THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF Walter Rothinan The Jewish Quarterly Review NEW SERIES EDITED BY CYRUS ADLER Vol. XI JULY 1920 No. 1 CONTENTS PAGE THE TARGUM TO CANTICLES ACCORDING TO SIX YEMEN MSS. COMPARED WITH THE 'TEXTUS RECEPTUS' (Ed, de Lagarde). Chapters II-Y Dr. Raphael Hai Melamed i THE RABBINATE OF THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE, LONDON, FROM 1756-1842. Dr. C. Duschinsky 21 CRITICAL NOTICES : AN EXPLANATION OF ABOT \1. 3. Dr. Jacob Kohn 83 THE AUTHOR OF THE YIGDAL HYMN. Dr. Hartwig Hirschfeld 86 HUSBAND'S ' PROSECUTION OF JESUS '. Dr. M. Hyamson 89 ^.HEBREW INCUNABULA. Prof. Alexander Marx '...^ 98 WOLF'S NOTES ON THE ' DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION'. Max J. Kohler, Esq. ... 120 SAEKI'S • NESTORIAN MONUMENT IN CHINA *. Prof. F. Wells Williams 12.:; PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE DROPSIE COLLEGE FOR HEBREW AND COGNATE LEARNING BROAD AND YORK STREETS, PHILADELPHIA, PENNA, London: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. Subscription price §3 per annum THE DROPSIE COLLEGE For Hebrew and Cognate Learning in the City, of Philadelphia A post-graduate institution leading to the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy President: Cyrus Aeuler, M.A. (Pennsylvania), Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins). Professor of Biblical Philology : Max L. Margolis, M.A., Ph.D. (Columbia). Professor of Rabbinical Literature: Henry Malter, Ph.D. (Heidelberg). Resident Lecturer in Jewish Jurisprudence and Institutes of Govern- ment : Judge Mayer Sulzberger, LL.D. (Jefferson, Temple), H.L.D. (Jewish Theological Seminary of America). Instructor in Cognate Languages: Jacob Hoschander, Ph.D. (Marburg). Instructor in History: Abraham A. Neuman, M.A. (Columbia), H.L.D. (Jewish Theological Seminary of America). Instructor in Biblical Philology : Joseph Reider, B. A, (College of the City of New York), Ph.D. (Dropsie College). Instructor in Talmud and Arabic: B. Halper, M.A. (London), Ph.D. (Dropsie College). THE College offers instruction in Biblical and Rabbinical Literatures, in the Semitic Languages, and in Jewish History. In the admission of students there is no dis- tinction on account of creed, color or sex. There is no tuition fee in the College. Fellowships yielding Five Hundred Dollars annually have been established and will be awarded each year at the meeting of the Governors in the month of May. For information concerning Degrees, Fellowships, Courses, &c., apply in writing to Dr. Cyrus Adler, President of the Dropsie College, Broad and York Streets, Philadelphia, Pa. husband's ' PROSECUTION OF JESUS ' — HYAMSON 97 (7) Crucifixion is not a Jewish punishment. (8) Nor is theft a capital offence in Jewish law — except kidnapping. Hence the crucifixion of the two thieves was repug- nant to the Jewish sense of justice. On all the above grounds, many of which Professor Husband states, the legitimate conclusion is that Jesus was not tried by the Sanhedrin, but that he was surrendered by the priests to the Romans. They were exasperated by Jesus' disapproval of them. At the same time, they were moved by fear of an abortive insur- rection and its dire consequences to themselves and the people. 'The Romans will come and take away both our place and nation '. The statement under item 4 in the conclusion : ' If the condemnation of the Court was unanimous, the result would have been an acquittal, is based on the dictum in the Talmud {Sanhedrin 17a): fnix pit^is nnin^ 1^3 isx" mnjD WHD m nr^N. Rav Cahana says : ' If the entire Sanhedrin is in favour of con- demning the accused (in a capital charge) he is acquitted.' See also Maimonides' Code Hikhoth Sanhedrin, ch. 9, part i : imnjD vn''K' ny iiod nr nn y^n i^d ncsn n^nn niK'SJ ^^nn dS^ innsK' n.T pnnNi pn^'inDn ut-i ini^n issn-'^j^ pdtd nvpro n^. The reason given in the Talmud is that the object of not pronouncing a sentence of condemnation on the same day as the trial, is to allow opportunity for finding arguments leading to acquittal. Where the Court, however, had made up its mind unanimously for condemnation, this object would fail. That is, there is obviously either bias and prejudice, or at the least lack of the openness of mind and judicial spirit of calm deliberation requisite in a Court. The rule above stated is expressed in popular phrase as ^NDr n-'^n i^d. M. Hyamson. Jewish Theological Seminary of America. VOL. XI. H R89<^>1<^ HEBREW INCUNABULA Cassuto, Umberto. IncunaboU Ebraici a Firenze. Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 1912, pp. 36, 20. Hebrdische Inkiinabehi 14^^-14^0. Mit 33 Faksimiles. Katalog 151 von Ludwig Rosenthal's Antiquariat. Miinchen. Since De Rossi's famous Annales Hebraeo-Typographici sec. XV, Parma, 1795, the short and exhaustive paper of A. Freimann, 'Ueber hebraische Inkunabehi ', Leipzig, 1902 (reprint from Centralblati filr Bibliothekszvesen, XIX, 108-16), was the first monograph devoted to our subject. While De Rossi first dealt with the dated incunabula in chronological order and had them followed by the undated ones, Freimann arranges them according to cities and presses.^ The two publications under review show the same difference of arrangement, only that Cassuto places the undated books in their approximate places, as does Jacobs in Jewish Encyclopedia, VI, pp. 578-9. Together with the descrip- tions of incunabula in Wachstein's catalogue reviewed previously {JQR., N. S., vol. VI, pp. 107 seq.) they form a most welcome * Freimann enumerates 101 books, omitting two recorded by De Rossi : Mardokai Finzi, ninV; Mantua; De Rossi, 113; Steinschneider, 1658-9 <& copy of this unusually rare booklet was acquired by Mr. Sassoon some time ago, I learned from Mr. E. N. Adler) and one of the two Ixar Penta- teuchs, De Rossi, 73; Steinsch., No. 8; Proctor, 9602; or De Rossi, 143; Steinsch., No. loii; Proctor, 9601 (he gives the Steinsch. number for the first, the Proctor number for the second) and two recorded in Stein- schneider's Supplementum Cat. Bodl. : Abot with Maimonides in 23 leaves, being a separate issue from the Roman Mahzor with omission of the signature of the latter (see now Z/HB., XIV, p. 49, and 187, No. 11) and the two leaves of Alfasi. Since that time a few more incunabula have come to light and are described in ZfHB., mostly by Freimann. 98 HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX 99 addition to the literature on our subject and will have to be consulted by every bibliographer in this field. Rosenthal's catalogue offers sixty-eight numbers containing forty-eight different books or parts of books, a collection which could not be easily duplicated again^ as Hebrew incunabula are constantly growing scarcer. The prices go far beyond those ever charged before for this class of books and seem to me in many cases to be exorbitant.^ The description of the books is very well done and shows the hand of a trained bibliographer, who is thoroughly familiar with the history of Hebrew typography. He gives careful collations and typographical descriptions. For the Rome prints, which we generally describe as printed before 1480, he tries to prove a somewhat earlier age under No. 48 and places them tentatively in the year 1475 (see infra). Among the Spanish incunabula he has leaves of various unknown editions, about which I hope to speak more in another connexion. Thirty-three facsimiles, five of them giving full pages, are a particularly welcome addition as they are selected with discretion. It is a pity that for the Conat type the author did not think of reproducing fol. 350 of Gersonides on the Pentateuch, in which a letter was pulled out of its place in the course of the printing and laid upon the forms. We get the measures of the type employed by Conat, p. 4, no. 4 (27 mm. long, 6 mm. broad).'* Facsimile 30 does not belong to No. 63 but to 66. The latter, a Pentateuch with Targum (of which the Jewish Theological Seminary has two leaves, presented to its Library some years ago by Dr Schechter), seems to me to come from a very early Spanish press. Rosenthal compares it with Haebler 332, of which unfor- tunately no facsimile is found in Haebler's Typografia. This edition of the Tur is ascribed to Lisbon only on the authority of Van Straalen, which is of little weight in such questions. - Since writing the above (July, 1918) the prices of rare books in general have advanced so much that one can only say that Rosenthal anticipated the movement by a few years. •'' See for similar instances in Latin incunabula, Talbot Baines Reed, History of the old English Letter Foundries, London, 1887, p. 24. H 2 lOO THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Freimann, p. 9, note 2, considers his statement very doubtful. In my opinion the book, of which the Seminary Library has two leaves, was printed in Spain. Incidentally I may remark that Rosenthal calls No. 57, Ramban 1489, the first book printed in Lisbon, but ascribes our fragment to the same press, that of Toledano, and to the year 1480 ! , Cassuto describes only forty-three volumes containing thirty- one different incunabula which are found in the libraries of Florence, and they are with very few exceptions printed in Italy. But in spite of the smaller number of books described, his is a very important contribution to bibliography, for the author, while consulting all his predecessors, does not accept any of their statements without careful examination and not infrequently takes occasion to correct them. Cassuto dwells less on the typographical description ; his collation is less detailed, but he reproduces the characteristic parts of the epigraphs, notes of former owners, &:c. The book is a reprint from Olschki's Bibliofilia^ XII-XIII, and this explains the fact that the few facsimiles given are taken from the most common incunabula described, those that happened to be in the possession of Olschki. It is greatly to be regretted that no exception was made for the unique Pentateuch described under No. 43 and such rare works as Petah Debarai of 1492 and the Brescia Psalms of 1493, Nos. 40 and 42. Like Rosenthal and Wachstein, Cassuto does not seem to know the careful description of thirteen Soncino incunabula in vol. II, part i of Manzoni, Annali tipografici dei Soncino, Bologna, 1886. Special attention is paid to the dates, and in some instances common errors are corrected. Under No. 19, Cassuto convin- cingly shows that the date of the first edition of the Hagiographa is wrongly printed, and that in Tishri 5248 the printer, by a slip of memory, repeated the date of the previous year, thus giving the impression that the third volume appeared before the first, while in the colophon to the latter he expressly refers to the other volumes as still to be printed. The error of Stein- schneider in giving the date of the conclusion of printing the Pentateuch of the first complete Bible by Soncino, as February 23 HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX lOI instead of April 22, had already been pointed out by Manzoni, I.e. 152; not only Freimann and Jacobs, but also Darlow and Moule, No. 5075, repeated the mistake. Of wrong calculations of dates quite a number are found in all the works on our subject, and even Cassuto repeated one at least in No. 36 = Rosenthal 37. Kimhi's Sefer Shorashini is said to have been finished in Naples, Thursday, Rosh Hodesh Adar, 1491. The first of Adar of that year fell on the i ith of February, the date generally given for our book; but the nth was a Friday, and therefore the first day of Rosh Hodesh, February loth, must be meant. Rosenthal, No. 18, places the date of the colophon of the Talmudic treatise Niddah on July 22, 1489; but the 25th of Ab fell on the 23rd. The treatise HuUin was finished a month earlier, on the 15th of Tammuz, identified by Steinschneider with the 13th instead of the 14th of June (January in Freimann is a misprint). I may be permitted to add two more corrections of dates in this connexion. The earliest dated incunable, the Rashi of Reggio, was finished on the loth of Adar, 1475, which is the 18th, not the 5th, of February. Ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch was finished on the 36th day of Omer,* i.e. as De Rossi, p. 58, rightly remarks, the 21st of lyyar. Steinschneider emphatically maintains {^Cat. Bodi., p. 680, comp. introduction, p. xix, note i6) that it is the 22nd, and all the bibliographers down to the Probedruck of the German Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke follow him in giving the 3rd of May instead of the 2nd. Some of the dates of the incunabula are unfortunately in- complete and cannot be identified with certainty ; the statement ^ Mahler, Handbiich der jitdischen Chronologie, Leipzig, 1916, p. xv, maintains that dates were never given according to the 'Sephira'! The present case shows how necessary a Sefira table is for practical purposes. See also the date of the Mantua Josippon. The Sefira is frequently used in dating letters and responsa. The following three cases from colophons of manuscripts of the Seminary Library illustrate its application in different countries. Mishna Zeraim with Maimonides' commentary was finished in Yemen on the N"l0yD y'D , 1628 Sel = April 21, 1316, Nahmanides on Gittin the 36th day of Omer. 5157 -= March 18, 1397, in Alinunia, Spain, a Siddur on the 37th day, 5203 - April 22, 1443, in Arezzo. Italy. I02 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW in the Yosippon that it was finished on the 49th day of Omer without a mention of the year is perhaps the most striking instance. The day of the month is more frequently omitted. I lately came across a case in which an exact determination seems possible to me. The Lisbon Nahmanides (Rosenthal, No. 57), according to De Rossi, was printed in Ab, 1489. Steinschneider remarked that the day of the week was also mentioned in the colophon (reprinted iVIGlV/., II, pp. 281-2), being expressed by 2313 DV, Wednesday. In this case we must expect that the day of the month was also given, and I find it in this very passage, 2313 D1''2 Nin 2N^ b^-\^'h u'nn.-i .... mc'n xin 12 nx. Here ns* con- tains the date. The printer cannot, however, mean the i8th of Ab = 1 6th of July, which fell on Thursday; we certainly must not count the S' ; perhaps he wanted to place dots over the other two letters, but forgot. A mistake on his part is also not quite impossible. However that may be, it is possible to date the book July 15, 1489. I shall now add some remarks, following the order of Cassuto, referring at the same time to the parallel entries in Rosenthal. The first book in Cassuto is the Mantua Josippon, which he describes as a folio, while Rosenthal calls it a quarto. Chwolson, i5N-lkJ'''2 Disin HD'yo n^Ci'N"!, p. n, states that the two copies of the book he has seen are almost folio size. In this connexion it is interesting to remember that Azariah de Rossi speaks of two Conat editions, an assertion which Luzzatto in the name of Almanzi explains by the fact that Conat printed two editions, one on larger and one on smaller paper {Ozar Nechinad, II, pp. 12- 13). De Rossi's assertion (^w;^^^/^^', p. 115) that Tarn ibn Yahya in the Constantinople edition also refers to previous editions, Steinschneider rightly considers doubtful. As a matter of fact, Tam only speaks of his text in opposition to the Latin versions of Josephus. The Constantinople edition, to which De Rossi refers, contains nothing more than the Venice edition, which slavishly follows its predecessor, only placing the epilogue of the editor and the table of contents in the front of the book instead of at the end. It even imitates the colophon as closely as possible. HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX IO3 As the book is extremely rare — it is only found in Parma, the Vatican, and the Library of Columbia University, N. Y. — I give here this colophon from the latter copy (purchased from Catalogue Lehren, Amsterdam, 1899, No. 955), overlining the words which differ in the Venice edition : na^ D'D'ii' nasvD Q^^^ni n-np ^niyn DJim DJiom D33>^ D3^ s"l:'j -id's* d^"j*:n ipvnn dt- nvT' proipn i'xinty n"ni N^n^ 'j 3py^ -i"n non Nbn nxin mi*?:n r\y^ la n"-\2 tnc^^rn nriMi : ch)V ly Qn^ mroyn nnpnvi oi^ys i?N* ijjnN nk"OD nnn xm Tti's* "nan NJ^DionpnTTnoin -\"d: uni mm" ycnn iro^ni ^^jy2) Tma^D sc^jni n"T onN^n pSc' i^r:n The Constantinople edition begins with the words DT ban Ql*'3 iVTtJ p 13D ^nx pvyi, which are written in a large old German hand in the beginning of the copy of the Mantua edition in Columbia, just as they are found in the facsimile of Baron Giinzburg's copy in the front of his reprint of it (ed. Kahana, Berdichev, 19 13) and the three copies of De Rossi. A. Cohen, Hebrew incunabula in Cambridge, p. 2 {JQR., XIX, p. 745), takes these words as part of the text, as had been done by Roest when describing the Columbia copy (Catalogue "i2D nnp, Amsterdam, 1867, p, 193). This copy is a small quarto. It once belonged to Andreas Osiander, who acquired it ' duobus nummis aureis ' on July 7, 1526, from Joh. Bossenstain (= Boeschenstain), and pre- sented it later to Matthias Hafenreffer in Tubingen. It after- wards came into the possession of Solomon Dubno. The second copy, described by Roest as on larger paper, is now in the Library of the Hebrew Union College. The John Rylands Library at Manchester possesses a copy of Josippon on vellum (Catalogue, 1899, p. 953). As none of Conat's books is represented in Freimann's list of Pergameiitdrucke {Z/HB., XIV) this is the only known product of his press printed on vellum. I04 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW The contradiction in the date of the second number of Cassuto, Gersonides on Job, was already noticed by Stein- schneider. While giving extracts from the colophon to the Psalter of 1477, Cassuto ought not to have omitted the most interesting statement that the size of the edition was 300 copies, the same as that of some of the books printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz, the first Italian printers, at Subiaco and Rome, 1465-1472. In a letter to the Pope they enumerate twenty-eight books, nine of them printed in two editions, four of which they had produced in 300 copies, the others in 275 (see Serapeuvi, XIII, pp. 241-8; Brit. Mus. Cat. of Incunabula, IV, p. 15). 300 was also the size of John of Speyer's second edition of Cicero's Epistolae ad Familiares, Venice, 1469, and Philipp Lavagna's edition of the same book in Milan, 1472 (see Alfred W. Pollard, An Essay on Colophons^ Chicago, 1905, pp. 32-3 and 151). Wendelin of Speyer published in Venice, 1470 and 1471, two editions of Sallust of 400 copies each (Pollard, pp. 37, 39). This was also the size of Solomon Alkabej's edition of Kimhi's commentary on the Later Prophets, Guadalajara, 1482 (evidently this is the meaning of the colophon, Cat. Bodl., p. 869). Some of the earlier editions were much smaller ; thus John of Speyer brought out a first edition of Cicero's letters as well as Pliny's natural history in only 100 copies each (Pollard, pp. 31, 35, 36). It is therefore quite likely that Baron Giinzburg's hypothesis that Conat's edition of the Tur Orah Hayyim consisted of 125 copies is well founded {Festschrift Chwolsofi, Berlin, 1899, p. 60). He is certainly right as against Chwolson, /. <:., p. 7, in interpreting Conat's colophon to mean that 125 double leaves constituted the daily output of his press. To come back to our Psalter, the Breslau copy of this edition, according to Zuckermann's catalogue (p. 47), has not the name Neriyyah (one of the printers) in the colophon ; the same is the case in our copy (formerly Ghirondi-Schoenblum ; Cat. M. Spirgatis 76, Leipzig, 1900, No. 39), in which the last leaf is facsimiled, evidently from the Breslau copy. The typographical arrangement (reproduced by Wachstein, p. 36) shows that the HEBREW INCUNABULA MARX IO5 name must have been originally there, and probably was rubbed out in one copy. The Moreh (No. 5) was, according to Chwolson {Lc. p. 32), the first of the books which were printed in Rome and appeared in 1476 or 1477. Rosenthal (No. 49) places it c. 1475, suggesting an even earlier date as he finds the Rome prints more primitive and representing a lower stage of the development of printing than Conat's work. His reasoning, however (see p. 21), presupposes a general logical development of the printing craft for which there is no proof. The printers generally imitated their predecessors, the scribes, and it is possible that the Rome printers took another class of manuscripts as their models, than those of other cities. Perhaps an influence of Christian printers might be traced, as it is in itself not unlikely that some of the early Jewish printers may have served their apprenticeship with printers of Latin books. Were there Jewish artisans among the latter? I lack the familiarity with non-Hebrew incunabula which an answer to these questions presupposes. But a glance through the pages of the Rome volume of the British Museum Catalogue of Fifteenth-century Books will convince any one that there also printing in one column was far more common than in double columns. Rosenthal's second argument that the large square type used indicates greater age, and that only later were smaller and Rabbinic types employed, has no foundation whatever. The Tur of 1475 is printed in very small square characters, the Reggio-Rashi of the same year with Rabbinic type of a Spanish character, while e. g. the Zamora-Rashi of 1487 shows square type of a regular size. Lack of colophons is so common with undoubtedly later books that it is very risky to take it as an indication of an earlier date. Since colophons were common in Latin books printed in Italy long before the Hebrew ones, no special ingenuity was required to imitate this custom in Hebrew books. The argument from the selection of texts, that Nah- manides most likely preceded Gersonides, does not require refutation. On the other hand we have a positive date for one of the Rome prints which, I think, prevents our going back too Io6 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW far. Seeligmann drew attention to the epigraph in Kimhi's Shorashim which is only found in the Amsterdam copy {ZfHB., VII, p. 25), and Freimann {ibid., note, cp. VIII, p. 127) showed that it contains a reference to the decision of a quarrel which was given in 1478. Here we have then one of these books which was printed after 1478. According to Seeligmann {I.e. and Z/HB., XVII, 14) these incunabula were not printed in Rome. This reference to Seeligmann also escaped Cassuto, who (No. 7) describes a splendid parchment copy of this book which, while containing all the blank leaves at the beginning and end, evidently lacks this epigraph which, in the Amsterdam copy, immediately follows the final words reproduced by Cassuto, This is perhaps a parallel to the Naples 1491 edition of the same book of which the British Museum copy has at the end the name of a printer, Catorze, not found in the dozen or so other known copies of this edition (see infra). The Bologna Pentateuch of 1482 on parchment (No. 8) has a note of sale, unfortunately not a very early one — it is dated 1633 — the price being thirty florins. The only other price found in the Florence incunabula is a statement that Maimonides' code (No. 28) was given as security for 8 giulii (f of a scudo; Zunz, Zur Geschichte, p. 460) and should become the property of the lender if the money was not paid back in April — but no year is given. As we get only very few instances of the prices paid for incunabula such notes are of value. Freimann {Ueber hebr. Inkunabe/n, p. 4) could only enumerate four instances, to which he later added a fifth {ZfHB., XII, p. 38), a Kol-Bo purchased for 15 Bolognesi in 1575. The Seminary copy of the same book was acquired for 20 Bolognesi by Moses Finzi da Arezzo who lived about the same time. According to an undated statement in the Seminary copy of Nahmanides, Shaar ha-Gemul Juda (Leon) Gonzago acquired it for 2 giulii. Our copy of the Ixar Yoreh Deah was given as security for 20 marks in 15 18 (pt^W u"j?"i p^mo ^'r |n:3 xa'^-ins* "i"n nn na i^j^^na p). A more interesting reference from the year 1500 is found in Pelli- canus' autobiography (see Das Chronikon des Konrad Pellikan, HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX I07 herausgegeben durch Bernhard Riggenbach, Basel, 1877, p. 20; Die Hauschro7iik Ko7irad Pellika/i's, deutsch von Th. Vu/pius, Strassburg, 1892, p. 22). A Tubingen bookseller sold him the Brescia Bible for i^ gulden, while he had thought he would have to pay 6 to 8 for so rare a book. (See also the price of Josippon quoted above.) Rosenthal also has a parchment copy of the Bologna Pentateuch (No. 6), which he combines with the Soncino Prophets as the first Bible edition, for which he asks 10,000 M. ! forgetting the Hagiographa altogether, of which he has some parts (Nos. 26 and 28). The Seminary Library has one of the few paper copies of this Pentateuch, in which only a few pages are missing at the beginning and end ; besides, it has two leaves on parchment which are printed on one side only, and had been used as binding for a book. The correct number of pages for the Early Prophets (No 10), Albo (No. 12), and the Later Prophets (No. 16) have already been given by Manzoni (pp. 58-9, 70, 133), for the latter also by Zedner (p. 121). Manzoni (pp. 133 and 152) also has corrected Stein- schneider in the dates of the Mahzor (No. 14) and the Soncino Bible of 1488 (No. 25). The dated Ixar Pentateuch of 1490 (No. 32) is from the same press and has the same printer's mark as the undated one (No. 35), the colophon of which is reprinted here for the first time ; accordingly the name of the printer, Eliezer Alantansi, ought to appear in both cases. Solomon Zalmati, as he himself says, only supplied the funds for the printing lltSU TXO'Cn DIXJ •)3ip mnyn loiproro IJl yjl IJiroc, as he had done seven years earlier for the publication of a Latin commentary on the Psalms by the convert Perez de Valencia, the author of an attack on the Jews also printed in Valencia by the same printer, Alfonso Fernandez de Cordova, evidently a friend of Zalmati (Hacbler, Bibliografia Iberica, p. 253). For the undated Pentateuch Cassuto gives 190, Wachstein (No. 70) 191 leaves, both put the printing c. 1490-5, following in this respect De Rossi, who con- sidered 1SC'''N a Portuguese city. Since the place has been identified by Zunz (Zeitschrift, pp. 135-6) as being in Spain, it is Io8 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW of course evident that it must have appeared before the expulsion, and Zunz indeed expressly draws this inference. Rosenthal has one parchment leaf (Gen. i8. 10-30) of the dated Pentateuch (No. 55). Following a misprint in Freimann he calls the printer Alantrtj'i. For Kimhi's Shorashim, Naples 1490 (No. 33) Cassuto gives the name of Samuel Latif as printer. Latif, however, only served as a corrector to some printer, as he did to Soncino for the treatise Ketubot according to his epigraph of Dec. 15, 1487 (Freimann, ZflfB., XII, p. 14). In Cassuto's abstract of the colophon the reference to the several* copies he consulted and the claim of great correctness ought not to have been omitted. For the 1491 edition (No. 36) Cassuto missed the reference to Zedner, p. 200, who, as I mentioned before, found in his copy the name of the printer, Isaac ben Judah ben David, called Ben Catorze from Calatayud, Aragon. Since the colophon of this edition, which is partly missing in the Florence copy, contains some interesting statements, and has not been reproduced, it may be given here according to the Seminary copy, adding in brackets the last four lines and the addition in the third line before them, which occur only in the British Museum copy. The ends of the lines are indicated by vertical strokes ; the underlined words are printed in Rabbinical characters : ••^ipi snps' D-u'^N I n^'hit. 'D^-j-no i:n3xi sin mvca dv T\y7\ Drn \ Nvcn TJ'N njinni' yp psi anr itu ^idjd un | n''C':^ d^b>jn n^n y:]}2 D-'oanjn Dnaon | nxc b •D''cnincn nbxn ••□""L'-itrnn^B^a: I ^3No • ' D''-i''3N nrh ••□nsDH n^sn •□•'::'-iy | tiji rhj2 ^biD ^sn nmiDj? 'yc'2 -laon nr | D'-ainb i3?:3Dn r\:r\i •n'<'C'-ipr\ '''^ipD D''3^rD W^b fi'ib n^nro inijppn nipro mion | dj "vsn niu mann jyoi? I n snip )'n' p nnx I 'Disn ncns b mxn uro'cn isDn n^nnn n^ni ♦ • mt^tj' • • rT't^sin • • nc^nan u 1 ick naon onon T^rn^ ijmdh HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX 109 i6^ C'N )ybv wiDH'' bnb inin^T d3?:x n]) \ '"'-im • • nm»a • • snp^i b^iy naon | nr n^m -mpj^n nxmnn iryDL" nic^nii ij^nrn | yn^ ^3 /N ncHD "invi frya | o^^'-nnr^n !^n' d: n^ o^n b ba n^yinn njn • • imin j-ijdnj n\nn 'inup^ n^ ■urn" 1 Ti^'n ^3i nipiiTi no^o ^jy] i^sw n^yn na ^J2bu: iniix'D nci^L'-^nor* inx | nsB' I Q^-^ba nrron n:c' -ns lyin c'ni ""^'v^n | orn [nD?:i^ Dinnn n^ I na'wS nvN ny^-^ Ty | ^nc'ino "d^n^ ^HpT •'jn] | • • n'T'V''^ nnxi D^nxci p n:i3Dn ^vr in p mm-' ^ns* yis^ p pn^*'' | • • p^iN ni^^on ['r niDp Rosenthal (Nos. 35-7), following Freimann, ascribes both editions to Joseph Gunzenhauser. This hypothesis is entirely unacceptable. The two editions appeared within five months of each other about twelve years after the edUio princeps we discussed before. That there should have arisen suddenly such a general demand for a dictionary of the Bible at Naples among the scholars, beginners, and especially teachers, to whom the printer looks as prospective buyers, does not sound probable, and one cannot understand why a printer should in such a way compete with himself. We certainly should expect some informa- tion about the peculiar circumstances in the colophon. Instead, Catorze only praises his D'^u'TiriDn npNn D''CintJ' as far superior to all printed works on the subject, thus including the Makre Darde- ke of 1488, as well as Latif's edition of Kimhi. Moreover, the two editions are very different ; not only is the earlier printed in one column, the later in two, but the former has the references in the margin, the other in brackets in the body of the text. The fact that in the 1491 edition two columns were omitted in the early part of the book (end of letter n) and supplied at the end is perhaps due to hurried work in order not to give the other printer too great an advantage. This also accounts for the omission of the references to the pericopes of the Pentateuch after the first dozen folios or so referred to in the colophon. Furthermore, the type used is different in both, the Rabbinical characters employed for the references being much smaller in the former. Both sets of no THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW type seem to me different from all the other fonts used at Naples, e. g. the ligature 1i, which both use in the Rabbinical type, I have not seen elsewhere. (Similarly, Baron Giinzburg, Festschrift Chwo/sofi, p. 96, note, i)oints to the difference between the Conat type used for the early part of the Yoreh Deah of 1477 [fols. 1-30 and 39] and the Ferrara type used for the rest as most evident in this same ligature Tl.) Accordingly Rosenthal's statement that the types used are identical with those of Gunzenhauser's edition of Nahmanides' Shaar ha-Gemul is incorrect in both instances. Of Avicenna's Kanon, Cassuto describes a fragment (No. 39), Rosenthal an almost complete copy (No. 39) ; Wachstein (No. 48) also has a copy. This book, of which I possess a copy myself, I lately examined rather carefully, and will go in this instance a little more into bibliographical detail. Following De Rossi, all the bibliographers state that the book is printed in two columns and has fifty lines to the column ; only Cassuto notices that the number of lines varies, and that one page is printed in one column. This is the case with the recto of the first leaf of signature n in Book I and the last four lines of fol. 8 b of signa- ture S of Book IV, in which two instances the lines are continuous, covering the whole page. In Book III, signature T, fol. 3 a, only one column is printed in the middle of the page. The number of lines varies from 40-55, and differs greatly in the columns of one and the same page. To give a few examples picked at random : Book I, signature T, fol. 3, col. i has 44, col. 2, 40, col. 3, 47, col. 4, 44 lines; in the following leaf col. i has 50, col. 2, 49, col. 3, 48, col. 4, 46 lines (counting the spaces left between the chapters as lines). This gives an idea of the uneven appearance of the book, of which I think we find no other example among Hebrew incunabula. Only Rosenthal noticed that in Book I, signature N^ leaf 8 a, we find on the margin a woodcut diagram of the bones of the neck. The collation of the book offers more difficulties. De Rossi counts 143, 192, and 141 leaves, Rosenthal 143, 194, and 140, Pellechet, No. 1670: 144, 194, and 143, Roest in his catalogue of the Rosenthaliana at Amster- HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX III dam, p. 455, has 473, Wachstein 477, Zedner, p. 293, gives 486 pages ; the last seems to be a misprint for 480, caused by the occurrence of the number 86 on the same line in the reference to De Rossi, which curiously is also misprinted as 486. Roest must have had a defective copy ; the other discrepancies are due to the fact that most copies lack some of the blank leaves. Unfortunately no detailed collation of the British Museum copy is available. I used Steinschneider's complete copy, which has no blanks (474 leaves), and that of Columbia, which has three blanks, the only detailed collation of Wachstein, and that of Rosenthal. From these I derive the following collation : Book I. Preface and contents (i*), i and 4 b being blank; "^n-N, (i"), i b and 2 blank = 70 „ II. Contents (i^), 5 b and 6 blank ; 'n-S% '"'0, 6 b blank = 76 „ III. Contents (i-), i and 2a blank; "wS', -J^-D, 7 b and 8 of last blank =194 „ IV. Contents (i"), i a blank; ^'-N, ''S\ *2' = 96 „ V. Contents (i*"), i blank; -n-N, (i^), 4b blank = 44 480 This method of collation, which is common in the description of incunabula in general, has to be applied consistently to the Hebrew incunabula as well. By this means it is easy to examine any copy and determine whether it is complete or what is missing. It is more convenient to follow the signatures of the books than to count through the whole volume as A\^achstein does, and by this method the blanks left by the printer are most easily indi- cated and find their natural explanation. In the two cases where a new volume begins — the Kanon is mostly bound in three volumes. Books I-II, III, IV-^V— i.e. with Books III and IV the recto of the first leaf of the table of contents is left blank. I think that this detailed description is not quite out of place here as it corrects the books reviewed in various points. In this connexion I want to draw attention to a very instructive paper : ' Desiderata in the cataloguing of Incunabula, with a guide for 112 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Catalogue entries ', by Arnold C Klebs in Papers of the Biblio- graphical Society of America^ X, 1916, pp. 143-63. The rarest books described by Cassuto are the last two numbers. The Psalter of Brescia 1493 (No. 72) is not found in Oxford; Steinschneider includes the number 13 in brackets to indicate the fact, and but for a couple of leaves De Rossi was able to acquire, the copy in Florence is unique. De Rossi remarks that it was produced from the type set for the Brescia Bible which was printed at the same time, each column of the Bible text being broken into two so as to prepare a handy pocket edition of the Psalter. Other instances of the same practice by Soncino were given by Friedberg, ZfHB., VIII, p. 158, who like Cassuto overlooked this remark of De Rossi about our book. The most curious of the Florence incunabula is No. 43, Pentateuch, Megillot and Haftarot. which claims that its text of the Pentateuch was corrected according to the famous Hilleli- codex. Cassuto contradicts Freimann's assertion that this edition was meant to serve as a Tikkun, since the text is too incorrect. It is much to be regretted that we have no specimen of this print which Freimann, who discovered it, intended to publish in fac- simile {ZfHB., VIII, p. 144). Since the Codex Hilleli remained in the Iberian peninsula down to the time of the expulsion (see Zacuto, Juchasin, ed. Filipowski, London, 1857, p. 220b), we are justified in ascribing this edition to a Spanish or Portuguese press. As a supplement to his Incuiiaboii Cassuto published in the Rivista Israeiitica, IX, pp. 167-73, and a reprint of seven pages ' Note bibliografiche suUa edizione principe del Kol-Bo.' He had found a copy of this incunable in the Collegio Rabbinico after his book had appeared, and upon careful examination of the book reached the conclusion that there is no basis for the assertion of the bibliographers which Rosenthal (No. 41) still follows, that the book was printed in Naples c. 1490. It belongs to the books for which neither place nor date is known. One of the very rare incunabula which is dealt with rather briefly by Rosenthal (No. 40), the Behai Of Naples, contains in its HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX II3 long epigraph, which is for the first time fully reprinted by Wach- stein, pp. 21-3, a statement which, if I interpret it right, is of great interest for the history of Hebrew typography. Azriel Gunzen- hauser's brother-in-law, Moses ben Isaac, is called ac'im Dsn 'cf^n ynv N^s msnn nrs^D b:i2 n)uv^ )*y ncnn^. Steinschneider (Zei^- schrifi fiir Geschichte der Jndeii in Deutschland, I, p. 105) explains this 'war vielleicht ein Letternschneider oder Pressenverfertiger '. I think the text clearly implies that he was also, and in the first place, a wood-engraver. Our book contains some very pretty woodcut borders (see the reproduction in Wachstein, p, 20), a fact which strengthens this theory considerably. Besides these full- page borders the names of the books of the Pentateuch are printed in a woodcut frame. In examining the various Naples incunabula of our library I found that this woodcut frame of our book, the latest dated Naples incunabulum, occurs in the earliest Naples books, the parts of the Ketubim as well. It is reproduced by Rosenthal as No. 16 of the facsimiles from Proverbs 1487. We find it again in the Ibn Ezra of 1488 (see Jewish Encyclopedia, VI, 523), Nahmanides 1490, &c. Sometimes it is turned around, the bottom being put on the top. If we compare the various books we can see how the frame is gradually being broken on one side, and the signs of wear are very evident in the later books. If Moses ben Isaac is the wood- engraver whose work is used for the Behai, we therefore are justified in ascribing to him all the woodcuts used in Gunzenhauser's office, and these include most of those found in Italian incunabula.'^ Whether they are the work of the same artist requires expert examination. Here I only wish to establish the fact that we have the name of an active wood-engraver working for a Hebrew printer. The question might also be raised whether Moses did some work for printers of Latin books, and whether perhaps the same designs also occur in non-Hebrew books. A careful investigation of the woodcuts illustrating Ibn Sahula's MasJial ha-kadmoni (not mentioned in WK L. Schreiber, Manuel de * See now Freimann, ZurGcsc/iic/iic (ley iidisclicn BitchillHstnition bis ij.fo. ZfHB. XXI, 1918, p. 25 seq. VOL. XI. I 114 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW r amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur metal an if siede, V) might have an important bearing on this question. As a matter of fact it has been estabhshed that the border used by Tuppo in Naples, 1485, for his edition of Aesop occurs again in the first complete edition of the Hebrew Bible (Soncino, 1488); see F. Lippmann, The Art of IVood-engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century, London, 1888, p. 15, note (where Naples is wrongly given as printing-place of the Bible) ; A. W. Pollard, Italian Book Illustrations, London, 1894, p. 23, and Early Illustrated Books, 2nd edition, London, 191 7, p. 83. Only researches in one of the great libraries abroad could throw further light on this problem. On the most interesting Spanish and Portuguese incunabula of Rosenthal I shall only add a few brief remarks. No. 50, which the Seminary Library acquired together with No. 52, is different from the Guadalaxara edition of Kimhi on the Later Prophets, of which the Breslau Seminary possesses a complete copy. The Zamora Rashi does not speak of three earlier editions of Rashi, as claimed under No. 52, but states that Rashi was the third book issued from the Zamora press, the preceding two being a Pentateuch and a prayer-book. No. 55 is recorded by Jacobs as 65, No. 66, which I have seen, is only part of a leaf containing Gqw. 43. 29 — 44. 23. Instead of ' Kommentar ', p. 27, line i, read 'Targum'. Under 67 Leiria is called the last printing-place for Hebrew in- cunabula. This is incorrect. The last place is Barco, where Soncino printed in 1497. In conclusion I wish to draw attention to a two-column article on an Hebrew incunabulum which, although a little older, is probably known to very few of the readers. A few years ago I received, through the kindness of the author, Mr. S. Seeligmann of Amsterdam, a reprint of an article ' Eene zeldzame Rasje- uitgave', which had appeared in Centraal-Blad voor Israelieten in Nederland, XVI, No. 43 (1901). The author, who signs his name C'^NH nC'N, deals with the Rome edition of Rashi, of which the Seminary Library has a splendid complete copy, but his pur- pose is not to give bibliographical information, but to point to HEBREW INCUNABULA — MARX II5 the importance of the book for textual criticism, illustrating it by a few good readings not recorded by Berliner.^ This is a point in which the value of the Hebrew incunabula greatly differs from most of those in other languages. In the latter the texts com- monly used are in every way superior to their early predecessors, being based on the best manuscripts which came down to us, and having profited by the vast advances of the study of philology. For most of the Hebrew texts the early editions are far superior to the modern reproductions, and they enable us in numberless cases to correct difficulties and establish a better text. Outside of the Bible editions examined by De Rossi, Baer and C. D. Ginsburg, and the Talmud treatises culled in Rabbinovicz's CIEDID ''p1"'P''> very few of these books have been consulted for modern editions (Kohut's Aruk is perhaps the most notable exception), and a collection of Hebrew incunabula and other early editions is therefore not a matter of curiosity to be relegated to a museum, but represents the indispensable tools for the Jewish scholar. Unfortunately they will retain this importance for a long time yet, since there is little prospect for an organized effort to produce the necessary critical editions of all these important works to supersede them, an effort which could only be directed by a Jewish academy with large financial resources. I have in the foregoing review dealt at great length with the points in which I had to disagree with the authors on a subject to which I have devoted a great deal of time lately in connexion with the census of fifteenth-century books owned in America. I gladly state once more in conclusion that the books, and especially that of Cassuto, are a very important contribution to a field little cultivated, and that I derived from them most valuable information. 6 Lately J. Maarsen, n'lTD? mNSn Textstudien op den Pcnfatmch- Conimentaar van Mozes Naclnnanides, I (Genesis en Exodus), Amsterdam, 1918, corrected the text of that commentary in numberless cases on the basis of the early editions, especially that of Lisbon 1489 yielding very valuable readings. The earliest incunabulum edition. Rome before 1480. unfortunately was inaccessible to him. I a Il6 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Cassuto, Umberto. GH studi giudaici in Italia negli ultimi cinquanf an7ii {i86i-igii). Fascicolo I : Bibliografia. Roma, 19 13 (reprinted from Rivisia degli studi orietitali, V). pp. 88, 8vo. Italian Jewry has always maintained a high level of culture and education. While the number of standard works it can boast of is not very large, it can point to the Aruk as the classical dictionary of Talmudic literature for a period of eight centuries. Modern historical criticism in Jewish literature takes its starting-point from the famous Meor Enayim of Azariah de Rossi (Mantua, 1574), who was far in advance of his time. Among the founders of Jewish Wissenschaft in the nineteenth century Isaac Reggio, and especially Samuel David Luzzatto, take a very high rank. In spite of the relatively small number of Italian Jews, everybody familiar with the recent development in the field of Jewish literature is well aware of the important contributions in this field due to the zeal of the small band of devoted Jewish scholars in that country. The ten volumes of the Rivista Israelitica, a strictly scientific bi-monthly, contain a great number of articles of the highest value in all departments of Jewish learning and are indispensable to the serious Jewish scholar. But even those who have more or less closely followed the progress of Jewish studies in the various countries will be surprised by the amount of work actually accomplished in the field of post- biblical Judaism in Italy during the last fifty years and recorded in Cassuto's careful and most valuable bibliography. It is only through it that we get full insight into this activity of our Italian co-religionists. Incidentally an index is supplied to the articles of scientific value which appeared in the various Italian Jewish periodicals (of course with the omission of the contributions of foreigners like Berliner or Steinschneider, which, however, at least in the case of these two scholars, are enumerated in the biblio- graphies of their writings). Luzzatto comes in for the last five years of his life only, but the numerous posthumous publications A History of ^ Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy By ISAAC HUSIK, Ph.D. L + 452 pages. Cloth bound. Price S3.00 The first complete history of mediaeval Jewish rationalistic philosophy for both the student and the general reader which has as yet been written in English. ^In the words of an eminent reviewer, 'To have compressed a comprehensive discussion of. five centuries of earnest and pro- ductive thought upon the greatest of themes into a book of, less than four hundred and fifty pages is an achievement upon which any author may be congratulated. To have done the work so well and in particular to have expressed profound reflections upon abstruse problems in a style so limpid, so fluent, so readily understood, is to have placed all who are interested in thought and thinkers under great obligation.' FOR SALE BY The Jewish Publication Society of America 1201 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A. ~ THE ANCIENT HEBREW LAW OF HOMICIDE By MAYER SULZBERGER, LL.D., H.L.D. 160 pages. Cloth bound. Price $1.25 net. OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE AM HA-ARETZ, THE ANCIENT HEBREW PARLIAMENT A CHAPTER IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT ISRAEL 79 pages and 1 map. Cloth bound. Price 75 cents net. THE POLITY OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS 96 pages. Cloth bound. Price 75 cents net. For Sale by JULIUS H. GREENSTONE, 1926 NORTH THIRTEENTH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA., U.S.A. THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA An institution of higher learning which prepares its students for the Rabbinical career, and is authorized to confer the degrees of Rabbi, Doctor of Divinity, and Doctor of Hebrew Literature. Acting President : Cyrus Adler. M.A. (Pennsylvania), Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins). Sabato Morals Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis: Israel Friedlaender, Ph.D. (Strassburg). Professor of Talmud : Louis Ginzberg, Ph.D. (Heidelberg). Professor of History: Alexander Marx, Ph.D.(K6nigsberg). Professor of Homiletics: Mordecai M. Kaplan, M.A. (Columbia), Rabbi (Jewish Theological Seminary of America). Professor of Mediaeval Hebrew Literature: Israel Davidson, Ph.D. (Columbia). Professor of Codes : M. Hyamson, B.A., LL.D. (University College, London). Instructors : Wilfred P. Kotkov, Ph.B. (Chicago), M.A. (Pennsylvania), Ph.D. (Dropsie); Morris Levin e, M.A. (Columbia). Instructor in Public Speaking : Walter Robinson. Librarian : Professor Alexander Marx. Registrar : Professor Israel Davidson. The Seminary is situated in a commodious building, 531-535 West 123rd Street, New York City. It has a valuable library consisting of 60,378 books and 1,849 manuscripts. A synagogue is connected with the Seminary in which the students are expected to deliver sermons. Under its direction there is conducted a Teachers' Institute for the training of Teachers for Hebrew and Religious Schools. For information concerning courses, scholarships, degrees, &c., apply in writing to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 531 West 123rd Street, New York City. Printed in England at the Oxford University Press. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. rvTT fi Form L9-50rn-7,'54(5990)444 • / TUi: Lli3UAUV UIOVERSlTY OF CALIFORNIA tOS ANGELES Z Marx - 2i|0 Hebrew incunabula M36h Z 2U0 M36h iliiiMill! L 006 793 345 7 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 199 719