mention of them; however, we are obliged to Keating for the prefervation of the name of this curious breast-plate; the ftory is evidently made out of the following Irish words:

lodh, Iodhan, a chain, collar, gorget, breast-plate. Iodhan, fincere, pure, undefiled. Iodhana, pangs, torments.

Jodhadh, a fhutting clofing, joining.

It is evident that the lodhan-Morain was the breastplate of judgment. That I now present to my readers is of gold, of the fize of the drawing; it was found twelve feet deep in a turf bog, in the County of Limerick, on the estate of Mr. Bury, and is now in the poffeffion of Mrs. Bury, of Granby-Row, Dublin. It is made of thin plated gold, and chaced in a very neat and workman-like manner; the breaft-plate is fingle, but the hemifpherical ornaments at the top, are lined throughout with another thin plate of pure gold these are less expofed to injury when on the breast, than the lower part; there must have been a particular reafon for lining thefe circular concave pieces, which I think will appear hereafter; about the center of each is a fmall hole in the lining, to receive the ring of a chain that fufpended it round the neck; and in the centers in front, are two small conical pillars of folid gold, highly polifhed. The chain was found and fecreted by the peafant from Mr. Bury. In cutting the turf, the flane or spade ftruck the middle of the ornament, and bruised it, as reprefented in the drawing; every other part is perfect.

The whole weighs twenty-two guineas.

Another

Another was found fome years ago in the County of Longford, and fold for twenty-flx guineas.

The breaft-plate of the high priest of the Jews, was named un chofhen, Exod. xxviii, 4. and in Exod. xxviii. 15. un chofhen mefhephot, that is the breast-plate of judgment. The Greeks name it é, i. e. rationale, quia ad pectus, rationis quafi Tedem, fuit appofitum.

It is very particularly defcribed in Exodus xxviii, and 15th verfe, "Thou fhalt make the breast-plate of judgment with cunning work, after the manner of the Ephod thou fhalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of fcarlet, and of fine twined linen fhalt thou make it. Four square fhall it be, being doubled. And thou shalt fet in it, fettings of ftones, even four rows of ftones, &c. And thou fhalt make upon the breast plate chains at the ends, of wreathen work and pure gold, and two rings of gold, and thou shalt put the two wreathen chains of gold in the two rings, &c- and thou fhalt put in the breastplate of judgment the URIM and the THUMMIM, and they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth before the Lord.

There is no mistaking this description of the breaft-plate of the Jews; the chains excepted, it has no refemblance to that of our Hibernian Druids.

Looking into Buxtorf's Chaldee Lexicon, I found Ioden fignified the breaft plate; and that Moran, did the fame; but I could no where find Ioden-Moran compounded. The commentators in my poffeffion, afforded no information; I then applied by letter to R. J. J. Heideck, Profeffor of Oriental Languages, and received the following anfwer:

*66

Sir,

Sir,

"I find en chofen hemefphot, or the breaft plate of judgment, named Ioden Moren, by Rab. Joda in Talmud Sanhedrim, p. 134. And in Comm. Ein Jacob, p. 150, it is derived from the imperfect verb on which he fays is Moren, and Dhe fays is the fame as Ioden, and he adds, that the words Urim and Thummim have the same fignification; but Rab. Simon in Ejus: p. 135 and 1'51, more plainly fays it is Moren Ioden, which according to Rab. Solomon Iarchis, is also Ioden Moran. Rab. Meir calls it Doen Moren. The Rab. in Talmud fay, that the Meffias fhall be called Ioden Muren. for he shall be the judge, as in Ifaiah xith. Thus, Sir, it is very plain that the Irish name is derived from the Chaldee Chofhen Hemefhpot, or Ioden Muren *.

Temple-bar, ift July, 1783.

I am, &c.

JOHN JOS. HEIdeck,
Prof. Ling. Oriental.

In the Irish language Dunn is a judge, and Maor, a lord or chief. The explanation given by Buxtorf to Moran or Maran, fo perfectly correfponds to Keating's picture of Moran, one would think the Irish word had originally the fame meaning. 79

The Irish word is often written Iodh, and I think has the fame meaning as Urim, viz. an oracle. Heb. iad, oraculum, prophetia, as in Ezek. iii, and xxii. And the iad of the Lord was there upon me; iad is a hand, and thus it is translated in the English; but the commentators all explain the word by prophetia Domini.

VOL. IV. No. XIIL

F

Maran;

Maran; Dominus dicitur autem de politico & ecclefiaftico domino, id eft, doctore excellente, reliquorum fapientium capite: qui fimul judicandi habet poteftatem. Maran de fummo, qui præerat reliquis fapientibus quem etiamnum hodie communes Rabbini vocant Morenu. Inde & Chriftus vocatus fuit per excellentiam Maran. Hinc vox ifta Syra in N. T. Maranatha Dominus venit, qua extremum anathema indicabant.

All the Hebrew writers confefs themselves ignorant of the materials and of the form of the Urim and Thummim. Kimchi obferves, it is no where explained to us what were the Urim and Thummim; it is plain from the Scripture, they differed from the stones of the breast plate. (in voce T.)

Munsterus fays, what they were no mortal can tell. Sirachis thinks they were gems; and Schindler us, that it was only an infcription or writing of the name Jehovah, or fome other word, introduced between the linen of the breaft plate. Some affert the words were written upon a plate of gold.

Many opinions might be collected, but fays Rab. David, he spoke beft, who ingenuously confessed, that he knew not what it was.

That it was an inftrument of divine revelation, is very plain. And according to Jofephus, this oracle ceafed about 112 years before Christ. We learn from the Holy Scripture, that God revealed himself chiefly by four ways; 1ft, by Nebuah, i. e. by vifions and apparitions; 2d, by Ruach Hecodesh, i. e. the infpiration of the Holy Ghoft; 3d, by Urim and Thummim; 4th, by Beth-Kol, i. e. the daughter of a voice or an echo. The Hibernian Druids pre

tended

tended to enjoy the fame divine honours, calling them by the fame names, except the laft, which they termed Mac Col or the fon of a voice, i. e. an echo *. The answer to thefe oracles were always delivered from the Dar, the facred oak tree. Mr. Hutchinson has fhewn, with a great deal of learning and judgment, that the Heathens, in fome of their facred trees, recognized the very tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and also, more particularly thought he saw frequent mention of it in the old Testament, under the name of hadar, i. e. the refplendent tree; but we are no way informed of what species of fruit the

dar was. (Holloway Orig. Phyf. & Theol.)

The antient Britons call the oak dar and derw, perhaps from for its durablenefs; from a contraction of their dar an oak, and dewin a prophet, they seem to have formed Derwiddon, the famous Oak Prophets called Druids. (ibid.) †

The prophets and their actions mentioned by Mofes, which were before him, or which are occafionally mentioned by others after him, prove that there were several before the flood and the patriarchs, and fome few others afterwards; of whofe predictions, fome are recorded, 'till Mofes who was like

• Breith-call is an oracle in Irish; correfponding to the Chaldee Birath Kola, i. e. filia vocis: from the Irish Aireacal, the Latin Oraculum. Call-mhuin is another name of an oracle, meaning the voice of Man, i. e. Deus.

+ There cannot be a ftronger example of the Welsh and Irish languages having been the fame originally; and of the corruption of the Welfh. I have elsewhere fhewn the derivation of Dru or Draoi, a Druid, the plural of which is Draoith, whence the Welsh Drwiddon, perhaps with Dunn in the termination.