Verses after another manner from that which is now made use of in the Masoretick Editions generally published in these days But this seems chiefly most worthy observation as to our present business that there appears nothing at all of the Points of Vowels which as it were confine the Modern Reading of the Hebrew Context within certain bounds nor in like manner any thing of those Accents which are now in the room of Points Titles and other late invented strokes of the Pen. Then again that there was formerly no division of Sections in the Manuscript Copies the Samaritan Exemplars sufficiently testifie wherein such kind of Sections are mark'd after a distinct manner Which had they been added to the Law by Moses himself as the Jewish Rabbies falsly imagine there would follow the greatest consent that could be as to this matter between the Jews and the Samaritans Falsly therefore the Talmudists pronounce that no Verse ought to be distinguish'd that was not distinguish'd by Moses For if it were so why do the Talmudists differ in this particular from the Masorethites who are said to have put a hedge about the Law Sig Le Torah Was it impossible that the Jews such resolute observers of their own Traditions should not be able to retain the same Tradition receiv'd from Moses and to preserve it entire in their several Copies R. Moses Nor is there any other judgment to be made concerning the Divisions of the Sections whenas the same Masorethites as R. Moses attests by reason of the difference of the Copies to which they trusted could not agree among themselves and Moses himself acknowledges that he found a very great Confusion in all the Copies that came to his hands insomuch that rejecting all the other Exemplars he stuck only to one which was thought to have been corrected by R. Ascer and followed it in every thing for the making out a Copy for his own use As for the Time when these Marks of Sections Comma's and other Distinctions first crept into the Context of the Bible it will be needless to make any over-curious enquiry For these things being only the Fancies of Criticks will obtain no greater Authority than what it can win from the consent and publick practice of the Rabbies for that according to the variation of Times and succession of Ages they were subject to various Alterations as being things that depended meerly upon the Judgments and Conceits of men One of the great Criticks among the Jews Elias the Levite that all these things had their birth in the School Rabbies of Tiberias vulgarly call'd the Masorites after the Decease of St. Jerom and the Talmudists so that whatever was publish'd afterward concerning the Antiquity of those Distinctions were but the fancies and conceits of idle people as if any other Opinion were to be conceiv'd in this particular of the Holy Writings than of the Greek and Latine Books For it was not necessary that Books because they are holy should not be permitted to come into the World without their Points and Interpunctions as if for Example the pointing of the Modern Latine Version which the Holy See has approv'd by her consent and has thought only fit to be retain'd in all the Latine Editions of the Bible were necessarily to be derived from the Times of the Apostles But we have said enough upon this Subject now to the Copies in use among private persons These also may be said to be of two sorts of which some were written out by the Vulgar Jews and some of the common people others by men that were skilful in their Language and for the use of those who were eminent in Authority such as were those who took upon them the Title of Nassi or Prince The first being written in a lesser Character and Bulk and not so carefully corrected as they ought to have been are found to be full of Errours And several such Copies as these are found in several Libraries of the Christians But the latter being done with great labour and cost and from Copies the most Antient and best corrected are far to be preferred before all others They are written in large and most elegant Capital Letters and which is a certain sign of a good Copy none of those words appear to be omitted in these which are added down in lesser Characters upon the Margin of the Leaf as in the Books of the common Jews which abound with those kind of faults For they being deceiv'd by the similitude of words and sentences following one another set down the maim'd and curtail'd words of the Context hardly minding what they write Moreover it is of great consequence from whence and from what hands these Manuscript Copies are taken More corrected Bibles For the Spanish are much better corrected than the German French or Italian For the Spanish Jews have been much more careful to correct their Copies than any of the other Jews besides that they are more curious in the neatness of Writing Which was the reason that Elias the Levite not a little practis'd in this sort of Study after a recital of several Copies of Bibles adds this concerning the Spanish Exemplars The Book Aspamia Elias Lev. Siphre Lu 〈◊〉 Choth is a Book that contains all the Spanish Exemplars for that they are much better corrected than others R. David Kimchi also makes frequent mention of these Exemplars in his Works and calls them Sepharim Madrigum or Books well corrected By which means the Spanish Jews have not a little polish'd their Language in imitation of the Arabians from whom they borrowed all the Grammar which they have lend in all their study and industry to the correction of the Bible The same Kimchi who was also born in Spain is much applauded by Aben Melech for the great pains he took in searching after the choicest and best corrected Spanish Copies Who saith he Aben Mel. in Michlol Jophi ever took so much care as he did in searching after the best corrected Copies that were in Spain Now how those Copies are to be distinguished and known from others is easily apprehended For the Spanish Characters are four-square and of an extraordinary cut like those in the Royal Bibles set forth by Plantin at Antwerp and those other of Robert Stephens which were certainly transcribed from some Spanish Copies The Italian and French Characters are somewhat rounder The German imitate the Gothick rudeness and may be seen in the Hebrew Books which were first Printed in Germany and the Hebrew Bibles that were Printed at Munster Those Copies are very frequent in Europe which are written in a larger form and bigger Letters with the Masora in the Margin Leusden Praefa◠in Bibl. Hebraic Amstel Octavo adorn'd with several Figures and small Imagery Some such Exemplar is highly extoll'd by John Leusden Hebrew Professor at Vtrecht from whence the Hebrew Bible in Octavo was lately Printed at Amsterdam And he commends it chiefly for this that it
has a large Masora in the Margin under the several shapes of Bears Dogs and Bulls and sundry other creatures But indeed more fit to be expos'd for Children to play with for the sake of the Pictures The Spanish Copies which are of best repute shew the Masora barely and plainly written neither are there any Lines therein that are drawn into the shapes of living creatures as in the last mention'd And therefore the plainer the Copies of the Hebrew Bibles appear so much the chaster from Errours and more corrected thy are For under these shapes of Beasts and Plants the Writer conceal'd his own Errours and Imperfections neither are they more accurate in the Text it self than they are in the Masora CHAP. III. Several of the Manuscript Copies of the Bibles are examin'd Their various Readings are approv'd by the Testimony of the Learned Jews Supposititious Copies of the Bible VVHat the Jews have invented concerning some Copies of the Bible wrote by the hand of Esdras there is no man surely in this Age but believes to be all meer stories As also what is related of other Copies preserv'd at Bononia according to Tinus of Ferrara or at Cabilo if we may credit others No less supposititious may we imagine that Chimerical Piece of Antiquity to be which the Samaritans attributed to the Copy of the Mosaick Law found at Sichem Several other Copies have been also found among the Christians who to defend the Latine Interpreter have very much commended erroneous and counterfeit Copies Thus Lindanus extolled the Copy of an Hebrew Psalter which was preserv'd in England and agreed exactly well with the Latine Edition But that it was plainly an adulterate piece Isaac the Levite sagaciously discover'd meerly by his knowledge of the Hebrew Language Lindanus stifly maintain'd that many things were corrupted by the Jews of set purpose and out of their hatred of the Christians and this he endeavours to make out from the credit of that English Copy which he did not scruple to affirm did formerly belong to Austin the Archbishop But Arias Montanus after he had long sought and at last found out that Copy expresses his grief to find that a person so judicious and learned should write and teach such Stories upon Forein trust Neither Ar. Montan. ad appar B. 6. reg saith he is the Copy Antient nor writ by one that understood the Hebrew Language but by some Latine Scribe that knew how by the command of his men to make a well-shap'd Hebrew Character and this not above fourscore or a hundred years ago A short Book in a short Hebrew Character commendable rather for imitation and neatness of Writing than the knowledge of the Writer where every word was so corrupted that scarcely one could be said to be true Whence we may collect that there is no credit to be given not only to the Jewish Rabbies while they vaunt the Antiquity and Integrity of their Sacred Books but also neither to the Christians though eminent otherwise for their Piety and Learning while they go about to obtrude false and counterfeit Copies upon the World instead of true The feign'd Antiquities of some Copies Lib. Juchasin seu Fanul Among the Jews also there were some true and real Manuscripts of the Bible which were not of that Antiquity to which they pretended Such was that famous and highly reputed Copy of Hillel concerning which there are these expressions in the Book Juchasin In the year 584. there was a great Persecution in the Kingdom of Leon at what time they brought away thence a Copy of the Books of Scripture which Hillel had wrote out by that they corrected all other Copies I saw a part of it which was sold in Africa many years after it seem'd to have been written R. D. Kimchi makes mention of this Exemplar as well in his Grammatical Discourse as in his Commentaries upon the Scripture and in his time he affirms that there was a Pentateuch drawn from that Copy which was kept at Toledo Also R. David Ganz and several other Jews applaud that Copy as being a piece of great Antiquity and Exactness And that same celebrated Name of Hillel impos'd upon persons of great knowledge in the Hebrew Language and Sacred Criticism R. David Ganz in Tjenach David p. 56. Cun. l. 1. de Rep. Heb. insomuch that Cunaeus calls Hillel's Copy a Book of Venerable Antiquity which R. Hillel Chief Priest or Governour rather of the Jews wrote with his own hand who came from Babylon into Syria 60 years before the Birth of our Lord Christ Schickardus also wonderfully extols the Antiquity and Exactness of that Copy and brings Elias the Levite for his Witness as if it had been the Opinion of that same Learned Jew that Hillel returning from the Captivity of Babylon had written that Copy with his own hand Yet for all this Elias the Levite was of a contrary Judgment in this particular who had slain himself with his own Sword had he pronounc'd that Judgment concerning Hillels Copy which Schickard would falsly make him guilty of For in that Exemplar of Hillel there are several Vowel Points Accents and other things of which Elias makes the Rabbies of the School of Tiberias to be the Inventors whom he believes to have liv'd after the Talmudists and St. Jerom. As vain and idle also are all those things which Buxtorf crowds into his Book concerning the Antiquity of Points to prove that Hillel was Contemporary with Epiphanius and before the Masorites of Tiberias As little to the purpose also does the sharp-witted Capellus teaze himself with sundry conjectures concerning Hillels Exemplar But these men through the want of Manuscripts seem incapable to determine any thing concerning Hillel his Bible though had they consulted the Books of only one David Kimchi who is universally read they might easily have apprehended that Hillel was after the Rabbies of Tiberias For that the chiefest differences of Hillels Copy from the rest lie in the variety of Point Vowels Mapphick and Dagesh and other niceties of the same nature which no person conversant among the Monuments of the Antients will affirm to have been invented in the time of Epiphanius And indeed both Cappellus and Buxtorf might have consulted the Comments of John Mercer who sometimes also commends the Hillelian Exemplar Nor would it be a difficult thing to produce many readings of the Hillelian Codex different from the Masoretick collected out of five Manuscript Bibles and those Spanish besides and of the best repute But in regard they are for the most part of little moment I shall pass them over in silence Only some few I shall select from the Book of Joshuah placed in the Margin of a very fair Spanish Copy written about five hundred years since though the Annotations or rather Variations seem to be of a later date Joshuah chap. 6. in the Masoretick Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is written at large Classicum or
Rabbi did not deem himself so religiously bound to follow the Decrees of the Masorites and their Exemplars that he thought it a crime to depart from them Therefore at the end of his Book Jesed Mora he thus writes Id. in lib. Jesed Mora. There is no necessity at all to observe that those Letters Jod He Vau Aleph being chang'd one into another are sometimes added sometimes left out c. Wherefore in his Writings he does not so much regard the manner as the reason of the Transcription Thus in his Commentary upon Psal 5. he believes the word Nasah written with a Samech and He Id. in Psa 5. to be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nasa written with a Sin and an Aleph It was not from the purpose saith he that He should be the same with Aleph and Samech the same with Sin In like manner expounding the 2d Chapter of Joel after he has observ'd that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceeds from the Root Peer he presently tells ye that R. Japhet deriv'd the same word from another Root As if the Letter Aleph were in the number of those Letters that are superfluous as the Masorites term them and unprofitable as if the word were to be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without an Aleph and were Lashon Shachoth or the signification of shining Blackness In which sense this word is taken by most of the Interpreters and this Reading is confirm'd by Judaeus who compil'd the Masoreth with this Marginal Note added to the Hebrew Text This word is of the number of those which are written with an Aleph in the middle that is never express'd Lastly There seem not to have been wanting among the Jews certain Criticks who have employ'd all their time in noting the Readings of the various Copies Of whom the principal are Rabbi Menahem de Lonzano in a Treatise entitled Schethe Jadoth and the Author of a certain other Treatise entitled Minchath Cohen He divides his whole work into two parts and every part or hand contains five fingers of which the first illustrates all the various Lections which he could find in the several Manuscripts of the Mosaical Law by the help of ten written Copies which he thinks to have been written within this five or six hundred years and he compares them with the second Edition of Bomberg in Folio which is the most accurate of all he also strictly examines the Words the Letters Points and Accents of this Edition But all this indefatigable labour and diligence of R. Menahem tends no farther than to demonstrate that the various Readings of Scripture which are found in the several Copies of the Bibles ought to be tryed by the Masora as the most certain Rule of Reason and Writing Of the same Opinion is the Author of the Little Treatise called Minchath Cohen who there most acutely discourses of what words are to be written fully and which defectively And studies to reduce several Lections to their natural exactness by the help of the Masora and the corrected Books Of necessity therefore those Masoretick Copies are to be examined whose sincerity is so highly applauded by the Jews whether they are so pure and correct that it may be thought a point of Faith to swerve from them CHAP. IV. Of the Publish'd Exemplars of the Hebrew Context which are Masoretick Of the Art of the Masorites Of its Original and what Opinion we are to have of it Of the Modern Copies of the Bible IN the latter times the Exemplars of the Biblick Contest are no other than what are vulgarly call'd Masoretick For the Jews for many Ages together have acknowledged no other and from them they came into the hands of the Christians Whence arose that general Agreement between so many Copies of several Places and Times excepting those few and trivial Niceties which are rather the slips of negligent Transcribers than various Lections For how could it otherwise be whenas the Jews who look upon the Masora to be as it were descended from Heaven scruple not to make that their Rule for the Reformation of all Bibles rasing out of all other Manuscript Copies Letters Words and whole Sentences to make them conformable to the Masora And this is easie to be observ'd by those that run over all the Manuscript Copies that have been written for these four or five hundred years last past and hence it is that there is such a wonderful concurrence among the Printed Bibles To which while not only the Jews but also the most Learned among the Jews do not give a sufficient respect admiring overmuch the Exactness of the Hebrew Copy they shew themselves the Promoters of the latter with a more than needful Zeal Therefore Arias Montanus boldly affirms that the Hebrew Context has been preserv'd with so much care by the help of the Masora that it never could be discern'd by the most diligent and piercing Wit or Judgment to have admitted the least variance in several Exemplars In like manner Buxtorf a person that had very much and long turmoil'd in these studies extols the Masora even to excess in these words as if it had been sent from Heaven Herein as far as the East and West extend the Word of God is to be read in one Language and after one manner Here is to be seen a general Consent of all the Books that are in Asia Africa or Europe without any variance 〈◊〉 never happened that we find such a felicity has befallen any Books either of the Chaldeans Greeks Romans or any other People However this egregious Applauder of the Masorites speaks rather out of a preconceiv'd Opinion of the Jews than according to the verity of the Thing He has seem'd to translate into his Commentary upon the Masoreth all the Fables of those his Masters to whom he wholly dedicated himself And by that means he has drawn in most of the Protestant Divines especially the Northern to his own or rather the Jews Opinion of the Exactness of the Hebrew Context being as it were overwhelmed under the Testimonies of the Rabbins They who have been conversant among the Monuments of the Antients especially in the Commentaries of St. Jerom and are therefore better experienc'd in Critick Learning think far otherwise of that Work Nor do they presently swallow those things for Truth with which the Jews half asleep are illiterately contented Rather Elias the Levite is to be listened to in this particular who alone among the Jews apply'd himself to the study of the Masora then to the Rout of the Jews who were altogether ignorant of it That most Learned Rabbi being requested in a Letter by Munster Elias Levit. in Epist ad Sebast Munster to tell him what sort of persons the Masorites were especially those of Tyberias thus answered in the Jewish Language R. Jonas writes that the Jews of Tyberias were well vers'd in the holy Language R. Aben Ezra also writes that from them the
Sedarim 33. Verses 1209. Words 16513. Letters 63467. the middlemost words Elohim lo Tehallel Exod. 22.28 Thou shalt not revile the Gods The Parshoth of Leviticus are 10. the Sedarim 25. the Verses 859. the Words 11902. the Letters 44989 the middlemost words Hannogeang Bibsar Hazab Leviz 15.7 He that touches the slesh of him that has a running Issue In Numbers Parsheth 10. Sedarim 33. Verses 1388. Words 16707. Letters 62529. the middlemost words Ve Hajah Haisch Asher Ebchar And the man whom I shall chuse Deuteronomy has Parshoth's 10. Sedarim 30. Verses 9055. Words 16394. Numb 17.5 Letters 54892. The middlemost words Ve Gnasitha Gnal Pi Haddabar And thou shalt do according to the Sentences Deut. 19.10 As for the rest of the Hebrew Context there is no number of the words But if we compare this Enumeration of the Letters of the Mosaical Law with that which is set forth in the Venetian and Basil Bibles you will find this to be very erroneous For that allows to Genesis no more than 4395 Letters whereas the former reckons up 78100. and therefore seems to be farthest from Truth But why such an indefatigable diligence in numbring the Letters of the Hebrew Letters with the Masorites should be call'd the hedge of the Law by the benefit of which it is preserv'd entire and uncorrupted from Errour or Mistake I cannot well apprehend Whenas they who were so anxiously laborious number'd in other Letters than those of their own Books which no wise man will look upon to be so free from faults or to be compar'd with the Original Then as Aben Esra rightly observes the Letters Aleph He Vau and Jod are frequently added frequently omitted according to the fancy of the Transcribers Certainly no man that understands any thing of Critical Learning will from thence only because the Masora observes such a word sometimes fill'd up sometimes defective presently infer that all other Biblick Exemplars are not of that value because they vary in their Lections but imbracing both Lections as probable will determine nothing certain in a thing of so much incertainty as being taught by the Examples of the LXX Interpreters Aquilas Symmachus Theodotion and St. Jerom who many times not only vary from the Masoreth but from one another And therefore the Jews and the Idolizers of the Masorites are miserably deceiv'd who believe that the Holy Writ was restor'd to its Antient Form by a bare Enumeration of the Words and Letters made by the Doctors of Tyberias and cry it up in the place of the Authentick Original Than which there could be nothing more fabulously invented especially after such a long succession of years that the Hebrew Language has been as it were buried and the Traditions of the dead almost entomb'd at least most strangely interrupted And therefore the more prudent Aben Esra rightly compares the Masoreticks that have so carefully enumerated the Letters and Words of the Hebrew Context to those who should number the Leaves and Pages of a physick-Physick-Book which would nothing contribute to the health of a sick Patient As for the Distinction of the Verses which appears in the Masoretick Editions I think the same sentence is to be pronounced as concerning the numbring of Letters and Words in regard that the Authors of this Enumeration have observ'd no other than the Rules of Criticism in distinguishing the Verses after the manner of the Grammarians But if we listen to the Talmudists they cry Every Verse which Moses does not distinguish we never distinguish But if that Tradition were receiv'd From Moses wherefore do not the Talmudists agree in all things with the Masorists in this particular Why also was not that Tradition of which Moses is feign'd to be the Author known likewise to those Jews that liv'd in Time of the Greek Interpreters and St. Jerom For they also differ in many things from the Masorites The whole Context of Sacred Writ was formerly in Antient Times written in a continu'd series of words as it had been one entire Verse as Elias Levita well observes As also were the Books of the Antient Greeks and Latines which may be collected from the Proem of Eustathius to his Commentaries Eustath in Iliad Hom. The Poem of the Iliads was and continu'd a well compacted body of words which the Grammarians so continu'd by the command of Pisistratus King of Athens and fitted as they pleas'd themselves The chief of which was Aristarchus and after him Zenodotus But because it was prolix and intricate and by that means irksom to the Reader they divided it into several parts which Sections they would not call the first second and third Book c. as Quintus did in his continuation of Homer But in regard the Composition was large enough for several Sections they thought fit to divide them into Sections under the four and twenty Letters And Illatius commends one Comatas who distinguish'd and pointed the Sentences of Homer's Poem Apud Leon. Allati animadvers in Antiq. Hetrus which never had any subdistinctions before as appears by the following Verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cernens Comatas hos Homericos Libros Jam putrientes nullibi scriptis notis Punctis not atos Ordinans abscidit putredines Ex quo Periti non errantibus viis Discant quod par est discere In Antient times also the Verses of the Poets were not separated one from another by any such notes of distinction as we find in the Printed Editions Nor can the Grammarians themselves rightly distinguish the Odes of Pindar But why do I spend time There 's no reason why the Jewish Books in this particular should have better luck than the Greek Exemplars of the New Testament which 't is well known were but lately distinguish'd into Verses as is not only to be seen in several of the Manuscript Copies but also in many Editions that are Printed according to the Antient Copies True it is that ever since the time of Ezra the Verses of the Law were distinguish'd in Reading But for all that the Amanuenses never made any distinction in their Transcripts as was afterwards done by the Criticks of Tyberias to whose Laws the Jews are no more oblig'd than we to the Decrees of the Apostolick See which after the Correction of the Latine Interpretation decreed that no other Interpretation should be Printed for the future unless it were examin'd by the Vatican Standard Which Edict was for the procurement of Peace and Concord And to this as much as is possible they who gave the Roman Church her Name will adhere in explaining the Latine Interpretation if they be wise observing the Points and all the marks of distinction in that Edition Nevertheless that a clearer and more probable sense will rise from another manner of distinction they do not scruple to prefer it before the
abundantly declare CHAP. VI. Other parts of the Manuscripts in reference to the Manuscript Bibles are examined Their True Original and the Masoretick Lection confirm'd MOst of the Jewish Rabbies not unwillingly acknowledge that the Sacred Manuscripts of the Old Testament do not altogether retain that Form The Antient disagreement of the Heb. Bibles according to the Rabbies which the most Authentick and Original Copies represented and they believe that this Alteration of their Bibles happen'd after they were carry'd into Captivity at what time they had no Rabbies to read to them the Mosaick Law their Form of Worship being utterly abolish'd and their Civil Affairs in that deplorable condition that they had no time to look after their Books Therefore D. Kimehi frequently asserts in his Works R. D. Kim That they perish'd in the Babylonish Captivity and they being destroy'd nothing but confusion follow'd with many other expressions of the same nature R. Ephod R. Ephodaeus is also of the same Opinion who writes That in those Seventy years of the Babylonish Captivity corruption and confusion began to overwhelm the Sacred Writings For that as Kimchi says the Doctors of the Law were dead From thence therefore that before the time of Esdras the Sacred Writings vary'd in several places they believe it may be made out that Esdras who examin'd those Books left several Lections which he met with in the Copies of his Time unmedl'd withal in the Books which he himself examin'd and for this reason they give great credit to the differing Scriptures which were mark'd by the Criticks of Tyberias as if they proceeded from Esdras who was inspir'd with the Holy Ghost than which there is nothing more idle or remote from Truth Aben Mel. in liâ— 1. Paraliâ— This Aben Melech observes upon the words Diphath and Rodanim Diphath in the Book of Chronicles is written with a Daleth and in the Book of Genesis with a Resch Rodanim is written with a Resch and in Genesis with a double Daleth because Resch and Daleth are alike in their form and they who ever viewed the Books of Genealogies written in the Antient Times some write Daleth others Resch Therefore in the Book of Genesis the word was written one way in the Chronicles after another to shew that the word was the same whether written with a Daleth or a Resch Thus Jod and Vau are written promiscuously because they are alike in their figure And the same is to be said for the mute Letters Aleph and He in the end of a word as in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a He in the end which is the same as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Aleph in the end For Aleph and He are agreed to be both Aspirates and every one makes use of them at his pleasure Thus has Aben Melech written almost word for word from the Commentaries of R. D. Kimchi The same Aben Melech produces many other Examples of several other varieties of the same nature which he testifies to have collected out of the Tractates of R. Judas Jonas Aben Esra Kimchi c. Thus he observes Alin and Alevan to be read in Scripture promiscuously with a Jod sometimes and sometimes with a Vau. Hemeran and Hemdan with Resch or with Daleth Jaakan and Vaakan with Jod or with Vau with many others which I omit for brevities sake They never minded saith he the change of a Letter or two and he observes it to have been frequently done He also makes mention of the transposition of words and upon those words in Chronicles Bathsceva the Daughter of Amiel he makes this observation Bathsceva the Daughter of Amiel she is Bathsceva the Daughter of Eliam 2 Sam. 11. which some read Barsceba Aben Mel. ad c. 3. Chron. others Bathsceba because they are near in pronunciation In the same manner Amiel and Eliam are the same but that the Letters are transposed which transposition of Letters is to be observ'd in the first place there being several Examples to confirm it in the Hebrew Copies of which the LXX Interpreters made use R. Levi Ben Gersom makes the same observation upon the word Jabes R. L. Ben Gersom I believe Jabes with an Ain to have been one of the Judges and to have been that person who in the 12th of the Judges is call'd Abetson with an Aleph For Aleph and Ain are near in pronunciation and often changed one into another Don Joseph also the Spaniard R. Joseph Comment in Chron. in his Exposition of the Book of Chronicles inquiring why there appears so much difference in the Genealogies between that Book and the Books of Moses Joshua Samuel and Kings unfolds this question in these words That Esdras seem'd to have found those words or hard names in some Compendium and so wrote them down as he found them Then observing a vast difference of names and things he presently adds Neither ought that to be a wonder for that in the Series of many Ages great alterations happen both of names and things But Esdras wrote down those Families in the same manner as he found them scatter'd in little Manuals some out of one place some out of another and in words abbreviated And therefore the Family which he mentions is described in many places without order and method Lastly The same Rabbi believes that the Jews had forgot their Genealogies and that Esdras wrote what occurr'd to his memory though it were written without order R. Jos ad l. 1. Chron. c. 9. and at several times And therefore most of the Jewish Rabbies rather chuse to accuse the Books which they believe Esdras made use of in digesting the Context of the Bible than the oscitancy and carelesness of the Scribes that came after In this indeed the Fathers of the Church agree with those Jews that both ascribe to Esdras the Title of Restorer of the Sacred Context at that time in great confusion only the Fathers believe that being inspir'd with a Prophetical Spirit he reform'd it from many faults In Prâ—fat in Psal That most admirable Esdras saith Theodoret transcrib'd those Sacred Writings which by the carelesness of the Jews and the Impiety of the Babylonians were entirely corrupted And these are rather to be believ'd than the hair-brain'd Jews who will have Esdras to publish the Scriptures deprav'd and corrupted as they were with all their faults and so they attribute all those various Lections which the Masorites denote under the terms of Keri and Cetib to the same Esdras as if those various Readings which the Criticks daily remark upon the Margins of their Books were to be attributed to men inspir'd by God We must therefore conclude that the Masorites of Tyberias by the help of the Antient Copies and assistance of good Judgments corrected what Errours had crept into the Copies of their Times through the Ignorance of the Scribes But bearing a Veneration too superstitious toward the Sacred
the Jewish Writings thus delivers himself concerning those Letters There is no question says he but the causes of those diversities seem'd worthy and just to those wise and prudent persons in former Ages Buxt Comment Masor but the various Exilements and grievous Calamities of their Posterity have buried them in oblivion or alter'd them into various Figments and fond Mysteries Thus Buxtorf rather chuses to make himself a Patron of Masoretick Superstition than to enquire into the cause of that Superstitious Writing which Superstition shews it self in this that the Modern Exemplars of the Bibles which were examin'd by the Doctors of Tyberias are some lesser some bigger than others some turn'd inward others hanging downward The cause of which seems to be no other than that the hands of the Scribes could not so make the Letters of Lines extended in length as to be every way equal one with another whence it happen'd that some varied in shape from the rest It might so fall out also that some Letters at the beginning of the Volume might be made bigger of set purpose as Aleph and Beth of which the one is the first Letter in the beginning of the Chronicles the other of Genesis But the Jews who knew how to fetch out a Mystery out of the least tittle of a Letter began to conceit new Fictions upon this Writing which afterwards by virtue of the Authority of the Doctors that first invented these Fables being receiv'd by the rest of the Jews were easily propagated to Posterity But though the use or rather abuse of those Letters seems to be very antient and long accustom'd by the Masorites yet have I found a vast difference in the observance of those Delineations between the Exemplars of the Manuscript Bibles and those For in those there are fewer Examples of those Letters or if you meet with any the form of the Letter is hardly discern'd to differ from the other Thus the bigness of the Letter Aleph which is the first in the Book of Chronicles and Beth in the beginning of Genesis in many Spanish Copies is scarcely to be discern'd so small is the difference between them and the rest In one Spanish Copy written about some 10 years since those trifles are altogether neglected Thus Isaiah c. 56.10 In the Masoretick Bibles the word Tsophau or Watchmen is Printed with a great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tsade but in the Manuscript Copy the same word is written without any manner of distinction from the rest and so it is likewise written in another Manuscript Thus in the 44th chapter of the same Prophet where we read in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He planted an Ark with a small Nun at the end of the word is writ as it should be with a proportionable Nun. So vain and superstitious is that Masoretick Annotation upon that place There happen three small Nuns In the 6th chapter of Daniel v. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is written in the Masoretick Bibles with the latter Pe very large whereas there is no such thing in the Spanish and other Manuscripts In other two Spanish Manuscripts there is a great Pe to be seen but with this difference that the one enlarges the first Pe the other the second In the 3d Chapter of the Prophet Malachi according to the Hebrew but the 4th in the English Translation and v. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remember is written with a large Zain but in the two Spanish Copies there is not the least appearance of any such thing nor in the Bibles of Menasseh Ben Israel Printed at Amsterdam The same account is to be given of Letters turn'd and rais'd above the rest as in the Hebrew Exemplar as of Letters lesser or larger Thus in the 18th of Judges v. 3. the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Manesses is written with a little Nun rais'd above the rest which is also advanc'd in the Manuscript Copies but not in that manner for only the top of the Nun is rais'd a little above the other not the whole body of the Letter Therefore the Jewish Grammarians erroneously give these Letters the Title of Rais'd Letters is it were separated and set above the other when it could be nothing but the fault of the Scribe who was not so steady at that time There is one Spanish Copy also that will not own the depressed Caph in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to weep for her Gen. 23. v. 2. nor the great Zain in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Harlot Gen. 34.31 Nor is the word Shilleshi M so written in the Manuscript with a capital Mem as in the Masoretick Editions Only one word of this Book Gen. 2.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they were created is written with a small 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He as the other Copies have it To search the Scriptures any farther for these trifles will be a vanity since they are only the dreams of idle Fancies And I could wish that custom might be utterly rejected for the future The same fond Superstition also was the occasion of so many Figments about Aleph Jod He and Vau which were the Original Vowels of the Hebrew Language especially omitted in the writing For Example in 2 Sam. c. 9. you find the Negative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lu with a Kibbuts without the Letter Vau which should otherwise have been writ thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon which I found this Masoretick note in the Margin Jerom◠quest in Gen. Lo is twice defective because Absolom did not overcome And that this the Jews observ'd ever since the time of St. Jerom his own words sufficiently testifie As we have here put it in the Hebrew his first name is written Ephran yet after he was over-ruled to take money for a Burial-place though he were pressed to it by Abraham the Letter Vau which is read among them was taken out of his name and instead of Ephron he was called Ephran the Scripture thereby intimating that he was not a person of true and perfect generosity Here as frequently in other places St. Jerom does not speak his own but the mind of the Jews However it is probable that this variety of Character which at first proceeded only from the careless and negligent humour of the Scribes as Aben Ezra observes The method of writing the Heb. Text uncertain gave the Jews an occasion to ground many Mysteries upon it as being persons that will spring a Miracle out of a Shoe-latchet As for the writing of Aleph it was always uncertain from the very time that the Authentick Originals of the Sacred Text were lost by the Jews So that it solely depends upon the will of the Jews as may be easily prov'd by comparing the most Authentick Manuscripts with the publish'd Editions For they differ in a thousand places so that I could number above six thousand of those Letters which are not extant in the publick Exemplars Therefore the
Criticks of Tyberias in vain turmoil'd and weari'd themselves in counting how many times this or that word was full and how many times defective For example they diligently consider how many times the word Otham is written at large in the Text they observe that it was written in the Law thirty nine times full or with the Letter Vau and thus they run through all the Books of Scripture But upon comparing the Manuscripts together they could never once agree among themselves after what manner the said word was to be written Moreover this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being fully thus written does not only signify them or those which is its true and genuine signification but sometimes with them as if it were written Ittham and were defective in the writing So true it is that in these words the sence and not the Character is to be regarded But above all there is nothing like the Superstitious niceness of the Jews in writing the word Ieruschalaim while they diligently observe all the places of Scripture where it is to be writ at length with a Jod and where without And yet neither the Hebrew Manuscripts nor the Masoretick Examplars agree one among another How many fictions have they raised about the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Meoroth or Lights which in the Beginning of Genesis is written without a Vau contrary to the rules of Proportion and because the Jewish Rabbies have raised a thousand fictions from this manner of writing such a Notable word hence the Scribes have been very careful to observe that manner of spelling True it is that the Insertion or Omission of those letters which depend upon the pleasure of the Scribes seldom prejudice the sense and therefore in such cases neither the one nor the other is of any moment But sometimes it happens that they alter the sense As 2 Sam. 20. In the third of Sophonia where we read Nogue Sad as the Interpreters vulgarly render it from Jaga Rabbi Solomon expounds it remote or forraign as if it came from the Root Haga without any regard to the Masoretick reading There are not wanting some Rabbies who derive the word Nechiloth in the Title of the 5. Psalm from Chalal as if it were to be written without a Jod not much heeding the Rules of the Masorites for full and defective words I omit above six hundred of this nature frequently to be met with in the Commentaries of the Jews by which the Greek Translations of the LXX Interpreters and the Latine of St. Jerome may be Illustrated in many places Neither is St. Jerome to be commended for this that he blames the Greek Interpreters for differing sometimes from him in that sort of reading For this reason he taxes those who in the 14. Chapt of Isaiah for Angels as it is in the Hebrew Exemplar translate Kings because that in their Copies they find the word Malkim without the Letter Aleph not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Letter Aleph as St. Jerome had it But the Greek Interpreters were not to be governed so much by the reading of Copies as by the sense which was most proper to the place especially when the Manuscripts and printed Editions do not agree about the Insertion of the Letter Aleph As in Jeremy the Seventh v. 18. Where the modern Exemplars read Limleketh to the Queen without an Aleph yet in a single Manuscript it is written with an Aleph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And hence arose those Masoretick observations of Redundant Letters CHAP. VIII Some Examples of differing Writings are produced from the Manuscripts which vary from the Masoretick Lections AFter that the Hebrew Language ceas'd to be familiarly spoken among the Jews and that the Chaldee Language became the Speech of the Country the Writers made many alterations in their Transcriptions by reason of the Affinity of the Languages Nor were they so curious of neat Letters as they were before From whence without question it came to pass that the Letter Aleph so much in use among the Chaldaeans is many times mistaken for the Letter He and added to words without any reason And from hence I suppose it happened that there are so many Chaldaeisms in the Hebrew Text as Shelechebeth Flame by the Addition of the Letter Schin according to the custom of the Chaldeans Magnath abin and Calabin instead of Magnathabim and Calabim with several others of the same nature which I omit that I may come to those other variations of writing frequent in the Manuscript Copies of most credit and Authority In the writing of these words El Elohim Jehovah Col and the like which are frequently redundant with the Greek Interpreters the Manuscript Copies do not a little vary from the printed Masoreticks Which because they are more frequent in speech are sometimes inserted sometimes omitted by the Scribes Thus in the beginning of the 16. Psalm the word Jehovah is thus repeated in one Spanish Copy Thou hast said Jehovah L' Jehovah Jehovah to Jehovah thou art my Lord but in the modern exemplar only once In the same exemplar Ezech. 30. v. 3. The word Jehovah is thus twice repeated The day of the Lord the day of the Lord approaches But the Masoretick Copy repeats the Lord but once nor does St. Jerom seem to have read it otherwise in his exemplars Neither do the Seventy Interpreters repeat the sentence saying no more then once the day of the Lord approaches On the other side in the same Spanish Manuscript Judges 1.1 The word Col is omitted and the Lection is thus The Children of Israel went forth but in the printed Editions Col Benei All the Children of Israel went forth But it is needless to repeat any more examples of these Variances which nevertheless St. Jerom writing to Sunias and Fretelas very carefully enumerates for the thing it self informs us that those sorts of words might easily have been added or omitted in the transcribing of the Copies Moreover in the Spanish Manuscript already recited toward the end of the 2d Chap. of the 1 Book of Chronicles the Lection is conformable to the Greek Interpreters and to what St. Jerom had read in his Copies Maacha Calebs Concubine brought forth Seber and Thirana The Spanish Copy reads Jaldah brought forth in the Faeminine Gender but in the Masoretick Editions it is written Jahad in the Masculine Gender he begot and so cannot be joyned with the Faeminine Concubina or Concubine Wherefore the modern Interpreters of the sacred Text who follow the Masorites over zealously for fear of erring against the rules of Grammar make use of this Periphrasis Maacha Caleb's Concubine of whom he begat Sebar and Thirana In the 3d Chapter v. 19. of the same Book where we find in the Printed Books Vben Zerubbabel with a Masoretick marking the margent denoting the Opinion of the Masorites that it should be read in the Plural Number Benei and not in the singular Ben in the Spanish Copy it appears to be Benei
in the Plural In the 6 Chap. of the same Book instead of Michael as it is in our Exemplars the Manuscript Copy reads Malachie and in another place instead of Vzziah another Manuscript reads Azaria In the eighth Chap. of Josuah v. 22. The Manuscript Copy reads Lo in the singular Number with this note in the Margent Lahem in another Copy which Lection is now observed in the modern context The Particle Lo Not and Eth which is the sign of the accusative case are not always written in the same manner in the Manuscripts as in the Printed Exemplars Of far greater moment is that difference which is found in 21. Chap of Joshua wherein there is a want of two verses which are notwithstanding both in the Greek and Latine Editions which that they ought not to have been left out the thing it self declares when in recounting the Cities allotted to the Levites out of every Tribe the Tribe of Reuben could not have been omitted Besides these verses are supplied by five Spanish Manuscripts of best note as also by the Royal Parisian the English the Venetian of Bemberg and Bragand in Quarto the Plantinian in Quarto Robert Stephanus's and that of Amsterdam and other Against all these the learned Masius opposes the Animadversions of the Masora and R. D. Kimchi From whence it is manifest that none of those verses were extant in the Ancient Manuscripts And Masius farther observes that none of those Bibles wherein those verses are to be found make any mention of Jordan Jericho or the Cities of Refuge Only in one Spanish Manuscript there is mention made of a City of Refuge which none of the exemplars hitherto printed allow But there was no need of mentioning Jordan or Jericho because the number of the Cities is made up without them Johannes Morinus who has commented more largely upon this place believes these verses to have been obliterated by the injury of time the negligence of th Jews which seems most probable But in the same place he erroneously observes that the two Comma's which were in the Manuscript by him cited were afterwards eras'd by him that transcribed it this annotation being added in the Margin we found not these two verses in the Hillelian Exemplar for in perusing that Manuscript I perceived that note to be added by some Jewish Criticaster long after the transcribing of the Copy who added to it some of the tittled Vowels and some parts of the Masora beside For that same Criticaster was desirous that his Exemplar should conform in all things to the Masoretick and to gain the more credit to his Emendation he cited the Hillelian Manuscript Therefore D. Kimchi seems more addicted then was needful to the Lection of the Masorites while he affirms that he never saw those two verses which are wanting in the Masoretick Edition in any ancient corrected Exemplar but only noted in Neither does Grotius weigh those verses with a sufficient accuratness suspecting them to have been added out of Chronicles to the Book of Josua after Kimchi's time and thence crept into the Greek and Latine versions On the other side Morinus believes them to have been translated out of the Book of Josua into the Chronicles by Esdras and afterwards left out through the carelesness of the Scribes Which mistake of the Scribes might in this particular more easily happen by reason of the frequent repetition of the word Vmematteh and of the Tribe c. Whence it came to pass that afterwards the several Manuscripts did not constantly retain the same order of sentences In a manner not much unlike to this the ancient Jewish Scribes made many more mistakes especially in the accompts of their families For the same words and the same Phrases often occurring to their fancies as they wrote great confusion by that means crept into the Books of sacred Scripture as may be easily apparent to any one that shall compare the Books of Chronicles with the other Historians For tho it be not permitted to correct the first from the latter yet is it most apparent that there are many things wanting in both that might be restored from the ancient especially the Greek Interpretations the authors of which had Copies differing from the publick Exemplars of the Bible Whose different writings I pass over in silence as being obvious to all and aiming only at those which may be taken out of the Manuscript Copies of the Jews And indeed those Errours have been in the Hebrew Codex of an ancient standing But when any Jewish Rabbi has got himself a name for leâ—rning among his Country-men presently taking a preposterous course they reformed their own Manuscripts by such a ones Copy rejecting the more ancient Books Such among the Jews were the Doctors of Tyberias R. R. Ben Ascer Ben Naphtali Hillel and several others to us unknown By this means it came to pass that the Ancient Exemplars of the Bible being laid aside the differences of writing in things of greatest moment were likewise lost All which things may be demonstrated from other Books of the Jews For if we compare the written with the printed and those which were publisht in several times and at several places 't is a wonderful thing to see how they differ one from another Thus the little Book entitled Jetsira or of the Creation which the Jews falsely attribute to Abraham the Patriarch differs egregiously from it self in several Editions and still there is more disagreement between the Printed Copies Moreover the Latine version of this little treatise in many things disagrees as well from the Manuscripts as printed Editions So that they who lookt after the Mantuan Edition found the vast difficulty of publishing that small Tract to consist as well in quantity as quality The same publishers also observed that the Interpreters who adorned it with their commentaries do very much differ in the reconciliation of the Text. And indeed in the Mantuan Edition there is extant another Copy of that Book not much different from the first In like manner if you compare the Manuscript Copies of that famous piece entitl'd Zohar either with themselves or with the printed Copies you will find a very great discrepancy among them Nor need you look any further then the Edition of that Book printed at Cremona wherein the various Lections which are almost infinite are sedulously noted The same may be observed in the various Copies of the Book entitl'd Cozri of which one was written But I shall insist no longer upon these things Certainly the extream diligence and Industry of the Jews is highly to be applauded who have so studiously observed the readings of various Exemplars On the other side they were highly to be blamed who making no mention of the Books from whence they took their Editions make corrections of them as they think fit themselves Therefore I would have it that those places of sacred Text which bad Connexion tells us to be false or corrupted should be restored
rather mix'd then Pure Those variations which arise from the different marking of the Numbers I pass by as for example Judges 16. Where the Hebrew and the Vulgar read 1100. the Syriac Version numbers 1300. 1 Sam. c. 6. for 50070. in the Hebrew Greek and Latin the Syriac reckons 5070. But no man can be ignorant that there are frequent variations of numbers in all Books of the same nature There are other Examples of different Readings of more moment in the Syriac Translation which altogether alter the Sence such are some in the Book of Joshua especially in the division of their Allotments to the several Tribes Another Alteration there is in the Syriac Exemplar where all the Inscriptions of the Psalms are left out on purpose to put others in their places The reason of which seems to be for that anciently the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Argument of the Psalm was prefix'd at the beginning of every Psalm Whence it came to pass that the Hebrew Inscriptions of the Psalms which did not explain the Psalms to the liking of the Syrians were omitted and others added by the Syriac Rabbies As to the Syriac Language and it's various Dialects I shall say nothing at present in regard that many have already learnedly handl'd that Subject We are only to discourse of those things which concern the Syriac Version Therefore what before we have observ'd touching the Jewish Exemplars to which the Rabbies of Tiberias added the Points that supply the place of Vowels that is now to be noted as to the Syriac Exemplars to which the Syrian Doctors have added the Pointed Vowels which now appear in their Coppies Therefore Walton is in an Error who believes that Gabriel Sionita the Maronite of Mount Lebanon was the first that inserted pointed Vowels into the Syriac Exemplar He was the first saith he speaking of this Gabriel who pointed it and added the Latin Interpretation of the same For before all the Manuscripts were either destitute of points or if any word or vowel happen'd to be pointed in another it was omitted one Syllable pointed and another naked as we see at this day in the Manuscript Copies That this is partly true I will not deny for that the Syriac written Copies some have more some have less points at the pleasure of the Transcribers who nevertheless seldom omit the Principal Yet I have met with Manuscripts that have been exactly pointed Abraham Echâ—llensis In Ebed Jesu a Maronite of Mount Lebanon testifies also that he had by him some Books written in the Syriac Language above 300 or 400 years before compleatly furnish'd with all the Points Then again in most Copies they never omit any Points but only such as are of no use in reading which may be easily supply'd by the Reader As we find in the Syriac Edition of the New Testament which was first publish'd by Vuidmanstadius wherein some Points are omitted which are of little use And therefore the Industry of Gabriel Sionite a most learned person is not so much to be applauded for his adding points to the Copies but he is rather to be commended for this for that with great labour and toyl he corrected the most of the Errors which are extant in those Manuscripts though that Edition does not seem to be so absolute and perfect neither Of the Arabic Translations The Arabick Translations seem to be of much less Authority which are read at this day by the Easiern Christians Nor do they seem to be so ancient as the Syriac For the most of them were made publick among the Syrians as well Jacobites and Maronites as Nestorians when the Syriac Language ceas'd to be familiar when they were subdu'd by the Saracens who introduc'd the Arabic among them The Coptic also or the Christian's that inhabit Egypt had their Bibles written in the ancient Coptic Language which they still retain but because that Coptic Language was known to very few there was a necessity to make new Arabick Versions which might be understood by all So that the most of their Books which are made use of in their Churches are written both in Coptic and Arabic Therefore it is very probable that the Syrians Translated the holy Scripture out of the Syriac into â—â—abic such as were those Arabick Exemplars at the end whereof we find the Arabic Version to have been Translated from the Hebrew that is from that Syrian Translation which the Syrian's call unmixt By the same reason we might affirm that the Exemplars of the Arabick Versions which follow the Greek Copies of the 70 were not so much Translated from the Greek of the 70 Interpreters as according to the Syriac which was Translated from the Greek though it be probable that the Sect of the Melchites took their Version from the Greek Copies as they did most of those other Books of which they make use But whether there were any Version of the Scriptures before that time I shall not now enquire it being certain that most of those Versions now us'd by the people that inhabit the Eastern Regions are not now the same which in former times were made use of in the same Country And indeed should that Arabick Version publish'd in the Parisian and English Polyglots be throughly examin'd it would be found very imperfect full of faults and Errors Thus the Arabic Book of Joshuah though toward the end it may be said to be Translated out of the Hebrew yet it appears to be a mixture of Greek and Hebrew or rather Syriac Besides the Author of that Translation many times shews himself a Paraphraser not an Interpreter and he makes no scruple of altering the Sence of his Text. In the Book of Chronicles we find the names of Greece Turkie Chorasan Sclavonia France Cyprus and the like Yet all the Errors of that Version are not to be imputed to the Arabian Translator the most without doubt being committed by the Scribes Thus Jos 11. We read in the Arabic Version Nabin King of Caesarea whereas in the Hebrew Text and ancient Translations it is Jabin King of Hasor In the same Arabic Version Joshua is said to have assail'd the City of Caesarea which was the Metropolis of several other Cities and Judges 3. instead of the Hebrew word Pesilim which signifies Idols the Arabic reads Palestine Lastly some Errors have crept into the Arabic Exemplars through the incertainty of the pointed Vowels For the points are no less defective in the Arabic then in the Hebrew and Syriac The Coptic Versions The Coptic Versions of the Bible which were anciently made by those Christians that inhabited Egypt seem to be of more Credit then the Arabic For they carry a semblance of more Antiquity And if we may believe Kircher who had by him some Exemplars of those Versions we may look upon 'em to be as ancient as the Council of Nice But not to content about their Antiquity certain it is that they were read in the Churches
Lib. 18. de civit Dei c 36. which is to be understood only concerning the two first Books of Maccabees for the third is rejected as well by the Church as by the Synagogue To which opinion St. Jerom seems to adhere though frequently in his works he shews himself a most stout defender of the Judaick Canon For when Ruffinus objects Lib. 2. Apoll. adversus Rufus that Jerom in his own Edition of the Bible would allow no Authority of Scripture to the Story of Susanna the Song of the three Children and the Story of Bell and the Dragon which he had called Fables the learned Father answers that he did not speak his own Sentiments but only explain'd what the Jews were wont to urge against the Christians but Jerom had said that Origen Eusebius Apollinarius and other Doctors of Greece would make no answer to Porphyrius for those Visions which had no Authority of Scripture and the same Jerom thus writes concerning the Book of Judith This Book the Synod of Nice is said to have numbred among the Holy Writings upon which Erasmus thus observes He does not say it was approv'd in the Synod of Nice but the Synod is said to have numbred it and really St. Jerom in his Preface to the Book of Kings had denied both Judith and Tobias to be Canonical Now the question is whether St. Jerom do not seem to contradict himself when he affirms the same Books of Judith and Tobias to be read by the Hebrews among the Hagiographers who nevertheless both here and in another place had written that these Books are not extant in the Canon of the Jews and therefore to be accounted Apocryphal But what those Hagiographers of the Jews that were mentioned by St. Jerom in these places Joseph Scaliger confesses he does not understand because the Hagiographies were received by the Jews into the Canon of Holy Scripture long before St. Jerom liv'd But Huetius believes St. Jerom to be deceiv'd in this particular in that he thought the Jews had no Hagiographies without the pale of the Canon and he brings against Scaliger the famous Bath Kol or the Daughter of the voice by whose assistance the Jews set forth their Hagiographies and their inspir'd Scripture But they are the meer dreams of idle triflers which the Circumcised Doctors have invented concerning Bath Kol Then it is certain that they never receiv'd among their Canonical Authors the Books of Judith and Tobias Therefore they are all fictions which Huetius and others alledg concerning the twofold sort of Hagiographers among the Jews and they may be refuted not only by the Testimonies of Josephus and Jerom who positively witness that Tobias Judith and other Books set forth in Greek now comprehended within the Canon of the Roman Church were never reckon'd by the Jews among the Prophets or Hagiographers but also by the Authority of the more Modern Jews who when they number up the Sacred Books make no mention of them at all but only cite them as sententious Writings wherein however they did not believe there was any thing of Divine Inspiration If therefore in this our Age nay in the ancient Ages of the Church they were numbred among the Canonical Books that is to be attributed to the Judgment of the Church and not of the Synagogue Therefore there is a double Canon to be allowed that of the Church and that of the Synagogue And by the first Rule they may not erroneously be called Ecclesiastic Books which the Church taking no notice of the Jewish Canon have thought fit to admit into their Canon and to be read in their Congregations For it is certain that even from the very first Infancy of the Church these Books were accustom'd to be read and sung in the Congregations of the Faithful which Erasmus admires to hear so frequently sung and read in Churches at this day But that it was so Eras Schol. in Prefat Jerom in Dan. Erasmus might have learnt out of the Invictives of Ruffinus against St. Jerom. All these things Sixtus Senensis egregiously illustrates at the beginning of his Bibliotheca where he divides the Books of Holy Scripture into two Classe's Sixtus Senens l. 1. Bibl. S. In the first he reckons those which he calls Protocanonical or Canonical of the first Order And these are they which are received beyond all Controversie by the unanimous consent as well of the Jews as Christians In the other Classis he places those which he calls Deutero Canonical or Canonical of the second Order which formerly saith he were called Ecclesiastic That is to say those of which there was for some time a dubious Opinion among the Catholicks and which came late to the knowledge of the whole Church Among the Books of the first sort he only numbers those which the Synagogue admitted into their Cannon Into the next Classis he admits those which in the ancient Ages of the Church were reckon'd by most among the Apocriphal Writers to which he adds the Book of Esther in regard that some of the Fathers were doubtful of its Authority the only difficulty arises from the Authority of St. Jerom who in contradiction to the belief of all the Jews and his own Testimony has written that the Books of Tobias and Judith are extant with the Hebrews among the Hagiographies I admire that Scaliger and others so well skill'd in Critic Animadversion did not observe that in the Prefaces of Jerom upon Tobias and Judith we were not to read it Hagiographa as it is now read but Apocripha For though I want written Manuscripts to maintain that Lection yet the words of St. Jerom himself manifestly make it out The Book oâ— Tobias saith the Learned Father which the Hebrews pruning off from the Catalogue of Divine Scripture have condemn'd among those which they call Hagiographa Who does not presently apprehend from hence that the word ought to be read Apocripha not Hagiographa since it is apparently manifest that the Jews never cut of the Hagiography from the Catalogue of Divine Scripture The same observation is to be made in the Preface of St. Jerom upon Judith where instead of Hagiographa it ought to be read Apocrypha For thus the words run at this day Among the Hebrews the Books of Judith is reckon'd among the Hagiographa whose authority is not so sufficient to strengthen the convincement of those things which give occasion of dispute If the authority of that Book be not sufficient to confirm our Faith certainly it can be none of the Hagiographa which without Controversie are accounted Canonical and inspir'd among the Jews but of the number of the Apocrypha which are of dubious and uncertain Credit as St. Jerom thought the Books of Judith and Tobias to be Thus much concerning the Apocryphal Books upon which we have insisted longer then the purpose of our Subject required But we did not think it a deviation from our Argument to unfold a Dispute highly intreagu'd by the Contentions of
the Disputants But now it was not enough for the most Learned Vossius to have feign'd new Prophets much more quick sighted then the ancient ones but he must now produce a new Order of the Books of Sacred Scripture hither to unheard of The Books of Moses according to his own Opinion make five Volums and not one as the Jews believe and to prevent any man from calling this in question he produces most convincing reason 's for this new Distrubution For it is manifest saith He even out of the Sacred Writings themselves that as other Nations so also the ancient Jews wrote their Books not upon folded Paper which is a modern Invention but in rolls and continued Skins What reason there was for Vossius to have recourse to the Antient Hebrews I do not understand when even in our times the Jews make use of Rolls of the same nature as to the Books which they make use of in their Synagogues yet for all that they do not divide the Law into five Volums but comprehend it in one Volum according to that ancient Custom which was observ'd even in Christs time By and by proceeding a little farther the Learned Gentleman affirms that in the time of Aquila whom he calls a most impertinent Interpreter the Jews or else Aquila himself invented a most wicked and idle division of the Sacred Books in hatred to Daniel's weeks and that they perverted the sense and order of Scripture by introducing a New Distribution that is to say of the Law the Prophets and the Hagiographers Now whether a new distribution of the Books so the Books be entire let the perspicacious judge But least I may seem to carp at small things I say it is much more probable that Aquila in his Translation of the sacred Writings observ'd that order which according to the method of that Age the Hebrew Copies set before him when there appear'd no reason for the Charge But he did that says Vossius in hatred of Daniel's weeks whom he cast into the last place almost among the Hagiographers as if the Jews did not give the same Credit to the Prophesies of Daniel concerning the Messiah as the Christians Vossius admires at their simplicity who believe the Rabbins asserting the Ketuvim or Books of the Hagiographers to have been written by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost If you consult the Rabbins saith he they will lâ—ugh at ye as such as cannot choose but know what they mean by the Holy Ghost Why has not Vossius now become a Rabbinist cited those Rabbins that we might understand by them what they mean by the word Ketuvim I know indeed the Jews do not agree concerning the genuine signification of that word though all believe that the Ketuvim or the Hagiographers are no less Divine and Canonical then the rest of the Books of the Old Testament The most subtle Abravenâ—l unfolds this Riddle They were call'd Ketuvim because they were written by the Holy Ghost but if it be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ramb. in More Nev. the word Ketuvim was not design'd that those Speeches were written in a book not receiv'd by word of Mouth but to denote that they were written in the Holy Spirit and in that degree neither was the Divine Spirit with them but at the vory time of their Writing in this Language and Wisdom R. David Kimchi affirms that Prophesie is divided into several Degrees of which one exceeds another Which Degrees R. Moses Ben Maimon more subtlely explains Praef. in Psal But leaving these subtleties which were taken from the Philosophy of Aristotle and Averrhoes it is certain that the Jews agree with Josephus in this particular that all the Books which are extant in their Canon are truly Divine and Prophetical because they were written by the Prophets For which reason R. Don Joseph Ben Jechaia Praef. in Psal who has illustrated the Psalms with his Commentaries and reduc'd them with his Fathers to the Classes of the Kotuvim or Hagiographers compares them with the Law of Moses and thence infers the cheifest Dignity of the Psalms Therefore saith that Rabbi the greater is the Dignity of that Book because it follows the Divine Law and imitates the form and perfection of it Which is confirm'd by the Authority of the Fathers who seem to have preferr'd the Psalms before the Prophets themselves while they joyn them to the Pentateuch of Moses Therefore by the Confession of the Rabbys themselves neither is the Authority either of David or Daniel lessen'd because they are not number'd in the Classis of the Prophets For the last quoted Joseph adds these words in the same place Nor is it a wonder that the Book of Psalms contains several Prophecies of the time of the Messiah seeing that there are several Prophecies extant in the Holy Spirit concerning future things By this means the Jews will easily be reconcil'd with the Jews And which seems to be worthy observation the Talmudic Doctors will have the Book of Job to be written by Moses which nevertheless they place in the Classis of the Ketubim or Hagiographers Who would think that Vossius of a Rabynist should become a Talmudic Doctor He earnestly maintains That the Jews by the Confession of the Ancient Rabbys expung'd many places in the Holy Writings and alter'd the Sense and Words Interest so perswading No Man shall find any thing feigned by me says the Talmudic Gentleman whoever he be that Consults the Talmudic Books wherein he shall read these words in several places It is good that a Letter be pull'd up out of the Law that the Name of God may be sanctify'd But it is not for all Men to have recourse to the Talmudic Books like the most learned Vossius I had thought that decree of the Talmudists might have been rightly explain'd by the Words of R. Moses Ben Maimon who with most of the Jewish Rabbys so far defends the Immutability of the Mosaic Law that he believes that some of its Constitutions may be for a time suspended by the Authority of the Grand Sanhedrim Ramb. More Nev part 3. c. 41. That Talmudic Rabby asserts That God indeed Deut. 4. forbad that any one should add to his Word or detract from it but that he gave permission to the Wise Men of all Ages and Times or to the Supream Judicatory to set bounds to the Judgments to be Established by the Law in some things which they desire to innovate to preserve the Authority of the Law Farther That God gave them Liberty to take away some Precepts of the Law and to permit some things Prohibited upon some certain Occasion and Accident but not to Perpetuity These were taken out of the Latin Edition of the Book More Nevochim Published by Buxtorf After the same manner speaks the Author of the Book Entitl'd Cozri set forth also in Hebrew and Latin by Buxtorf For upon Cozri's demanding the Question How that Power of Innovating any thing in the
Joshua or rather by the Senators of the Grand Sanhedrim of which Joshua was the Chief are vulgarly thought to be added to the rest of the Text. For it was the Custom that the publick Transactions should be register'd in the publick Acts by those who were appointed for that Employment in which Sence Moses is said to have written some things in the Volume of the Law of the Lord that is the Covenant which he had made with the People To say truth there are many things extant in the Pentateuch which plainly declare that the Books of the Law were written by Moses Thus we read in Exodus Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And in Deuteronomy After Moses had writ the words of the Law Exod. 24. Deut. 31. But these and many other passages of the same kind are only to be meant of some parts of the Law of which mention is made in those places as Simon has demonstrated Whence Jerom Oleaster Prol. in Pent. a great Hebrician and perfectly read in Scripture Learning denies that it can be effectually prov'd by Scripture that Moses himself was the Author of the Law which we have under his Name Next to the Pentateuch is the Book call'd Joshua and which the following words seem to prove to have been written by Joshua And Joshua wrote all these words in the Volume of the Law of the Lord. That is Joshua after Moses's Decease Jos 24.26 or his Scribes by his Order set down in the publick Registers the Transactions of that Time in which Sense they are said to be as it were added to the Volume of the Law Nevertheless 't is strange to see how they wrangle among themselves who handle this Argument so that even St. Austin himself durst not possitively affirm Joshua to be the Author of the Book which goes vulgarly under his Name Whether that Book says he which is call'd Jesus Nave were written by him meaning Joshua or by some other person Theodoret affirms That it was not written by Joshua but taken out of some later Book and among the modern Authors the learned Massius asserts That it cannot be said that all those things which are now extant in the History of Joshua Com. in c. 10. Jos proceeded from himself He also confirms what has been already mentioned concerning the publick Scribes and their Employments and extends his Arguments to other Books of the Scripture The Opinion of the Talmudists is That Joshua wrote his own Book and eight Verses of the Law But the judicious Rabby Isaac Abravanel scrupl'd not to differ from them and asserts himself induc'd so to beleive not only by those words which are added at the end of the Book of Joshua And after these things Joshua the Son of Nun Dy'd but by reason of many other passages that frequently occur in the Context it self of which he denyes that Joshua could be the Author Of which sort the first is that concerning the twelve stones which he set up in the midst of Jordan Jos 4.9 of which it is said and they remain there to this Day To which the Author of the Book of Joshua presently adds these words Jos 6.8 The Name of that place is call'd Galgala to this present Day I pass by many other expressions of the Nature frequent in the History of Joshua and which Abravanel maintains could not be written by Joshua Had Joshua saith he wrote all these things would he have said To this present day To these things he adds what we read in the History of Joshua concerning the Danites taking Lachish by assault which nevertheless did not happen till toward the end of the Judges and consequently long after Joshua's Death But these and other passages of the same Nature do not serve so much to prove that Joshua or rather the Scribes that were under him Register'd the publick Transactions of the time as to shew that other Scribes afterwards review'd those publick Acts and added several clauses and intervening passages to unite the Sense and Series of History and for Explanations sake Nor does the Book Entitl'd Shoftim or Judges seem to be written but in the same manner as being full of the same Expressions Wherefore D. Huetius follows the judgment of Dorotheus in this particular who affirms That the Scribes of that Time Recorded in Commentaries the Transactions which happened under the Judges out of which Saemuel afterwards composed the Book of Judges Who that Dorotheus was I do not at present Dispute it is enough from thence to infer that Simon 's Opinion was not of Yesterday by which he constitutes publick Scribes in the Hebrew Nation who Recorded the publick Transactions of their Times whose Collections other Scribes or Prophets embody'd into those Histories which go now under the Names of Joshua Judges Samuel and Kings this opinion is confirmed by the Syrians For we read at the end of the Syriac Exemplar these words added But for the Book of Judges Excâ—d Usser Tom. 6. Pol Angl. though the Name of the Author be not set down it is known that it was wrote by some of the Priests of the Sons of Aaron who in the times of those Judges officiated in the Priesthood The last cited Dorotheus refers the Book of Ruth also to the same Scribes which seem much more probable then the Opinions of those wherein there is nothing of sure Foundation Concerning both thus Sixtus Senensis It is said that Samuel Collected the Book of Judges and added the Story of Ruth the Moabitess Bib. 8. lib. 3. Some think that Ezekiel others that Esdras was the Author of both Books As for the Books of Kings Theodoret has made these Remarks upon them That there were many Prophets among the Hebrews of which every one wrote the Transactions of his Age and hence it came to pass that the first Book of Kings is call'd both by the Hebrews and Syrians The Prophesie of Samuel soon after he adds They therefore who wrote the Book of Kings wrote them out of those writings long after as their leizure serv'd them And some while after he thus expresses himself concerning the Books of the Chronicles There were some other Historiographers who digested those things that were omitted by others which Book so written they call'd Parah Pomona the remainders As to the first and second Book of Kings which go under the Name of Samuel Sixtus Senensis adds these words The Book of Samuel is said to be written by the Prophet Samuel partly by the Prophets Nathan and Gad. Samuel Collected the Acts of Eli Saul David and his own which are related in the first Book of Kings to his Death Nathan and Gad wrote the Books of Kings from the Death of Samuel to the end of the second Book What Sixtus Senensis writes in this place though in general I may not think them remote from Truth yet if they be specially weigh'd they cannot be sure in every part for that as to
all those things which are related by Samuel to his Deaeth many passages declare that they could not be written by him For it is hardly to be believ'd that he writing of the Transactions of his own time and of which he was an eye-Witness should write these words Therefore neither the Priest of Dagon 1 Sam. 5.5 nor any that come into the House of Dagon tread upon the Threshold of Dagon to this day In like manner neither could those things be related by Samuel concerning the Ark in the next Chapter where it is said and the Stone remains in the Field of Joshua the Beshemite to this Day To this we add That Samuel could not be the Author of that Clause which we find in his History Heretofore to every one spake that went to take Counsel of God for he that is at this day call'd a Prophet was then call'd a Seer However notwithstanding all these Objections it is probable that the History which goes under Samuel's Name was written by himself till the Relation of his Death And as for those things which are alleadg'd to the contrary that there was a review of some Scribe or Prophet perhaps Jeremiah as some think who added some things for Explanations sake tho' others choose rather to add these Additions to Esdras and his Collegiates The Syrians also affirm That the first and second Book of Kings were call'd the third and fourth in the Latin Versions were written by a certain Priest whose Name was Johanan As for the Book of Chronicles Sal. Comment in Paralip Kimchi praef in paralip or Parilapomena by whom they were Collected there is some reason to question Most of the Jews will have Esdras to be the Author of them which R. Solomon and R. David Kimchi asserts to be the Tradition of their fore-Fathers making also Aggai Zachary and Malachi assistants to Esdras Yet not so that they should be said to write the History anew but only to have reformed the Antient History of the Kings of Israel and Judah rejecting those things which did not seem so proper for their purpose and adding some things which were omitted in other Books of Sacred Scripture from whence they deriv'd the Name of Paralipomena among the Greeks which word afterwards crept into the Latin Wherefore St. Jerom not improperly calls the Book of Chronicles an Epitome of the Old Testament In Epist ad Paul Nevertheless he reports the Opinion of the Jows concerning this thing with whom Grotius also agrees who believes these Books to have been written by Esdras and by the Jews to have been call'd Dibre Hajamin the words of the Days or taken out of the Kings Diaries As for the Book of Esdras the greatest part of it was written by himself as the Transactions therein contain'd do manifestly declare But Nehemiah confesses himself in the Front of the Book to be the Author of the second Book of Esdras The Book of Psalms is by the Jews call'd Sepher Techillim or the Book of Praises which sometimes St. Austin seems to believe to have been all of David's composing nor does he scruple to ascribe those to David which it is manifest were written long after his time because he was both a Musitian and a Prophet Nor could the Names of Asaph Jeduthun and other Musitians said to be the Authors of some of the Psalms beat off St. Austin from that Opinion because that David might supply the Matter which afterwards they polish'd and set to several Tunes But St. Jerome is more in the right who asserts the Psalms to be theirs whose Names they bear in the Titles that is Davids Asaph's Jeduthuns the Sons of Core's Eman's the Ezrahite Moses's Solomon's and theirs whom Esdras comprehends in the first Volume with St. Jerom also most of the Jews agree And the Prudent Aben Ezra affirms That the Psalms were made by them whose Names are prefix'd Praef. in Psalm though there are some who have no Name at all But in this that Rabby corrects St. Jerome because he does not absolutely pronounce the Psalms to be made by them whose Names are prefix'd but that those which carry the Names of David and Solomon were either theirs or compos'd from them by the Musitians Yet Christ seems to attribute the whole Book of Psalms to David where he says And David himself says in the Book of Psalms But Christ only spake according to the common Opinion of the Jews for they call'd them generally David's Psalms not that they thought them to have been all compil'd by him for the Matter it self speaks the contrary but because he was the chiefest of all the Authors and for that he is call'd the most excellent Singer of Israel Yet the above-cited Aben Ezra writes that there are some of the Rabbys who attribute the whole Psalter to David and acknowledge him to be a Prophet The Book which is called the Book of Proverbs is generally said to be Solomons whose Name it carries at the beginning though the whole Method of that Work seems to demonstrate that it was nothing but a Collection of Sentences which being first gather'd together by Solomon and others were afterwards embody'd in one Volume That Solomon composed many Parables those words prove which he speaks of himself Eccles 12 9. And because the Preacher was wise he still taught the people knowledge he sought out and set in order many Proverbs which are number'd up to be above three thousand in the third Book of Kings of which at this day no more are extant then what we find in the Holy Writings C. 4.32 To the first nine Chapters of that Work the Name of Solomon is prefix'd and other fifteen Chapters which also bear his Name And this Aben Ezra believ'd to be the second part of his Parables or Sentences The third part of the Proverbs begins from these Words of the 25th Chapter v. 2. It is the Glory of God to conceal a thing Which distinction was made by them who reduc'd the Books of Scripture into that Order which is now observ'd for it is not to be believ'd that Solomon fix'd his Name to his Proverbs but only the Scribes who divided that Work into parts And so that Verse which we read at the beginning of the 25th Chapter These are the Proverbs of Solomon which the Men of Ezekiah King of Judah Copyed out Aben Ezra believes to have been written by Sobna who was King Ezekia's Scribe And indeed I am ready to believe that Sobna and others of King Ezekia's Scribes did extract out of the whole Volume those Sentences of which the first is the Glory of God c. and this the Word which the Men of Ezekiah Copy'd clearly demonstrate The fourth part of the Proverbs of Solomon begin at the beginning of the 30th Chapter where we read in the Latin Edition the Words of the Assembler but in the Hebrew Text the Words of Agur. But who that Agur and Assembler was the Interpreters of
Testimony of the learned Jews pag. 12. Chap. 4. Of the publisht Exemplars of the Hebrew Context which are Masoretick Of the Art of the Masorites Of its Original and what Opinion we are to have of it pag. 22. Chap. 5. The parts of the Masora in relation to the Manuscript Copies are weighed and illustrated The true Original of the Masora pag. 28. Chap. 6. Other parts of the Manuscripts in reference to the Manuscript Bible are examin'd Their true Original and the Masoretick Lection confirm'd pag. 35 Chap. 7. Some things unprofitably and superstitiously noted by the Masoreticks are illustrated out of the Manuscript Copies of the Bibles pag. 44. Chap. 8. Some Examples of different Writings are produc'd from the Manuscripts which vary from the Masoretick Versions pag. 48. Chap. 9. Whether the Jews corrupted their Bibles of set purpose The Opinion of the Fathers concerning this matter examin'd pag. 56. Chap. 10. The Opinion of Isaac Vossius concerning the Hebrew Manuscripts is examin'd and refuted pag. 71. Chap. 11. Of the Samaritan Bibles their Targumim or Paraphrases pag. 81. Chap. 12. Of the Bibles of the Sadduces and Karraeans pag. 92. Chap. 13. Of the Targumim of the Jews or the Translations of Sacred Scripture and first of the Chaldee Paraphrases pag. 98. Chap. 14. An Appendix of the other Translations of the Bible in use among the Jews pag. 137. Chap. 15. Of the Translations of the Bible of greatest Authority with the Christians and first of the Septuagint pag. 140. Chap. 16. A more particular examination of the Greek Septuagint Translation pag. 150. Chap. 17. The Opinion of Isaac Vossius concerning the seventy Interpreters is examin'd The Vindication of St. Jerom. pag. 157. Chap. 18. Of the rest of the Greek Translations of Sacred Scripture and the Hexaples of Origen The Opinion of Isaac Vossius concerning the disposition of the Hexaples refuted pag. 172. Chap. 19. Of the Antient Versions of the Latin Church pag. 186. Chap. 20. Concerning the Authority of the Antient Versions of the Latin Church and first of the Vulgar In what sense it may be said to be Authentick pag. 193. Chap. 21. Of the Translations of Scripture us'd by the Eastern Church and first of the Arabic Coptic Aethiopic Armenian c. pag. 201. Chap. 22. Of the later Versions of the Bible and first of all of Latin Versions done by Catholick Divines pag. 209. Chap. 23. Of the Latin Translation of the Bible made by Protestants pag. 215. Chap. 24. Of the Translations of the Bible in the Vulgar Tongues and first of all of those made by Catholicks pag. 221. Chap. 25. Of the Bible done into the Vulgar Tongue by Heterodox Translators pag. 226. Chap. 26. Of the Translations of the Bible which were writ in the Vulgar Tongue and their rise from the Geneva Schools pag. 233. Chap. 27. Of the Polyglot Bibles pag. 240. Animadversions upon a small Treatise of Dr. Isaac Vossius concerning the Oracles of the Sybils and his answer to the objections in a late Treatise Intituled Critica Sacra pag. 249 CRITICAL ENQUIRIES Into the Various EDITIONS of the BIBLES at several Places and Times CHAP. I. Of the Bibles in general as well among the Jews as Christians THE whole Context of Sacred Scripture is remarkably known among the Christians by the name of The Books that is to say The Books so call'd for their Excellency above all others and these Books contain both the Old and New Testament The Jews however allow of no more than only the Books of the Old Covenant Of the Old Testament and those only written in the Hebrew Language for as for those which the Church has receiv d from the Hellenist Jews in the Greek Language they deny them to be Canonical and therefore will not admit them into their Synagogues Whereas the Church inspir'd with the Holy Ghost admits them likewise to be of Divine Authority As to which difference they who among Christians assume to themselves the Name of Protestants and Reformed rather chuse to take the Synagogues part than to joyn with either of the Churches that is the Eastern or Western And therefore the Christians have only admitted into the Church those Books of the Old Testament which they receiv'd from the Jews As for the New Testament Christ the first Author of it committed nothing of it to writing but his Disciples after his Passion made publick those Books which we call the Books of the New Testament The New Testament Now who were the real Authors of those Books some there are who very much doubt as if the Gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John were not assuredly theirs For say they they would not then be entitl'd the Gospels according to Matthew Mark Luke and John but the Gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John had they been wrote by them and thus we generally say the Books of Moses and not according to Moses But the Titles of the Gospels and other Books are plainly different For that the Gospel which Matthew published was not Matthews but Christs and therefore it is rightly inscrib'd According to St. Matthew that is to say the Gospel of Christ according to the Testimony of St. Matthew upon which the Christians ground their Faith Pauls Epist to the Romans But now to return to the Jews with whom the Oracles of God were first entrusted as the Apostle speaks it the Holy Bible among them is called by several Names For sometimes they call it Mickra The names of the Scripture among the Jews or Reading in which sense those words of Nehemiah are to be taken where he says c. 8. v. 8. And caused them to understand the Reading For though it be true that Nehemiah in that place discourses particularly of the Levites reading the Law of Moses yet afterwards that name was not unfitly attributed by the Jews to all the rest of the Books of Holy Scripture Sometimes they denote the Scripture by these words Gâ—esrim ve Arbang or Twenty four under which name they comprehend the number of the Books of Sacred Writ To which St. Jerom seems to have alluded where he says Which are not of the Twenty four Antient Praelections upon Nehem. and Esdr have not equal Authority with Divine Writ Now what is to be understood by the Twenty four Antient the same St. Jerom more manifestly declares in Prolog Galeat Neither is there any thing to be more frequently found than this name of the Sacred Writings which they generally affix to the beginning of their Manuscript Bibles intimating thereby the whole Context of the Old Testament Although Josephus a notable Witness in this Argument affirms the Sacred Books allowed by his Nation to be no more than Twenty Two Which seems to have been so concluded to the end the number of the Books might be the more readidily and stedfastly retained in the memory by the numbers of the Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet which are also twenty two Nevertheless it
one serves for the publick use of the Synagogues the other for the particular use of private persons Neither do they read in their Synagogues every particular Book of Holy Writ but only such and such selected Books The Books of Scripture read in the Synagogues which are adapted and accommodated to the Mysteries of their Religion such as are the Books of Moses from whence they derive the Precepts of their Law and those which they comprehend under the name of the five Megilloth or Volumes That is to say the Canticles Ruth the Lamentations Ecclesiastes and Esther For these are the Volumes that are read in their Synagogues upon certain prefix'd days the Canticles upon Easter day Ruth upon the Feast of Seven days the Lamentations upon the ninth of the Month Ab. Ecclesiastes upon the Feast of the Tabernacles and Esther upon the 14th and 15th of the Month Adar And as for the Law it is divided into so many Sections as there are Sabbaths in the year so that they read a Section every year with an addition of something taken out of the Prophets The Superstition of the Jews in writing their Service-Books 'T is a wonderful thing to see how ridiculously devout and idly superstitious the Jews are in writing out the Copies which are for the use of the Synagogue For in the first place not content with the bare and naked Letter according as is to be seen in other Printed and Written Copies they adorn the several Letters with little Coronets which they call Tagin Neither are they asham'd to make God the Author of those flourishes which they say Moses learnt of God in Mount Sinai R. Moses Scem Tob in his Book where after the manner of the Cabbalists he seeks for the Reason of the Letters of the Alphabet tells ye many stories concerning those Coronets complaining that they were known to few of the Jews Thou shalt understand and hear saith he the Discourse which was drawn by our Ancestors of blessed memory in the Treatise Hagiga and shalt make Aleph wherein are seven Coronets There are seven also of the same nature in the Law Beth wherein are three Coronets they are four in the Law Gimel which has four flourishes three in the Law Daleth which has four flourishes six in the Law After the same manner does the same Rabby run over all the rest of the Letters he also has been so punctual to give us a Copy of the following Flourishes with Instruction how to make them and how often they are to be met with in the Books of Moses He also observ'd their differences some of these Flourishes being fix'd close to the Letter others set a small distance from the Letter either over the Letter or underneath it But these were only the Dreams Fancies of Jewish Brains about which nevertheless those Rabbies trifle away their time very seriously Thus Bal Masius makes Coronets for the Letters Zain and Heth quite different from those which R. Scem Tob delineates from the Tradition of his Fathers Farther these Jewish Rabbies shew an extream Superstition and Diligence in the choice of their Parchment for Paper they utterly reject as a new Invention This Parchment must be very clean nor can it be prepar'd by an Infidel or Ethnick but by a Jew and he neither an Apostate or a Heretick Therefore the Samaritan Copies are altogether renounc'd by the Jews as vile and impure Moreover they do not write as we do in folded Sheets but in large Volumes after the Custom of the Antients which they divide into Columes or Pages observing as it were a Geometrical Proportion and making use of a Ruler to draw the Lines streight for they have the vanity to affirm that Moses order'd that no Copy of the Law should be written without a Ruler and they also pretend that Moses taught them what sort of Ink they should use In writing careful in the first place not to joyn their Letters close together observing this proportion between the Letters and the Words to leave the space of a Silk Thred between every Letter and of a small Letter between every Word that the Lines be distant one from another the measure of one Line and every Line to hold thirty Letters To these may be added the Distinctions of the Sections of which some are larger and some lesser And then again some of these Sections are said to be close others open Those are call'd close which are so enclos'd on both sides with Letters that the space of four Letters be only left in open Sections the space of nine Letters Besides these there are also other larger Sections which are also to be seen in the publick Exemplars of their Bibles But those Jewish Rabbies are mainly deceiv'd who believe that Moses was the Inventer of those Divisions or Sections which are made in the Modern Copies For those Distinctions were found out by the late sort of Criticks The Antient Form of the Bibles especially those who call themselves Mosorethae for that in the Antient times there were no mark of Distinctions to be found either in the Hebrew Greek or Latine Copies For that was the business of the Grammarians and as Elias the Levite rightly observes the whole Law was antiently Pasuck Echad without any distinction of Letters or Words which as the Learned know was also observ'd by the Grecian Criticks in reference to Homers works Neither do the words of Nehemiah contradict what is here said Neh. 8.8 And they read in the Book in the Law of God distinctly as if the distinction of Verses had been brought into the Context of the Law ever since the times of Esdras Which Opinion the Talmudick Doctors seem to favour very much Tâ—l Tract Nedarim At least it could not be later than the Talmud when the Talmudick Writers make mention of it Baal Hatturim in compend Talm. de lect lib. legis and as R. Jacob Ben Ascer Baal Hatturim testifies It was the Custom of the Antient-Talmudick-Doctors to interpret the Law in another Language to the end the people might understand it because the Language of the Law was Aramean Now the Reader could not read above one Verse to the Interpreter for he first read one Verse then followed the Interpretation Then he read another Verse nor could the Interpreter proceed till the Reader was got to the end of a Verse nor could the Reader read another Verse till the Interpreter had made an end of his Interpretation Whence it may be collected that the Exemplars of the Mosaick Law were distinguished into Verses before the Talmudists were in Being But all these things might well enough be observ'd as well by the Reader as by the Expositor from the times of Esdras without any note of Distinction between the Context of the Verses which the Antient Translations of the Bibles which were publish'd in Greek before St. Jerom liv'd apparently demonstrate and St. Jerom himself who frequently distinguishes those
not seem to be an Amplifier of Scripture-Variances I shall forbear to repeat them especially they being publish'd at the end of the Basil Bibles However from hence we may collect that the Hebrew Exemplars do not so easily agree among themselves that there should be no variance as most of the Jews and the Christians their Hebrew followers would make us believe whenas some of those Lections though not so many Various Lections among the Rabbins produce a different sense Now let us come to the Testimonies of the Rabbies which confirm the same Opinion concerning the Discrepancy of Scripture Copies R. Jacob Haim Praef. in Mas Mag. Buxtorf in Antior There are not wanting Examples of various Readings among the Talmudick Doctors drawn from the publish'd or Masoretick Transcriptions Of which some are cited by R. Jacob Haim which Buxtorf a strenuous Champion for the Masoretick Exemplar though unwillingly acknowledges nor will he have to be other than a very few and those of no great weight not contradictory to the truth of Sense and yet they spend the greatest part of their time in writing out the words either fully or defectively as they term it However among those few which R. Jacob Haim brings by way of Example it may be plainly demonstrated that there are some which alter the sense of Scripture But I may say that we should in vain go about to find out those various Lections in the Talmudick Work now extant which formerly might more easily be gathered from it For that for many Ages together the Jews have made it their business to reform all their Bibles both Printed and Manuscript by the Masoreticks as in the Reading those Books I have often observ'd However care must be that you do not mistake that form of speech frequently made use of in the Talmud Read not so but so for a various Lection For it is a kind of Allegorical sport very familiar with those Rabbies who reserving to themselves the substance as I may so say of the word have childishly invented several ways of Reading one and the same word If any one has so much leisure to animadvert upon those places of Scripture which are extant in the Talmudick Work there is no necessity for him to turn over those immense Volumes so inaccessible to many men for we have a Table which is entitled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein all the places of Scripture which are extoll'd in the Talmud are digested in their order with the place and the page where they may be found in the Talmud But what profit or advantage a man shall reap from such a tedious piece of labour I cannot apprehend unless we could have recourse to the most Antient Copies of the Talmud which have escap'd the impure hands of the Jewish Criticasters Far more Varieties of this nature are found in the Books of the more Modern Jews although they pretend themselves most stout Asserters of the Masoretick Reading Thus R. David Kimchi does not so devoutly adhere to the Masoretick Copies but that he sometimes forsakes them and therefore upon those words of Ezekiel the Prophet Le Mickdash Megnat he makes this observation R. Kimchi Comment in Ezek. 11. the word Mickdash is a word mark'd with a Pathack underneath the Daleth Neither is Megnat a Noun Adjective but a Substantive as I have found in some corrected Copies in others I have met with Camots and so it may be an Adjective Where we read in our Modern Copies the Earth was fill'd with blood Damim Kimchi reads it in his Copy Chamas or Violence yet he observes the other Lection to be extant in some other Versions Concerning the word Elgavis in the 12th chap. of the same Ezekiel he thus discourses The stones Elgavis are stones like hail-stones for in some corrected Editions the word El and Gavis are divided in others it is all one But I make too long a stay upon these things when there is nothing more frequent in that Rabbies Dictionary and his Comment upon the Scripture than such kind of Expressions in the corrected Book in some corrected Books and the like For more frequent are those which you meet with in the Commentaries of R. Aben Melech who acknowledges that he compil'd his Treatise out of the Works R. R. Judas Jonas Aben Ezra Kimchi and other Grammarians He in the 24th chapter of the same Prophet Ezekiel upon the word Harkach which in the Masoretick Editions is read with the Vowel Pathack under the Letter He Harkach is the Infinitive or Imperative of the Conjugation Hiphil R. Jonas writes that he found the same word in the Hierosolymitan Copy noted with a Camets under the Letter He Aben Mlech ad cap. 24. Ezek. v. 10. and so it will be the Infinitive of the Conjugation Hophal He also writes that he met with the same word in the Babylonick Copy noted with a Pathack and R. D. Kimchi testifies that he found it so transcribed in the corrected Copies From this variety of Reading may those words of Isaiah be illustrated Hashmen Leb Hagnam Hazzeh which the LXX Interpreters have translated one way St. Jerom another For they reading the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a Camets under the Letter He read and translated the words thus Isa c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The heart of this people was hardened Whom the Writers of the New Testament have imitated But St. Jerom as being addicted to the Reading of the Jews in his Time translates the same words thus Blind the heart of this people Hier. ad c. 6. Isa and with much anxiety demands why St. Paul in the New Testament spake not according to the Hebrew which he knew to be true but according to the Septuagint Wherein he shews himself a more tenacious observer of the Reading which he had been taught by his Masters For the various Interpretations of that place might have been easily reconcil'd and in the same manner as Kimchi and other Rabbies have referr'd the various Interpretations of the word Harkach to the difference of Reading For the LXX Interpreters read the word Hoshman in Hophal whereas St. Jerom read it Hashmen in the Imperative of the Conjugation Hiphil I might here add several other passages out of the Works of the Eben Esra sirnamed by the Jews the Wise who as he was a very skilful Critick so would he not altogether depend upon the Copies and Readings of the Masorites but he rather minds the sense than the Letters of his Copy For which reason to omit all others he believes that the Letters Aleph Vau Jod which are vulgarly call'd the Mothers of Reading were added or neglected by the Transcribers at their own pleasures Aben Esr Praefat. Comment in teg Nevertheless it is a wonder to see how carefully those Letters were observ'd by the Tiberian Doctors that is to say how often they were how often they were not to be made use of But that most Learned
Authors of the Masora pointing and accenting took their Original contrary to the common Sentiments of our Fathers of blessed memory who affirm that Ezra the Scribe was the first that order'd and appointed those Reformations Thus what Elias reports concerning the Learning and Skill of the Jews of Tyberias in the Hebrew Language agrees with what has been written by Origen Epiphanius and Jerom upon the same Subject He testifies that he sent for an Hebrew Master from the School at Tyberias who assisted him in translating the Chronicles out of the Hebrew into Latine Toward the end of the fifth Action of the 2d Council of Nice mention is made of a certain Jew of Tyberias who in the Reign of Leo Isauricus was the Author of the Decree against the Images of the Christians Whence it is apparent that the Jewish School at Tyberias to whom the Masoretick Work or the Emendation of the Biblick Exemplar now in use among the Jews and Christians is attributed was the most famous in the time of our Fore-fathers and was in great Authority especially among the Jews Whence it came to pass that their Critical Animadversions upon several Exemplars of the Bibles then publickly dispersed were the more readily receiv'd by the rest of the Jewish Nation They are Trifles therefore and the Delirium's of the Feverish Jews which the most of them and by their seducement many of the Christians vainly chatter concerning the Original and Antiquity of their Masora as if Moses himself had been partly the Author of it and partly Esdras with the Senators of the Sanedrim For the thing it self demonstrates that the Masora was invented long after the LXX Interpreters and St. Jerom who made use of Rabbies of Tyberias but never makes mention of the Masora There were indeed among the Jews as among other all other People persons addicted to Criticism who had reform'd their Language and corrected their Works by the help of Critical Learning and the assistance of Manuscript Copies And the Variations of Scripture which those Criticks observe and which they place in the Margin of the Hebrew Context manifestly prove that several Exemplars of Manuscript Bibles were by them review'd and corrected But what Divinity or Inspiration could be asserted from hence What was not perform'd with much more success in the Greek and Latine Copies But the Jews who were born rather to Superstition than Religion being altogether ignorant of the Critical Science which was afterwards brought to a greater perfection by the Greeks and Latines feigned a thousand monstrous Opinions which some of the Christians afterwards too greedily embrac'd Elias the Levite who had frequented the company of Learned Men at Rome Venice and other parts of the World neglecting the Traditions of his Fathers rightly observes that there is no other Judgment to be given of the Jewish Bibles than of the Greek and Latine and for Adherers to his Opinion among the Christians he had all those who had any knowledge of the Greek Latine or Critical Learning Yet I think the Treatises of Cappellus and John Morinus are to be cautiously read who shewing themselves somewhat so eagerly incensed against the Jews and Hebraists in the heat of Disputation do not rightly apprehend what is profitable and what of no use in the Masora as if it were therefore wholly to be rejected because it was first communicated to us by the Jews Rather it ought to be receiv'd by us for that very reason as being deriv'd to us from persons skilful in the Language and vers'd in the Manuscripts For from whence could the Tradition of the Hebrew Pronunciation be better communicated to us than from those who had retain'd it in their Synagogues and Schools However we are not to adhere to the Decrees of that Tradition as being humane and subject to Errour though the several Emendations may be admitted as being the Labour of the Doctors of a most famous Academy The number of the Masorites is hardly to be reckon'd up as Elias the Levite affirms and to use his own words Hundreds and Thousands there were succeeding one another for many years nor is the time certain when they began nor when they compleated their work that is the prefixed time For he constantly affirms that it was since the Talmud and he refers the beginning of it to the year of Christ 506. So that I believe it might have its first beginning about the year 600. at what time the Arabians took it into their hands to whom the Jews are beholding for all that they have of Grammar and Criticks They have a Masora belonging to their Alcoran not much unlike that of the Jews The Letters Words and Verses of that Book being numbred which they seem to have borrowed from the Greek and Latine Bibles which they translated into their own Language At first I am apt to think that the Masora was transcrib'd apart into particular Books by the Doctors of Tyberias for exercise of their Scholars within the walls of the School For that they durst not presume to introduce their Vowel Points and other marks of Masoretick Ingenuity into the Hebrew Text is something probable from hence because the pointed Vowels Accents and the like were not in our time to be seen in the Manuscripts which were publickly us'd in the Synagogues And the most approv'd Copies of Manuscripts for the use of private persons wanted those Innovations as I have observ'd by their reading but were added afterwards by the Jewish Criticasters But then the Transcribers understanding the benefit of Points and Accents for the reading and distinction of the Hebrew Context made no scruple to insert those New Additions Thus by degrees from those Masoretick Notes which nevertheless were grown to an immense bulk the more choice or at least those which were contain'd in the distinct Copies of the Masora were collected for the benefit of those Copies which they had daily occasion to transcribe as may be seen in most of the Manuscript Copies of the Jewish Bibles but chiefly in the Venetian Bibles of the second and third Edition which being collected from sundry Books were first published by R. Jacob Ben Hajim who reduc'd the scatter'd parts of the Masora into the Form which now they observe From whence it was introduc'd and added to those Bibles which Buxtorf procur'd to be Printed at Basil Now from what has been said who can believe that the Jews could ever be able by the help of their Masora to preserve their Bibles from all manner of Errours when those Criticks who lent their healing hands to the Copies of their Times were neither Prophets nor inspir'd by the Holy Ghost but only men who being the Governours of a most famous Academy review'd the whole Context of Sacred Scripture and sought as far as in them lay to bring it to a compliance with its most Antient and uncorrupted Exemplars as the Doctors of Lovain undertook St. Austin's Works So that we may rightly compare the
Masoretick Labour to the Toil of Lucas Brugensis about the Latine Interpreter For he so soon as the Latine Edition by the command of Sixtus Quintus and Clement the VIII was compar'd with the most Antient best Esteem'd Translations and thereby refin'd from its Errours Bibles should be afterwards Printed with their Errours Nevertheless no man of Judgment will say that that same Latine Version is free from all mistake when Baronius Bellarmin Lucas Brugensis and others some of whom assisted at this Correction make no dispute that many Errours remain very necessary to be amended Some of the Jewish Rabbies indeed there are who highly commend the Diligence and Industry of the Masorites for that with so much Labour and Industry they took an account of the Letters Words and Verses of the Hebrew Context to prevent the future depravation of Holy Writ But who can thence think it possible to be prov'd that the Sacred Books were thereby restor'd to to their Antient Form True it is that the Doctors of Tyberias might number the Letters Words and Verses of the Books extant in their Time However those Books were only Copies and not Originals I will also grant that they were most perfect in the Hebrew Language and that they made use of the most corrected Exemplars of the Bible which by diligent search they could find out for the carrying on their Critical Design But yet their Materials were still deficient when they could have no recourse either to the Greek Interpreters nor to the Latine Version who in their Translations made use of Copies differing from the Masoretick Then again Tradition combates for the friends of the Masorites which the signification of the word insinuates as if by the assistance of Points and other Characters they had render'd the Reading and Pronunciation of the Hebrew Context receiv'd into use for many Ages certain and indubitable The Sect of the Carraeans also became strenuous Champions for the Masora of the Jews and the Exemplars set forth who though they reject the most of the Jewish Traditions as old Womens Fables yet admit of the Biblick Context in the same manner as it was reform'd by the Masorites of Tyberias together with the Titles Vowels Accents and other marks of the Masorites But though these and many other Arguments of the same nature may be brought in defence of the Masora and the Modern Context of the Bible and to prove that the Copies reform'd by the Doctors of Tyberias are no way to be despised because the correction was perform'd by persons well skill'd in the Language who determin'd the manner of reading the Hebr. Context not according to their own pleasures but the receiv'd Tradition nevertheless no man ought thence to collect that all other Exemplars of the Bible are to be reform'd and corrected after the Emendations of the Masorites as most of the Jews would obstinately maintain For the Greek Interpreters and St. Jerom had also their Masora or Tradition for the Reading and Pronunciation of the Hebrew Context who nevertheless very frequently vary from the Reading of the Masorites And which is worthy observation the most Learned Rabbies of the Jews R. Juda Jona Aben Esra Kimchi and others not a few while they illustrate the Scripture with their Commentaries are not so devoted to the Masoretick Lection but that sometimes they correct it and commend other Manuscripts which they call corrected though they differ from the Masoreticks Therefore as I do not think they are altogether to be favour'd who being offended with the Jews detract from their Copies so neither are they to be imitated who dote upon the Masoretick Structure and look upon it as a piece of Divinity For those upholders of Jewish Superstition shew themselves unskilful in Criticism Therefore the Modern Masoretick Lection of the Context of the Bible is not altogether to be contemned because it was not done by the Authority of men that were Prophets and inspired with the Holy Ghost for by that reason the Bibles of most of the Eastern Nations would be rejected there being as much to be said against the Chaldee Syriack and Arabick Exemplars as against the Hebrew There is none of them that make use of Tittl'd Vowels which confine the Pronunciation and Reading within certain bounds which were all invented by the Criticks for that without their help the Reading not being ascertained was subject to a humour fancy By this means the followers of that famous Impostor rendred the Reading of their Alcoran certain which before was dubious and uncertain And from these 't is very probable that the Jewish Rabbies had their Points and some other things which they introduc'd into the Hebrew Manuscripts to the end they might be read with more ease and readiness CHAP. V. The Parts of the Masora in relation to the Manuscript Copies are weighed and illustrated The True Original of the Masora THE great pains and labour of the Masoreticks consists in numbring up the Verses Words and Letters of the Hebrew Context for that by this means the former Variances being observ'd the Reading might be preserv'd more certain and constant for the future and the Holy Writings be free for the future from all alteration Of the Masoretick Art That the Words and Verses were numbred by the Masorites there is no question to be made The greatest Dispute arises about the Letters in regard that R. Jacob Ben Hajim Elias the Levite and Buxtorf who have with all imaginable diligence perus'd the several parts of the Masora deny that this part of it was ever made publick By whose Authority Morinus being sway'd affirms that that work was never undertaken by the Masorites which seems the more probable in regard the Enumeration of the Letters of the Hebrew Text which is already publish'd is very far from the Truth But that there was an account taken of them by the Jews before the Talmud was publish'd may be prov'd by those Arguments which are usually drawn from the Tractates Kidduschin and the Scribes where the letter Vau in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gachon the belly Levit. 11.43 is said to be the middlemost letter of the Law Nor do I believe that part of the Masoreth to have been neglected by the Masorites For I observ'd it in turning over several Manuscript Bibles at the end of an Exemplar written about some four hundred years ago where among many other things collected out of the Masora there is the same account of the Letters which I shall set down in the same manner and words as it is there deliver'd that the Criticks may judge whether it be exact or no. The Sections of the Book of Genesis call'd Parshoth are reckon'd to be twelve the other Sections call'd Sedarim 43. Verses 75 34. Vords 20713. Letters 78100. and these words are in the middle of the Book Gnal Charbekah Tihijeh By thy Sword thou shalt live Gen. 27.40 The Parshoth of Exodus are numbred to be 11. the
Vulgar Distinction in their Commentaries In which particular the Jews agree very well with the Catholick Divines who do not depend so much upon the Masoretick Distinctions as to make it a point of Conscience not to depart from them when the receiv'd Distinctions will not yield a sense so proper and consentaneous to the Context To which we may add the Infinite Variety of Manuscript Copies which differ many times as to these matters as well from themselves as from the Masoreticks The Antient use of the distinction of Verses There is also another sort of Verses of Verses of which they seem not to have made mention who have handl'd this Subject from whence I am apt to believe that all the Masoretick Drudgery drew its Original These the Greeks call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rows the Latines Lineas or Lines These Verses were comprehended under a certain number of words And the setters forth of the Book were wont at the end of their works to add the number of the Verses therein contain'd that thereby they might prevent Additions or Diminutions which might be obtruded upon them Thus Diogenes Laertius tells us the largeness or smalness of the Books which he cites in his History by giving an account of the number of the Verses of which they consist In the same manner were the Volumes of Origen compil'd as St. Jerom seems to intimate where he says that there were seven or eight hundred Verses wanting In the Book of Job according to the Antient Edition of the Latine Interpreter the Verses are frequently reckon'd up at the end of the Samaritan Syriack and Arabick Copies So that 't is probable that the Jews deriv'd this Custom from the Arabians and they from the Greeks which afterwards the subtle Rabbies enlarg'd according as their Fancies prompted them But there was a necessity for them to distinguish other Verses by reason of their Readings and Lessons in the Synagogues to which they put a full stop not according to the number of words or letters but according as the sense guided them For that from the time that the Hebrew Language began to fail the Jews they never read the Law without an Interpreter who repeated it as it was read to the people in the Language they understood And thus the Interpreter follow'd the Reader when he had read one Verse which was such a short Sentence as might easily be deliver'd to the People without oppression to the memory which being read and interpreted then the Reader read another and then another till he came to some new matter so that his Lessons for Morning and Evening were therefore divided into Verses Nor can there be invented any other Original of those Verses which are pointed by the Doctors of Tyberias in the Sacred Context to be seen in the Editions of every Bible Although there were another sort of Verses well known to those of Tyberias because they do sometimes reckon up the Words and Letters of which the Verses consist Another sort of Verses A third sort of Verses the Criticks seem to acknowledge which the Doctors of Tyberias the Authors of the Masora seem not altogether to be ignorant of The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greeks borrowed from Military Discipline does not only signifie a Line but a certain Order or Rank of Lines and consequently of Verses In which sense Hesychius compos'd a Tractate under this Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The distinction of the Twelve Prophets To which the word Sita answers in the Masora and from the same Fountain the word Sedarim or Orders seems to have proceeded where it signifies the same with the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which distinctions and subdistinctions were invented Cassio de Diâ—in Lâ—â—t that the breath being tired by a long Sentence might recover it self by the means of allow'd Pauses as Cassiodorus rightly observes Of the same nature were those distinctions which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Capitula or small heads differing from those which we now call Chapters For these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divided the whole Context of the Books into lesser Sections and the Heads of these were placed at the front of the Book This is to be seen in the New Greek Testament Printed at Venice Anno 1538. and in the Greek Edition of the same by Robert Stephanus which was copy'd from the Manuscripts preserv'd in the most Christian King's Library Had the Criticks consider'd more seriously these things and some other things which I pass over in silence while they were making their Animadversions upon the Original of the Masoretick Art they would not have wasted so much time and labour in refuting the Jewish Miracles who talk of nothing but of Moses and Esdras To this I will add something concerning the Notes which the Jews call Taamin the Latines Accentus or Accents which serve in the room of Colons and Comma's to distinguish the Hebrew Context in the same manner as the Greeks make use of points and stroaks However in this the Rabbies seem to have exceeded the Greeks and Latines because they not only found out the marks of Accents for the distinction of Sentences and their Members but also invented other Accents for marks of continued speech as if what was not distinguish'd was not continu'd The Original of those Accents they take from Esdras himself But how vainly any man may judge by what has been already said concerning those other sorts of Distinctions For indeed they have no other Authors but the Doctors of Tyberias who in this particular acted the part of Grammarians Neither are the Jews so strict in observing them as to make it an Article of their Belief that they are not to be departed from especially where another Distinction produces a better sense In Lib. Tsachuth Thus Aben Esra makes mention of a certain Learned Rabbi by name Moses Coheu who took little notice of those Masoretick marks in distinguishing the Sentences of the Biblick Context And yet I have the same Opinion of these De Diviâ— Lect. as Cassiodorus had of the Points that were added to the Edition of the Latine Interpreter by the Criticks These Points saith he are as it were certain Paths of the Senses and Lights of Sentences But they must of necessity dote as the Jews do who look upon those Periods of the Hebrew Context to be the Effects of Divinity and thereby shew themselves absolute strangers to Criticism Nor do I wonder that the whole Nation of the Jews embrac'd those marks as well in transcribing their Copies as in the Explanation of the Context seeing all that profess the Faith of the Roman Church so religiously adhere to the Vatican Edition of the Latine Interpretation with points and stroaks and never swerve from it but when they play the Criticks in their Commentaries which that it was also a thing much practis'd by the Jewish Rabbies their Comments upon the Scripture
presume to alter the expositions of your Fore-Fathers who lived with Ptolomy King of Egypt saying that it is not so in the Scripture as they translated it but behold a young Woman shall conceive c. Now there by Scripture is meant nothing but the version of Aquila to which the Jews always adher'd in their disputes with the Christians In like manner Justin accuses the Jews to have eras'd out of their Bibles these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à ligno from the wood Psal 95. But if we consider the matter more attentively those words seem rather to have been obtruded upon the place then omitted And therefore they must of necessity be deceived who too unwarily follow Justin Martyrs opinion too peremptorily giving his Judgment upon things which he did not altogether so well understand I should for my part rather hearken to Trypho the Jew whom Justin brings in answering his Dialogue concerning the mutilation of the Scripture done by the Princes of the Jews The thing seems incredible I say it seems to be incredible it is more horrible then casting the Molten Calf or Children offered to Devils or the killing of the Prophets themselves Certainly the Jews had such a Reverence for their Holy Bibles which would not permit them to corrupt them on set purpose Moreover by the answers of Trypho which Justin supplies it is apparent that the Jews at that time so zealously devoted to the letter of the Scriptures and the subtleties of Allegories adhered the more closely to the Hebrew Text that they might the more vigorously inforce them upon the Christians For which reason they made Greek Translations which might more truly correspond with the Hebrew Text then the Septuagint For which reason Justin also many times praises as well the Jewish as Christian Version to the end that disputing with the Jews he might convince them out of their own Books Lastly there is no reason why the Jews should be called in Question for depraving the Copies of their Bibles if they have translated one and the same Hebrew word in that signification which was most proper for their business as when Justin in the same Dialogue objects against Trypho that the Jews read the 49th of Genesis amiss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 donec veniant quae reposita sunt ei Till those things shall come which are laid up for him Whereas the words in the Greek version of the Septuagint are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until he shall come for whom this is laid up For the Hebrew Word Shilo may be rightly rendered in either sense neither is it certain whether the version which Justin so confidently avers to be that of the LXX Interpreters was really theirs or no whereas the Roman Edition owns that for the true one which Justin attributes to the Jews where the Scholiast observes that it is the same in Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius Chrysostom Cyrill Cyprian and Austin among the Latin Fathers The next in order is Irenaeus who accuses the Jewish Rabbies L. 4. c. 25. for setting up their Law contrary to the Law of Moses wherein they add some things take away others The Opinion of Irenaeus and other places they interpret as they please But the blessed Irenaeus there explains himself and professes himself only to speak of the Constitutions of the Rabbies who as he says make a mixture of Traditions with the Precepts of God and confirms his meaning out of the words of St. Matthew Why transgress ye the Precepts of God through your Traditions In which place Christ never thought in the least of the depravation of the Bible Nor is there any more weight in any other of the Testimonies of the Fathers which are commonly brought to destroy the Jewish Exemplars Morinus tax'd and I wonder that John Morinus a most Learned person who in reckoning up the Fathers that thought the Hebrew Bibles to be corrupted numbers Irenaeus and affirms it from these words of his Which Jews had they thought there would have been Christians Ireâ—l 32.5 and that they would have made use of Testimonies out of their Scriptures would never have scrupl'd to have burnt their Bibles which make it evident that all other Nations participate of Salvation whereas the contrary may be rather asserted from thence For there by the Scriptures Irenaeus means the Translation of the LXX Interpreters which was made use of in the Synagogues which Translation being before the Nativity of Christ and made by the Jews he blames from thence the Version of Aquila as naught and deceitful and infers the propensity of the Jews to destroy the Bible from that Translation which they allow'd in hatred of the Christian Faith forsaking the Version of the Septuagint which was compil'd by their own Country-men So far was Irenaeus from asserting the Jews to have maim'd the Bible that he rather confirms their entireness and denies them to be really depraved only adding a conjecture of his own of what might have been probable Only this depravation of the Holy Scriptures Irenaeus acknowledges with the rest of the Fathers which got footing in the Hebrew Manuscripts when the Jews remain'd in Captivity and which afterwards was reform'd by Esdras Prince of the Great Sanhedrim the Hebrew Exemplars being restor'd to their former Purity by his Industry The third in order is Tertullian but the Arguments which he brings against the Jewish Manuscripts are so frigid Tertul. lib. de habit mul. c. 3. that they scarce deserve a Refutation First these words of his are produc'd We read that the Scripture being proper for Edification was inspir'd from Heaven that afterwards it was therefore rejected by the Jews as all other things that savour of Christianity Neither is it any wonder that they rejected any Scriptures speaking concerning him The Judgment of Tertullian when they would not receive him speaking to them However there is not a word of the Corruptions of the Text in this Testimony of Tertullian Only Tertullian endeavours to vindicate a Book of Enoch's which most men deservedly suspected to be an Imposture and they correspond with the proof which was taken from the Authority of those Jews who did not reckon that Book among the Canonical and therefore he says those Doctors condemned many things as Apocryphal which afterwards the Church receiv'd as inspir'd I know saith he that this Treatise of Enoch which attributes this Order to the Angels is not receiv'd by some because it is not admitted into the Jewish Magazine Nor did Tertullian say as his words are cited by Morinus that the Scripture was resected or mangled but rejected by the Jews For there is no mention there made of the Scripture mutilated but of whole Volumes which the Jews suspicious of their credit rejected And this is confirm'd out of the Editions of Tertullian's Works by Rhenanus Pamelius and others Nor is there any more strength in those other words of Tertullian This Heresie will not admit of certain Scriptures
the Jews as being taken out of the Old yet are not there to be found Such are the words Jerusalem Jerusalem who slewest the Prophets and stonedst them who were sent unto thee c. The same story is related of Zecharia slain between the Temple and the Altar which because they do not appear in Scripture he therefore suspects to have been taken out by the Rabbies Wherefore saith he there was nothing more which the Seers and Princes and Elders of the People more desir'd then to blot out those passages which contained their misdeeds among the People And therefore it is no wonder that they who were not much unlike those Elders in their practices should steal and remove out of the Scriptures the true Story of Susanna against whom the lascivious Elders laid their unjust Accusations Many other Examples might be heaped together out of Origens Works to prove the same thing which many Writers abuse to subvert the Hebrew Text not understanding Origens genius and his proper method of writing Which Eustathius was not ignorant of Eustath dissert de Engastr adv Origen Hieron Apol. adv Ruffin who reproves Origen for every where inserting Opinions contrary to his Writings And this Jerom long before had observ'd not only of Origen but of Eusebius Methodius and Appollinarius who sometimes speak not what they think but what is necessary That too much liberty of Origen was the reason that when he prattl'd without judgment whatever he had drawn out of other Authors he was looked upon as a Heretick for delivering the Opinions of others as his own thoughts These things are therefore diligently to be observed if you would reconcile Origen to Origen never to obtrude for Origens what he wrote only upon probability proper for the Times and the Persons to whom he applied himself Otherwise Origen unconstant to himself will be thought to speak alway contrary to himself as by the example of the present controversie concerning the purity of the Hebrew Text it is no difficult thing to make out For the same Origen who never speaks well of the Jews as corrupters of the Sacred Scripture is cited by Jerom for a most eager defender of the Hebrew truth But if any one shall say saith Jerom that the Hebrew Bibles were afterwards falsified by the Jews Comment in c. 6. Isai let him hear what Origen in his eight volume of Explanations of Isaiah answers to this Question that the Lord Christ and his Apostles who severely reprove the Scribes and Pharisees for the rest of their sins never made the least mention of this which was the greatest But if they shall say that the Bibles were falsified after the coming of our Lord Saviour and the preaching of the Apostles I cannot but laugh that our Saviour the Evangelists and the Apostles should produce Testimonies how the Jews would afterwards falsify Here Origen does not play fast and loose but freely and plainly delivers his opinion what he thinks of the Jews But why the same Origen sometimes affirms the Contrary the same St. Jerom who well understood his humour teaches us in these words Prooem Quest Heb. in Genes I pass by Adamantius whose name if we may compare little with great things is the more envyed for my sake who in his homilies which he speaks to the people following the Common Edition in his larger Disputation surrounded with Hebraick verity troops of his own followers sometimes seeks the aid of a forraign Language Thus Origen proceeded one way with the learned and made use of another method with the common sort and as they say wise with a few what he had gathered from many made those things publick Agreeable to this are those things which Origen writes against Celsus For after he had produced some things concerning the Circumcision of Eleazar the Son of Moses according to the Edition published at that time he presently adds the Text it self with this note But these things which seem more nice L. 5. adâ— Cels and not fit for vulgar ears c. That is when Origen had observed many things concerning the power of names in various Languages according to the principle of the Magi Cabbalists had noted something superstitiously concerning the circumcision upon the eighth day the words of Scripture being cited both Greek and Hebrew as it were correcting himself he omits many things which he thought too far remote from the knowledge of the vulgar acting the part of a Doctor whose business it was to teach the multitude according to the principles of Christian Religion not of Judaism Were these and other things which in prudence I omit but rightly observed in reference to Origens Genius and manner of writing it might be easily discerned how he came to be induced to tax the Jews of falsifying Scripture For in his Homilies to the people he was bound to act the part of a vulgar person and so in his epistle which he wrote to Africanus he followed the opinion of the Ancient Fathers concerning the Hebrew and Greek Copies not daring to depart from it lest he might seem to joyn with the Jews as by the words in the same Epistle he plainly intimates Take care therefore lest through imprudence and ignorance we abrogate those exemplars which are received in the Churches and give an ill example to the Fraternity to lay aside those sacred books which are frequent among them and give credit to the Hebrew Copies as those wherein there is nothing of mistake Then he calls to mind what a dammage it would be to Christianity to favour the Opinion of the Jews concerning the Translation of the Septuagint Upon which occasion he farther adds Consider whether it be not good to remember what is written Thou shalt not remove the Eternal bounds which thy Ancestors have appointed These things I say not that I fear to search the Jewish Scriptures and to compare theirs with ours and to see where they differ for if it be not arrogancy to say so much we have done to the utmost of our power to exercise our studies in all Editions and their differences at what time we more sedulously examined the Interpretation of the Septuagint lest we might seem to have introduc'd any thing of false and Adulterate into the Churches under Heaven and should give an occasion to those who seek a pretence to calumniate those which are in the middle between both and to accuse those which are commonly used By which it is manifest that Origen did not entirely approve the Opinion then vulgarly received concerning the Jewish Copies but only for Government and convenience sake in regard that among the Learned he taught the quite contrary nor does he seem much to value the Reasons which he produces in his Epistle For he adds a conjectural expression as it were doubting Which perhaps saith he was done by craft on set purpose by the Jews To all which we may add that the probations of these things which he
Priest and the Levites and Scribes interpreting to all the people as it is most probable in the Chaldee Language Which Custom is still retain'd by the Jews in our Age dispers'd over the face of the Earth Thus the Spanish German Turkish Graecian Persian and other Jews make use of Spanish German Turkish Graecian and Persian Interpretations of the Text. And from the same Fountain I am apt to believe that all the Translations and Paraphrases of the Bible now found among the Jews deduc'd their Original For it is not probable that it should be the Original of that Translation which goes under the name of the Seventy Interpreters For the Jews of Alexandria who spake Greek made for their own use a Greek Version which afterwards fell into the hands of the Christians As for the Chaldee Paraphrases they were made at Jerusalem and other places near adjoyning whence they were transmitted into places farther remote Those Chaldee Paraphrases are highly esteem'd by the Jews even in these latter times especially those which are attributed to Onkelos and Jonathan But as to the Authority and Antiquity of those Jews the Learned are at variance among themselves and therefore because no man has handled that point more accurately than Elias the Levite a person long vers'd in the Chaldee Tongue and Writers it will not be amiss to translate so much of his words as shall be necessary for our purpose out of his Preface before his Chaldee Lexicon When the Jews were carried away captive out of their own Land into Babylon they forgot their own Language as the Book of Nehemiah testifies So that all the knowledge of the Rabbies and persons skilful in the Law was chiefly publick in the Babylonish Languages In that the Babylonish Talmud was compos'd Furthermore during the time of the second Temple their Language was for the most part Babylonish which when Jonathan the Son of Uzziel became sensible of he wrote a Chaldee Paraphrase of the eight Prophets for the use of the People Onkelos also wrote another of the Law But the Hagiography was not translated till long after in the Language of the Jerusalem Talmud as I shall afterwards relate In the mean time let us examine some things that concern the Paraphrasts themselves First why it is said in Gemara that Jonathan was long before Onkelos How Jonathan was one of the Disciples of Hillel who flourished about a hundred years before the Destruction of the Temple but that Onkelos was the Son of Titus who destroy'd the Temple And if it were so why Jonathan first paraphras'd the Prophets and did not begin with the Law Our Ancestors of blessed memory have reported indeed that he intended to have explained the Hagiographers but that a voice spake to him from Heaven saying Is it not enough that thou hast laid open the Mysteries of the Prophets Wouldst thou proceed to open the Mysteries of the Holy Ghost that is of the Books of the Hagiographers For that reason he did not paraphrase upon the Hagiography But then another difficulty offers it self why he did not expound the Law especially seeing a Cabbalistick Doctor Rabbi Menahem Rekanatensis has wrote in the Section Matzorang that he also translated the Law where he has these words And he sent a live Bird. For these are his words I found in the Targum of Jonathan the Son of Vzziel of happy memory and he let go a live Bird nor does he write otherwise in many other places If this be true it is a wonder how it should be lost in so short a time and not the least remainder of that Translation be to be seen We may also enquire why Onkelos did not translate the Hagiographers and why they continu'd unparaphas'd till the time of a certain Hierosolymite who explained them paraphrastically But who he was or what his name was or when he liv'd is not certain Thus the Hierosolymitan Interpreter who translated the Law is to us unknown whether he be the same who interpreted the Hagiographers or whether they were two Interpreters that liv'd at two several times Some say that Aquila the Proselite was the Author of both Paraphrases others there are affirm Joseph the Blind to be the Author of both And in truth I have found in Bereschith Rabba taken out of the Hagiographers and Prophets under Aquila's name as that Verse Life and Death are in the power of the Tongue Prov. 12. c. See in the Root Matztar Also upon these words of Ezechiel The Brides of their Adulteries Aquila's Targum reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Antient Whore See the Root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus Aquila also interprets some of the Garments of which Isaiah makes mention But there is no mention of Rabbi Joseph 's Paraphrase in Bereschith Rabba for he was not yet alive But there is mention of it in Gemara upon certain Verses of the Prophets and Hagiographers which are not found in the Verses of the Law Know however that the Language of Onkelos 's Paraphrase differs in nothing from the Language of Jonathans For both speak the Babylonish Idiom as do the Books of Daniel and Esdras yet their Language is much more pure and elegant than that of the rest of the Targums As for the Hierosolymitan Targum it differs very much from the Babylonish in regard it is compos'd of several Languages the Greek the Roman and the Persian And because so many Languages are found to be in it this mixture seems to me to have begun from that time when those Empires had the Dominion over Jerusalem Therefore is that Language call'd the Jerusalem Targum for that in that same mixture Rabbi Jonathan compos'd the Jerusalem Targum about 300 years after the destruction of Jerusalem At what time every body knows that Jerusalem was subject to those Nations as we find in the Book of Josephus Goronidas But at what time the Jerusalem Targum was compos'd upon the Law and the Hagiography is unknown to us whether before or after the Hierosolymitan Targum was finished I aminduced to believe that the Hierosolymitan Targum was never extant but only upon Job the Proverbs and Psalms and not upon the five Volumes for the stile is not the same although in these there are many words taken from the Hierosolymitan Author Thus far Elias the Levite who at length confirms his Opinion concerning the difference of the Targum of Job the Proverbs and Psalms which he calls the Hierosolymitan from the Targum of the Five Volumes by the example of the double Targum upon the Book of Esther of which the second bears the name of the Hierosolymitan And that he again confirms by the Authority of Rabbi Solomon and after a short discourse concludes that the Author of the Targum of the Five Volumes is no more known than the Author of the Targum of Job the Proverbs and the Psalms For first who Onkelos and Jonathan were is utterly unknown
or in what Age they liv'd Concerning their Antiquity also the Christians much dispute while others led by the Testimonies of the Jews believe their Paraphrases to have been made about the time that Christ liv'd upon Earth Others think them later than Origen or St. Jerom because they neither make mention of them Yet it might be that in those very times they were known to the Babylonish Jews where they seem to have had their Original but not being yet reduc'd into one body they were not made commonly publick And thus I have lighted upon some Exememplars of the Pentateuch to which there was added to every word of the Hebrew Text an Exposition in French yet a French Paraphrase upon the Law of Moses was never yet cited by any of the Jews And therefore it is very probable that certain Doctors of the Babylonian Schools expounded the Hebrew words in Chaldee for the benefit of the people out of which in process of time an entire Paraphrase was compil'd And to make me so believe the purity of the Chaldee Language wherein they are written induces me Which is to be understood of the Paraphrase only that goes under the name of Onkelos upon the Law of Moses and of that other upon all the former and latter Prophets which are attributed to Jonathan For that same Jonathan or whoever else were the Author of the Paraphrase upon the Prophets did by no means compose that other which is publish'd by certain Jews under Jonathan's name so different is the stile of both which I wonder was not taken notice of by Huetius and other Criticks who confound this same Pseudo-Jonathan with the True and Antient Jonathan as if one and the same Author had paraphras'd upon the Pentateuch and the Prophets But as for that story of the Talmudick Doctors of the Voice that spoke from Heaven to deter Jonathan from explaining the Hagiographers there is no wise man but takes them for the dreams of the Jews But first we are to take notice of what has been observ'd concerning the diversity of the Babylonish and Hierosolymitan Dialects by the same Elias who seems to set little or no value upon the rest of the Paraphrases which are extant upon the Hagiographers because they were written by men of no name To which we may add that their Authors frequently swerve from the words of the Hebrew Text foisting in the room of those Talmudick Fables and Stories of the same nature Onkelos and Jonathan stick much closer to the sense of Scripture and yet sometimes they are not so very careful to express it verbatim as Elias the Levite testifies But saith he The Paraphrasts do not always observe the Rules of Grammar For sometimes they render the Praeterperfect tence by the Future and the Future by the Praeterperfect tence and sometimes the Participle by the Praeterperfect tence and Future Sometimes they interpret a Verse as they judge most agreeable to the Targumick Language not so much minding the Biblick Context To this Elias adds the Testimon of Salomon Isaac whom we erroneously call Jarchi who observes Onkelos not to be very curious of the Grammar of Scripture but to have follow'd his sense and judgment in many things and sometimes those Paraphrasts have omitted not only whole words but whole sentences For indeed it is the common Fate of all Paraphrasters who translate Books out of one Language into another to follow the freest method of translating So that if there occur any difference from the Translation it is presently to be referr'd to its Cause and Original and we are diligently to enquire what might have been the Product of the various Readings of the Codex's and what might be alter'd according to the Fancy of the Interpreter However this is chiefly to be taken notice of that the Writing of the Chaldee Paraphrases was heretofore very confus'd and disorder'd For there was no Analogy of Orthography the Letters Vau and Jod being without any distinction made use of and inserted into words without any signification In like manner the Author of the Chaldee pointing observ'd no method in putting the Titles to the Chaldee Context as Elias the Levite plainly testifies who was the first that polish'd the Chaldee Language Now how difficult it was to frame a Chaldee Grammar I rather chuse to shew from the words of Elias himself than my own Many saith Elias ask'd me whether a Grammar could be fram'd for these Targumims I answer'd according to my own sentiments that I could not do it in regard the Exemplars vary'd among themselves as well in words as in letters and altogether in the points which differ'd almost beyond all possibility of reconciliation And that proceeds from hence because the Paraphrasts wrote their Versions without points which were not yet invented as I have truly demonstrated in my Preface to Masoreth Hammasoreth To this we may add that the most Antient Exemplars are all without points because the Authors of the Masora never pointed them as they pointed the rest of the Scripture But a long time after they were pointed by one or more persons tho of no note as they thought good Therefore there is no Analogy observ'd neither can there be any method produc'd for the making of a Grammar And indeed unless it were so who could imagine that from the time that the Targums were compos'd there should be no persons among the Jews who had Erudition enough to frame a Grammar as Rabbi Juda did who was the * In this Elias is mistaken in affirming R. Juda to be the first Grammarian among the Jews when there was before him Rabbi Saad as whom he afterwards nominates first Grammarian of note whereas before him there was no Hebrew Grammar But because he found the Sacred Books of Scripture noted with points and accents as also furnish'd with a Masora by the Masorites he began to assist the Israelites and to enlighten the exil'd Jews with his Grammar Him follow'd R. Jona and after him came R. Saadas Gaon and after them an innumerable company of Grammarians But there was no person who animadverted upon the Targum to correct what was amiss all slighted that business so that it came forth perverted which is only preserv'd Therefore I began to think of a way whereby every one might be able to make a Targum Grammar in such a manner that he might take his foundation out of such things as were wrote in the Books of Daniel and Esther and only upon that might build his superstructure and deduce his Grammar Rules if not altogether yet in part Soon after he adds these words in the same Preface In times past before the Art of Printing was invented there was not found above one Targum in the City and one in the Country Therefore there was no man who minded them But there were many Exemplars of the Targum of Onkelos found because they were bound to read two Sections of Scripture and one of the Targum every
that wherever the Apostles or Apostolic men speak to the People they make use of those Quotations which were divulg'd among the People Why the Apostles us'd the Greek Version And therefore it is not to be thought that the Apostles made use of the Greek Version in their Writings because they thought the Author thereof to be inspir'd with a Divine or Prophetic Spirit or because no other Scripture was read in the Synagogues but only the Greek Version as Vossius erroneously affirms but because it was vulgarly in use and by the Testimony of St. Jerom because when the Apostles spake to the People they made use of those Quotations which were most in use among the Gentiles Quite otherwise then as they us'd to speak to the people of their own Nation who understood the Hebrew Vess Resp ad Critic Sacra But says Vossius St. Luke must of necessity have told an untruth had Stephen express'd any other Sence then what he put down in his Sermon As if there were any necessity for him to tell an Untruth who repeats the substance of a Speech in the same words only with some little Alterations of no moment Nor does the Learned Gentleman seem to reach the sence of the Author of the Critica Sacra as if he thought that Stephen had not preached his last Sermon in the Greek or vulgar Syriac but in the Hebrew Language Were the People says Vossius ignorant of the Hebrew Language in the time of the Apostles did the the Evangelist lye What will remain entire in the Gospel if we admit such Fictious as these But he rather feigns Monsters of his own for himself to vanquish afterwards Stephen preach'd in Syriac not in Greek Stephen Preached in Syriac which was then familiar to the Hierosolymitan Jews but the Quotations which he cites he could not cite in any other Language then the Hebrew because the Hierosolymitan Jews read the Law of Moses in their Synagogues in the Hebrew not the Greek Language and if any other Interpretation were added it was done in the Syriac Speech which was the vulgar Language as Vossius here freely confesses not in the Greek which was only used in the Schools and Synagogues of the Hellenists But in this I confess St. Jerom is to be corrected Comment in c. 6. Isai where he says that Matthew and John took their Citations from the Hebrew of the Old Testament forgetful of that Rule which he sets down in his Hebrew Traditions upon Genesis that is St. Jerom taxed that the Apostles and Apostolick Persons made use of the Greek Exemplars for no other reason then because they were common among the Gentiles But as for the Hebrew Copies they were kept only in the Synagogues of the Jews among whom very few were to be found who understood them On the other side the Greek Language was familiar to most Nations But it is to be observed that the Apostles though they stook to the Greek Copies yet they did not altogether so totally depend upon them but that many times they took more notice of the sence then the words Micha 5.2 Wherefore S. Jerom expounding this place of Michah and thou Bethlehem Ephratah makes this observation Some observe that in all Quotations taken out of the Old Testament there is some mistake or other that either the Order or the words are chang'd and sometimes the very sence it self varies the Apostles or Evangelists not looking in the Books but trusting to their Memories that might sometime fail them These words indeed seem somewhat too harsh nor have I quoted them that Vossius should give any Credit to them And yet he can hardly forbear at the same time to beleive John Calvin who commenting upon the same place of Micha thus observes What necessity is there to wrest the words of the Prophet when it was not the purpose of the Evangelist to repeat the words of the Prophet but only to note the Text. In like manner S. Jerom speaking his own and not the Opinion of others concerning these Quotations which are cited out of the Old Testament into the New Com. in 7. cap. Isai in many Quotations Saith he which the Evangelists or Apostles have taken out of the Old Testament we are to take notice that they do not follow the order of the words but the sence But let us now return to our purpose The first words of the ninth Chapter of the same Prophesie are hardly to be understood in the Greek Version Isai 9.1 when the sence lyes open in St. Jeroms Version St. Jerom produceth both in two distinct Colums after this manner At first the Lard of Zebulon and the Land Naphtali were lightly afflicted This was St. Jeroms Translation The Greek Version runs thus Drink this first do it quickly O Region of Zebulon and Land of Naphtali I am apt to believe the word Drink was taken from some other place which changes the sence A little after in the same Chapter St. Jerom taxes the 70 Interpreters for that instead of these words His name shall be called wonderful Counseller the Mighty God the Father of the Age to come the Prince of Peace they affrighted at the Majesty of the Titles durst not adventure to say so much of a Child that he was to be call'd God but instead of these six Titles they have put that which is not in the Hebrew Again he convinces the Grecian Interpreters of a manifest mistake that not minding the spelling of the words they have put Death instead of the Word God sent Death into Jacob whereas it should be the Word as St. Jerom interpreted it who presently adds the Original of the mistake in these words In the Hebrew Language the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is written with three Consonants according to the propriety of the places where it is used if it be read Dabar it signifies a word or speech but if Deber it signifies Pestilence and Death Not far from the beginning of the 10th Chapter of the same Prophet upon these words wo to Assur Isai 10.5 St. Jerom accuses the Interpreters for not having accurately observed the Hebrew Again in the 28. verse of the same Chapter upon these words He is come to Ajath he shews at large how much they differ from the Hebrew and taxes them of Falshood for interpreting it Rama City of Saul for the City of Saul is called Gallna as it is in the Hebrew Moreover St. Jeroms Opinion concerning the Seventy Interpreters is quite different from that of Vossius who believes there is nothing but Greek in it and that it is hardly call'd a Language that had its Original in the Synagogue For thus he speaks in his sixth Book of Commentaries Instead of stranger that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Seventy have Translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in Hebrew Ger Therefore Georas is no Greek word but an Hebrew word declin'd after the Greek
manner Vossius contrary to S. Jerome in his Judgment concerning the Language of the Septuagint which is certain notwithstanding the endeavours of a certain person to deduce the word from a Greek Original because he has the care of the business of the Land For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Land and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Solicitude or care Now how far the Greek Interpreters have deviated from the genuine sence of Scripture in the c. 24 ver 23 of the same Prophet where we read in the Latine Edition The Moon shall be ashamed and the Sun shall be confounded St. Jerom truly observes in these words Instead of that which we Interpret The Moon shall be ashamed and the Sun shall be confounded The 70. have Translated the words the Brick shall be melted and the Wall shall fall And by and by he discovers the reason of the mistake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that instead of the Hebrew word Levana which signifies the Moon they read Lebena which signifies a Brick and instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chammah which signifies the Sun from his heat they read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chomah which signifies a Wall But I stay too long upon these things in regard that St. Jeromes Commentaries upon Isaiah may be read by every body where he frequently taxes the Greek Interpreters of Mistakes sometimes deceived by the Ambiguity of words sometimes upon other accompts However sometimes he spares them as in the 30th Chapter where after he had condemned their inconstancy of Interpretation by and by as it were correcting himself he adds I am apt to believe they did not err from the beginning but that they were deprav'd by the negligence of the Transcribers And E. 40. where he notes some things omitted by the Interpreters he presently adds as it were in some doubt either omitted by the Septuagint I terpreters or by the fault of the Transcribers In like manner sometimes he corrects the Greek Exemplars according to the Hebrew Copies least the mistake should be put upon the Interpreters as upon these words Chap. 45. Thus saith the Lord to my Annointed Cyrus he truly observes that most of the Latines as well as the Greeks did very much mistake in believing the words to be written Thus saith the Lord to my Lord For the Text doth not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Lord but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Cyrus who in Hebrew is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Curosch The same things are to be seen in St. Jeromes Commentaries upon Jeremiah Ezekiel and other Prophets And indeed there is nothing more frequent in his Commentary upon Jeremiah then his observations of things omitted by the 70 or at least of passages not to be seen in the Greek Exemplars For sometimes he accuses the Interpreters sometimes the Transcribers In this Commentary also upon Ezekiel where he observes the Omission of the Creek Copies he presently adds In divine Scripture it is better to take all in that is said though thou understandest not wherefore it is said than to take away what thou dost not know Nevertheless in the 5th Chapter of the same Prophet he scarcely dares adventure to accuse the Interpreters where he says 't is much better to Translate what is written then to seek to defend a thing ill Translated Nor do we say this was done by those to whom Antiquities has given Authority but that after many Ages it was deprav'd through the negligence of the Readers and Writers though both Aristeas and Josephus and all the Schools of the Jews assert no more than only the five Books of Moses to have been translated by the 70 Interpreters Nor is it only in this place but in many other that St. Jerome seems to deny that any other part of Scripture was translated by the 70 unless the five Books of Moses as upon the 5th Chap. of Micah where he has these expressions The Interpretation of the 70 if were done by the 70 for Josephus writes and the Hebrews assert by Tradit on that only the five Books of the Law of Moses were Translated by them and dâ—livered to King Ptolomy vary's so far in the place cited from the Hebrew Truth that we can neither set the Chapters right nor expound their Sentences together But Vossius is of a quite contrary Opinion who not only seeks every where a Defence for a place ill translated to use the words of St. Jerome but openly testifies that he makes no question but that the Prophetical Books were also translated by the Seventy Interpreters though formerly he made a doubt of it And which seems to be above all belief if we may credit Vossius the Greek Interpreters shew themselves most accurate in the more obscure Books of Job and the Proverbs But I believe there is no person sikll'd in both Languages who will agree with him in this particular so trivial is the Greek Translation of those Books in many places St. Jerome sometimes taxes the Greek Interpreters without cause Yet am I not such a one as to pin my sleeve so passionately upon St. Jerome as every where to appove his Errors which are very many Thus not to go farther in the 27th Chapter of his Commentaries upon Ezekiel He taxes the Seventy Interpreters for putting down the Sons of the Rhodians instead of the Sons of Dedan deceived perhaps by the likeness of the first Letter whilst they read Radan for Dadan But that this mistake is rather to be attributed to the Transcribers then the Interpreters those Verses which follow in the same Chapter plainly demostrate where the Seventy write Dedan as in St. Jeromes Translation Again in the 33th Chapter of the same Prophet where mention is made of Gog he observes that the Greek Interpreters in the 24th of Numbers for Agag in the Hebrew have made use of the word Gog But it is a manifest mistake of the Transcriber But to omit a thousand thnigs of the same nature the Observation of St. Jerome is much better in his 40th Chapter of the same Commentaries almost all the Hebrew words and many in the Greek and Latine Translation were Corrupted by long Antiquity and deprav'd through the negligence of the Transcribers and while they are Transcribed out of bad Copies into Copies more corrected of Hebrew words they are made Sarmatic nay of no Nation at all while they cease to be Hebrew and become Forraigne Therefore are those things most carefully to be distinguished and according to the Rules of Criticism which St. Jerome taxes as ill translated by the 70. For as he has rightly display'd the most of their Errors Praef. in l. 7. Com. in Ezech. So he corrects many things which deserve not to be found fault with Nor is it to be wondred at when St. Jerome himself testifies that he could hardly compleat his Emendations in regard there was not an hour scarcely a Moment wherein he did not meet with
70 would have clamour'd against me as one Sacrilegious and not fearing God especially they who when they differ in the Truth of Faith and follow the Errors of the Manichaeans incense the minds of the ignorant as if they could shew any thing changed from the ancient custom rather desired to err then to learn truth from one whom they Emulate And after something more of this Nature he again adds against Ruffinus and others his followers who reviling his Translation reproach him for a Heretick and an Apostate Our Latin yea envious Christians and that I may speak more plainly Hairs of the Grummian Faction bark against me why we discourse according to the Hebrew If they do not believe us let 'em read those other Editions of Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion let 'em examin the Hebrews not in one place but in several Provinces and when they find them all agree with me in my Error or Ignorance then let 'em understand themselves to be overwise and rather desirous to sleep then learn and let 'em inhabit in the 70 Cells of Alexandrian Pharos Lastly he does not spare the very Eyebrows of the Bishops to use his own words who endeavours to oppress whomsoever they see powerful in the Church and to Profess the word of God But I spend time in vain his Apologies against Ruffinus being every where to be had In which he strenuously defends the reason of his Version and shews how much he profited in his Study of the Scriptures under his Jewish Masters and how much by the same Instructors Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius and several others advantag'd themselves who while they dispute about the Scripture and endeavour to prove what they say produce the Jews for Witnesses and Patrons of their Opinions And because Ruffinus had objected to St. Jerom that while he made his Translation he was not inspired with a Prophetic but a Judaic Spirit He answers Would it not seem tedious or rather would it not savour too much of vain Glory I could shew thee what an advantage it is to wear out the Thresholds of good Masters and to learn Art from Artificers For St. Jerom wrote an Epistle to Pammachius entitled concerning the best manner of Translating wherein he refuses the Calumnies of one Palladius who at the Insligation of Ruffinus had bespattered his Translation He there shews by many Examples that it is not the duty of a good Translator to translate his Authors verbatim when neither the 70 Interpreters nor the Evangelists follow'd that Method of Translation Aquila saith he a Prosel te and contentious Interpreter who endeavoured to Translate not only the words but the Etymologies of words is deservedly rejected by us Concerning the 70 Interpreters in the same Epistle he has this expression It is new too long to enumerate how much the 70 have added of their own how much they have omitted which in the Exemplars belonging to the Church are distinguish'd by Lines and Asterisks These and many other things of the same Nature he throws together into the same Epistle to vindicate his own method or Translation somewhat more free and loose then some of the rest from the Calumnies of his Adversaries and to the end his Detractors might understand That the sence and not the words were to be considered in Scripture Let 'em not think saith he that the State of the Church is endangered by me if through hast of dictating I have omitted some words Readily therefore St. Jerom acknowledges that in framing a new Translation of the Sacred Text he chiefly consulted the Jews as his Leaders and Instructors neither does he question but that many things might slip him as a man so far was he from the Opinion of those who asserted him in that undertaking to be inspir'd with the Holy Ghost whom Mariana egregiously refutes What avails it saith that learned Jesuite after so many Ages to strain for new Fictions to set up new Prophets Shall we call him a Prophet who in the framing his Translation follows sometimes the Greek Interpreters sometimes the Jews of his Age upon whom he more frequently depends Can he be said to be a Prophet who frequently but chiefly in his Commentaries upon the Prophets doubts of the Genuine Signification of the Hebrew Words 'T is true I knew Pagninus and other Writers especially of the Protestant Belief who deny'd that Version to be St. Jeroms which for many Ages has been read in the Eastern Churches but if you except some few Books of that translation which it is certain were not rendred by St. Jerom as they are extant in the Edition no person truly candid will deny but that this Interpretation which goes about under the Title of the Vulgar was really made by St. Jerom though there be something in it of the ancient Latin Version which before St. Jeroms time was only esteemed in the Church So that in some places which however are very few there does appear the reading of the Ancient Version or else a mixture of both And clear it is that that same Translation was made by some native Latinist from the Hebrew Original Now who in the whole Latin Church beside St. Jerom at that time understood both Languages that is the Hebrew and the Latin But they that desire to know more of these things let them consult Austin Eugubin and John Mariana in their Writings upon this Subject Now that we may more perfectly understand the Nature of that Vulgar Edition we must take notice that St. Jerom tho he confesses himself not to have expressed the Words of his Text verbatim and like a Grammarian nevertheless sometimes he sticks more close to his Words then the 70 or the other Interpreters so that he is not always like himself in his Translation Again we are to observe that the modern Lection of the Hebrew Text is not so often to be corrected from the Translation of St. Jerom as it disagrees from it for thohe make profession to have followed the Hebrew Truth yet sometimes he forsakes it to follow the Greek Interpreters Neither do I think that the Hebrew Exemplar of his Masters which he frequently opposes against the 70 Interpreters is to be preferred in all things seeing that St. Jerom himself had no Original Exemplar of the Hebrew Text neither do I think we are to give Judgment upon the Version of St. Jerom by the later Translations which frequently vary from the other but we must have recourse of necessity to other Grammer Rules then those which have been set down by our late Instructors as hath been at large demonstrated and which it is no difficult thing to confirm by many Examples I shall therefore produce only enough to puzzle the less skilful We find according to the vulgar Edition in the oth of Zachary ver 11. these words Thou also in the Blood of thy Testament hast sent forth thy Prisoners out of the Pit but according to the Hebrew Exemplars it ought to be rendred I have sent
forth thy Prisoners and the Pronouns Thou thy thine are in the Feminine Gender and so make the Sence far different from that of St. Jerom which agrees with that of the Seventy Interpreters Many to defend the vulgar Edition in this place reject the J wish Exemplars as corrupted by them on set purpose But it is much more proper to say that the same Pronoun in the Feminine Gender is taken sometimes for the same in the Masculine which the Masorites of Tyberias allow who added the pointed Vowels to the modern Context And thus they demonstrate the same thing to have happened in three places of Scripture which they cite Wherefore if the same occur in any other places which the Masorites have omitted the antient Translators are not therefore presently to be accus'd because they do not agree with the later In the same manner St. Jerom may be vindicated for translating the word Thou hast sent when according to the Hebrew he ought to have translated it I have sent For this difference of Translation arose from the Letter Jod which is noted by the Mazorites to be often superfluous The Mazorites themselves reckon up 43 Places mark'd jather jod that is throw away Jod as redundant Thus Jer. 32 v. 33. where we read Thou hast taught in the second Person The Hebrew word is written with Jod at the end as if it should have been rendred in the first Person And indeed in the lesser Mazorah it is marked to be read without a Jod and in the second Person as Jerom renders it But I pass by these things and many others by which it might be made out that the Latin Interpreter is often undeservedly reprehended by those that do not understand him and measure all things by the Rules of their own Skill CHAP. XX. Concerning the Authority of the Antient Versions of the Latin Church and first of the Vulgar In what Sence it may be said to be Authentic The authority of the Ancient Version of the Church AS it is a thing that seems to be rooted in men by nature to be opiniated in their own Disputations and to be so presumptuous as to take sometimes those things which are false and unjust for Truths so it chiefly happens in this present Argument where the Writers seem to fight for their Lives and Liberties Thus the Jewish Rabbys seem to be incited by no other reason to avouch their Manuscripts to be free even from the slightest Faults and Errors but only as they are Jews and read no other Scripture in their Synagogues than the Hebrew Text. In like manner the Greek and Latin Fathers in the primitive Times of the Church embracing the Greek Version of the 70. Interpreters as Divine preferr'd it before the Hebrew Copies for that the one were skilled in the Greek Learning others preferr'd the Latin or Vulgar Edition of the Bible altogether used by the Latin Church and Translated from the Septuagint not understanding the Greek Therefore is the wisdom of the Fathers of the Council of Trent highly to be applauded for this that they by their Suffrages declared Authentick that Version which being publickly received and made use of in the Church was in every bodyes hands that is which was solely esteemed Authentick among the Latins Nor does that antient Lati Edition which was read for many Ages in the Eastern Church before Jerom's Translation less deserve the Name of Authentic than the modern Vulgar only there is this difference between the one and the other that the other was not declared Authentic by the publick Decree of the General Council Prologue 10 de vulg There Walton is in an Error who denyes this antient Vulgar Edition to have been Authentick as well saith he for that it was translated from the Greek which we have demonstrated not to have been Authentick nor can the Rivulet have more Authority than was in the Fountain nor can any Version be said to be Authentick unless the Interpreter wrote it with the same Spirit as the first Author which never any man affirmed as to this Version nor had the Church of Rome rejected it and entertain'd a new one had she judged it to have been Authentick But Walton understood not what was meant in the Decree of the Council of Trent by the word Authentick while he confounds Authentick with Divine and Prophetical all the while he treats upon the Argument now in hand Therefore it is necessary to consider what the Fathers of the Council of Trent intended should be understood by the word in Controversie Vulgarly among the Lawyers the word Authentick signifies the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the French interpret Originale or Original And in this Sence the Exemplification of a Will is distinguished from the Authentick or Original and Authentick Tables are said to be those which are first drawn from whence as from the Original Copies are made In this Sence the Hebrew Context cannot be said to be Authentick because the Originals of the Hebrew Codex are lost and there remain no other than Copies Therefore the word Authentick is taken by the same Lawyers in another Sense and so Version in their Books carrys the Name of Authentick Thus the Latin Translation of Justins Novels is call'd Authentick because it was rendered out of the Greek verbatim and so it is distinguished from another Version the Author of which is said to be Julian Patricius which is only a Latin Epitome of those Constitutions The first Exemplar was called Authentick as much as to say True and no way maim'd as Antonius Contius has observed Now in this Acceptation of the word Authentick there is nothing which can offend the Protestants But if we must not derive the signification of this word from the Lawyers where it had its rise the same word is several times repeated in the Acts of the Fifth General Synod Where when the Exemplars which Macarius the Patriarch of Antiochia and other Monothelite Bishops offered to the Fathers of the Council were read over again presently the Legates of the Apostolick See replyed That the Testimonies of the Fathers were maimed by Macarius and his Companions Thereupon they require the Authentic Copies to be sent for from the venerable Patriarchal Treasury of the Royal City of Constantinople and to be compared with the Exemplars produced by Macarius and the other Monothelite Bishops There Authentic is no more than that which is not adulterated or of suspected Credit Nor did the Tridentine Bishops pronounce the Latin Version which was only read in all the Eastern Churches Authentic in any other Sense Nor can the Words of their Constitution be wrested to any other Exposition if they be but a little more attentively considered For they were in Consultation about selecting one out of many Versions of the Scripture which were then publick in the world and because the Authors of most were Persons of suspected credit it was in prudence thought fit by those Bishops that
of this in whose opinion it is a crime not to acquiesce Several Judgments at Rome concerning the Lâ—tin Interpreter in these words taken out of the Library of Cardinal Priscia The 17th of January 576. the general Assembly S. F. L. A. S. Montald Sixt. Caraf was of opinion that nothing could be urged that could oppose the vulgar Latin Edition that there was not so much as on Period one Sentence one Word one Syllable one Iota amiss and sharply reprehends Vega because in his Tenth Book of Justification c. 9. he utters himself so boldly But that decree of the Colledge of Cardinals because it never was promulgated never obtained the force of a Law even in Italy as all those things manifestly prove which Cardinal Palavicini urges against Padre Paolo who hath spoken concerning the Tridentine Prelates as if they by approving the Latin Interpreter by their Decree had detracted from all the other Editions But Palavicini shews at large that the meaning of the Council was far otherwise and in the Explanation of the word Authentick he perfectly agrees with us declaring that the Prelates of Trent did not purifie the Vulgar Edition from all its faults by their decree when as it might be still corrected and another Edition much more accurate be made neither had Gulielmus Londanus any other Sentiments of the Vulgar Edition long before that who has observed many Errours therein which he does not lay upon the Transcribers but upon the Interpreter himself But above all the rest Francis Lucas Brugensis is a material Testimony in this particular wherein he had expended the studies of his whole Life He therefore in his Epistle Dedicatory before his notes upon the Bible where he has diligently observed several differences in sundry Copies thus expresses himself What others object to us that because the Latin Edition has been approved and declared Authentick by the Council of Trent it needs no farther Correction is ridiculous For neither did the Councâ—l believe the Exemplars of this Edition to be void of Errours neither did they recommend any certain Exemplar of any Edition to be followed in General only preferred that Edition before any of the Latin which are extant and adjudged it autheâ—â—ick With which agree the Corrections of the vulgar Edition which were made at several times by the Command of Sextus the V. and Clement the VIII For Sextus fearing least we should fall into the former Chaos of Editions of which St. Jerom speaks Bulla S. V. Bulla Clem. 8. declares that he had made choice of Persons skilful in the Scripture Theologie and many Languages and for their long experience piercing judgment and diligence highly eminent to correct the antient Latin Edition according to the ancient Latin Copies and Expositions of the Fathers but in such things wherein they were not sufficiently strengthened by the consent of the Copies nor of the Fathers to have recourse to the Hebrew and Greek Exemplars according to the Counsel of St. Jerom. However Sextus admonishes 'em to do it cautiously and sparingly for fear of causing a fluctuation in things which long use and practise had authoriz'd And lastly he makes a decree of his own that that Edition should be received by all as being that which the Tridâ—ntine Synod had declared Authentick and recommends the same as True Lawful and Unquestionable and to be received in all publick Disputes Readings Sermons and Explanations Furthermore he forbids any Bibles of the Vulgar Edition to be published for the future which not being conformable to his would but disturb the peace of the Church and further decreed that they should be of no Credit or Authority which did not agree with his Edition Thus far Sixtus V. who also testifies that to the end the understanding might be more correctly accomplished where any thing seemed confus'd or that might be confounded he amended those things with his own Hand 'T was the Labour of others saith he to consult and advise but ours to make choice of what was best So that this Edition of the Bible not undeservedly bears the Name of Sixtus V. How ever this was no impediment to Clement VIII to prevent him from undertaking an Edition of the Bible different from this affirming in the beginning of his Bull. Bull. Clem. VIII That the Text of the vulgar Edition of the Sacred Scriptures had with much toyl and watching been corrected by him and purged from many Errors Prefat ad Edit Clem. 8. But the Author of the Preface to the same Bibles confesses that it is not so cleans'd from all faults but that there are some omissions still remaining In this same vulgar Edition saith he as some things were altered of set purpose so other things which seâ—â—â—d proper to be changd were purposely left unaltered It would be tedious to reckon up all the places which were mended by these Popes Sextus V. and Clement VIII But if any be curious to know what they are let him consult the little Book which Thomas Jamesius Printed in England in the envy of his Soul under the Title in great Letters Of the Papal War or the Discording Concord of Sixtus V. and Clement VIII concerning the Edition of Jerome Where he sometimes compares the Readings of both Editions with that of Lavain But for this those cheif Pontiffs are rather to be highly magnified then to be scandallz'd who contributed all their care and industry that we might have the ancient Interpreter as accurately revis'd and corrected according to the ancient Copies as it was possible to be Before whom they who overview'd the Bibles of Complutum lent their assistance to the same Correction We have also the Castigations of Robert Stephens upon the same vulgar and the Divines of Lovaine have made no scruple after the Decree of Trent to add their own Critical Animadversions upon divers Readings in the Margent of the vulgar Codex which they took care to have Printed But now the Emendation of Clement VIII is preferred before all the rest which the most famous Walton has inserted into his English Polyglotton CHAP. XXI Of the Translations of Scripture us'd by the Eastern Church and first of the Arabic Coptic Ethiopic Armenian c. The Eastern Versions thence taken AS the first beginning of the Christian Religion passed from the Greeks to other Nations of the Eastern World So the Greek Version of the Septuagint was Translated into the Languages of all those Nations nor does it appear that those Nations knew any other then the Scripture of the Septuagint the Syrians excepted concerning whom the Arabian Writer Abul-Pharajius has these Expressions Dyn 6. This Version of the Septuagint is that which is received by our Doctors and is the same which is made use of by the Greeks and other Sects of the Christians except Syrians especially the wore Easterly For their exemplar which is call'd the pure Exemplar agrees with that of the Jews But the Western Syrians have two Versions
Version of St. Jerom betwixt them i. e. the Hebrew and the Translation of the 70 as it were betwixt the Synagogue and the Eastern Church like two there 's one on each hand but in the middle is Jesus i. e. the Roman Church For this alone being built upon a strong and lasting Rock stood always firm in the Truth when all others deviated from the right understanding of the Scriptures a comparison highly unworthy a Cardinal of the Roman Church which yet Nicholas Ramus a Spanish Divine too and Bishop of Cuba has transfer'd into his Tract of the Vulgar Translation San. Pignin a Dominican first publish'd a Version of the holy Scriptures according to the Hebrew Original in the year MDLXXVII with two Epistles of the two Popes Adrian the Sixth The Version of Pagnine and Clement the Seventh in the front of the Book who both strengthen his Edition of the Bible with their Authority and before this time Leo the Tenth had approv'd Pignine's design of making a New Translation of the Bible according to the Hebrew Original 't is evident as well from the Epistle which Franciscus Picus wrote to Pagnin as from Pagnin himself that he spent at least thirty years in that Work insomuch that it had the approbation of all the Jews of that Age for an accurate piece Yet some great men amongst the Catholicks have judg'd otherwise of it For Genebrard describes it thus 't is not dâ—ligently done 't is too ambitious too curious too Grammatical too much affecting abbinical niceties and such as often mars the Truth and Substance of things with the subtilty of Novel Precepts Whereupon sometimes it corresponds not enough with the Doctrine of the ancient Hebrews And Joannes Mariana confirms this with instances of his lapses who endeavours to make it out that Pagnin has sometimes overthrown the mysteries of our Religion by receding too much from the Version of St. Jerome as in the ninth Chapter of Job where Jerom renders it rursum circundabor pelle meâ I shall be again clothed with my Skin and thence proves the resurrection of the Body Pagnin Translates it postquà m pellem meam contriverunt after they have consumed and worn my Skin and in the first Edition of his Version had interpreted it more obscurely post pellem meam contritam vermes contriverunt banc carneâ— and after my consumed Skin the Worms have consumed my Flesh adding words which are not extant in the Hebrew and yet Monsieur Huel gives quite another Character of Pagnines Version than Genebrard Mariana and other very learned men whom I forbear to mention He has given us says he an example of almost a perfect and compleat interpretation of the holy Scriptures But it 's evident that Pagnine err'd in many particulars For first he declar'd that he would keep close to the Latin Interpretation except in such places where 't was absolutely necessary to do otherwise Notwithstanding which he often deserted it without any colour or shadow of reason only that he might follow Kimchi and other latter Ribbins of the Jews For how came it about that for these words in the beginning of Genesis which in the Vulgar Translation are Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas the Spirit of God mov'd upon the Waters he should render Spiritus Dei superflabat in superficie aquarum the Spirit of God breath'd upon the Face of the Waters unless because the Chaldee Paraphrase and some Doctors of the Jews had so explain'd it Again who could brook the Version of the same Pagnine in the sixth Chapter of Genesis who for these words which in the Latin Edition are nòn permanebit spiritus meus my Spirit shall not always abide he put nòn erit ut in vaginâ speritus meus my Spirit shall not be as if 't were in a Scabbard He was not content to explain the Sense of the Hebrew word only but likewise the Etymology of it just as Kimchi had done it Wherefore he shew'd himself a foolish and quarrelsome Interpreter As Aquila of old had done in speaking so barbarously Thus where the Latin Interpretation has it in the 1 of Gen. and the 20 vers producant aquae reptile let the Waters bring forth every creeping thing He Translates repere faciant aquae reptile let the Waters make every creeping thing to creep and in another Edition reptificent let them creep c. Neither does he always follow the Sense of the Hebrew Text thus in the 8 Chap of Nehemiah the Latin Interpreter excellently well renders these words from the Hebrew legerunt in libro in lege Dei distinctè they read in the Book in the Law of God distinctly But Pagnine contrary to all Sense and Reason Translates it so legerunt in libro in lege Dei expositi They read in the Book of the Law of God Expounded in which place he contradicts himself for in his Dictionary those very words are otherwise explain'd Other remarks which might be made upon Pagnine's Version I shall for brevities sake omit Arias Montanus was not the Author of the new Version of the Bible he was content to correct Pagnines Translation in some places But having a more then ordinary regard to the bare Grammar Rules never minding the Sence he outwent Pagnine in his barbarousness He spent his whole time in expressing the Hebrew exactly without any respect to the Sense thus in the 9 of Exodus where Pagnine has pretty well render'd novi quià nondùm timeatis I know because ye will not yet fear the Corrector Arias Montanus turn'd novi quià antequà m timeatis I know because ye fear before that The Hebrew word Terem has doubtless a different signification in one place it signifies priusquà m before that in another nondùm not yet which Arias never minding turn'd it to that Sense which comes next to hand An infinite number almost of such absurdities may be found in this Translation which I advisedly forbear to mention Who for Gods sake can understand Arias's Interpretation of that Verse of the 110 Psalm where for these words which we read in the Vulgar Edition tu es Sacerdos in aeternum secundùm ordinem Melchisedec thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec In Pagnines Version secundùm morem Melchisedec thou art a Priest after the manner of Melchisedec Arias turns this way tu es Sacerdos in seculum super verbum meum Melchisedec thou art a Priest for ever upon the word of Melchisedec Monsieur Hewet did indeed attempt defending him in this and openly styl'd him a most faithful Translator who keeping close to the Hebrew Text despis'd the censures and calumnies of the unskilful yet certainly he does not seem to deserve the name of an Interpreter who does not in some measure express the Sense of the Author which he Translates But notwithstanding all this Arias Montanus is very famous among all Learned men for that vast and truly Royal Work of the Polyglot Printed at Antwerp which
to the Jewish Doctors who were the first Authors of them Sextus Senensis gives us his opinion of this Translation in these words Munsterus ubique horridus senticosus asper usque adeo Hebraici sermonis horrorem sequutus est ut cum multa Latinis auribus molliter accommodare potuisset omnes tamen Hebraici sermonis proprietates phrases adeo servare studuit ut nec ipsos Hebraicorum nominum stridores pretermittere voluerit ingerens Latinis auribus ubique pro Ozia Uzzijah pro Ezechiele Jechezohel c. But I wonder that Sixtus should be so nice and critical seeing he so highly commends Cajetan Pagnin Oleaster and some others who affected a far more barbarous and unpolite Style Likewise Gerebrard treats him with as little candor and moderation passing a sharp and severe censure upon him Munsterus saith he neglecta vocum propria notatione sepe Lutheranisabat a sue Franscisci institute discedebat Certainly none of the Modern especially Protestant Translators have more fully and emphatically express'd the genuine sense of the Hebrew Text than Munster who cannot deservedly be blam'd for any thing but for slighting the antient Interpreters of the Holy Scripture and adhering too closely to the late Jewish Doctors neither is he so rough and harsh in his stile abating some proper names as Sixtus and some others fancy him to be Huâ—tius who seems the most impartial and unbiass'd in his Judgment gives him this Character Sebastianus Munsterus Bibliorum Interpres sane doctus in Hebraica semper stilum collineans ad eaque nunquam non se componens Yet without doubt he had gained greater applause if according to the advice of Conradus Pellicanus his Tutor in the Hebrew Tongue he had chiefly followed the Rabbins in Grammatical niceties consulting in other things as well the Antient Interpreters of the sacred Text as the modern Jews and then he had not disagree'd with the Latin Translators in so many particulars as he did For what necessity was there that for Crescite multiplicamine implete aquas Maris which we find in the vulgar Translations he should put Fructicate augescite implete aquas in fretis which words carry a far harsher sound with them than the former Likewise Leo Juda a Zuinglian Translated the Old Testament or at least the greatest part of it out of the Original Hebrew into Latin and because he died before 't was quite finish'd Bibliander and P. Cholinus completed it Bibliander turned the eight last Chapters of Ezechiel and also Daniel Job Ecclesiastes the Canticles and 48 Psalms out of Hebrew and Cholinus translated the books which the Protestant Divines call the Apocripha out of Greek This Translation was first published at Zurich in the Year 1543. and afterward in the Year 1545 there came forth a second Edition of it by R. Stephanus but without the name of the Author and with the vulgar Translation on one side as we have intimated before But the Parisian Divines rail'd and inveigh'd bitterly both against the Edition and the Publisher of it so that after many hot and wrangling disputes about several things belonging to the Bible Stephanus was at lenght forc'd by the prevailing party to leave his Country and to fly to Geneva for Sanctuary there he writ his Apology against the Parisian Divines and published it both in Latin and French wherein he made grievous complaints of them but in most things he showed himself to be an Innovator and a rigid follower of Calvin Yet he was defended in some things even against the Parisian Divines by P. Castellanus Bishop of Mascon and grand Almoner of France who often carried the matters in controversie to the hearing of the Kings Council for he had observ'd how the Parisians through their Ignorance of the Tongues had laid many things falsly to his charge Neither did this Translation of Leo Juda escape the Censures of Genebrard who thereby got the Favour and Patronage of the Parisian Divines he himself being one of the same faculty But Stephanus was entertained with far more courtesie and civility by the Spanish Divines who without any scrupulous enquiry after the Authors name or without any regard to the censures of the Parisians reprinted this Edition at Salamanca with some small variation of the notes and moreover judged it worthy to be read of all those who were inquisitive after the true meaning of the Scripture 'T is true that Leo Judae render'd some Hebrew words less properly than Munster but be took more care to accommodate them to the Latin Phrase So that he cannot justly be accused for any thing but his translating by way of Paraphrase purposely to avoid obscurity Sobast Castal Interp. The most famous and generally receiv'd Translation of the Bible is that of Castalio of which there are several Impressions But that is accounted the best which was made at Basil in the Year 1573. Sixtus Senensis giving us his Judgment of Munster and Castalio avers that they fall into both Extremes one of them being harsh barbarous and unpolish'd in his Stile and often inclining to the Jewish Idiom the other being as prophane as a Heathen foolishly affecting the Proprieties of the Languages of the Gentiles fancying his Latin could not be pure and elegant unless it were soft and effeminate Sixtus gives several examples of his prophane expressions Castalio saith he calls God the Father Jupiter Divus Armipotens Gradivus Caelicola likewise he calls Angels Jovis Genti Prophets Vates fatidici and holy Men Heroes Genebrard gives an excellent description of him and his Translation in these words Versio Castalionis est affectata Geneb praef in op Orig. plus habens pompae phalerarum quam rei firmitatis plus ostentationis quam substantie plus fuci quam succi plus hominis quam spiritus plus fumi quam flamâ—ae plus humanarum cogitationum quam divinorum sensuum But he is handled more severely by the Geneva Doctors and especially Theodore Beza who upbraids him with ignorance and rashness for his profane imitation of Catulus in his Translations for in the Canticles he does not use the plain word Columba but mea Columba Mea Columba saies he ostende mihi tunâ—â— vulticulum fac ut audiam tuam voculam venustulam lepidum vulticulum habes capite nobis vulpeculas parvas vinearum vastatriculas In this Book he plays the Poet rather than the Interpreter but every where he assumes the liberty of connecting the Periods and Verses that his Translation might appear more graceful and elegant as is evident in the first Chapter of Genesis which begins thus Gen. 1.1 In principio creavit Deus Coelum Terram cum autem esset terrarudis qâ—que iners tenebrisque offusum profundum divinus spiritus sâ—se super aquas libraret jussit Deus ut existeret Lux c. Beza and some other Geneva Doctors will only allow him to be a smatterer in the Hebrew Tongue but with
but had it at the best hand of the Ancient Interpreters Arias Montanus at the expences and by the Authority of Philip the 2d King of Spain republished the Complutensian Polyglot with no small augmentation which in process had the spacious Title of Kings Phillips Bible A Book which beside the Hebrew the Septuagint and St. Jerome's Latin Translation of the Complutensian Edition gives you a fair prospect of the Chaldee Paraphrase upon the remainder of those Books in the old Copy which Cardinal Ximenius gave to the Library at Complutensian together with the Syriac Translation of the New Testament done into Latin Neither would Arias Montanus influenced by Ximenius his example suffer his Book to contract acquaintance with any Translation save that of St. Jerome's and yet that a Latin Translation might not be wanting to render the Hebrew Text verbatim he inserted in the end of his Book San. Pagninus his Latin Translation with his own animadversions whereby the Hebrew might be better understood This grand elaborate and princely undertaking tho it was approved of by the Divines of Spain Lovaenium and other learned and pious Men nay even by the Universal Bishop himself Gregory the 13th yet it groaned under the common fate of all Books was carp'd at and pinched by the men of Leeth These were the detracting sort of People who objected that Arias Montanus had put in Execution a most bold rash and nefarious attempt in daring to publish that corrupt and monstrous Paraphrase which Ximenius had ordered to be laid up in the Colledge Library at Complutensia And there were some Jews who thinking that the Chaldee Paraphrase was a great Pillar to keep up the superstitions of their Religions wished all health and happiness to King Philip the 2d a Defender as they supposed of their Rites and Ceremonies In the mean time one Franciscus Lucus of Bruges a great Divine and a man of vast Learning took up the Cudgels ägainst these impertinent Detractors and made an Apology for the Chaldee Paraphrase Besides Arias Montanus declares that Cardinal Ximenius himself had thoughts of publishing the same Chaldee Paraphrase and that he had thoughts of adding a Latin Translation to it only putting out the Fables Doubtless that princely Work deserves to be had in estimation with all Divines though it be defective in some particulars as carrying along with it all those deformities which we took notice of before in the Conplutensian Bible For the Greek and Latin Copies are the same that were published by Cardinal Ximenius Arias Montanus did not so much reform San. Pagninus his Latin Version as he did corrupt and spoil it for pressing the Hebrew which too closely he frequently commits toto casu and making a great noise about a little Sense does often miss of the proper import of the words Besides Arias caused a better method and more Copious Index to be published as containing more Lexicons and Grammars than that of the Complutensian Bible though many unnecessary things might be left out which make nothing for his purpose The liberal expences of Cardinal Ximenius and Phillip the Second were far exceeded by an Eminent Person of this Age Michael Le Jay of Paris who undertaking to Publish the Polyglot Bible at his own charge spent his whole Patrimony in Printing of it before he had finish'd so great and wonderful a work First then they took care to have all that was already extant in the King's Bible reprinted in a fairer Character and to these he joyn'd the Samaritan Books viz. the Hebrew Samaritan Pentateuch with the Samaritan Translation and the Syriack and Arabick Versions of the Old Testament distinguished by points with their Latin Interpretation a thing scarce credible ever to have been attempted In this business he was assisted by a very Learned man Gabriel of Sion that came from Mount Libanus in the Holy-Land and in some few Volumns by Abraham an Ecchellensian one of the same Nation But that part which contains the observations of several worthy men upon the various Editions of the Bible is wanting in this work and through the negligence of those that were intrusted with it it happen'd that the Copies of the Greek Translation by the Seventy Interpreters and the Latin one by St. Jerom were both composed anew the very same with those in the Kings Bible the Greek Edition after the Vatican Pattern though corrected and amended was omitted and the Copies of the common Edition were laid aside though they had been by Commissions from the Popes strictly examined after the most ancient and best approved Books and that by the Hands of several Excellent Persons and judicious Criticks However I pass by those faults which occasioned by the Transcribers oversight in the Syriack and Arabick Books do yet in great part remain Besides that the Latin Expositors not perfectly understanding the Syriack and Arabick words have often sailed in expressing the sence Lastly to this vast Work are perfixed certain Prefaces which recommend it's usefulness But in this the brave Mr. Le Jay proves his own Enemy for depending totally upon such men as were partly byass'd in their Opinions by prejudice especially John Morin otherwise a man of competent Learning he extolls the Jewish Books and sticks not to prefer them before the ancient Translations of the Church but what seems scarce 0 credible he possitively asserts that it ought to be granted as a certain and undoubted truth that that common Edition which passes about in the vulgar Tongue of the Catholick Church is the true and genuine Original of Holy Scripture But the Fathers themselves at the Council of Trent durst not pass any such decree concerning the Latin Books To no purpose has that Liberal Gentleman drained his Purse in Publishing such voluminous peices of the Polyglot Bible if it appear that the Latin comprehends the proper and Primitive Scripture and that we must have recourse to him as the true Fountain In like manner vindicating the interpretation of the Seventy Elders he draws an Argument solid enough in his Judgment from a Mahometan Author who as to matter of Chronology rejected the Hebrew Books of the Jews and Samaritans and adhered to the Greek Interpreters from whence Mr. Le Jay concludes that the Seventy Interpreters were in the highest esteem not only amongst the Christians but Mahometans too Indeed 't is very probable that Mr. Le Jay to credit the antiquity of the Arabick Versions which he himself first published would not stick to say that by the help thereof St. Jerom had restored the seven or eight hundred Verses of Job which were lacking in the old Translation and this his assertion he confirms by St. Jerom's own Testimony who before his Translation of the Book of Job had premised that in it were missing about seven or eight hundred Verses and that in compiling it he had not followed any of the ancient Translators but had collected sometimes the words sometimes the sence and often both at once out
of the Hebrew Arabick and sometimes Syriack Languages But that St. Jerom hereby mentioning the Arabick Tongue did not mean the Arabick Version is a thing so well known that it needs no proof these words of the Learned Father signify no more than that the Book of Job was difficult to be understood since the Author thereof had notonly used Hebrew words but also Syriack and Arabick For the better understanding of which he avers that with a great sum he ransom'd a certain Master called Lydaeus who was thought to be of great repute amongst the Hebrecians Scarce had the Parisian Bibles got abroad when in England the famous Walton and other divers persons begun to think of committing these same Bibles to the Press again to be of less bulk and not so large a Letter that this New Edition of the Polyglots might be readier and more convenient for the use of such as studied the holy Scriptures This matter succeeded as happily as was expected so that these Polyglot Bibles appeared in publick in the year 1657 and are vulgarly called the English Bibles containing six Volums They are indeed much inferiour to the Parisian Heptaglots in the largeness and goodness of the Paper as also the neatness of the Character But they have this advantage chiefly that every context and version may be discerned by the Reader in one single glance as it were and with little trouble compared one with another which cannot be done in reading the Parisian Polyglot without turning over two vast huge Volumns together Again they are to be preferred before that of Paris in that they contain truer Copies of the Greek Versions of the Septuagint and the Latin one by St. Jerom the Greek being first borrowed from a Vatican Book at Rome was afterwards Printed at Paris the Latin purged from innumerable Errours by the Study and Authority of Pope Sixtus the Fifth and Clement the Eight Besides all this you have the Arabick and Syriack Translations of Ester Judith Tobias and some other few Books which are not extant in the Parisian Bible either in Arabick or Syriack The English Edition has likewise a threefold Paraphrase one called the Hierosolymitan another that of Pscado Jonathan both which are writ in mixt Chaldee and a third Tausus his Persian Paraphrase It has also the four Gospels in the Persian and a Egyptian Psalter all which the Parisian Polyglots want In the mean time Monsieur Le Jay having consumed his Estate in publishing the Paris Bibles complains much of his sad Fortune and inveighs against the English men as Plagiaries who had taken his Work out of his hands and had published nothing except some few things of very little importance but what he had set forth before Truly the Gentleman ought to be pitied who had lavishly wasted all his substance in hopes of future gain But the English men in publishing such Polyglots as are more convenient and better suited to all necessities do really deserve Commendation and had deserved it much more if they had set out the Versions of the Oriental Nations especially the Arabic which lay dorment in their Libraries and are of better note than those which were published in the Parisian Bibles For it had been much better to have set forth the Copies of the Arabic Pentateuch with the Obelisks Asterisks and others of Origen his Notes which are reserved in the Library at Oxon than to have composed anew that Old patched Paraphrase of R. Saadias which was extant before in the Parisian Polyglots But what seems more strange is that the infinite number of faults which the Parisian Edition is stuff'd with especially in the Syriac and Arabic Versions as also in their Latin Interpretations should yet be found in the English one nor taken notice in the critical Animadversions made upon the last Toâ—e Much more might be objected against the English Edition which I omit since nothing can be absolutely compleat and perfect But the most notable thing in it is the Animadversions prefix'd to the fore-front of the Book though this Preamble hath it's failings too for it seems to be composed by several Authors who differing in Opinion about the same matter become contrary Parties this is the cause why Walton in whose name this Book first appeared in publick sometimes talks a little incoherently ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a small TREATISE OF Dr. Isaac Vossius's Concerning the ORACLES OF THE SYBILLS AND His Answer to the Objections in a late Treatise Entitl'd CRITICA SACRA LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLXXXIV ANIMADVERIONS UPON A Small Treatise Concerning the ORACLES of the SYBILLS By ISAAC VOSSIUS D.D. And an Answer to the Objections against the late CRITICA SACRA THE Author of the Critica Sacra upon the Old Testament had bespoken Moderation in Isaac Vossius whom he look'd upon as a Person carried away with too great an affectation of the Greek Version But the Learned Gentleman who well understood that Christ in the Apocalyps had spu'd the Lukewarm out of his mouth and that God loves nothing that halts between two Mediums In Resp ad obj nup. Critic fell more obstinately to work when he set himself to write his small Treatise concering the Oracles of the Sybils wherein he seems to have argued to that one thing alone the advancement of the Greek Interpreters by applauding according to his common Custom the Exemplars of the Jews For he returns his answer to Simon in such a manner as if he had address'd himself in his work with a Mind prepossess'd by the Rabbins after the Example of St. Jerom who was the first of the Christians who fram'd a Rabbinic Version and â—ncouraged others to dare the same Vossius makes large Protestations that he does not follow the Rabbins and that he acquiesces in that Version which Christ himself approv'd and admonishes Simon to forbear from any new Translation of the Sacred Scripture in regard a purer and more genuine Version cannot be made then that which was recommended to us by Christ and his Apostles And so far indeed Vossius does well in attributing very much to the Greek Translators though he would have done much better had he not affirmed them to be altogether free from all manner of Error and that they were not to be swerv'd from in matters of smallest moment as they who were to be lookt upon as Prophets rather then Interpreters I also extol the diligence of that worthy Person in vindicating the Translation of the Seventy Interpreters from the calumnies of most slanderous persons and for correcting their Manuscripts But when he comes to discourse of the Jews and their Books the Learned Gentleman discovers a world of ignorance in those things and frequently endeavours to impose falshood for truth All which shall be made apparent by Examples To which purpose I shall select some things out of that famous Persons Treatise concerning the Oracles of the Sybills and his answer to the Objections of the Critica Sacra from whence it
overcame the first restorer of the Masora But whether he wasted his Patrimony in maintaining those Centuries that Bombergh hir'd as Vossius eagerly contends I shall neither sollicitously inquire neither is it to the purpose Much more might be added to what I have already produc'd and perhaps proper enough to the business but I am afraid least the learned Gentleman should bring me to the Bar for a Semi Rabby and a Favourer of the Jews Therefore let us come to the Examination of his little Treatise concerning the Oracles of the Sybills where he disputes more learnedly of the Jews and their Books At the beginning of his discourse this Person of an unexhausted Erudition produces some things in reference to the Oracles of the Sybills which the Jews more especially in Spain made use of against the Christians And as for those things which seem to be more remote from Truth then Fiction he refers them to p. 19 or 26. where he handles that Argument but seeing that it has already been demonstrared that the Chronology fetch'd from the Books of the Jews less favours the Jews than that which is taken out from the Greek Translators there is no reason we should spend any more time in rifling the Inventions of the most learned Vossius The quâ—cksighted Gentleman had already observ'd that the Jews in the time of Aquila had for the nonce corrupted the Hebrew Manuscripts and had expung'd above 2000 Years that they might make it out that the Messiah's time was not yet come But in this place more perspicatious then before he believes that the space of that Depravation may be Comprehended within the limits of two and twenty Years at most and this he gathers from the words of Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philadelphians That most Holy Martyr according to the report of Vossius relates that he heard some say that if those things which are contained in the Gospels were not to be found in the Ancient Monuments he would not believe them Now saith Vossius since he answered and they denied it is manifest that the Jews had deprav'd the Exemplars or swerved from the Sense of the 70 Interpreters But how this Learned Gentleman can wrest the answer of Ignatius who afferts that Christ shall be to him instead of the Ancient Monuments to his opinion of the Jewish Manuscripts being corrupted about that time I confess I do not understand Neither also are those words to be found in the Genuine Exemplars of Ignatius which Vossius himself set forth Christo velut summo sacerdoti credendum potius quam aliis sacerdotibus Which however the learned Person produces as if they belong'd to the answer of Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have heard some say that unless I find the Gospel in the Ancient Monuments I will not believe To these I answer that Jesus Christ is to me instead of the Ancient Monuments But there the discourse is not of the Old Testament compared with the New as Vossius believ'd but of the Hereticks which springing up in the Infancy of the Church denied the Faith which the Exemplar of the Gospel set forth Whence it came to pass that the Ancient Fathers of the Church Tertullian Ireneus and others of the same rank did not undertake to refute the Hereticks out of the sacred Scripture but from certain Tradition or from the Doctrine of Christ propagated by the Apostles and their Successors Apostolick Persons in the Churches of several Nations In which sense Ignatius asserts that Christ or his Doctrine was to him in the place of the Ancient Monuments This unless I am very much deceived is the meaning of Ignatius's words who commends Unity of Doctrine in Christ whose Spirit ought to be preferred before any Ancient Monuments whatever Many other things also Vossius produces in this place concerning the Etymology of the word Aera and concurs with them who believe Era and the Heriga of the Arabians to be the same word nor is it improbable but that which he presently adds of the Arabick word Hegyra as if it were to be deduc'd from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hagger a Proselyte or Stranger seems not so very likely The Learned Gentleman believes that several Jews of the Sect of the Herodians forsaking Herod their Messiah who was also by them stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Stranger revolted to Mahomet by them also call'd Haggar When the Jews saith Vossius believed that their Messiah should be a Stranger But these things are little remote from the Fictions of the Rabbies In the next place I would fain know from what Oracle of the Sybills the Learned Gentleman gather'd that the Messiah of the Jews should be a Proselyte and a Stranger according to the true opinion of the Jews for that this Assertion is contrary to the Prophesies of the Prophets and all Evangelical History as all Men well know Certainly the Jews expect one Messiah above all the rest of whom Vossius discourses at present but he according to the common consent of all the Jews is expected to be of the Nation and one of the Tribes of the Jews But they expect other Messias's besides and for that reason they give that Title to some Kings who were well affected towards them And therefore Cyrus is call'd the Messia of the Jews so also Herod and Mahomet might have the Title of Messiah from the Jews And in our age they are ready to salute that Prince or King whoever he be with the Title of Messiah that will but take into his protection their Affairs and the Ceremonies of their Country But these things belong nothing at all to the word Heriga which most certainly is an Arabic and not an Hebrew word Much nearer does that come to the Truth which after some things thrown between the Learned Gentleman adds concerning the Genuine signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that the Apocryphal Books signifie the same with Mysterious Books and inaccessible to the understanding But who can then gather with Vossius that the Books of the Apocrypha that according to his Sentiments were formerly added by the Ancient Jews to the Books of the Old Testament were worthy to be reckon'd as Canonical with the rest of the Prophetick Books that the Modern Canonical Scripture both of the Synagogue and Church is maim'd and lame while the Books of Enoch Elias and some others are left out Prophets are become very Cheap with Vossius who not only numbers the 70 Interpreters among the Prophets but also the most famous Impostors who taking upon them the names of the Patriarchs and Prophets and other Persons of high same and repute among the Gentiles have Printed the Books of Adam Enoch Abraham Moses Esaiah Jeremiah Hystaspes Mercurius Trimegistus Zoroaster the Sybils Orpheus Phocilldes and several others In a short time if it so please the Heavens we shall have
Vossius himself in the midst of his Prophetick Chiurme forging new Prophesies like that same famous Imposter William Postellus who writes that the Chaldaeans had the true Doctrine reveal'd to them under the first Monarchy and that it was continually renew'd like the sacred Doctrine by the ten Sybils that the world might be inexcusable before the Spirit of God and that Christ the King both of the Sacred and the Sibelline Doctrines might be known to be the Deity that was to be ador'd by the whole World Such Stories as these Vossius produces concerning the Oracles of the Sybills But Postellus yet more quicksighted asserts this Prophetical Doctrine to have had its Original from a Woman who was Princess of all the East and next of kin to Noah Who would believe that Isaac Vossius who spares for no virulent expressions against the Jews and their Talmud should introduce a Talmudic Doctor among the Prophets if it be so I wonder he should be in such a fury against a Person Learned in the Hebrew who expounded the Gospel out of the Talmud Lightfoot He seems to me saies Vossius to commit a less Sin who explains the Gospel out of the Alcoran then by the Talmud But of these things enough and too much Let us now return to the Apocryphal Books I call the Apocriphal Books when we discourse of Byblick concerns those which neither the Church nor the Synagogue has received as Canonical Hence it came to pass that of old St. Jerom personating a Jew and lately Cajetane sentenc'd many Books among the Apocriphal before they were receiv'd for Divine and Prophetic by the decree of the Church In this sence St. Jerom affirms Hieron pâ—aef in Dan. that Daniel among the Hebrews had not the story of Susanna nor the Song of the three Children nor the fable of the Bell and the Dragon Which we saith he because they are dispierced all over the World preferring the truth and withal depressing their Authority have added however least we might seem to have cut of a great part of the Volume In like manner after he had produc'd the Books of Scripture which were held Canonical among the Jews he adds Whatever we meet with besides these is to be accounted Apocrâ—phal Hieron pâ—aef in lio Reg. That is to say the Wisdom of Solomon the Book of Jesus the Son of Syrach Judith Tobit and the Preacher induc'd by this reason Africanus Africanus also believes the Story of Susanna to have been feign'd by a Greek Writer others feigned two Daniels one the Author of the Prophesie that goes under his name and the other the Writer of the Story of Susanna which in the ancient Editions of the Greek Exemplar was placed before the Prophesie of Daniel St. Jerom indeed was the first that transposed it at the end of the same Prophesie because it was not in the Jewish Exemplar which he translated And St. Jerom confirms his opinion concerning the History of Susanna by the Testimony of other Fathers I wonder saith he That certain peevish waspish persons are in wrath with me as if I had cut of part of the Book whereas Origen Eusebius Apollinarius and other Eclesiasticall Persons and Doctors of Greece confess those Visions not to be found among the Hebrews not that they ought to be answerable to Porphyrius for those things which afford no Authority of sacred Scripture Gregory Nazianzen Melito of Sardis and the Author of the Synopsis which goes about under the Name of Athanasius went farther and put the Book of Esther among the Apocryphal Books meerly because not understanding the Hebrew Tongue they found some pieces added to the Ancient History of Esther by a Greek Author for which reason they condemn'd the whole Work It happened saith Sextus Senensis that by reason of those fragments of Appendex's inserted here and there through the rashness of some Writers that Book though written in the Hebrew did not find reception among the Christians Nicholas de Lyra also Cajetan and some others denyed these Additions likewise to be Canonical induc'd as it is most probable by the same reasons These things have been discoursed more at large that it might appear to all what Books were reckon'd to be Apocriphal in the Judgment of the more Antient Fathers But Vossius abusing the word Apocryphal introduces suppositious and Adulterate Books instead of the Old Apocryphal and so imposes upon the simple and unwary For whereas he endeavours to make it out that the Books of the Sybills and others which he calls Fatidical were joyned with the Books of the Old Testament read in the Primitive Church and recommended by the Apostles it is the Fiction of one that has nothing to do but to sit and Romance in Divinity For there were no other Books read in the Primitive Church or added to the rest of the Books of the Old Testament in the Greek Exemplars of the Bible than those which are mentioned by the Fathers Though perhaps some of the Gentiles that they might press the Jews and the Gentiles more home have sometimes quoted the Books of the Sibylls and others of the same stamp which nevertheless no ingenious person will reckon among the Apocryphal Books of which we are now in discourse Vossius is very much griev'd that the Books of the Sibylls and other Sooth-sayer's Books after they were prohibited by publick Edict were made Apocryphal and forbid to be read by any Person when formerly they were openly and religiously made use of by the Jews like the rest of the Books of the Old Testament whence it came to pass that the Canonical Books were reduced to a more certain Number and the word Apocryphal was taken in an evil sense for spurious and of doubtful and suspected Credit In the mean time he never cites the Authour from whence he drew these witty conceits which are so like the Fables of the Jews so that I may presume to ask this Learned Person what the Factious Cardinal Hyppolito d'este demanded of Areosto Dove hatrovato tante cogloonare Where did he find out so many jugling Tricks But I agree with him in what he writes concerning the Apocriphal Books if by them he mean no other then those which passed from the Jews to the Christians with the rest of the Books of the Old Testament for that the greatest part of them are read in the Romish Church especially since the decree of the Council of Trent as Canonical for indeed it might be that those Books which were formerly rejected as Apocriphal because they were not approv'd by the Cannon of the Jews might have had Prophets for their Authors Nor is the Authority of Josephus contrary to this opinion who affirms that from the times of Artaxerxes there was no certain Succession of the Prophets and therefore that these Books which were reckon'd after that were not to be accounted Cononical Nor is it probable that the Function of the Prophets was altogether taken away
at that time from the Jews for while the State of the Jews continu'd there were publick Scribes who committed to writing the Affairs of the Nation and they were called Prophets because they were inspir'd with the Holy Ghost though they did not Prophesie of things to come However it is not necessary to believe that they who wrote the publick Affairs of the Nation at that time should be Prophets for that the Senators of the Grand Council who as we know were inspired overlook'd their works but seeing that the publick Authority of the Jewish Senate never Register'd those Books among the Canonical 't is no wonder that most of the Fathers would not receive them as Divine but only as Apocryphal and of suspected credit especially in respect of those other Books which were allowed to be of undoubted Reputation For that Book which was of suspected Credit was not the same with them as that which was spurious adulterate as Vossius seems to think only under this Title they distinguish certain from uncertain otherwise those Books had ne'r been read in the ancient Ages of our Forefathers had they apprehended any thing spurious and adulterate in them Only they were of less moment then the sacred Books and therefore the Fathers call'd them rather Ecclesiastical than Divine They would have them read in the Churches saies the Author of the Exposition of the Creed attributed to Rufinus but not to be Cited as Authentick Confirmations of Faith and only upon those Grounds it is that the Church of England reads those Books in their Congregations yet I doe not beleive that ever any one here except Vossius ever dreamt of introducing the Books of the Sybills to be read in the Church I know indeed that some of the Fathers have in great Veneration the Book which is called the Preacher and that Tertullian endeavour'd to obtrude the Book of Enoch as of Divine Authority and that the Jews also earnestly laboured to remove several Books from the sacred Context which illustrated the Christian Religion To which opinion also Origen seem'd to adhere who in the Epistle which he wrote to Africanus concerning the History of Susanna asserts that the Jews had withdrawn several passages out of their Bibles to prevent their being read by the common People But these things and others of the same Nature which are own'd but by a few and which are produc'd rather to support their own opinions than to maintain the Truth are not to be look't upon as the general judgment of the Fathers For Tertullian himself seems to confirm that common sentence of the Church by his own words in this place The Book of Enoch is not admitted by some because it is not admitted into the Collection of the Jews Therefore in those days it was adjudg'd Apocryphal because it was not admitted among the Canonical Number of the Jews Origen also thought otherwise in other places than what he wrote to Affricanus But in this place he could not defend the History of Susanna and the other Additions in the Greek Edition of the 70 Interpreters by any other means than by having recourse to the Apocryphal Books and supposing that the Jews in Transcribing their Copies concealed many things from the knowledge of the vulgar sort which were set down in those Apocryphal Books Origen perhaps had learn't from the Jews with whom he was frequently Conversant that Esdars and his Companions did not suffer all the Books which were extant to go abroad and hence he presumed it might be inferred that the Greek Interpreters had taken those things which are not to be found in the Hebrew Copies But this opinion does not agree with the General consent of the Ancient Jews who have acknowledged a perfect and acurate Concord of the Hebrew Text in all things Neither does it seem to have been invented by Origen and some others for any other reason but that the Hebrew Truth might be reconciled to the Greek Exemplars of whose Syncerity there was sufficient reason to doubt To this we may add that Origen in this Epistle to Africanus did not speak so much his own Sentiments but only that he might defend the Books which were then read in the Church Moreover the learned Vossius objects that a person of unexhausted Erudition Clemens Alexandrinus writes that the Apostle Paul referr'd to the Oracles of the Sybills and the Prophesies of Hystaspes and recommended them to be read But if it should be enquired of Vossius where St. Paul said this he presently answers that it ought to be sufficient for us that Clemens Alexandrinus a Holy Person and Conversant with many Apostolick Persons affirmed it for Truth but if any regard be had to that Answer of necessity it follows that all the Ancient Fathers were free from all Errour then which there is nothing more absurdly Fictitious For they know well who have any knowledge of Ecclesiastial Affairs how craftily those Ancient Fathers and Clement of Alexandria in the first place disputed with the Jews and Gentiles Vossius also earnestly maintains that the Book of Enoch and other such Books are not to be rejected for that reason only because that many Superstitious and Magical Fragments are contained in some Fragments that are extant seeing that Balaam was a Magician and Inchanter yet manifestly foretold many future Mysteries concerning Christ as if those things which are register'd in Scripture concerning Balaam could be wrested to the present Argument or that it were lawful by this Example to defend and justifie those Books which we find not only to be stuft with Lies and Superstitious Fables but to be written by Impostors assuming to themselves the Names of famous Men. By the same Art the Dreams of the Feavourish Jews are maintained in Midras Zohar and Rabboth to be inspired by the same Spirit from whence the Gospel proceeded as William Postellus declares De Orig. cap 17. who did not scruple to affirm that the Gospel was produc'd from the Doctrine of Zohar as that which had its rise from the Holy Ghost and Spiritual Authors The Chalans also saith the same Postellus the Syrian Indian Caldaean Magicians the Egyptian Gymnosophists and Prophets are from the same Original from whom the worthy Vossius seems not much to swerve whom I would advise to place among the number of Soothsayers Lib. Zorob the Prophesie of Zorobabel which speaks very plainly concerning the Messiah and was published by the Jews in a Prophetic Stile and in none of the meanest sort of Language But leaving these things let us prosecute our intended Subject Besides what has been hitherto alledg'd concerning the Apocryphal Books we are to observe that the Jews did not only frame to themselves a Canon of Scripture but that the Church has also her Canon who by her own Authority has restor'd several Books which the Jews expung'd Thus St. Austin asserts that the Book of Maccabees were not received by the Jews but by the Church for Canonical
Divine Law of God could stand with those Words of Deutronomy Thou shalt neither add to it nor detract from it The Jew makes Answer That those Words were only spoken in reference to the multitude that they should not Innovate any thing of their own Heads or take upon 'em to be Self-wise but not in Relation to the Senators of the Great Sanhedrim for that it was not for one Moses only to engross the making of Laws which was a priviledge belonging to other Prophets Priests and Judges who were endu'd with the same Spirit of God This unless I mistake is the Genuine Sense of the Talmudic Doctrine which cannot be wrested to the Extirpation of the Words of the Sacred Context when the Dispute lyes about taking away a Word or a Letter Nay sometimes a Sentence in the Explication of the Context but not of changing or erasing Letters or Words out of the Sacred Original Morinus from whom Vossius has borrowed whatever he has in his Works that savours of Rabbinism after he had omitted no sort of Fiction to prove That the Sacred Exemplars were on-set purpose Corrupted by the Jews at length embraces the Opinion of St. Austin in these Words We willingly embrace the Opinion of St. Austin concerning the Books of the Jews by themselves deprav'd and mutilated of set purpose Lib. 1. Exercit 1. c. 6. From whom however he professes to disagree in this for that St. Austin thought it to be an Act not to be believ'd in regard it could not be that a Nation scatter'd far and near should all unanimously Conspire to Corrupt so many Copies and so far assunder dispers'd But Morinus more quick-sighted then St. Austin violently maintains the Fact not only to be beleiv'd among the Jews but also to be by them esteemed another Article of their Faith Now whether that were prov'd by Morinus by sufficient Argument is not our business to enquire It is enough to have shewn that Morinus upon whom Vossius depends in most things could not be induc'd to believe that the Jews corrupted the Text of Scripture on set-purpose tho' he were not ignorant of the Opinion of Talmudists in taking away a Letter out of the Law upon Occasion Now Vossius having left the Talmudists comes to the Greek Interpreters and makes it his chief business to assert that all the Hebrew which we have remaining we are beholding to the Seventy Interpreters for it that without them not so much as one word could be rightly expounded that no Versions made by the Jews or to the liking of the Jews are good which were not taken from the Seventy Interpreters that wherever you desert them you depart from the Truth Lastly That the Interpretation of the Scripture is to be fetched from those Jews who Translated the Scripture when the Hebrew Language flourish'd and was familiarly spoken and not by those Jews who are Enemies to the Christian Faith and who confesses themselves ignorant of their own Tongue Now John Morinus produces Arguments almost like to these to teize the modern Hebrew Exemplars and to establish the Authority of the antient Interpreters which in regard they are most solidly refuted by Ludovicus Capellus a Copious Testimony in reference to this subject and not undeservedly applauded by Vossius himself I had rather answer Vossius in the words of that most learned Author than my own First therefore says Capellus concerning Morinus and we concerning Vossius It is easie to sell smoke to the ignorant vulgar and to boast of gawdy Trappings to the people Then coming to the Seventy Interpreters Capel in Apol. advers Boot he says contrary to the sentiments of Vossius That the Hebrew Language was natural to them which was lost in the Captivity of Babylon after which they liv'd above 200 Years He adds That they from the near affinity between the Chaldee and Syro Chaldaic Languages which the Jews then made use of might by study labour and frequent reading of the Scripture attain to no mean knowledge of the Tongue and many things also necessary to the understanding of that Language and the Sacred Writings they might gather from the Traditions of their Ancestors But says Capellus that they saw all things understood all things never err'd or never were deceiv'd no Man will pretend to say but such a one as understands nothing of the Hebrew and never compar'd their Translation with the Hebrew Text even in those places wherein they read no otherwise then we do at this day where it is easie to see their frequent childish and shameful failings errors frequently from the Genuine signification of the words and phrases and the Intent and Scope of the Sacred Writings These and many other passages had Capellus inserted into his Sacred Criticism which Mâ—rinus took care to have expung'd because they did not relish his Palate But we took them out of Capellus's Apology against Bootius Now what Vossius can Answer to these things I do not apprehend whenas he himself knows that Capellus when he undertook his Criticks was not overmuch prejudic'd against the Rabbins Nay those Semi-Rabbins whom Vossius so often traduces have heavily complained of Vossius and his Book Let us once more hear the words of that most learned person and most acurately vers'd in these Matters wherein he gives a Judgment of the Versions which were made out of the Hebrew after the Seventy Interpreters plainly contrary to the Opinion of Vossius Id. cap. ibid. Let there be attributed says Capellus to every one of those ancient Versions their particular Praise and Honour by reason of their Antiquity and perpetual use in the Church nevertheless where they are manifestly vitious defective and mutilated let not their imperfection be preferred before the Original Truth and Authentick Text nor through a certain perverse wicked wrangling and contentious envy or rather damnable ill custome be advanced before the much better and more acurate Translations Therefore in the Opinion of Capellus there might be a better and more acurate Translation of the Sacred Text then that of the Seventy To these many other things of the same Nature might be added which I omit for fear of being troublesome Then again seeing that Capellus was not of that Sect of people whom the most Facetius Vossius calls In Epist ad Andr. Colv. Asses void of light and understanding clad with a little Professors Gown instead of a Shield carrying the Masoretic Bibles garnish'd with all their Points I would willingly believe that he will be brought to condescend without any great trouble to the Opinion of so excellent a person concerning the Version of the Seventy Interpreters Again Vossius stands very furiously upon it That all the Jews who preceded the time wherein Christ was upon the Earth acknowledged this Version only as lawful That till the time of Aquila no other was read in all the Synagogues of the Jews besides the Version of the Seventy Interpreters not only in Aegypt Asia
this part Simon has not only distasted the most Learned Vossius but also some other persons of no less Note who have not forbore to Vomit forth their most virulent Poyson against his Critiea Sacra it will not be amiss to clear the truth of that Argument a little more plainly In the first place there is nothing that Simon has written concerning the publick Notaries of the Hebrew Nation but what these Diminitive Saint and nice Stomack'd Scholiasticks are extreamly offended at For those publick Registers they together with Eusebius and some of the Fathers call Prophets who not only committed to Writing the Transactions of their own Times but also took care of those Books which were written by the former Prophets and were kept in the publick Registries almost in the same manner as Esdras is said to have reveiw'd the Sacred Writings after the return of the Jews from Babylon and to have put them into that method which is still observ'd both by the Jews and Christians There is nothing in this Assertion of Simon which has not been approv'd by most of the Fathers and them the most Learned amongst the Rest Read but the Preface of single Theodoret one of the most Eminent Divines of the Eastern Church to the Book of Kings where he explains the whole matter and freely and without any scruple asserts that there were several Prophets among the Hebrews of which every one was wont to Write the Transactions of his own Age and that the greatest part of those Books are now wanting as is easie to be found in the History of the Chronicles He adds that those Books which we call the Books of Kings were a long time after taken out of those Books with Theodoretus Diod. in lib. 1. Sam. Mas praef Com. in Jâ—s Sanct. praef in lib. Reg. Perer. praef in Gen. Diodorus Procopius and others not a few consent To whom I may add the most Learned Masius whom Pierius Sanctius Cornclius a Lapide and other Jesuits long and much conversant in the Sacred Writings have follow'd whose words it is needless here to cite since their Works are every where to be had But to make this matter yet more plain it may be perhaps from the purpose to run over the several Books of Sacred Scripture and to take a short hint from every one The First that appears is Moses whom the constant Tradition both of Jews and Christians make to be the Author of the five Books of the Law But as to him the Jewish Rabbies seem to be the more religious who maintain that there is not so much as one word nay not so much as one syllable which did not proceed from God and was dictated to Moses Quite otherwise the most part of the Christians who affirm that some of the Books of Moses were added a long time after either by Esdras or some others who had the overveiwing of them Neither does St. Jerom presume to attribute to Moses some words of the Pentateuch as it is now extant following in this particular the common Opinion of the Doctors of the Church who constantly affirm that the whole Law was review'd and corrected by Esdras a most learned Scribe Whether you will saith St. Jerom that Moses was the Author of the Pentateuch or Esdras the restorer I will not gain say But whether Moses committed to Writing the whole History which we have under his Name or in part commanded it to be transcrib'd by the Notaries that Register'd the publick Transactions of his time is the Question However be it how it will Moses shall still be thought the Author and Writer of the whole Law as has been most excellently observ'd by Simon because those Scribes if there were any in his time were wholly at his Devotion And indeed we find nothing in the whole Law that does fix the Authority of those sort of Scribes And yet had they not been constituted by Moses from that very time the Hebrew Common-wealth had been deficient in what neither the Egyptians nor any other Eastern Nation wanted Now that there were Writers of Annals ever since the time of Moses the most Learned Jesuit Sanctius endeavours to prove in these words Proleg 4. in Paralip I beleive there were in the former Ages the words of Dayes Commentaries Ephemerides and that there was diligent and sedulous care least oblivion of Time should obscure the Nativities and Posterity of Men considerable which seems to me to have been certain from the very time of Moses I spare the names of others who have the same Sentiments And I wonder that a late Writer of the Order of the Seraphris enflam'd with a Seraphic Zeal should condemn in his Biblic Inquisitions this Opinion as Impious and curse the Authors of it But as I am inform'd that Seraphic Doctor though he understands neither Latin nor Greek is a person of most insolent ignorance and of the Sect of those who blaspheme what they understand not Jude 8. Some are offended and perhaps the more delicate Vossius for that Simon in his Critick's affirms that some of the Books of Moses were added afterwards But Simon is no Innovator in this particular as one that has to back him the most skilful Interpreters of the Sacred Scripture Masius and Pererius who has transferr'd all Masius's words into his Preface to Genesis Bonfrerius Cornelius a Lapide and many others Their Opinion also pleases me says Pererius who believe that the Pentateuch a long time after Moses was as it were fill'd up and render'd more plain by the Interlineation of many words and sentences and better methodiz'd for the continuation of the History In like manner Bonfrerius considering some words of Genesis which he suspects could not be written by Moses Com. in Cap. 36. Gen. v. 31. has these Expressions I had rather say that some other Hagiographer added somethings afterwards then ascribe all things to Moses performing the part of a Prophet Not much unlike to this speaks Cornelius a Lapide upon the same place Com. in c. 36. Gen. These words seem to be added after Moses 's time by some who digested the Diaries of Moses Nay Huetius himself in answer to Spinosa objecting that some things were added to the Books of Moses Dem. Evangel prop. 4. c. 14. so replies that he seems not to gainsay We confess says he that Esdras the Restorer of Scripture if any places more obscure or difficult then others occur'd stuft here and there into the Sacred Writings for explanations sake some things of his own Moreover seeing the Sacred Writings are propagated by so many Disputations that never so many Exemplars were ever known of any one Book no wonder if what has happen'd upon other occasions to other Books should happen to this that some Notes added by Pious and Learned Men in the Margin should at length creep into the Text. Lastly those relations at the end of Deutronomy concerning the Death and Burial of Moses by
Scripture do not agree among themselves The ancient Jews as R. Solomon testifies will have Solomon so call'd as if we should say a Collector or Assembler of Sentences for that Agar in Hebrew signifies to Collect the Sense of which the Latin Interpreter has render'd in Translating it the Words of the Collector or Assembler The same Opinion R. Levy Ben Gerson illustrates where he says Solomon seems to have given himself the Name of Agur in respect of the Sentences which he has Collected in this Book But perhaps Aben Ezra and Grotius following him with more reason suspects this Agur to have been the Theognes or Phocylledes of those Times out of whose writings Solomon might Collect some Sentences which he digested into one Volume with other Proverbs Lastly there is a fifth part of the Proverbs of Solomon contained within the 31st Chapter which is the last and that under the Name of King Lemuel who that Lemuel was is not known Most of the Jews believe that Solomon is meant thereby as Christ is intended by the word Immanuel as Aben Ezra asserts and the reason of that Appellation he takes from hence for that Lemuel signifies God with them because that in the Reign of Solomon as Aben Ezra testifies one God was worshipt among the Hebrews But there is no reason we should be sollicitous about the Word Lemuel especially when the Seventy say nothing of it and as they read so they have Translated the words of the Context quite after another manner As for the Book which in the Hebrew is call'd Cobaleth and by Us Ecclesiastes in Latin it is call'd Concionator or the Preacher though most of the latter Jews will have Cobeleth to signifie a person that Collects because that Book contains several Proverbs upon sundry Occasions Of this Opinion are R. Solomon and Aben Ezra and as he says Solomon in another place is call'd Agur for the same Reason as David de Pomis speaks In Lexi Heb Titolo del libro nomato Ecclesiastes composito da Salomone significa Congregatore per Congregareâ—e raccore in quel trattato diverse opinioni de gl' huomini la Maggior parte de quali sono false The Title of the Book called Ecclesiastes composed by Solomon signifies a Gatherer together from Collecting and gathering together in this Volume the opinions of Men the greatest part of which are false But some of the Jews according to the Testimony of R Salomon agree with the 70 in the Interpretation of the word Cobeleth believing it to signifie a Person that Preaches in some Congregation But as to the Author of that Book the Rabbies do not agree among themselves For the Talmudic Doctors ascribe it to Ezechia the later Rabbins to Solomon and these are back'd by the words of the Text in which there are some Passages that cannot well be meant of any other than Solomon therefore it is most probable that the Talmudics only meant that that same Writing was tak'n out of Solomon's Works by King Ezekiah or by Men appointed by him The Christian Interpreters also acknowledg no other Author of Ecclesiastes excepting some few among whom is Hugo Grotius who affirms that Book to be of a later date composed under the Name of Salomon for proof whereof he alledges that he has many words collected thence which are not extant but only in Daniel Esdras and the Chaldee Interpreters St. Jerom writes that the ancient Jews had some thoughts of obliterating this among the rest of Salomon's Works thrown by because he asserts the Creation of God to be vanity wherein St. Jerom agrees with the Talmudists and later Jews Jerom. Com. in 12. Eccles but every one knows that it is the Custom of those Doctors to feign many things of their own Heads By who the History was written that is entituled Esther is uncertain but as to the time when it was written almost all the Jews and Christians agree For whether the Authors of it were the Senators of the Grand Synagogue as the Talmudic Doctors believe or Esdras which is the Opinion of the Fathers or Mordecai as Aben Ezra more probably believes and the Book it self seems to testifie there is no dispute about the time when it was written Therefore Hugo Grotius does not conjecture amiss when he says that Esdras added to his own and the Book which Nehemiah wrote The History of Esther which happened in the middle of those Times of which the Transactions are related in those Books and which Grotius also acknowledges to have been written by Mordecai That the Song of Songs had no other Author than Salomon the very Title it self declares and it is certain from the third Book of Kings that the same Salomon composed both Proverbs and Songs But this because it was the best of Salomon's Songs was therefore called The Song of Songs that is to say the most Excellent Song Yet some do question whether it were written by Salomon as it is now extant or whether it were cull'd out of the whole Volume of his Songs However for that Song wherein Salomon is introduced discoursing with the Sunamite as a Bridegroom with a Bride is very difficult to explain not only by reason of the Expressions somewhat over confident and frequent Similitudes which our Customs will by no means endure but also because the Names of the Interlocutors are not set done for besides Salomon and his Spouse there are two Chorus's of young Men and Virgins But 't is a strange thing how the Rabbies differ among themselves about the Book of Job The Talmudics believe it to be no relation of real matter of Fact but that it is a Fiction or Parable to set forth a most exact and high Example of Piety and Patience and with these some of the Christians agree Nay there were some who did not only believe the Argument of the work to be feigned but will have the Name of Job to be taken out of those Letters of the first Verse of the third Chapter of the Book where we read Jobad Jom he curst the day For all that went before they looked upon only as a Prologue But the Testimony of Ezekiel who makes mention of Noah Daniel and Job demonstrates that the Name of Job is not fictitious and the prudent Aben Azra most sharply rebukes those who are of that Opinion He also believes him to have been of the Posterity of Esau which he gathers from the Name of the Place Com. in 1 cap. Job where he was born Besides the Names of Job and his Friends and other Circumstances plainly evidence that the story was really true according as it is related though it contains many things which are much more like Parable than Truth of History But as to the Author of it there is no certainty some apply it to Moses some to Isaiah others to Job himself and his Friends Nor do they agree among themselves who make Moses to be the Author of it some believing that it
was only a Translation of his into Hebrew out of some Forreign Language But letting these things pass if we may conjecture in a matter so obscure I believe they are nearest the Truth who fix the Composition of this Piece in the Time of the Babylonish Captivity For the Language is hardly Hebrew and abounding in Chaldee Phrases bespeaks a Person who by Forreign Converse had corrupted his Hebrew Speech In which Sense the words of St. Jerom are to be explained when he tells us That he Translated Job out of the Hebrew Arabic and Syriac Language To which we may add that the Jews whose Affairs were then in a desperate Condition took great Delight in reading that Book as the Comfort of their Afflictions Therefore the Author relates an Action that lately happed and because he takes upon him to perform the part of a Poet tho the Argument be not fictitious yet he makes use of Figures and florid Language mixing sometimes Probabilities with Truth observing only a Decorum between the Interlocutors The Prophets by St. Austin are call'd Pronouncers or Publishers of the word of God to Men. For they Quest in ex as the Interpreters of the Divine Law preach'd to the People whom they taught the Law of Moses confirming his Authority Then what Threats and Promises Moses had only in general promulgated they applyed to the several occasions of their Times and that after the manner of Orators which is the reason that they abound in Comparisons Metaphors and Hyperboles and not content with a plain and bare Relation they amplify it in many words For saith St. Jerom the History and Order of things is not related barely by the Prophets Praef. in Lib. 18 Com. in Isai but all places are full of Riddles and Mysteries one thing is contain'd in the words another in the meaning that what you would think to run over with a plain an uninterrupted Sense you find presently involv'd in the obscurities of that which follows Nor did the Prophets so altogether foretell future things but that they frequently repeated things already done as is evident from the Prophesie of Zachariah which is a Relation for the most part of what was past or was at that same time transacted Thus that most dilligent Interpreter of the Scripture in expounding some words of the Prophet Amos blames the Exposition of the Jews maintaining in the same place a Prophesie of the future where there is nothing said but of what is past and sâ—on after he adds these words worthy observation In c. 3. Amos. We are under a scarcity of Sacred Authors for we read of many things in the Prophets which are not to be found in Sacred History In like manner St. Jerom attests that the Prophets in their Relations do not mind the Order of things as they were Transacted Among the Prophets saith he there is no order of History observ'd while we find under the same King those things that were last transacted Com. in c. 25. Jerom. first related and those things that were first in action last recorded This preposterous Order Pseudo Dorotheus attributes to the Scribes De vit mort Proph. who committed to Writing the Predictions of the Prophets as they receiv'd them from their own Lips as if the Prophets had not wont to write down the Sermons which they made to the People The same observation Cornelius a Lapide makes upon the Prophesie of Jeremy who believe that Baruch who was the Scribe belonging to that Prophet collected all his Prophesies which he had preach'd at sundry times and embody'd them into one Volume not regarding the Order of time wherein they were preach'd And John Calvin himself confesses that the Prophesies of the Prophets never came to our hands digested into that order as they ought to have been nevertheless he does not believe it any derogation to their Inspiration They Calv. praef in Isai saith he who have diligently and judiciously convers'd with the Prophets will grant me that their Sermons were never digested into that method as they ought to have been but as Opportunity offer'd so the Volume was perfected He believes that the Books of the Prophets were preserv'd by the diligence of the Preist whose Duty it was to recommend the Prophesies to Posterity though the Preists were profest Enemies to the Prophets The same Calvin writes also that after the Prophets had Preach'd to the People they wrote out the Heads of it which was affix'd to the Doors of the Temple that all people might read them which being afterwards taken away by the Officers of the Temple was laid up in the Treasury for a perpetual Monument and Record of that Sermon from whence he conjectures that the Books of the Prophets now extant were Copy'd True it is that from the words of Isaiah and Habaccuc whom Calvin produces for his Witnesses this one thing seems easie to be prov'd that the Prophets wrote their Sermons plainly and legibly upon Tables that they might be read by all the people But of the Doors of the Temple to which he believes they were affix'd they make no mention at all Then again he Conjectures amiss that Summaries of the Sermons were only Copyed out and not the Sermons at length Though there is no skilfull Critic who will presume to aver that the Prophesies which we have now are entire The same Calvin and the Divines of Geneva farther conjecture that the Inscriptions which declare the Names of the Prophets and the Years when the Prophesies were pronounced were added by the Priests whose Duty it was to keep them safe for the satisfaction of Posterity These are their Words Il semble che ces Tiltres ayent estez adjoustez aux Revelations des Prophetes par les sacrificateurs et Levites qui avoit charge de garder les Prophetes au Tresor du Temple apres qu' elles avoient este proposees au Peuple suivant le contume des Prophetes It seems probable that the Titles were added to the Revelations of the Prophets by the Priests and Levites who had the charge of those Prophesies in the Treasury of the Temple after they had been exposed to the people according to the custome of the Prophets To which Opinion Hugo Grotius also gives his Vote There is only this difference between him and them that he does not attribute these Inscriptions to the Priests and Levites but to the Men of the great Synagogue who collected the writings of the Prophets and set down the time of their being written This seems more probable because it is taken for granted among all that the Senate where Esdras presided did add something to the Sacred Text by way of Connexion and Explication Thus also Thomas believes that the Inscriptions fix'd to some Psalms were inserted by Esdras Com. in Psal 6. and were done partly as things were then acted partly according to what happned Lastly it is is very probable that those Histories which are inserted in some of the Sermons of the Prophets were added by the same Senators when they review'd the Sacred Books and form'd the Canonical Scripture as now we have it which is the reason some believe those words were inserted in the 51. Jeremie Thus far the words of Jeremie Which conclude the Prediction of the Prophet in regard the following Chapter is no Prophesie but a History taken out of the end of the 4th Book of Kings And in this the Rabbies agree with most of the Christian Doctors For R.D. Kimchi testifies that those words which run on to the end of the Prophesie of Jeremiah do not belong to the Prophesie only that he who Copy'd the Book inserted here the story of the Israelites being carried away Captive Com. in c. 51. Jer. as it is in the end of the Book of Kings On the otherside Abravanel conjectures that Esdras or the Senators of the Grand Assembly were the Authors of that Supplement as the History of Ezechia was tranferr'd out of the 2 Book of Kings cap. 18. into the Prophesie of Isaiah From all that has been said it may be easily discern'd who were accompted Prophets among the Hebrew People what was their Office and Function and what their method of writing Moreover this also seems worthy Observation that the Prophets did not only preach to the People and foretel future events but also digested the Histories of their times and wrote them into the publick Records And thus Isaiah who wrote the Acts of Hosea bears the Title no less of a Historian then a Prophet or rather the name of Prophet among the Hebrews comprehends all those significations So that whoever was a revealer of the Divine will or foretold future Accidents or wrote the Translations of his Time was call'd a Prophet From whence questionless it came to pass that the ancient Jews adorn'd the Histories of Joshua Judges Samuel and Kings with the Titles of Neviion Prophets because they were written by Persons who being full of the Holy Spirit were call'd Prophets In which sence Josephus affirms that in his Nation Books were not written by every one but by Prophets only Jonathan also has rightly understood the force of that word who instead of the Hebrew word Navi Prophet sometimes mixes another word in his Paraphrase which signifies only Scribe as if Prophets were the same with Scribes And thus much concerning the Sacred Writers I pass by the Apocriphal Books which the Jews do not admit into their Canonical Number because their Authors as the word Apocryphal signifies are uncertain and hidden in obscurity Let the Learned Vossius therefore forbear to bark at the most worthy Simon a Person so well deserving of the Sacred Scriptures who has publish'd nothing concerning the Writers of the Old Testament but what has been already approv'd by Persons most Grave and solid and highly Eminent both for their Piety and Learning Into a wicked Heart Wisdom shall not enter FINIS