, that they were afterwards distri- buted in Media 7 21 HOEJE BIBLIC^E. 199 The Chaldaeans or Babylonians, under Asarad- don, who was the grandson of Salmanazar, and who united, in him the empires of Babylon and Nineve, completed the conquest of Syria, and sent the Cuthites, a people of Assyria, to inhabit that part of Palestine called Before Samaria; from it they took the name of Chri!it - Samaritans - - 677 Syria was conquered by Cyrus - 540 It continued part of the Persian empire till its overthrow by Alexander the Great - 330 On his decease it fell to Seleucus Nicator, the most powerful of his successors. From him, a long line of sovereigns of Syria, called the Seleucidae, proceeded : it ended in Antiochus Asiaticus. He maintained an unsuccessful war with Lucullus, and was totally conquered by Pompey. The kingdom of Syria, was part of the conquest, and thereupon made a Roman province - 63 On the division of the Empire between After the sons of Theodosius, it was annexed to Christ. the Empire of Constantinople - 395 It was the first of the conquests of the companions of Mahomet: they began the conquest of it in 632, and completed it in ten years - 632 It is to be observed, that, in the vocabulary of the Jews, the word Aram denoted all the country 200 HOR^E on the north of Palestine to Cappadocia, on the south, to the confines of Egypt and the Red Sea, and on the east, to the confines of. Media and Persia ; some have thought that, in the notions, of the Jews, it included Assyria and stretched beyond the Tigris. The word Elam denoted Persia and the countries further to the east. l. 2. Of the ancient kingdoms of the east, the history of none is more important than the Persian. " The Persian empire in general," says Sir William Ousely, " is properly called Iran. The " word Persia is derived from Pars, the name of " a province the most respectable, as being the " usual residence of the kings. The name in " modern compositions, is most commonly written " Fars after the Arabian manner.'* It is called Ariana in the Greek, Eriene in the Zendish lan- guage. It lay, north and south between Media and the Persian gulph, and between the Tigris to the west, and the Arianan countries to the east. There are few countries, of the geography of which our information is less accurate. Sir William Ousely's promised map of it is expected by the literary world with great impatience. It is supposed to have been founded by J Before Caiumarus, probably the king of Elam, Chnst - mentioned in the Scripture - - 890 His grandson, by his justice and excellent laws, obtained the name of Pishdad, or the HOR.E BIBLICjE. 201 legislator : from him, this dynasty acquired Befor works; the first seems to signify a prayer in honour of him to whom it is addressed ; the second, to denote the chiefs or first of every being, the beginning of the Vispered containing ad- dresses to them. The Izeshne and Vispered were recited at the same time, and perhaps the Vendidad was recited with them, so as to form, together, an office, resembling the liturgies of the church of Rome and the church of England, which consist of lectures and prayers from the sacred writings, and prayers introduced by the churches themselves. The Izeshne and Vispered are followed by the JeschtSy which consist of a variety of addresses, prayers and supplications to Ormuzd, and the other celestial beings, and commemorations of them. The Jescht of Ormuzd is remarkable for the very high terms, in which, in a dialogue between him- self and Zoroaster, Ormuzd describes his own power and glories. After the Jeschts, is the small and the great Si-rouze, or a collection of short prayers, addressed to the thirty heavenly spirits, who preside over the thirty days of the month. With the Si-rouze, the Zend-Avesta finishes. M. Anquetil du Perron has subjoined to it the Bozm-deheshj containing an account of the Cos- mogony of the Parsees : he considers it to be a translation from the Zend, and to have been composed towards the seventh century of the Christian aera. For our knowledge of these documents, we are VOL. i. u 290 HOR^ BIBLIC.E. indebted to M. Anquetil du Perron. We also owe to him much valuable information respecting seve- ral works, which throw much light on the theology of the Parsees. The first of these is the Eulma- Eslam, containing the answers made by a Parsee priest, to different questions put to him by some Mussulmaun doctors, about the 40th year of the JJegira ; the Modjmet-el-tavarikh, or the summary of histories, published in the year 1126: and the treatise of the religions of the East by Shahris- tani: with the last of these works Dr. Pococke and Dr. Hyde were acquainted. The document of most importance, on the religion of the Parsees, of which we were in possession before M. Anquetil du Perron's publication of the Zend-Avesta, was the Sadder, a book used by the Magi, containing an account of the laws and precepts of the Parsees ; it is divided into an hundred chapters, is written in the modern Persian, in verse, and is thought to have been composed by a Persian priest about the i6th century. VII. This leads to the important inquiry respecting the Authenticity of the works, from which M. An- quetil du Perron translated the compilation, pub- lisJied by him under the title of The Zend-Avesta. It is clear that he did not wilfully impose on the world, either a translation or supposed translation of a spurious original j that the books translated by HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 291 him really exist in a Zendish original j and that he endeavoured, to the utmost of his power, and pro- bably with success, to give a faithful translation of them. It is also clear, that, if they are genuine, they form a small part only of the original Zend- Avesta. Thus far, there is a reasonable degree of certainty : it is probable, that the original, from which M. Anquetil's compilation was framed, is of the highest antiquity ; that parts of M. Anquetil's compilations, particularly those which contain a dialogue between Zoroaster and Ormuzd, or in which Zoroaster repeats the information or pre- cepts he received from Ormuzd, are portions of the original Zend-Avesta; it is also probable, that other parts of it, particularly those, which are in the form of prayers or invocations, are of a later date than the Zoroaster assigned to the a?ra of Darius Hystaspes ; and it also is probable that the Zend-Avesta, in its present form, is as ancient as the Mahometan invasion of Persia; and it may, for some reasons, be assigned to the time of Ar- taxerxes the founder of the Sassanian dynasty. VIII. To obtain an accurate notion of the religion of the Parsees, it is necessary to consider their Mythology, Morality and Ceremonial. Under the name of Zerouane, or Time without bounds or beginning, they recognized a first and original Being. That by him and in him, they u 2 202 HOR.E BIBLIC^E. believed the universe to exist, appears sufficiently clear : but they seem to have considered him rather as a principle, giving motion to a machine, or an impulse of fate, than a real object possessed of wisdom, independence and energy. From him, Ormuzd and Ahriman proceeded ; each inde- pendent of the other, each possessed of the power of creation. Ormuzd is the Being absorbed in excellence, living in primaeval light, good in his essence, the cause of all good ; Ahriman was originally good, but, from envy against Ormuzd, became a Dew, that is, wicked ; was hurled down into darkness, is evil, is the cause of all evil : his throne is in Duzah's depths, the thickest dark- ness. Ormuzd formed mankind for virtue and happiness ; the malice of Ahriman plunges him in vice and misery ; whatever is good in the moral or physical world, is the production of Ormuzd ; all that is bad, is the production of Ahriman. The opposition of their nature produces a necessary conflict between them : twelve thousand years were to pass from the first creation of Ormuzd and Ahriman ; during the first 3,000 of them, Ahri- man was to remain inactive ; the conflict was then to begin, and during the next 3,000 years, Ormuzd was to have the advantage ; in the follow- ing 3,000 years, Ormuzd and Ahriman were to be alternately victorious ; in the last 3,000, Ahriman ws to prevail, till, at the end of them, Ormuzd was to gain the ascendant, and to obtain a complete HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 293 victory over Ahriman and his powers : but Ahri- man shall himself finally undergo a purgation in metallic fiery streams : he shall then be reconciled to Ormuzd, and join with him in singing praises to the Being of beings. To protect the beings he intended to create, from the attacks of Ahriman, Ormuzd created seven Amshaspands, or celestial beings, through whose ministry he should com- municate his favours to man ; he also created several celestial beings of an inferior degree called I zeds, of whom Mithra, the being of light, whose habitation is between the sun and the moon, is the most illustrious : the second, Korshid, the sun, great, immortal, the eye of Ormuzd, has four horses, and finishes his course in 365 days. Next to these, he created the Ferouers, or that part of every created being which partakes of the divinity, answering to the vous which the Greek philosophers called the superior or divine part of the soul, in opposition to the ^u^, its inferior or terrene part. Ormuzd also created the sun, moon, stars, and the four elements ; first the light, then the water which covered the whole earth, and was, by an heavenly wind, driven upwards, and formed the clouds ; then the earth. In the mean time Ahriman, was not inactive : he created a large number of evil and filthy beings called Dews or Dwes, Peries, Daroiyes and Darvands. From the continual conflict between good and evil spirits, arises the mixture of good and evil observable in the world, 294 HOR^E in which every Parsee considers himself as a soldier, under the banners of Ormuzd, engaged against Ahriman. With the evil spirits Ahriman attacked Ormuzd, and maintained against him a fight of ninety days, at the end of which, Ormuzd pronounced the Honover, or divine word, at the sound of it they fled back to their primaeval darkness : then Ormuzd created the Jirst ox ; it was detroyed by Ahriman ; from him Kaiomorts, or the first man, proceeded ; the Dews slew him, a tree sprung out of his seed, from which a man and woman arose, called Meschia and Meschtane. At first, they were pure immortal beings, and obedient to Ormuzd : but Ahriman was envious of their happiness : to seduce them, he assumed the form of a serpent, presented them fruit;, engaged them in conversation with him, and persuaded them he was the creator of the universe ; they believed in him ; their nature was corrupted, and their corruption infects all their posterity. Or- muzd supplies them with force sufficient to resist the attacks of Ahriman ; at their decease, if the good overbalances the evil they have done, they are, as an intermediate state, admitted to a para- dise of spiritual and temporal delights, proportioned to the degree of their respective merits ; if their evil actions preponderate, they are condemned to suitable suffering : but all this is temporal ; at the end of the 12,000 years, from the creation of Ormuzd and Ahriman, the time fixed by Zerouane HOR.E BIBLIC^i. 295 for the general resurrection, the former will be victorious j the harmony of the universe will be re-established, and mankind restored to virtue and eternal happiness ; the wicked must, however, first undergo a purification by passing through streams of metallic fire. The Morality of the Zend-Avesta is entitled to praise ; purity of word, action, and thought, is repeatedly inculcated ; an attention to truth is like- wise particularly enforced ; Ahriman is a liar and the father of lies. To multiply the human species, increase its happiness, and prevent evil, are the general duties inculcated by Zoroaster to his dis- ciples. Agriculture and the multiplication of useful animals are particularly recommended them : " He/' says Zoroaster, " who sows the ground " with diligence, acquires a greater stock of reli- " gious merit, than he could gain by repeating " ten thousand prayers." On the other hand, too great an attention to gain is reprobated in the strongest terms ; " There is not," says Zoroaster, " a greater crime than to buy grain and delay " selling it, till it becomes dear, that it may be sold " for a greater price." The disciple of Zoroaster is enjoined to pardon injuries, to honour his parents, and the king, (whose rights are all derived from Ormuzd, and who is on earth, what the first Am- shaspand Bahman is in heaven), to respect old age, to observe a general gentleness of manners, to practise universal benevolence. All ranks and descriptions 296 HORJE BIBLIC^E. of people are supposed to have their respective heads, in imitation of the hierarchy of Ormuzd, as the priests, people, and even the women, there being also female Izeds at the head of which are Sapandomad, Asching and Parvand. The king himself is likewise bound by the laws, at least in theory, though his decisions are irrevocable. Fasting, and to the men, celibacy are forbidden ; and, as far as may depend on themselves, the latter is discouraged in women : if a man's wife be not barren, one wife only is allowed him ; a marriage with his cousin-germ an is recommended to him, as an act particularly pleasing to Heaven. The Religious Ceremonial of the Parsees must take up a considerable portion of their time ; and, on many occurrences both of business and pleasure, press inconveniently upon them. Offerings are required, chiefly of clothes for the priests, and of flesh and fruits. The primitive word addressed by Ormuzd to Zoroaster partook of the divine essence ; to read arid study it incessantly is con- sidered by them a return due for so great a favour. The prayers of the Zend-Avesta often begin with an humble confession of sin or imperfection : they are addressed to the Time without bounds, to Ormuzd, the Amshaspands, the Izeds, the Fe- rouers, and the elements. Fire was considered by Zoroaster as the purest symbol of the Divinity, and the original element from which Ormuzd pro- duced all beings j he therefore enjoyned his disciples HORjE BIBLIC^E. 297 to keep up a perpetual fire, and to perform their devotional exercises in the presence of fire, and every supposed corruption of fire is forbidden under the severest penalties. To every act of devotion, purity of heart is necessary ; and to purity of heart, Zoroaster supposes purity of body greatly contributes ; with this view, he prescribed a multitude of minute observances ; for some of them, as their frequent washings, a reason may be found in the nature of the climate, or some other economical, or political, reason ; such is the in- junction to destroy a number of noxious animals, said to be produced by Ahriman, as tigers and scorpions ; and the prohibition of beef, as food, on account of its supposed unwholesomeness ; but many of them seem arbitrary and trifling ; the omission of them is declared to be a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the most important duties of morality, and only to be ex- piated by the heaviest punishment. Every thing, which related to religion or its concerns is placed under their priests ; they were formed into a re- gular hierarchy not unlike the hierarchy of the Christian church ; and are now, as they were formerly, divided into three orders ; large tracts of land were assigned for their support, and they were entitled to a tithe of all the property of their disciples. The most exceptionable part of the religious system of the Parsees is its religiou9 intolerance. 298 HOR^E BIBLIC^i. From its establishment under Darius Hystaspes, to its fall under Isdegertes, the last of the Sassanian dynasty, the exercise of every mode of religious worship, except that of Zoroaster, was prohibited throughout Persia, under the severest penalties ; and the Magi appear to have been disposed rather to increase than lessen the severity of the law. IX. What has been said may be thought to present some view of the History of the Persian Creed, during its two first periods, that which preceded, and that which began with Zoroaster ; from him, till Ardeshir or Artaxerxes, the first prince of the Sassanian dynasty, seven centuries elapsed, which may be assigned for its third period ; its 4th extends from that time to the overthrow of the Persian empire by the companions of Mahomet ; its fifth and last period reaches to the present time. The doctrines of Zoroaster soon attracted the attention of the Greeks. By an intercourse with the Greeks", such of the Magi as had a turn for these speculations, would naturally be led to accommodate the doctrines of Zoroaster to the polytheism of the Greek theology. The task would not be difficult : they would easily find in Ormuzd and Ahriman the subordinate deities of the Greeks ; and in the Zerouane or Time with- out bounds, a Jupiter, the eternal parent and sovereign of all. Their intercourse with the Jews HOILE BIBLIC^E. 299 would also have some effect on their religious be- lief; the sublime descriptions of Jehovah, with which the sacred writings of the Jews abound, would naturally rectify and exalt the conceptions of the Magian priest, and insensibly lead him to ascribe to his own Zerouane, or Time without bounds, the infinite power and infinite wisdom of > the God of Abraham, and to consider Ormuzd and the other celestial beings as his ministering angels. But whatever effect these sublime or ingenious speculations might have on a few philosophers, the Persian nation at large adhered to the religion of the Magi : its natural tendency however was planetary worship ; that insensibly gained ground in the nation ; it corrupted the ancient doctrines ; it gave rise to a multitude of sects ; all of them professed to revere the name of Zoroaster, and each claimed to be the only true observer of his doctrines. To put an end to these disputes, Artaxerxes summoned a general meeting of the Magi ; they are said to have met to the number of 80,000 : by successive operations they were reduced to 40,000, to 4,000, to 400, and ulti- mately to 7 : one of them drank three cups of soporiferous wine presented him by his brethren, fell into a long sleep, awoke, related his conference with the Deity, and announced to the king and Magi, the Deity's avowal of the divine mission of Zoroaster, and the authenticity of the Zend- Avesta. 300 HORM BIBLICjE. From that time, till its conquest by the Maho- metans, the whole kingdom of Persia was faithful to the doctrine of Zoroaster. It is a principle of the Mahometan religion to tolerate all religions which recognize the unity of God. In the eye of the Mahometans, the Parsees appeared to worship the sun and to worship fire : on this ground they destroyed the fire-temples and altars of the Par- sees, and insulted the Magi ; but they carried their persecution no further : by degrees, they allowed the Parsees the free enjoyment of their places of worship, on paying tribute. For several centuries the Pyraeums subsisted in Media and Bactriana ; and they still subsist in Kirman, Surat, Bombay, and the neighbourhood of Ispahan. HOR1E BIBLIC^E 30i. THE VEDAS. ADVANCING eastward from Persia, we imme- diately touch on HINDUSTAN, where, to use Mr. Lord's picturesque and accurate language, " a " people present themselves to our eyes, clothed '* in linen garments, somewhat low descending, " of a gesture and garb, we may say, maidenly " and well nigh effeminate, of a countenance shy " and somewhat estranged, yet smiling out a " glozed and somewhat bashful familiarity." The following lines may be found to give some notion, 1st, of the Geography ; 2dly, of the Ancient History of Hindustan ; 3dly, of the Ancient Philosophy of the Indians ; 4thly, of the Vedas, the books accounted sacred by the Hindus, and of several books held by them in great vene- ration ; and 5thly, some mention of the supposed ages of these writings. I. Considering Hindustan, in the very largest sense, in which that word is used, it answers to the India infra Gangem of the ancients : or the country bounded on the north by the Tartarian and Thibetian mountains ; on the south, by the sea ; on the west, by the Indus j on the east, by a supposed line extending to the north from the mouth of the Ganges. The country bordering 30'2 HOR.E BIBLIC^E. on the eastern side of the Indus made a part of one of the Satrapies of Darius Hystaspes ; but, speaking generally, the Indus was the easternmost boundary of the Persian empire, and all the country beyond it was divided into a number of kingdoms or states. II. Of the Ancient History of Hindustan, or any other part of the country to the east of the Indus, we know little. About 160 years after the reign of Darius Hystaspes, Alexander the Great ad- vanced, with his army into India : that point of the Hyphasis or Beeyah, where it receives the Setlege or Setooder, was the scene of the me- morable refusal of Alexander's army to follow him. On his death, Seleucus made himself master of the Persian empire ; and, turning his attention to India, sent Megasthenes, in the character of am- bassador, to Palibothra, the capital of the Prasii, or the country watered by the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges. After this, with the excep- tion of some occasional mention of accidental circumstances, which show the nature of the com- mercial intercourse of the Romans with the East, from the time they established their dominion in Egypt, history is almost silent on the subject of India, till the conquest of it by the Mahometans. To the ancient and high civilization of the in- habitants of India, sacred and profane history bear HOIUE BIBLIC^E. 303 ample testimony. The permanent singularity of their institutions is a circumstance peculiar to them ; the most early and most modern writers agree in giving the same account of the classes of society into which they are divided ; of their religious opinions, of their habits, morals, and manners. The classes of society among them, are 1st, that of the Bramins, the most noble or sacred tribe, and the only persons allowed to officiate in the priesthood ; 2d, that of the Khettre, or military men ; 3dly, that of the Bise, or merchants or tradesmen ; and 4thly, that of the Soodra, the husbandmen and menial servants. Beneath all these, are the Chandalahs ; they are held in utter detestation by the other tribes, and are employed only in the meanest and vilest offices. A curious account of these distinctions and their subdivisions, is given by Mr. Colebrooke, in his enumeration of Indian classes, in the fifth volume of Asiatic Researches. III. The Philosophy of the Indians was famous in Greece. From Strabo, Porphyry, Apuleius, Ar- rian and Palladius, we learn, that the ancients supposed the persons addicted to it were divided into sects, of which the Brachmans and Samanaans were the most famous. They are described to have lived in retirement, to have avoided any intercourse with mankind, to have abstained from 304 HOR^ BIBLIC^E. wine and animal food, to have practised great bodily austerities, and to have endeavoured, by assiduous prayer, meditation and abstraction from terrene objects, to raise themselves to an incessant com- munion with the Deity. They probably were free from idolatry, and appear to have aimed at a sub- lime simplicity, above visible objects and natural feelings. At a time, probably not much more recent than the reign of Darius Hystaspes, an Indian philosopher of the name of Buddha arose in India, or some of the adjacent islands. Com- paring what the Siamese, Chinese and Japanese relate of Sommonacodom, Fohi and Xaha, it is not improbable, that Buddha, Sommonacodom, Fohi and Xaha, was the same person ; that he was the author of a mythological system, which the initiated or adepts might, by emblematical ex- planation, reconcile with philosophy ; but, which, in the sense in which it was received by the people at large, was the very rankest idolatry. From this species of superstition the Hindus appear to be free ; but their religious system is equally objec- tionable : the author of it seems wholly unknown. The religious tenets of the Indians are com- prised in several books called Vedas. They are written in the Sanscrit, a language once general in Hindustan ; but which, after the invasion of it by the Mahometans, ceased to be a spoken BIBLIC^E. 305 language. All who have acquired the knowledge of it, mention it as the most copious and excellent language which has yet come into notice. The Vedas, and the language in which they are written, are held so sacred, that no sect but that of the Bramins is permitted to read the former, or learn the latter. The emperor Ackbar could not, either by promises or threats, prevail on the Bramins to disclose their religious credence. But their firm- ness has yielded to the courtesy and philosophical solicitations of the English established in Hin- dustan ; and we have the satisfaction to hear from Sir William Jones, that the Bramins are now as wiling to give, as the English to receive infor- mation on their religious tenets. Of this liberal disposition the English have availed themselves. It would be difficult to point out a period, during which, more valuable communications have been made to the literary world, than that which has elapsed since the first institution of the society instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the history of the antiquities of the arts, sciences, and litera- ture of Asia : * yet, without undervaluing in the slightest degree, the merit of their literary exer- tions, it may be doubted whether hitherto they have succeeded so much in fixing a complete and consistent system, respecting the sacred, profane, or philosophic history of Asia, as in showing the imperfection of the received opinions upon it. * See Note II. VOL. I. X 30G HOR^E The Vedas contain 100,000 stanzas, of four lines each : they treat of divination, astronomy, natural philosophy, the creation of the world, re- ligious, ceremonies, prayers, morality, and piety, and include hymns in praise of the Supreme Being, and in honour of subaltern intelligences. They are distinguished by the names of the Rik, the Yajur, the Sam, and the Atharvan * Vedas. The Hindus suppose that one of them came from each of the four mouths of Brama. Colonel Polier obtained a complete copy of them, and generously presented it to the British Museum.'}" From the Vedas are deduced the four Upa- vedas, called by the Hindus the Ayush, Gandarva, Dhanur and St'hapatya ; the first treats of medi- cine, and is supposed to have been delivered to mankind by Bramha Indra Dhanwantari, and fire other deities : the 2d treats of music, and is said to have been invented or explained by Bharata : the 3d Upaveda, composed by Viswamitra, treats of the fabrication and use of the weapons of war of the military tribe : the 4th, containing various treatises on the mechanical' arts, was revealed by Viswacarman. If the expression may be used, the Vedas are the scriptures, the Upavedas are the subscriptures of the Hindus. Six Vedangas or bodies of learning are derived from these sources ; they were written by different * See Note III. f See Note IV. HOIUE BIBLIC-ffi. 307 Jioly men, and treat of pronunciation, religious ceremonies, grammar, prosody, astronomy, and the difficult phrases in the Vedas. Subordinate to these are, 1st, the Pur anas, a series of mythological histories in blank verse, from the creation of the world to the supposed incar- nation of Buddha ; 2dly, the Dherma, consisting of various works relating to the jurisprudence of the Hindus ; and 3dly, the Dersana, consisting of several works on different subjects of their philosophy.* An extract from the Vedas has been published lately by M. Anquetil du Perron, under the title " Oupnekat" (id est, Secretum Tegendum) " opus ipsd in India rarissimum, continens an- " tiqnam et arcanam sen Theologicam et Philo- " sophicam doctrinam, e quatuor sacris Indorum " Libris, Rak Beid, Djejr Beid, Sam Beid, " Arthrban Beid, excerptam, ad verbum, et " Persico idiomate Sanskreticis vocabulis inter- " mlxto, in Latinum conversum, dissertationi- " bus et annotationibus dtfficiliora explanantibus " illustratum, studio et opera Anquetil du Per- " ron, Indicopleustce. Tom. I. and //. 4 to. " Argentorati et Parisiis." A much more intelligible, and, perhaps, a much abler translation of this work, made by Mr. Halhed, through the medium of a Persian translation, is de- posited in the British Museum. It is observable * See Note V. X '2 308 HORxE BIBLIC^E. that in the Retires Edifiantes et Curieuses, Ed. 1781, it is explicitly asserted, 1st, that the Vedas were in the hands of the missionaries : 2dly, that a copy of them was in the king of France's library : 3dly, that there was an Arabic translation of them. 13 vol. p. 394, 437. 14 vol. p. 6, 65. Father Pons's Letter, to which the last of these references is made, deserves a serious perusal.* Among the Dhermas or works of law, none are held by the Hindus in such veneration as the Institutes of Menu\ a system of religious and civil duties which the Hindus firmly believe to have been promulgated by Menu, the son or grandson of Brama. A translation of it has been published by Sir William Jones. For another work, we are indebted to Mr. Hastings. A noble spirit of enlarged policy prompted him to procure a code of the laws and customs of the Hindus. For this purpose he assembled Bramins from every part of the country, at Fort William in Calcutta: and, under his auspices, they composed, from the Vedas and other authentic books, a code of their laws and customs, in the Sanscrit language. It was tran- slated, with scrupulous accuracy, into the Persian ; and from the Persian, with the same scrupulous accuracy, it was translated, by Mr. Halhed, into English. It was published in 1777, under the title of A Code of Gentoo Laws ; or, Ordina- * See Note VI. HOR/E BIBLIC^E. SOO tions of the Pundits. From a Persian transla- tion, made from the original, and written in the Sanscrit language, 4/0. Lond. 1776. With the single exception of the Scriptures, it is the most valuable present which Europe ever received from Asia.* V. Several attempts have been made to discover the aura of the Jirst foundation of the Indian empire, and to settle the different ages of the publications we have mentioned. The most specious system, on these subjects, which has yet appeared, is that of Sir William Jones. He traces the foundation of the Indian empire above 3800 years from the present time ; the highest age of the Yajur Veda to 1580 years before the birth of our Saviour, or 100 years before the time of Moses ; and the highest age of the Institutes of Menu, to 1280 years before the birth of our Saviour. The opinions of M. Freret and M. Bailly are nearly the same : but Sir William Jones admits these to be the highest possible dates which can be assigned to the works in question ; and, in fixing the (eras of the Vedas and the Institutes of Menu, he does not speak of them as existing, at the period he assigns to them, in the form we now have them ; he considers them to have then been in a state of traditional exis- tence Such is the outline of Sir William Jones's * See Note VII. X 3 310 HOILE BIBLIC.E. system ; but it is impossible not to wish, that the facts upon which, on this and other occasions, he builds his premises, were established with more certainty, and that the conclusions he deduces from them were supported by inferences and arguments less nicely spun. The age of the Puranas is still more uncertain ; their pretensions to high antiquity seem powerfully attacked by Mr. Bentley, in his Dissertation, in the sixth volume of the Asiatic Researches, on the Surya Siddhanta : and his arguments indirectly affect the supposed high antiquity of the Vedas. Besides the geography of the Bramins is ad- mitted by all to be fanciful and absurd in the extreme. Now, if the Bramins could give so much loose to their imaginations in the severest of all sciences ; if they coujd be so grossly ignorant in things which lay perpetually before them, how much more extravagance and error must be ex- pected from them in the sciences of astronomy and chronology, as loosely as those sciences have ever been treated in India ? All, who take an interest in the advancement of useful or elegant learning, must anxiously wish that Asiatic literature should meet with every species of encouragement. Generally speaking, in literature as in commerce, the public is the best patron : and the adventurer seldom succeeds so well, as when he is left to his own exertions : but HORJE BIBLIC^E. 311 sometimes it happens that particular encourage- ment is necessary, and premiums, advances and bounties have their use. The infant state of Asiatic literature, the small number of those who can devote their time to its study, and the difficulty and expense attending its acquisition, seem to make this one of the cases in which the public should stimulate the exertion of the individul, by lessening the expense and smoothening the diffi- culty of his pursuits, and by multiplying the means of his success. A sum of money, the appropriation of which to such a purpose would be felt neither in England nor in Asia, and which would scarcely be discernible in an Indian budget, would, if judiciously expended in defraying the charges of scientific and observing travellers, in engraving curious and instructive objects of art, and particu- larly in procuring faithful translations of original works of acknowledged value, open to us, in a few years, the choicest treasures of the East. Such a measure would be worthy of the merchant kings, to whom exclusively, as the best managers of it for the public welfare, the British nation trusts her Asiatic trade. Under their auspices, the British arms have triumphed in almost every territory between the Indus and the Ganges, and each shore of the Peninsula is tributary to British commerce. That to deserve well of their country is their earnest wish, we all know ; now power or super- x 4 312 HOIME fluous wealth is seldom so well employed, as in the encouragement of those whose labours increase the knowledge, refine the taste, or elevate tjie genius of their countrymen : and if they are de- sirous of fair fame, they must be sensible that the most certain method of obtaining it, is to connect their names with great literary institutions, and to secure the gratitude of the artist and the scholar. HOIUE BIBLICjE. 313 THE KINGS. LEAVING Hindustan, we must take a north- easternly course, to arrive at CHINA, and consider the several books accounted sacred in that country. Something should be premised, 1st, on the origin and antiquity of its empire : 2dly, on the geogra- phical notions which the ancients entertained of it ; and 3dly, on the rise and progress of the intercourse between it and Europe. I. The origin and antiquity of the empire of China are among the questions, which have exer- cised, in a particular manner, the ingenuity of the learned. After much discussion, six things appear to be settled, with some appearance of precision : 1st, that the most probable opinion, respecting the origin of the Chinese, is, that China was first peo- pled from Hindustan : this is the universal belief of the learned of Benares, and is confirmed by a passage, cited for the purpose, by Sir William Jones, from the Institutes of Menu, a work, which, in a question of this nature, is of the very highest authority ; 2dly, that the first known seat of the Chinese is Chinsi, the most north-western province of the present empire of China ; 3dly, that, adopt- ing the chronology of the Septuagint, the a?ra of the Chinese empire may be fixed, with some latitude 314 HOFLE BIBLIC^E. of calculation, at 2500 years before Christ; 4thly, that, with the same latitude, its historical sBra may be fixed at 800 years before Christ ; 5thly, that the actual form and extent of the Chinese government, may be dated from the dy- nasty of Hane, 206 years before Christ ; 6thly, and that, to repel the invasion of the Huns, the celebrated Wall of China was built about a century before the accession of that dynasty. II. In respect to its Geography \ it already has been observed, that the geographical knowledge of the Greeks did not extend, in the north-eastern parts of Asia, much beyond the Imaus or Caff. The geographical knowledge of the Romans extended much farther ; their Serica regio probably was a part of the Scythia extra Imaum, and stretched from the Altai mountains, over the country of Chami, to Kantcheou in a north-western part of the province of Chinsi. Till d'Anville asserted a contrary opinion, modern geographers supposed the Sinarum regio corresponded with China: he asserted its correspondence with Cochin China. III. The ancient Roman historians are wholly silent on the subject of any political relations between Rome and China; the indefatigable in- dustry of M. de Guignes, (Mem. de I* Academic, HOR^E BIBLIC^T. 315 Tom. xjcxii. p. 355), has proved from Chinese writers, their occasional intercourse ; and Ptolemy, Ammianus Marcellinus, and other authors, show, that a considerable trade, in the article of silk, was carried on between China and the western parts of Asia and Europe. It was managed by caravans, some of which took a northern, others a southern route : the former passed over the Great Desert to Kashgar, where Ptolemy fixes the station of the merchants, qui ad Seres prqfisiscuntur ; thence, the caravans proceeded to Samarcand, and thence, through Persia, to Syria : the whole journey took up 243 days, but a great proportion of the commo- dity was purchased, in its passage, by the merchants of Nisibis and Armenia. The southern route took the caravans -through the mountains of Thibet, to the Guzzarat, where they were met by the mer- chants of the West. The commerce was also carried on by sea : the ships of the Chinese sailed from its eastern ports to Malacca, or to Achem, the promontory of Sumatra j and, when that was not the term of the voyage, they sailed on to Ceylon, the Taprobane of the ancients, where they were met by the merchants of the Persian Gulph and the countries adjacent. Such was the nature of the commercial intercourse between China and Europe, till the reign of the emperor Justinian, when silkworms were introduced into Europe. From that time, the intercourse between the countries gradually wore away ; and, at the end of 316 HOR^E BIBLIC^. a few centuries, Europe almost wholly forgot the existence, and even the name of China. The history of the introduction of the silkworm into Europe, is one of the most pleasing parts of Mr. Gibbon's work. IV. The first writer to whom, after that time, we are indebted for an account of China, is Cosmas Indicopleustes, or the Indian Navigator : he per- formed his voyage about the year 522 ; a valuable extract of it was given in French and Greek by Thevenot, (Relations Curieuses), and the whole of it was published by Montfaucon in his Nova Collectio Patrum. But the work of Cosmas Indicopleustes was soon forgotten, and Europe generally remained in igno- rance of China, till about the end of the 12th century, when John Carpin a Polonese friar, and Rubruquis a French friar, penetrated into it, and, on tljeir return, published accounts of it. In the following century, the travels of Marco Polo, in Tartary and China, made their appearance : what he said of China, was, at first, thought fabulous ; by degrees it was more favourably received, and insensibly obtained general credit. Soon after the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope, their ships reached China ; and they obtained leave to settle at Macao. Several priests of the order of St. Ignatius advanced into different parts of the HORJE BIBLICjE. 317 country : their knowledge of the arts and sciences recommended them to the court ; of this circum- stance they availed themselves to propagate the Gospel : an account of their labours, of their vicis- situdes of favour and persecution, and of many curious circumstances respecting the natural, civil and religious history of the country, has been pub- lished by them in several works, particularly their Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, of which Fonte- nelle said, that he had never read a work which answered better to its title. Of the general ac- curacy of those letters, and the works of father Du Halde and father Gaubil, the writer has often heard the late Sir George Staunton speak in the highest terms : his testimony is certainly of great weight ; and the writer avails himself with much satisfaction, of this opportunity of mentioning a gentleman, whose talents and unconquerable vigour of mind, rendered his country essential services on many important occasions, and whose many amiable and estimable qualities will long remain in the memory of his numerous friends, and are seen by them, with great pleasure, to survive in his son. The labours of de Guignes, the Fourmonts and Freret, are well known : an interesting account of the rise and progress of Chinese literature in Europe, is prefixed by Bayer, to his Museum Sinicum. 318 HOIUE BIBLICLE. V. All the works of literature which the Chinese have composed are divided by them into four classes ; 1st, that of Kings, or the Sacred Books ; 2d, that of Su or Che, or Books of History ; 3d, that of Tsu or Tse, or Books of Philosophy ; 4th, that of Feie, or Miscellanies. The Kings, or Sacred Books, answer to what we call theology: they are divided into two classes ; the first are five in number ; the Y-King, the Chou-King, the Chi-King, the Li-ki, and Tchun-tsieou. The Y-khig consists of horizontal lines, entire or cut, which are multiplied and combined into sixty-four different forms or po- sitions : they appear involved in impenetrable mystery, but some writers have affected to dis- cover in them the origin of all beings, the prin- ciples of natural history, and the harmony of the universe. The Chou-king contained the public annals of the nation : all that remains of it are fragments collected by Confucius ; his object in compiling them was to form a collection of the precepts and instructions given by princes to their ministers and subjects : a translation of it was published by father Gaubil. The Chi-king is a collection of poems on different subjects ; a trans- lation of it was made by father Gaubil, and pub- lished by M. de Guignes in 1770. The Li-ki contained the civil and religious ceremonial of the HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 319 Cliinese ; all that remains of it is an extract of it published in the reign of Ham, about 200 years before the Christian aera. The Tchun-tsieou is a work of Confucius which contains the annals of twelve kings, who reigned in Lou, his native country. A work, ranked among the sacred books, called the Yo-king on the subject of music, for- merly existed, but it is wholly lost. Thirty other works are called Kings ; they are held in great respect, but are not deemed sacred. The second class of the sacred books of the Chinese consists of the Su-Chu, or the four Books: they are moral writings composed by Confucius or his disciples. Many commentaries have been written, and many dictionaries have been composed, to facilitate the intelligence of the sacred books. " They " contain," says father Premare, (Lettres Edif. et Cur. Tom. 21, p. 218. Ed. 1781), " the " whole of the Chinese religion. In the funda- " mental doctrines of them may be found the *' principles of natural law, which the ancient " Chinese received from the sons of Noah : they " teach the reader to know and reverence the " Supreme Being. Like the Patriarchs, under " the unwritten law, the emperor is both king " and pontiff: to him it belongs to offer, af " certain times of the year, sacrifice for his people; " to him it belongs to prescribe ceremonies, to " decide on doctrines. This alone can be called 320 HORJE BIBLIC^E. " the established religion of China ; all other sects " are considered by them to be extraneous, false, " and pernicious, and are only tolerated. The " Christian religion was declared lawful by a public " edict; in a subsequent reign it was proscribed." The whole of father Premare's letter deserves to be read : it is entitled to all the praise bestowed by Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, I. 8, ch. 31), on the letters of father Parennin and father Mairan. BIBLIC.E. 321 THE EDDA. CONSIDERING the great attention which the learned of Europe have bestowed on the anti- quities of the North, it may be a matter of sur- prise that Icelandic literature, and particularly the EDDA, has been so little the subject of their in- quiries. Something will be said in this place,* 1st, of the Ancient History of Iceland ; 2dly, of the Edda in general ; 3dly, of the Edda of Saemund ; 4thly, of the Edda of Sriorro ; and 5thly, a short view will then be given of the Mythology of the Edda. I. It is probable that Iceland was originally peopled from England or Ireland. Of its history, till it was discovered by the Norwegians about the middle of the gth century, we know very little. It is said that the Norwegians found in it some vestiges of Christianity: in 981, a Saxon bishop, of the name of Friederick, attempted its conver- sion ; he was not favourably received, but, after much opposition, the whole nation was converted to the Christian faith, about the eleventh century. The lutheran religion was introduced into it by Christian III. in 1550. In respect to its litera- ture, the learned generally divide it into four stages : according to them, its infancy extended to VOL. I. Y 322 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 1056, the year assigned to the final establishment of Christianity ; from that time till the year 1110, when their schools and seminaries for learning o were first instituted, its literature is said by them to have been in its youth ; then its manhood began, and lasted xtill the 14th century, when it fell to decay. In the second and third of these periods, while the greatest part of Europe was almost buried in ignorance, literature is said to have been cultivated in Iceland with great success. II. To the Icelandic literati we are principally indebted for what we know of the Edda. The learned are not agreed in their opinion, either of the meaning or etymology of that word. In a general sense it may be used to denote the ancient songs or memorials, either in the Icelandic lan- guage, or in any of the ancient languages of Scan- dinavia, which express the mythology of the North, concerning Odin and his companions. In a jiiore limited sense it is used to denote two publications, the Edda of Saemund and the ol juaplvpouvjf? Iv 1w oupavw, o xai ourot o Eighth Verse : fAUplvfOVvltf \V 1>J yJ, 10 \A\c/h V/t\* \c^~ /1\r/ xa 10 udwp, xoci Jo ai ( u,a : x.ai 01 /pK V fo. re-printed fa 1719, 1757. An answer to Mr. Martin's critical dissertation, on i John, v. 7. London, 1719, 8t'o. Reply to Mr. Martin's examination of the answer. London, 1720. Martin also met with an able adversary in Ccesar de Missy, a native of Berlin, French preacher in the Savoy, and French chaplain at St. James's, the author of Four Letters against the genuine- ness of the verse, inserted in the 8th and Qth volumes of the Journal Britannique. 378 HOR.& BIBLIC^:. [Appx. The "Bible de Fence, published at Paris, about the middle of the last century, Tom. xiii. p. 5, contains a candid, learned and sensible Dissertation in favour of The Verse. The author cites in it, Ketneri Dissertatio hujus loci, Dissertatio sin- gularis-, Roger, Dissertatio Critico-Theologica, in hunc locum. Paris 1713. A regular attack upon The Verse, was made by Dr. Benson, a presbyterian divine, in his Paraphrase of the Gospels, 2 vol. 4to. 1756. Sir Isaac Newton is the author of a treatise against the genuineness of The Verse. It made its appearance, under the title of, Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc 1754, reprinted from a manuscript in the possession of Dr. Ekins, dean of Carlisle, in the fifth volume of Dr. Horsley's late edition of Sir Isaac Newton's works. They are written with the force, candour, and perspicuity, which might be expected from Sir Isaac Newton. The English opposition to The Verse, in this stage of the controversy, is respectably closed by Mr. Bowyer, the learned printer's Conjectures on the New Testament, London, 4to. 1781. In the mean time, The Verse had been the subject of much controversy in Germany. Some mention of the principal works which there have made their appearance on this subject, may be found in the note on St. John's first Epistle, in Schmidius 9 s Historia Antiqua et Vindicatio ca- nonis sacri veteris novique Testamenti, Lepsice, HOR;E BIBLICJE. 379 $vo. 1774, an excellent publication of the high Lutheran School ; in Bengel's Gnomon, 2 vol. 4/0. TubingK 1773 ; and in Michaelis's Intro- duction to the New Testament, translated by Mr. Herbert Marsh, vol. 4. c. 21. Michaelis, had, at first, declared himself an advocate for The Verse, in his Vindicice plurium lectionum codicis Greed Novi Testamenti adversus Whistonum et ab eo latas leges criticas, Halce 1751 ; but, afterwards, became one of its most powerful opposers, in his Historical and Critical Collections, relative to what are called the proof passages, in dogmatic theology. 3-. This leads to the third stage of the contro- versy : in the n8th iSlote to the 37th Chapter of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (4 vol. p. 545, 4to.), Mr. Gibbon as- serts, that " The Three Witnesses have been " established, in our Greek Testament, by the " prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of " the Complutensian editors, the typographical " fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens, in the " placing a crotchet ; or the deliberate fraud or " strange misapprehension of Theodore Beza." This note was attacked by Mr. Travis, arch- deacon of Chester, in three letters, in the Gen- tleman's Magazine of 1782. He printed them, with two others, in a separate publication, in quarto, in 1784, and reprinted the five, with considerable further additions, in octavo, in 1786. To these, Mr. professor Porson replied in several letters, published in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1788, 80 HOFUE BIBLIC^E. [Appx, 1789. In the Magazine for January I79s another letter, on the subject, appeared from Mr. Travis. Mr. Porson replied to it, in the Magazine of the following month, and soon afterwards, all Mr. Person's Letters, with additions, which increased their number to twelve, were published in one octavo volume, -an eternal monument of his un- common erudition, critical sagacity and wit. In 1 794, Mr. Travis republished his letters, with considerable additions ; he took no particular no- tice in them, of Mr. Person's letters to him, but professes to answer, one after another, the argu- ments of other distinguished opponents of The Verse. In 1 795, Mr. Herbert Marsh published a series of letters to Mr. Travis, entitled Letters to Mr. archdeacon Travis, in vindication of one of the Translator's notes to Michaelis's intro- duction, and in confirmation of the opinion, that a Greek Manuscript now preserved in (he public Library of the University of Cambridge is one of the seven, which are quoted by Robert Stephens, at i John, v. 7. with an Appendix, containing a review of Mr. Travis 's Collation of the Greek MSS. which he examined at Paris : an extract from Mr. Pappelbaum's Treatise on the Berlin MS. and an Essay on the Origin and Object of the Velesian readings. By the Translator ofMichaelis-, Leipsig and London, 1 795. The principal object of Mr. Marsh's letters was, as the title expresses it, to vindicate his assertion, in one of his notes to his translation of Michaelis's introduction, that the Greek manuscript referred Appx.] HORjE BIBLIC^. 381 to in the title of his book, is one of the seven, which are quoted by Robert Stephens, at l John, v. 7 : but his letters abound with most learned, ingenious and profound remarks on almost every point, which comes into consideration, in the discussion of the genuineness of The Verse. Mr. Clarke has lately circulated among his friends, an interesting pamphlet on the subject of The Verse, with this title, Observations on the Text of the Three Divine Witnesses, accompanied with a Plate, containing two very correct Fac- similes of i John, Chap. V. verse 7, 8, and 9, as they stand in the Jirst Edition of the New Testament, printed at Complutum, 1514, and in the Codex Montfortii, a Manuscript marked C. 97, in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. By A. Clarke, Manchester, 1805. It is to be hoped he will put it into public circulation. Such have been the principal stages of this con- troversy : the following may be found to contain a distinct view of the principal arguments used by the combatants in support of their opinions. IV. THE first object of the enquiry, is to ascertain WHETHER THE GENERAL SENSE OR IMPORT OF THE TEXT, IS ASSISTED OR INJURED, BY THE INSERTION OR* OMISSION OF THE VERSE. The ascertainment of this fact, will establish a strong argument for or against the internal evidence of the text. This is an enquiry of some nicety ; the $82 HOR^E BIBLlCjE. [Appx, verse is obscure, is susceptible of more than one construction, and the partisans of each opinion, have attempted to fix that sense on it, which best suits their cause. This much must be granted, that The Verse is not absolutely necessary to the sense of the text. Without it, the text will stand as follows. " Who " is he that overcometh the world, but he, who ** believeth that Jesus is the son of God ? This " is he, who came by water and blood, even Jesus ** the Christ ; not, by the water only, but by the " water and the blood. And it is the Spirit who " witnessed : because the spirit is truth. Thus " there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, " and the water, and the blood ; and the three " agree in one." Whatever be its right construction, the sentence is compleat and perfect in itself. Jesus, the Christ, is the person to whom testimony is borne ; the spirit, the water, and the blood, are the witnesses bearing testimony to him. Thus without further aid, the construction and meaning of the sentence are compleat. The Verse therefore is not essentially necessary to the text. V. i. ERASMUS has been stated to have made the first attack on The Verse. At that time, from its general insertion in the manuscript and printed copies of the Latin text, the universal opinion of the Latin church, was in its favour. The text of Appx.] HOIME BIBLIC^. 38S these copies had been adopted by the spiritual and temporal courts, appealed to in disputes, taught in the schools, and praised and commented on by the learned men of every state, within the Latin pale. Prescription therefore, if prescription be pleadable in these cases, was in its favour. 2. If we believe the opposers of The Verse, the introduction of The Verse, was first owing to the spiritualization of the 8th verse by the African fathers, which became common in the 4th century: The Verse gained little ground till the 8th ; and was universally receivedgfor genuine in. the 12th. It is remarkable, thaiPnot the slightest vestige of opposition to it, is discoverable, in the works of those times, which have reached us ; nothing, which intimates, that, even a suspicion had been entertained of the genuineness of The Verse. 3. Here the communicant with the see of Rome takes an higher ground. The council of Trent, Session 4, declared anathema to all, " who should " not receive for holy and canonical, all and every " part of the Books of the Old and New Testa- " ment, as they had been accustomably read in the " Catholic Church, and as they stood in the old " vulgate edition : " And in the sixth session, de- clared " the Vulgate to be authentic, and that no " one should, on any pretence, dare or presume to " reject it." Now, when the Council of Trent made this de- cree, The Verse had long been accustomably read in the catholic church, and long made a part in the old vulgate edition ; those, therefore, in com- 584 HORJE BIBLIC/E. [Appx. munion with the see of Rome, who now reject The Verse, fall within the council's anathema. f To these objections the adversaries of The Verse reply : 1st, That, in the times of which we are now speaking, there was little of biblical criticism, and that no works of those times have reached us, in which such an objection either would be made, or would be noticed. 2dly, That, before too great a stress is laid on its insertion in the Vulgate, an accurate notion should be formed of the edition denoted, in these cases, "by the appellation of the Latin Vulgate. It does not denote the edition, anterior to St. Jerome, which, from its superior celebrity, was called the Ancient Italic ; it does not denote the edition pub- lished by St. Jerome ; it merely denotes that edition, which, at the time of the council of Trent, was generally in use ; and afterwards served as the ground work of the editions published, first by Sixtus Quintus, afterwards by Clement the eighth, and which last edition is the archetype of the modern Vulgate : that this edition partook more of the modern, than of ancient versions j and, that stand- ing by itself, it is, in a matter of criticism, of no authority.' 3dly, -To suppose, that, the council of Trent pronounced the Vulgate to be wholly free from error, and that no; one was at liberty to vary from it, in translation^ or 'exposition, is going to an ex- treme. In declaring it to be authentic, the council did not declare the Vulgate to be inspired or HOR;E BIBLIC^E. sss infallible ; the council only pronounced it to be inerrant, where the dogmata of faith or morals are concerned. In this decision, every roman-catholie must acquiesce, as he receives the scripture from the church, under her authority, and with her interpretation : but further than this, the council leaves the Vulgate in mere matters of criticism, to the private judgment of every individual. To this effect, father Salmeron, who was one of the ten first disciples of St. Ignatius, and who assisted at the council of Trent in the character of one of the pope's theologians, is cited by the abbe de Vence, to have expressed himself in the third of his prolegomena. In this stage of the argument, Bossuet takes very high ground, in one of his letters to Leibniz, pub- lished by Mr. Dutens, in his edition of Leibniz's works ; as, in that letter, Bossuet seems to place the general acquiescence of the Roman-catholic hurch, in the authenticity of The Verse, among the traditions which the church receives, and the faithful are therefore bound to adopt. As every thing, which has fallen from the pen of that great man, is important, and the passage in question is little known, it is here transcribed at length. " J'avoue au reste, Monsieur, pe que vous dites " des anciens exemplaires Grecs sur le passage, " Tres Sunt, fyc. mais vous scavez aussi bien que " moi, que Particle contenu dans ce passage ne doit " pas etre pour cela reVoque en doute, etant " d'ailleurs etabli, non-seulement par la Tradition " des Eglises, mais encore par 1'Ecriture tres VOL. I. C C 384 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. [Appx. " evidemment. Vous scavez aussi sans doute, que " ce passage se trouve recu dans tout 1' Occident ; " ce qui paroit manifeste, sans meme remonter " plus haut, par la "production qu'en fait S. Ful- " gence dans ses Ecrits, et meme dans une " excellente Confession de foi presentee unanime- " ment au Roi Huneric par toute 1'Eglise " d'Afrique. Ce temoignage produit par un aussi " grand Theologien, et par cette scavante Eglise, " n'ayant point e"t6 reproch6 par les h^retiques, " & au contraire etant confirm^ par le sang de tant " de martyrs, et encore par tant de miracles, dont " cette Confession de foi fut suivie, est one d&non- " stration de la Tradition, du moins de toute " 1* Eglise d'Afrique Pune des plus illustres du " monde. On trouve meme dans S. Cyprien une " allusion manifeste a ce passage, qui & pass6 *' naturellement dans notre Vulgate ; & confirme " la Tradition de tout T Occident. Je suis, &c. " J. Benigne, Eveque de Meaux." Such is the state of the argument, so far as the authenticity of The Verse depends on the general prepossession, in its favour, before the impression of the Greek original. It certainly imposes on the adversaries of The Verse, the obligation of attack. The following are their principal arguments against its authenticity, and the principal answers to them. V'L THEY say, that ihere is hardly a library in Europe, in which the Manuscripts of the Greek Appx.] HOR^E BIBLICjE. 385 Testament have not been examined, in order to determine, whether The Verse really proceeded from the pen of St. John : and that the result of this long and laborious examination is, that, of all the Greek manuscripts of the catholic epistles, now extant, of which more than a hundred have been quoted by name, independently of those which have been quoted in the aggregate, (as where Dr. Griesbach, professor Birch or professor Alter speak, at large, of all the manuscripts they have seen), the passage has been discovered in one manu- script only, the Codex Montfortianus, which is neither of sufficient antiquity nor of sufficient in- tegrity, to be intitled to a voice in a question of sacred criticism. This, the advocates of The Verse generally ad- mit ; but reply that, though no such manuscript be now extant, there existed formerly Greek manu- scripts, which contained The Verse, for which they cite those, which were in the possession of Valla, the Complutensian editors, and Robert Stephens. VII, With respect to THE MANUSCRIPTS OF VALLA ; the advocates of The Verse assert, that Valla had seven Greek manuscripts of the 1st Epistle of St. John, and that all his manuscripts exhibited The Verse, They observe, that it was his plan to mark, in his annotations, those passages, in which the Vulgate receded from the Greek : that he takes no notice, in his annotations, of the omission of c c 2 386 HOELE BIBLIC^E. [Appjc. The Verse, in any of his manuscripts ; from which they infer, that it was contained in them all. The adversaries of The Verse reply, that we are ignorant of the number of manuscripts which Valla used, and of his plan of annotation : that, though it be probable he had seven Greek manuscripts, which exhibited St. John's Gospel, ch. vii. v. 29, where he expressly mentions that number of manuscripts, it does not appear, and it is highly improbable, he should have the like number of Greek manuscripts of the ist Epistle of St. John: that The Verse might have been wanting in the Latin text, with which he made his collation ; that he might studi- ously have avoided a remark, which, in the country and the times in which he lived, might have ex- posed him to persecution : that it is highly probable that some or other of his manuscripts have been quoted under different titles : that no manuscript contains The Verse, and that, of course, there is the same probability of none of his manuscripts having contained it, as there is that we are now in posses- sion of some or other of his manuscripts. From these circumstances, the adversaries of The Verse infer, that nothing near to a conclusion in its favour can be drawn from his silence respecting the passage in his manuscripts. It is observable 'that Mr. archdeacon Travis objects heavily to Erasmus, that, when he was pressed by Lee, with the contents of Valla's manu- scripts, he attempted to bear him down by other arguments, but did not deny that The Verse was to Appx.] HOILE BIBLICvE. 387 be found in the manuscripts of Valla, which manu- scripts the archdeacon asserts, were in Erasmus's possession. But the archdeacon appears to have been mistaken in this supposition : Erasmus was the editor of Valla's commentary ; but it no where appears that he was in possession of Valla's manu- scripts, and he himself asserts the contrary. Such are the obligations of literature to Erasmus, that men of letters should eagerly rise in his defence, whenever they think he is unjustly accused. VIII. With respect to THE MANUSCRIPTS USED BY THE COMPLUTENSIAN EDITORS : The Polyglott Bible, printed at Alcala or Complutum, under the patronage, and at the expense of cardinal Ximenes, was begun in 1502 ; the whole impression of it was finished in 1517, and published in 1522. It is certain that the cardinal spared no expense in procuring manuscripts ; but, whether he had any that were truly valuable, has been much doubted. The Verse has its place in this edition ; from which its advocates infer, that it was exhibited by all, or at least the greatest part of the manuscripts used by the Complutensian .editors. This inference is denied by the adversaries of The Verse. They contend, that, from the deference, which the Com- plutensian editors had for the Vulgate, they were honestly persuaded, that The Verse was genuine, and therefore inserted, and thought themselves war- ranted in inserting in their text, a translation of it from the Latin. This, they say, appears clearly c c 3 388 HOnM BIBLIC^. [Appx. from the dispute between Stunica and Erasmus : the former, in the bitterest terms, reproached the latter with the omission of The Verse, in his printed edition : Erasmus, with equal vehemence, chal- lenged Stunica to produce a single Greek manu- script in support of The Verse ; Stunica did not cite a single manuscript, but persisted in urging the authority of the Latin. This, Mr. arch- deacon Travis owns himself unable to account for satisfactorily. IX. With respect to ROBERT STEPHENS'S MANU- SCRIPTS ; To explain this part of the case, to persons unacquainted with Stephens's celebrated edition of the Greek Testament, which gives rise to the present question, and which was the edition published by him in 1550, it is necessary to observe that the text of it is a re-impression of the fifth edition of Erasmus, with a few alterations. In the margin, Stephens quotes various readings from the Complutensian edition, and from fifteen Greek manuscripts, eight of which were borrowed from the King's library, six were procured from various quarters, and one was collated in Italy. The Complutensian text and the fifteen copies he denoted, when he cited various readings from them by the Greek numerals ', j3', /, as far as fifteen. The copy a, he quotes throughout the whole New Testament, because, like other printed editions, the Complutensian edition, which it denotes, con- tains the whole. Of his fifteen manuscripts, he Appx,] HOILE BIBLIC^E. 389 quotes some in one part, some in another ; but none throughout the whole New Testament. In the catholic epistles, Stephens has quoted only seven manuscripts, which he denotes by the nume- rals (T, e, {', 6, i' j, au and the semicircle immediately after pupava : so that by this notation the words iv 1u> ou/>ata, and not the whole passage, are repre- sented as absent from these seven manuscripts. But, as compositors are not infallible, and marks of reference are frequently placed wrong, through vajrious accidents in printing, this edition of Robert Stephens had not been published many years, when Lucas Brugensis suspected, that Stephens's com- positor had here made a mistake, and that he ought to have set the crotchet, not after opvw, but after yy, c c 4 390 HOB^E BIBLIC^E. [Appx, that ie, after the last word of the controverted passage, and not after the third : for, even in the sixteenth century it was well known, that the Greek manuscripts, in general, omitted the whole passage ; but no one, either before or since the time of Robert Stephens, has ever seen a Greek manuscript which omitted the three- first words only. This, however, was not admitted by the advocates of The Verse, who still quoted these seven manuscripts, as authority, not indeed for the whole passage, but, what is of some importance in a case of necessity, for at least three quarters of it. 1 About a hundred years after the time of Lucas Brugensis, Simon examined all the Greek manu- scripts in the library of the king of France, and found that not only iv lw ovpotvui, but that all the following words, as far as h 1y yy were absent from them all : and, as four out of the seven, which Stephens has quoted at 1 John v. 7, had been bor- rowed from this library, though Simon did not attempt to determine what particular four, he concluded, that Stephens's representation at that passage was inaccurate. To evade this argument, the patrons of Stephens's semicircle had recourse to the hypothesis, that the eight manuscripts, which, in the time of Robert Stephens, belonged to the king's library, were no longer there, and even that they were no longer in existence : a position, which, though wholly incapable of defence, is indispensibly necessary for those, who maintain, that, the semi- circle is set right, because the manuscripts which till exist, both in Paris and in other places, decide Appx.] HOR^E BIBLIC^. 391 against them. From this untenable post, they were driven, a few years afterwards, by Le Long, who, in 1720, undertook to determine the particular eight manuscripts, in the royal library, which had been used by Robert Stephens, and consequently four out of the seven, which are quoted at i John v. 7. The eight manuscripts he imperfectly de- scribed in the Journal des Sfavans for June 1 720 : but he gave a more complete and accurate account of them in the edition of his Bibliotheca Sacra, which was published in 1723, soon after the death of the author. From this time, the accuracy of Stephens's semi- circle appeared to be given up, and his manuscripts, as evidence for the authenticity of The Verse, ap- peared to be wholly abandoned. But, in 179*, Mr. Archdeacon Travis took a journey to Paris, in order to compare Stephens' s quotations from the eight manuscripts, which he had borrowed from the royal library, with the readings of those on which Le Long had fixed, as the eight, which were used by Stephens. In this comparison, he found, accord- ing to his own account, that the 'quotations made by R. Stephens differed, so frequently, from the readings in Le Long's manuscripts, as to warrant the inference, that these were not the eight, which Stephens used. The grounds of his opinion, he mentions at length, in the sixth edition of his let- ters to Mr. Gibbon : they have been attacked by Mr. Marsh. Previously to the publication of Mr. Travis's last edition of his letters to Mr. Gib- bon, Mr. Marsh in one of his notes to Michaelis, 392 HOIUE BIBLIC^E. [Appx. (Vol. II. p. 789), had informed the world, that he had found a Greek manuscript, marked K x. 6. 4, in the public library of the university of Cambridge, which, he had discovered to be the manuscript which Stephens had quoted by the mark, y, and consequently, one of the seven manuscripts which are quoted in Stephens's edition of 1550, at i John v. 7 j and, at the same time, assigned the reasons, which induced him to believe, that the manuscript in question had been at Paris, and that it was no other than the manuscript which Stephens called iy. Now, this manuscript omits not only I? 1$ ov/>t/, but all the following words, including lv 7*5* yy ; and, since Stephens quotes all his seven manuscripts of the catholic epistles for the same omission, it follows, that, as one of them omitted the whole passage, the others did the same. Of the truth of this inference, Mr. Travis was well aware ; and, in his last edition of his letters to Mr. Gibbon, attacked Mr. Marsh's arguments in support of the identity of the manuscript K x. 6. 4 ; and Stephens's iy. To this Mr. Herbert March answered, by " his " letters to Mr. archdeacon Travis> published " in 1795." In this publication, Mr. Marsh states the seve- ral steps, which led to the discovery of the identity of the two manuscripts. He establishes it by various proofs ; and, by an application of an algebraical theorem to the documents produced by him, he shews, that the probability in favour of the identity of the- manuscripts, is, to the probability of the Appx.j HORjE BIBLIC#. 393 contrary, as two nonillions to a unity. This is one of the most curious instances which have appeared, of the application of mathematical calculation to a critical enquiry. One of the points, principally discussed by Mr. Marsh, is, how far the inference, deduced from a general and remarkable similarity, in favour of the identity of manuscripts, is counter- acted by a certain number of discordances ; a consideration of the utmost importance, in all col- lations of manuscripts : but Mr. Marsh's treatise abounds with other curious and important remarks, and is a mine of recondite and useful biblical erudition. The nature of this enquiry does not admit of more, than this general outline of that part of the controversy, which arises from the subject of Robert Stephens's manuscripts. Persons, to whom the subject is new, would be surprised, in their investi- gation of it, to find that it embraces so wide a field of enquiry. Perhaps, nothing has contributed so much to the accurate knowledge, which seems now to be obtained of the Greek text of the New Testa- ment, as the discussions to which The Verse has given rise. X. THE adversaries of The Verse continue the attack : They observe that there are many Greek manuscripts of THE APOSTOLOS, or the collection of lessons, read in the Greek churches, from the epistles, and which they call the Apostolos, to dis- tinguish it from the Lectionarium, which contain 394 HOIUE BIBLIC^:. [Appx. the lessons from the gospels. Now, they observe, that no one has been able to discover The Verse in a single manuscript apostolos. The advocates of The Verse observe, that it is to be found in the first printed edition of the apostolos, which appeared at Venice in 1602 ; but the adversaries of The Verse contend, that this does not afford the slightest argument in favour of the authenticity of The Verse, as, in all probability, the lessons were printed from the modern Greek text, into which it had long found its way. XL THE adversaries of The Verse further contend, THAT IT IS WHOLLY UNKNOWN TO ANY OF THE ORIENTAL VERSIONS WHICH WERE MADE FROM THE TEXT, while it was in its original purity. It is totally unknown to the manuscripts of the old Syriac version : it is wanting in the new Syriac or Phyloxenian version, which was made in the be- ginning of the sixth century, and collated with Greek manuscripts, at Alexandria, in the beginning of the seventh : it is wanting also in the Arabic manuscripts, as well of the version printed in the Polyglott, as in that published by Erpenius : it is wanting in the Ethiopic, the Cophtic, the Sahidic and the Armenian versions. To this, the advocates of The Verse reply, that all those versions, except the Armenian, were made from the Syriac, which, they say, is faulty beyond description. That, we know little of the Arme- nian version j but that The Verse is contained in Appx.] HOR/E BIBLIC^E. 395 the first printed edition of that version, published at Amsterdam, in 1666; from which they infer, that The Verse was contained in the manuscript or manuscripts, from which that edition was printed. We certainly know little of the Armenian version ; but no one has actually pretended to have seen The Verse in any Armenian manuscript ; and professor Alter, in the second volume of his edition of the Iliad, page 85, mentions his having been informed by " Pater Zohrab Armenus, Bibliothecarius Meg- " hitarensium in insula S. Lazari Venetiis," that having examined many Armenian manuscripts, in the library of his convent, he had not found The Verse in any one of them. XII. THE adversaries of The Verse contend that IT IS WANTING IN FORTY OF THE MOST ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS OF THE LATIN VERSION. This, they say, equipoises, if it do not overbalance the authority of those Latin manuscripts in which it is contained. In 1743, Sabatier published, at Rheims, his " Bibliorum sacrorum Latina? versiones antiqua?, " sen vetus Italica, et ceterae quaecunque in codi- " cibus Manuscriptis reperiri potuerunt, qua? cum " vulgata Latina et cum textu Greco comparantur." The object of the work, is to restore the text of the ancient Italic, by putting together the quotations of the Bible, in the works of the ancient fathers; where none can be found, Sabatier supplies the chasm from the Vulgate. He was so fortunate as 396 HOIWE BIBLIC-ffi. Oppx. to find, in different parts of the works of St. Au- gustin, a sufficient number of quotations, to form the whole of the four first chapters, and likewise the beginning of the fifth. But, when he comes to the seventh verse, this very voluminous father, who wrote not less than ten treatises on the epistle in question, suddenly deserts him, though imme- diately after this critical place, he comes again to his assistance. This chasm, therefore, Sabatier fills up, by a quotation from Vigilius Tapsensis, who wrote at the end of the fifth century. XIII. THE adversaries of The Verse urge, that THE GREEK FATHERS HAVE NEVER QUOTED IT, in their warmest disputes about the Trinity, which they certainly would have done, if the passage had been known to them ; and this, they observe, is the more remarkable, as they often quote and dwell upon the sixth and eighth verses in succession, without once mentioning or even slightly alluding to the seventh verse. This is one of the strongest parts of the cause of the adversaries of The Verse. Its advocates have little to reply to it, except that it proves no more, than that The Verse did not exist in the copies, which those fathers used ; that many works written by those fathers, and many other works, written at the same time, have not come down to us ; and that The Verse might have been mentioned in all or some or one of these. Appx.j HORjE BIBLIC^E. 397 XIV. THE adversaries of The Verse urge the same argument from THE SILENCE OF THE LATIN FATHERS TILL THE FOURTH CENTURY : Here, they are met by the advocates of The Verse, who contend, that, though The Verse is not quoted, it is expressly referred to by several of the earliest Latin fathers j particularly Tertullian and St. Cy- prian. The adversaries of The Verse reply, that none of these passages refer to the seventh verse, but refer to the eighth verse, by mystically inter- preting the Spirit, the blood and the water, men- tioned in that verse, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They dwell much on a passage of St. Augustin, in which he expressly says, that " the Spirit, the blood and the water, may be " understood, without any absurdity r , of the " Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," an ex- pression, which, most assuredly, St. Augustin would never have used, if he had been aware of the seventh verse. It is certain that The Verse is mentioned in St. Jerome's ^Preface to the Canonical Epistles ; but the authenticity of these prefaces, first suspected by Erasmus, is given up by Dom Martianay, the Benedictine monk, and almost all modern writers. XV. The adversaries of The Verse thus account for THE INTERPOLATION OF IT INTO THE TEXT OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. The mystical interpretation 398 HORJE BIBLIC^E. [Appx. of the 8th verse, which some of the fathers adopted, was, as they allege, frequently inserted in their commentaries, and sometimes in the margin of their copies: by degrees it slid from the margin into the text ; insensibly it came to be considered as part of it : at first, it appeared sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, and was inserted sometimes before, and sometimes after the eighth verse : at length the dignity of the subject gave it a prece- dence over the eighth verse : and thus it came to be considered as the seventh verse of the chapter. Probably it had gained a place in no manuscript, as part of the text, till some time after the death of St. Augustin : and the eighth century maybe considered as the aera of its final settlement in the Latin text. From the Latin text it was transplanted into the Greek. At the general council of Lateran, held in 1215, The Verse was quoted from the Greek. The acts of the council, with the quotation of the Vulgate, were translated into the Greek, and sent to the Greek churches. About a century after this period, the Greeks began to quote The Verse ; the Jirst Greek writers who have quoted it, are Manuel Callecas, who lived in the fourteenth, and Bryen- nius, who lived in the ^fifteenth century ; and it is observable, that, when the passage first appeared in Greek, it presented itself under as many different shapes, as when it first made its appearance in Latin. Appx.j HOR.E BIBLIC^E. 399 XVI. THIS, perhaps, may be considered an outline of the history of the controversy respecting this cele- brated Verse. It has the merit of having rendered invaluable services to the biblical criticism of the sacred text. It has led to a minute discussion of several curious and interesting topics of literary history, particularly the rules for judging of the age of manuscripts, the nature of manuscript. col- lations, the different merits of the principal editions of the Old and New Testament, the early versions of them, and the characters of the different persons, by whom they were edited or published. A full and complete history of the controversy, which should enter, at large, into all its particulars, would be an invaluable acquisition to literature. Considering Mr. archdeacon Travis was a mere novice in biblical criticism, when he first engaged in the controversy, he performed wonders : but it was his misfortune to combat with giants. The principal argument in its favour, which ap- pears not to be satisfactorily answered, is it-; having a place in the confession of faith, presented by the African bishops to Huneric. Mr. Porson has treated this argument with abundance of wit : but it seems to deserve a more serious treatment. It is not necessary to suppose, as Mr. Porson humour- ously says, that, each of the four hundred bishops had a Bible in his pocket, and the useful place doubled down. If there were such a number of copies exhibiting The Verse, as induced the bishops VOL. I: D D 400 HORJE BIBLICJE. [Appx. to adopt it into the confession of faith, this fact would afford strong ground to contend, that it was inserted in the copies then generally in use. This circumstance, therefore, may be thought to deserve further investigation ; and a more com- plete examination of the manuscripts in the royal library at Paris, is much to be desired : in other respects, the topics of argument respecting the authenticity of this celebrated Verse, appear to have been exhausted. To the Reverend Herbert Marsh. DEAR SIR, WHEN I had last the pleasure of your com- pany, I mentioned to you, that I thought the ar- gument in favour of The Verse of The Three Heavenly Witnesses, or i John, chap. v. ver. 7, from the CONFESSION OF FAITH PRESENTED BY THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS TO HUNERIC in 484, had not been sufficiently attended to : I now beg leave to trouble you with my thoughts upon it. I shall first copy Mr. archdeacon Travis's account of it, from his Letters to Mr. Gibbon, 3d edit. p. 57. I. " IN A. D. 484, an assembly of African bishops " was convened at Carthage by king Huneric the " Vandal and the Arian. The style of the edict, Appx.] ; HOR^E BIBLICjE. 401 " issued by Huneric on this occasion, seems worthy " of notice. He therein requires the orthodox " bishops of his dominions to attend the council " thus convened, there to defend by the Scriptures " the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, " against certain Arian opponents. At the time " appointed, nearly four hundred bishops attended " this council, from the various provinces of Africa, " and from the isles of the Mediterranean sea j at " the head of whom stood the venerable Eugenius, " bishop of Carthage. The public professions " of Huneric promised a fair and candid discus- " sion of the divinity of Jesus Christ ; but it soon " appeared that his private intentions were to com- " pel, by force, the vindicators of that belief to " submit to the tenets of Arianism. For when " Eugenius, with his Anti- Arian prelates, entered " the room of consultation, they found Cyrila, their " chief antagonist, seated on a kind of throne, at- " tended by his Arian coadjutors, and surrounded " ; jby armed men ; who quickly, instead of waiting " to hear the reasonings of their opponents, offered " violence to their persons. Convinced by this " application of force that no deference would be " paid to argument, Eugenius and his prelates " withdrew from the council-room ; but not with- " out leaving behind them a protest, in which, " (among other passages of scripture), this Verse " of St. John is thus especially insisted upon, in vin- " dication of the belief to which they adhered. " That it may appear more clear than the light D D 2 402 HORJE BIBLICJS. [Appx. " that the divinity of the Father, the Son, and the " Holy Spirit is one, see it proved by the Evan- " gelist St. John, who writes thus: there are three " which bear record in heaven, the Father, the " Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these Three " are one. 1 ' " This remarkable fact appears to be, alone, " amply decisive as to the originality of the Verse " in question. The manner in which it happened " seems to carry irresistible conviction with it. It " was not a thing done in a corner, a transaction " of solitude or obscurity. It passed in the metro- " polis of the kingdom, in the court of the reigning " prince, in the face of opponents, exasperated by *'- controversy and proud of royal support, and in *' the presence of the whole congregated African " church. Nor is the time, when this transaction *' happened, less powerfully convincing than its " manner. Not much more than three centuries "had elapsed from the death of St. John, when " this solemn appeal was thus made to the authority " of This Verse. Had The Verse been forged by * Eugenius and his bishops, all Christian Africa " would have exclaimed at once against them. " Had it even been considered as of doubtful " original, their adversaries the Arians, thus pub- " licly attacked by this protest, would have loudly " challenged the authenticity of The Verse, and " would have refused to be in any respect con- " eluded by its evidence. But nothing of this " kind intervened. Cyrila and his associates Appx.J HOR--E BIBLIC.*. 403 " received its testimony in sullen silence ; and by " that silence admitted it to have proceeded from " the pen of St. John." II. SUCH is Mr. archdeacon Travis's account of this memorable event ; and such are the arguments he deduces from it, in support of the authenticity of The Verse. The opposers of The Verse remark, 1st, That the unanimous testimony of the four hundred bishops, by no means proves that The Verse was in all their copies ; and 2dly, That, as no dispute took place, but the conference was broken up im- mediately, the sullen silence of the Arians, is merely an invention of Mr. Travis. Admitting the utmost weight of these obser- vations, much of the argument deducible from the narrative in favour of the authenticity of The Verse, remains for the adversaries of The Verse to answer. 1st. The catholic bishops were summoned to a conference ; so that they expected, and it cer- tainly was highly probable, that their tenets, and the proofs they should adduce of them, would be strongly attacked : 2d. This circumstance must have made them very cautious of what they inserted in their proposed confession : 3d. Particularly, as all power was in the hands of their angry and watchful adversaries : DD 3 40* HOR^ BIBLIC^. [Appx. 4th. Of course, though they might, and from the nature of the case, must have inserted in the confession, some things, at which they knew the Arians would cavil, they would not have inserted in it any thing, which, by merely asking a plain question, the Arian could prove to be a palpable falsehood : 5th. Now, if the Arians could, with truth, have said, to the catholic bishops, what the present opposers of The Verse say, The Verse is in no Greek copy, it is in no ancient Latin copy, it is in no ancient father, it is in few only of your own copies : Can you even assert the contrary ? What could the catholic bishops have replied? If we are to believe the adversaries of The Verse, the bishops could hold out no Greek copy, no an- cient Latin copy, no ancient father, where The Verse was to be found : 6th. On this supposition, therefore, instantly and on the very spot, the Arians could have shewn the spuriousness of The Verse, and have convicted the bishops of a palpable falsehood : 7th. And this, at a time and in a situation, when the eyes of all the Christian world were upon them : 8th. Now, is it probable the catholic bishops would have exposed themselves to such immediate and indelible infamy ? gth. Particularly, as it was volunteering it : for their producing The Verse was a mere voluntary act : their cause did not depend on it ; long trea- tises had been written by the ancient defenders of Appx.] HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 405 the Trinity, in which The Verse had not been mentioned : loth. Consequently, when the catholic bishops produced The Verse, they could have no fear that any such proof positive of its spuriousness could be dashed upon them : nth. Therefore, they knew, either that The Verse could not be attacked, or that, if attacked, they could produce Greek copies, ancient Latin copies, and ancient fathers in its defence. 1 2th. It is observable that the greatest part of the catholic prelates who assisted at this conference, suffered, for their steady adherence to their faith, the severest persecution. In the language of Mr. Gibbon (ch. 38.), " Three hundred and two " of them were banished to different parts of " Africa, exposed to the insults of their enemies, ** and carefully deprived of all the temporal and " spiritual comforts of life. Gundamund, the *' nephew and immediate successor of Huneric, " appeared to emulate and even to surpass the " cruelty of his uncle. At length he relented and " recalled the bishops. Thrasimund, his brother " and immediate successor, prohibited by a law, " any episcopal ordination ; and their disobedience " was punished by a second exile of two hundred " and twenty bishops into Sardinia, where they lan- " guished fifteen years." Surely it is improbable, thVt men who could undergo such persecutions and sufferings for their belief of the consubstantiality of the Son, would introduce a spurious verse into His word. D D 4 406 HOR^E BIBLIC^E. [Appx. This appears to me the chain of argument dedu- cible in favour of the authenticity of The Verse, from this confession of the African bishops. With great respect, Dear Sir, I am, your most obliged humble servant, 7 th Jan. 1806, CHARLES BUTLER. To the Right Rev. Herbert Lord Bishop of Landqff. MY LORD, IN the second of the two letters, which I had the honour to address your lordship, some years ago, containing, A succinct historical account of the Con- troversy re pecting the 1 hree Heavenly Witnesses, or the authenticity of i John, Ep. v. 7, I have stated at some length, the argument in its favour, from the literal and complete insertion of it in the confession of faith, presented by the African pre- lates, to king Huneric. That confession of faith fills the whole of the third book of the Historia Persecutions Vandalicce, of Victor Vitensis. The best edition of it is that of Dom Ruinart, published in 1694. In the preface, Dom Ruinart cites four manuscripts of it, one in the Benedictine monastery of St. Martin des Champs, the three others in the Colbertine library at Paris. The three last manuscripts I have lately caused to be examined, and shall copy The Verse, as it Appx.j HORJE BIBLIC^:. 407 stands in each of them ; first inserting a copy of The Verse as it stands in the Vulgate. In the Vulgate, it is expressed in the following words : " Tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in ccelo : " Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus sanctus : et hi tres " unum sunt." I. In the Codex Regius, No. 5315, membra- naceus, olim Colbertinus, sec. xv. fol. xvi recto: " Tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in ccelo, Pater, " Filius, et Spiritus sanctus : et hit tres unum " sunt." II. In the Codex Regius, No. 2015, membra- naceus, olim Colbertinus, sec. x. (at non numerate verso) : " Tres sunt, qui testimonium perhibent in " ccelo, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus sanctus : et ii " tres unum sunt" In the margin the following words are written : " Nota. In Epistold beati Joannis ita legendum." III. In the Codex Regius 2796, membranaceus, item olim Colbertinus, sec. xiii. it is expressed in the following words : " Tres sunt, qui testimonium " perhibent in ccelo, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus " sanctus, et hi tres unum sunt." This is the reading adopted by Ruinart. My Lord, with the greatest respect, I have the honour to be Your Lordship's most obliged humble servant, CHARLES BUTLER. Lincoln's-Inn, 4th Nov. 1816. NOTES TO THE SECOND PART OF THE HOR.E BIBLIC^E. NOTE I. p. 287. THE characters of the Zend, Pazend and Pahlavi languages, may be found in the work of M. Anquetil du Perron, in the second edition of Dr. Hyde's Religio Veterum Persarum, and in the Commentatio de fatis linguarum Orientalium, by Jenisch ; but, by inspecting the medals pre- served in the national museum at Paris, and deciphered by M. de Sacy, (Memoire sur direr ses Antiquites de la Perse, Paris, 1793), or those de- posited in the museum of the late Dr. Hunter, and deciphered by Sir Wm. Ouseley, (Observations on some Medals and Gems bearing inscriptions in the Pahlavi or ancient Persick Character, quarto* London t 1801), it appears, that the characters given by Hyde and du Perron diiier from those of the Sassanian ages of the Persian monarchy. The alphabet of these medals, and of the most ancient 410 HORM BIBLIC^E. [Notes. inscriptions hitherto explained, have been found to contain but eighteen letters, each of which, whe- ther it be used in an initial, medial, or final position, retains the same form ; while the Zend alphabet, as given by M. Anquetil du Perron, from his manuscripts, has been found to comprise not fewer than forty-eight characters, the Pazend twenty-nine, and the Pahlavi twenty-six : many even of these assume different forms, according to their situa- tions, at the beginning, middle or end of a word ; others, according to their positions, receive a short or long, a hard or soft accentuation. These new distinctions seem to be innovations of the original simple alphabet, and are supposed to be engrafted on it within the last five or six centuries. The most ancient Persic inscription, hitherto deciphered, does not ascend higher than the second century of our aera ; that is the date of a medal which Sir William Ousel ey ascribes to Vologeses, the 3d of the Arsacidan or Parthian dynasty : and no inter- mediate character between the Pahlavi, and the arrow-headed letters, found in the ruins of Perse- polis, or the neighbourhood of them, has yet been discovered. Thus it remains a question whether the works of Zoroaster, were originally written in the alpha- bet of the medals, or in that of the Persepolitan inscriptions ; but the manuscripts, from which M. Anquetil du Perron translated his Zend-Avesta, are written in a character totally different from that of the Persepolitan inscriptions ; and they are thought to be founded upon, and in many instances Notes.] HORjE BIBLIC^E. 411 to be the same with, that of the Sassanian medals, or pure Pahlavi. For these remarks, and a valu- able communication on the general subject of this article, the writer is indebted to Sir William Ouseley. NOTE II. p. 305. " I MAY take it upon me to pronounce, that the " service has at no period more abounded with " men of cultivated talents, of capacity for busi- " ness, and liberal knowledge. Such studies, " independently of their utility, tend, especially " when the pursuit of them is general, to diffuse a " generosity of sentiment, and a disdain of the " meaner occupations as are left nearer to the " state of uncultivated nature ; and you, Sir, will " believe me, when I assure you, that it is on the " virtue, not the ability of their servants, that the " company must rely for the permanency of their " dominion." From Mr. Hastings's letter to Mr. Smith, prefixed to Mr. Wilkins's translation of the Bhaghat Geeta. NOTE III. p. 306. SIR William Jones's orthography is here adopted. Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Halhed write the word " Veds ;" Col. Dow, " Bedas ;" Col. Polier, " Baids ;" M. Anquetil du Perron, calls the four Vedas the Rak Beid, Djidir Beid, Sam Beid, and Athrban Beid. *12 HOILE BIBLICjE. [Notes. NOTE IV. p. 306. WITH the leave of the trustees of the British Museum, the reader is presented with a copy of the letter, with which Colonel Polier accompanied his present. " To Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bart. President of the Royal " Society, &c. " SIR, " SINCE the English by their conquests and " situation have become better acquainted with " India, and its aborigines the Hindous the " men of science throughout Europe have been " very anxious of learning something certain of " those sacred books which are the basis of the " Hindou religion, and are known in India and " elsewhere, under the name of the Baids : many " endeavours we know have been exerted to pro- " cure them, not only on the coast of Coromandel, " but also in several parts of Bengal, and even at " Bennares ; but hitherto, those books could not " be had in any of those places, complete and ori- " ginal, and nothing could be obtained but various " Shasters, which are only commentaries of the " Baids to expound and explain such difficult " passages as occur in them : during a long resi- " dence in the upper provinces of Hindostan, I " made it also my business, particularly to inquire " for those books, and the more so, as I found " that doubts had arisen in Europe of their very Notes.] HOIUE BIBLIC-ffi. 41 S " existence : my researches at Awd, Lucknow, " Agra and Delhy were perfectly useless, and " I could not in any of those places obtain what I " wanted. Thus disappointed I thought of sending " to Jaypour for them, and was led to it from " a knowledge, that during the persecution the " Hindous suffered throughout India, and which " began in the twelfth year of the reign of Au- " rengzeb (the persecution was at its height in " the year of the Hegira 1090, or of ours 1679, " on account of the rebellion of Odaipour.) The " Rajah of Anbair Ram Sing, from the im- " portant services rendered by his father the Great " Jaysing, and his own attachment to the emperor " escaped, if not entirely, at least a great part " of that persecution, which levelled to the ground " all the Hindou places of worship in the provinces, " and caused the destruction of all the religious " books which could be found belonging to the " Hindous. In consequence I wrote to a cor- " respondent at Jaypour, and soon learnt from " him, that the Baids were to be procured there, " but that no copy could be obtained from the " Brehmans without an order or permission from " Pertab Sing, who was then the Rarah-of that " place, and is the same prince who has so lately " been engaged in war with Saindheah and who is " a grandson of that famous Rajah Tay Sing " (Mirzah Rajah) who built Jaypour, close to An- " bair, and was the founder also of the famous " observatories at Jaypour and Delhy, &c. and the " editor of some curious astronomical tables which 414 HOR^L BIBLIC^E. [Notes. " he gave to the world under the name of Mo- " hammed Shah, then on the throne of Delhy. " Having a small knowledge of the Rajah, whom " I had seen a few years before, when he paid his " court to Shah Alum, then encamped in the " neighbourhood of Jaypour, I hesitated not in " applying to him by letter for his permission to " have the copy I so much wanted, and my friend " Don Pedro de Silva a worthy Portuguese physi- " cian in the service of the Rajah, undertook to " deliver it, and to forward the application with his " solicitations if necessary. " Pertab Sing on reading the letter, smiling, " asked Don Pedro, what use we Europeans could " make of their holy books : on which he repre- " sented that it was usual with us to collect and " consult all kinds of valuable books, of which we " formed in Europe public libraries ; and that the " Baids, though much sought after, could not be " met with any where else, and that without his " permission the Brehmans refused to give a copy j " on this, the Rajah immediately issued an order, " such as we wanted and in the course of a year " paying the Brehmen transcribers at a certain rate " per every hundred Ashlok or stanza, I obtained " the books which form the subject of this address, " and which I had so long wished to possess. " On my receiving those books at Lucknow, I " still found many among the Europeans, who yet " doubted their real authenticity, so strong were " the prejudices entertained from the little suc- " cess we had hitherto had in procuring them, and Note*.] HOILE BIBLIC^. 415 *' from the doubts cast on their very existence by *' some modern travellers : but the books having ** been shewn to the late rajah Anundram, a " learned Brehman, then at Lucknow, and a per- ?' son well known to many now in England, he " immediately recognized them for true and au- ". thentic, and begged of me to leave them some " time with him. At my request he afterwards *' separated them in manageable volumes, as they " now are, and this I thought necessary, the better *' to preserve them, for originally they were in loose " sheets ; the Hindous in general seldom or never " binding their sacred books, particularly the Baids. " But I was obliged to promise him, which I rea- " dily did, they should not be bound in any kind " of leather, but either in silk or velvet : Rajah " Anundrafo further numbered the pages, and ** with his own hand, wrote in Persian characters, " for my information, not only the title page of " each volume, but also of each section and the " number of leaves they severally contain. " By this it may be seen how little a dependence " is to be placed in the assertions of those who have " represented the Brehmans as very averse to the " communication of the principles of their religion, " their mysteries, and holy books : in truth I have *' always found those who were really men of science " and knowledge, very ready to impart and com- " municate what they knew to whoever would " receive it and listen to them, with a view of " information, and not merely for the purpose of " turning into ridicule whatever was not perfectly VOL. i. E E 4JQ HOILE BIBLIC^E. [Notes. " consonant to our European ideas, tenets and " even prejudices, some of which I much fear are " thought by the Indians to be full as deserving of " ridicule as any thing they have. At the same " time it must be owned that all the Hindous, the " Brehmans only excepted, are forbidden by their " religion from studying and learning the Baids, " the K'hatrys alone being permitted to hear them " read and expounded : This being the case it will " naturally be asked how came an European who " is not even of the same faith, to be favoured with " what is denied even to a Hindou ? To this the " Brehmans readily reply that being now in the " Cal Jog, or fourth age, in which religion is re- " duced to nought, it matters not who sees or " studies them in these days of wickedness, since " by the decrees of the Supreme Beiri'g it must be " so. At the same time, notwithstanding, I have " not observed that the Balds are a bit the more "explained to the two lower classes among the " Hindous, the Bais, and the Sonder. " To return from this digression. Possessed " now of these sacred manuscripts, which I pro- " cured for the sole purpose of communicating to " those who would benefit from their perusal, I " soon after sent them to Sir William Jones, the " only European, then in India I believe, who " could read and expound any part of them. From " that learned gentleman, whose knowledge and " merits are far above my praise, we may expect to " learn in the future memoirs of the Asiatic So- " ciety what are his opinions relative to them, the Note*.] HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 417 " surmises in India, and even among the Brchmans " about the authenticity, or at least the merits of '* one of the four Baids called the Atterban, and " in all likelihood some extracts and translations " from each ; and on that account, I shall beg " leave to refer you for any further information, on " these books, to one who is so competent to give " the public the fullest and the truest. " The Baids are now in London, and accom- " pany this address ; the purport of which is, to " request of you, Sir, as one of the trustees of the " British Museum, to receive and lodge them in " that noble and valuable repository, as a small " token and tribute of respect and admiration, " from one who though not born a natural subject, " yet having spent the best part of his life in the " service of this country, is really unacquainted " with any other. Allow me at the same time, " Sir, to take the opportunity thus offered me of " expressing the sentiments of respect I entertain " for you, and which are so justly, and on so many " accounts your due. " I have the honour to be, " Sir, " Your most obedient* and very " humble servant, " London, ANTY. POLIER." " 20th May, 1789." " P.S. I have further to request, that in de- " positing the Baids in the British Museum, it E E 2 418 HOR/E BIBLIC^:. [Notes. " may be specified particularly, that either Sir " William Jones now in India, or Mr. Wilkins " now in London, shall at any time be allowed to " have one of the volumes of the Baids (at a time) " to take home with them, on their declaration it " is for the purpose of making extracts or trans- " latiohs out of them, -and giving security for its " being returned ; and I am led to do this, with " the more pleasure and readiness, in consideration " of what is due from the public to those gentle- " men for the great trouble they have been at, in " learning so difficult a language as the Sanscrit, " and opening by that mean, to the European " world, a new source of knowledge. " As above, " ANTY. POLIER." NOTE V. p. 307. " AMONG the Puranas," says Mr. Hastings in the letter already quoted, " and of superior esti- " mation to the rest, is ranked the Mahabharat. " It contains the genealogy and general history " of the house of Bhaurat, so called from Bhurrut " its founder ^ the epithet Maha, or Great, being " prefixed in token of distinction : but its more " particular object is to relate the dissensions and " wars of the two great collateral brunches of it, " called Kooroos and Pandoos ; both lineally de- " scended, in the second degree, from Veecheetra- " veerya, their common ancestor, by their respective " fathers Dreetrarashtra and Pandoo. N Y otes.] HOR.E BIBLIC^. 419 " The Kooroos, whicli indeed is sometimes used " as a term comprehending the whole family, but " most frequently applied as the patronymic of the " elder branch alone, are said to have been one " hundred iiv number, of whom Dooryodun was es- " teemed the head and representative, even during " the life of his father, who was incapacitated by " blindness. The sons of Pandoo were five ; Yood- " hishteer, Bheem, Arjoon, Nekool, and Sehadeo ; " who, through the artifices of Dooryodun, were " banished, by their uncle and guardian Dreetra- " rashtra, from Hastenapoor, at that time the seat (t of government of Hindostan. " The exiles, after a series of adventures, workecT " up with a wonderful fertility of genius and pomp " of language into a thousand sublime descriptions, " returned with a powerful army to avenge their " wrongs, and assert their pretensions to the em- " pire in right of their father : by whom, though " the younger brother, it had been held, while he " lived, on account of the disqualification already " mentioned of Dreetrarashtra." A translation of a valuable extract from the Mahabharat was published, in the year 1785, by Mr. Wilkins, under the title of " The Bhagvat- " geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon, in " eighteen lectures, with notes ; translated from " the original in the Sanscrit, or ancient language " of the Brahmans." . An advertisement informs us, that it was published under the authority of the Court of Directors of the East India Company. Mr. Hastings' s letter to Mr. Smith then follows : E E 3 420 HOR^E BIBLIC^E [Notes. after it, comes a concise but very instructive preface by the translator, and then the translation with notes. It is executed in that admirable style of severe simplicity, which' consummate taste alone can reach. From the general ignorance of the Sanscrit lan- guage, few are capable of pronouncing on its fidelity ; but we have a strong testimony in its favour, in Mr. Halhed's preface to his translation of the Oupnekat, now deposited in the British Museum. Mr. Hastings's letter does him the greatest ho- nour ; it is a noble display of enlarged and virtuous views for the government of a great country: the following extract from it is evidence of his classical taste and judgment. " Might I, an unlettered man, venture to pre- " scribe bounds to the latitude of criticism, I " should exclude, in estimating the merit of such " production, all rules drawn from the ancient or " modern literature of Europe, all references to " such sentiments or manners as are become the " standards of propriety for opinion and action in " our own modes of life, and equally all appeals to " our revealed tenets of religion, and moral duty. " I should exclude them, as by no means applicable "to the language, sentiments, manners, or mo- " rality, appertaining to a system of society with " \vhicjl we have been for ages unconnected, and " of antiquity preceding even the first efforts of " civilization in our own quarter, of the globe, " which, in respect to the general diffusion and Notes.] HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 421 " common participation of arts and sciences, may " be considered as one community. " I would exact from every reader the allowance " of obscurity, absurdity, barbarous habits, and a " perverted morality. Where the reverse appears, " I would have him receive it (to use a^ familiar " phrase) as so much clear gain, and allow it a merit " proportioned to the disappointment of a different ** expectation. " In effect, without bespeaking this kind of " indulgence, I could hardly venture to persist in, " my recommendation of this production for public " notice. " Many passages will be found obscure, many " will seem redundant ; others will be found " clothed with ornaments of fancy unsuited to. o.ur " taste, and some elevated to a track of sublimity " into which our "habits of judgment will find it " difficult to pursue them ; but few which will " shock either our religious faith or moral senti- " ments. Something too must 'be allowed to the " subject itself, which is highly metaphysical, to " the extreme difficulty of rendering abstract terms " by others exactly corresponding with them in " another language, to the arbitrary combination of " ideas, in words expressing unsubstantial qualities, " and more, to the errors of interpretation." NOTE VI. p. 308. HAYING mentioned this letter to Mr. WUkins, that able judge of Sanscrit literature pronounced it omm exceptwne major: it will not suffer in a 422 HOR^ BIBLIC^E. [Notes. comparison with Sir William Jones's Discourses on Hindu Literature. La Porte Ouverte of Abraham Roger, is one of the most curious works which has yet appeared on the mythology of the Hindus, and deserves to be more generally known. Mr. Mau- rice's valuable publications intitle him to the thanks of all oriental scholars : by publishing his trans- lation of the Mahabharat, Mr. Wilkins will confer on them a very great literary favour. The writer begs leave to mention, in this place, his obligations to Mr. Planta, the principal librarian of the British Museum, for innumerable services rendered him in the course of this publication. To a gentleman more ready to oblige, the care of that literary treasure could not have been consigned : sic siti loetantur lares, NOTE VII. p. 309, " I UAVE seen an extract from a foreign work " of great literary credit, in which my name is " mentioned, with very undeserved applause, for " an attempt to introduce the knowledge of Hindoo " literature into the European world, by forcing " or corrupting the religious consciences of the " Pundits, or professors of their sacred doctrines. " This reflection was produced by Mr. Hattied's " translation of the Poottee, or code of laws> and " is totally devoid of foundation. For myself I " can declare truly, that if the acquisition could " not have been obtained but by such means as " have been supposed, I should never have sought " it. It was contributed both cheerfully and Notes.] HOR^E BIBLIC^E. 423 " gratuitously by men of the most respectable cha- " racters for sanctity and learning in Bengal, who " refused to accept more than the moderate daily " subsistence of one rupee each, during the term " that they were employed on the- compilation. **- Extracted from Mr. Hastings's letter to Mr. Smith, prefixed tdjfr. Wilkins's translation of the Bhagvat- Geeta. END OF VOL. I. , riVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. KFD LD-URfi NOV 1197? ::; mo Form L9-25m-9,'47(A5618)444 f UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY