Britain, and gave his name to the principal river in that island. Raivata settled in the upper part of Italy. His country was called Rhotia, and his city Reatè. Uttama went to Greece, and built a town, to which he gave his own name, but his postdiluvian successors corrupted it to Athenæ. These settlements were most probably made in the course of the seventh century. Cain was probably dead before this time, and his son Enoch had acquired the rank and power of a Menu in his country. Hence we find

four Menus in that family, while Adam had only two suc cessors in the time of Seth. In Cain's family they were cotemporary, and in Seth's they were successive.

The whole of the eighth, and the first half of the ninth centuries appear to be devoted to improving the particu lar countries, cultivating the arts, and promoting knowledge. The arts discovered by Lamech's children began now to produce a great effect on the circumstances of mankind. The instruments of agriculture, armed with iron, diminished the labor of cultivating the soil, and rendered their labor more effectual. The immense excavations in India, and perhaps in Egypt, which served both for temples and palaces, were probably the work of this longlived race. It is certain, that they could not have been made without the use of metal, and therefore could not have been much older than this time. And the work appears to be too great for the postdiluvians, or for the troubled state of society, and the diminished resources of government, between the middle of the ninth century and the flood. Perhaps the discovery of some astronomic diagram may hereafter shew the latest possible date. They also about this period erected some of those massy fabrics in Egypt, which bid defiance to time. The planisphere on the ceiling of the body of the temple of Tentyra is most probably a projection of the primitive sphere, before it was corrected by the first Hermes. The projection in the portico of the same temple shews the portico to be of a later date, when the constellations had been improved, and the equinoxes corrected.

To be continued..

LITERARY DISSERTATIONS.

No. II.

ON JEWISH LITERATURE.

Hæc scripsi, ut zelum in studiosis languentem excitarem ad
LINGUAM SANCTAM addiscendi."

LEUSDEN.

THE Jewish and Rabbinical learning has suffered much in the opinion of the generality of modern scholars; as if genius and industry were misapplied in endeavouring to cultivate a province, supposed so barren by those, who never explored it.

Through all antiquity the East has been famous for the invention of arts and improvement in sciences; and some of the chief remains of its ancient literature are preserved in the Jewish authors. But the frequent captivities of the Jews, and at last the utter destruction of their Temple and Constitution by the Roman Power, has so blotted out their name, almost from being a People, as not to have left them the empty honor of an account of most of their former history and writings; for, the greater part, and some of the most valuable of their books are lost. There have however arisen some few Geniuses among them, even in these days of their dispersion, equal perhaps to any, which the most flourishing times of Athens or Rome produced. MAIMONIDES, for instance, is a parallel to either PLATO or CICERO. was a man of the greatest natural abilities, improved with

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extraordinary industry and study, and of consummate knowledge in Jewish and Grecian literature. His MORE NEVOCHIM, which is an illustration of the MERCHEVAH, or mystical theology of the Jews, abounds with ingenious remarks, and bears the most honorable testimony to the soundness of his judgment, the extent of his erudition, and the purity of his religious faith. SOCRATES was said to have brought philosophy from heaven to earth, from the speculation of the celestial bodies and their phenomena, to the conduct and regulation of human life; it may with greater propriety be said of MAIMONIDES, that he brought the interpretation and glosses of the Jewish law from types and allegories to plain truth and clear reason, and diffused a fair and useful light through the dark recesses, in which the theology of his nation had been hidden.

Those, who are willing to take pains to discover the earliest traces of the arts and sciences, and to note the gradual improvements of mankind in all the various branches of knowledge, will find the writings, in which these are unfolded, very interesting. Not that the Jewish books are expressly devoted to these topics, for they are only incidentally mentioned in them; but they contain many curious documents, and much information upon subjects relative to the history of the human mind, and the institutes, laws, and progress of civil life. Their principal intention however is to register the origin and advancement; to describe the customs, manners, and religious rites and to elucidate the INSPIRED BOOKS, of a nation, renowned as being THE PARENT STOCK OF ALL OTHER NATIONS, and honored as the CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD.

The most ancient books, of which the Jews are possessed, next to the writings of the Old Testament, are the TARGUMS. This name is given to the Chaldee version and paraphrase of the Scriptures made for the use of the

Jews after their return from the Babylonian captivity." They were composed by different persons, and at different times. Those of ONKELOS and of JONATHAN BEN UZZIEL are of earliest date, and most entitled to our regard and reverence.

The targums were constantly used in the Synagogues, and were considered by the Jews, as faithful versions and correct expositions of the original. This is declared by many of the Jewish writers, and may be inferred from several expressions and phrases in the New Testament. Thus, when CHRIST was called out to read the second lesson in the Synagogue at Nazareth,† of which he was a member, he seems to have used the Targum; for the words then read by him out of ISAIAI Ixi. I. as recited by Saint LUKE iv. 18. do not exactly agree, either with the Hebrew original, or with the Septuagint translation of that place, but must have been the Chaldee paraphrase upon the original passage. When also he cried out upon the cross, Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani, he quoted the Chaldee paraphrase of Psalm xxii. 1. and not the original; for in the Hebrew text it is, Eli, Eli, lamah Azabtani, and the word Sabachthani is no where to be found but in the Chaldee tongue.

As elucidations of the OLD TESTAMENT, these writings should be carefully studied by every CLERGYMAN. Indeed no one can be considered as "mighty in the Scriptures," and competently qualified to decide upon the meaning of the sacred writers, who has not read the Bi ble in the original, and with the help of these most an cient and venerable expositors. The light they throw upon many passages in the NEW TESTAMENT is very great. Some striking instances, in proof of this, are cit

* MORIN. Exercit. Bibl, LE LONG, bibl. sacr. c. II. comp. NEHEMIA Will. 8, 9.

+ LUKE IV. 16, 17.

"Cum enim Novi Testamenti phrasis tota sit Hebraica, etsi voces Græcæ sint, sane penitior et accuratior ejus intelligentia pendet a lingua

ed by Doctor PRIDEAUX, in the IV volume of his elabo rate work, intitled " the Old and New Testament connected in the history of the Jews and neighbouring nations," from the 777 to the 786 page.

It is with a mixture of surprise and mortification, that we find persons declaring positively, that certain passages of scripture mean thus and so, who, so far from having consulted the ORIGINAL, are unable to read it; and are totally unacquainted with the most ancient Jewish writers in illustration of their own sacred books! To this woful deficiency of information are, in a great measure, to be attributed those conjectural criticisms and forced constructions, which make the tenets of sectaries, and have occasioned so much opposition and party sentiment among their followers.

Hebraicæ, Syriaca, Chaldaicæ, Rabbinicæ, earumque propriæ phraseos cognitione. Multa enim sunt in N. T. in quibus sacri scriptores tacitè al¬ ludunt ad ea quæ sunt in Veteri; multa item in quibus tum Christus, tum ejus Apostoli referunt ad mores, placita, dogmata, usum, consuetudinem, sententias, proverbia, parabolas, gnomas veterum sui temporis Judæorum, inter quos vixerunt et docuerunt; unde fit ut in his lux non contemnenda elici et educi possit ex illorum Scriptis, et antiquioribus monumentis, ad horum illustrationem aut confirmationem, et vero etiam declarationem atque explicationem,"

LUDOV. CAPELL. in præfatione SPIGILEG.