sure sign of unfamiliarity, but is consistent with the fullest comprehension of the writings quoted. A writer drawing illustrations from works in a strange and unfamiliar language would be the more careful to transcribe with accuracy, in proportion to his consciousness of liability to err and misrepresent; and thus his very exactness might argue the insecurity or limitation of his knowledge, by shewing the necessity that he is under of taking heed to his goings at every step. The like may be said of writings which are not indeed in a strange language, but are more or less imperfectly understood. And conversely the verbal inexactness of a citation, or the bold abruptness of an adaptation, may be due to the just licence of a minute and comprehensive knowledge. The least direct allusion testifies to the firmest grasp and appreciation of a subject ; and a writer must have made a predecessor's thoughts his own, before he can subtly interweave the old with the new, combining harmoniously in one texture their diverse and distinct lines of thought and argument. The casual mention of a name may imply an acquaintance with the history of a period: a single word may be the embodiment of a thought which ages have toiled in vain to define and comprehend. Inexactness of citation would seem then to carry with it no sure proof of unfamiliarity with the documents or the subject matter alluded to, but might in some cases even point to a directly opposite conclusion.

2. But it may be asked further, to what extent the LXX. is authorized and approved by its frequent use as a medium of citation from the Hebrew Scriptures: and to this it may be answered that, so long as the question is one of grammar and philology alone, there would seem to be no reason for the assumption that the LXX. rendering of a passage is to be pronounced accurate on the ground of its having been adopted by Apostles or Evangelists. Much less are we compelled to think the general exactness of the LXX. Version guaranteed by the frequent occurrence of Septuagintal citations. Further

Mean

remarks on the LXX. will be found in Chapter XV. while we proceed to notice some points which affect the purity and preservation of the Hebrew text.

VI. On the Preservation of the Hebrew Text.

The absolute purity of the Masoretic text is not asserted even by so stout a champion of the Hebraica Veritas as the author of the Anticritica-the younger Buxtorf. Nor is perfection claimed by the Masora itself, as is shewn by the appearance in our Hebrew Bibles of various readings; though in most cases, it is true, the variations are of slight magnitude, not to say infinitesimal. But there is evidence that the text has been guarded with a singular scrupulosity, the extent whereof may perhaps be gathered from the minute directions to the copyist which are found in the notes of the Masora. Not only the verses of the several books, but the very letters would seem to have been counted'. Some traces of this numbering of the letters still remain. Thus the elongated Vau of Lev. xi. 42 is characterized in a note as the middle letter of the Pentateuch; and it is further remarked in the Talmud, that the suspended Ayin of Ps. lxxx. 14 is the medial letter of the Book of Psalms. More than this, there is extant a metrical composition, attributed to Saadiah', which gives the number of times that each letter of the Hebrew alphabet occurs in the Bible.

Particular letters again are written larger or smaller than the average; while some are suspended (as already exemplified), and others inverted, or marked mysteriously with dots: nor does the Masora omit to chronicle these and other the most minute peculiarities. What was originally intended by these typographical eccentricities does not now appear; for although there are diverse floating traditions upon the various

1 Buxtorf quotes from Qiddushin, I. 30 a derivation of the name Sopherm from this numbering of the letters.

לפיכך נקראו ראשונים סופרים שהיו

סופרים כל אותיות שבתורה :

2 Buxtorf, Tiberias, Cap. XVIII.

points, these might well have been invented to solve the mystery. What (we might ask) is the meaning of the small He in Gen. ii. 4: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created'? What again of the diminutive Yod in Deut. xxxii. 18: 'Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful'? The one signifies that all created things must wane and perish; or, perhaps, that they must be dissolved, seeing that the letter is discontinuous. The other signifies,' ut vix exigua illius Rupis memoria in populo extaret;' and further points to the 'decem tribuum defectio,' ten being the numerical value of the letter Yod! But others have conjectured that these peculiarities are connected with the numeration of the letters; a view which is in a measure borne out by two facts above mentioned, that an elongated letter marks the middle of the Pentateuch, and a suspended letter the middle of the Psalms.

From the above it might be conjectured, that the Hebrew text was likely to enjoy a comparative immunity from accidental corruption after the Masoretic recension, and that its chief presumed blemishes must have been contracted at some earlier period. But it may be urged with much plausibility that accidental errors were unlikely to insinuate themselves during the Christian era, and before the great recension, which would seem to have been a product of the activity of the time preceding. It has been argued in the first place that the Masoretic precautions were of high antiquity, and not devised for the occasion; and as evidence of this Buxtorf refers to the context of the passage above cited from Qiddushin, where the middle letter, word, and verse of the Pentateuch, together with the middle verse and letter of the Psalms, are mentioned; these precautions being declared ancient in comparison with the Talmud itself by the terms in which scribes who used them are referred to1.

1 They are called D. See Tiberias, p. 44.

These facts have been thought by some to make the risk of accidental corruption very remote; but it should be added, that at the period now in question the attitude of Rabbinism was signally controversial, as against Christianity, and that this would naturally tend to an increase of vigilance, which would still further remove the probability of accidental deterioration in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures. On the other hand, there are some considerations which militate against the hypothesis that changes were introduced wilfully, with controversial aim.

(1.) The arguments of Christians were drawn mostly from the Septuagint, which would seem to render a change in the Hebrew text, so to say, unnecessary for the purpose of refutation. (2.) The great care bestowed upon the text was the sign of a real though often misapplied reverence for the very letters of Holy Scripture-a reverence which affords a strong argument against the hypothesis of wilful corruption. There is not in the Law a single letter whereon great mountains depend not;' and 'if thou subtract or add a letter, thou art found to destroy the whole world.' But (3), the singularity of the methods by which the scribe was trained to evolve unsuspected meanings from the sacred page, is perhaps the most striking evidence of the stability of the text itself: and more than this, the probability that alterations would be made deliberately, is inversely proportional (might we not say?) to the facility wherewith any desired or conceivable meaning could be extracted from the text as it stood. Some of these methods we proceed to notice.—

VII. On some Cabbalistic Interpretations.

1. What more pregnant with idle fancies, while yet testifying to an anxious custody of the literal text, than the principle of numerical equivalence? Each letter in Hebrew, as in Greek, represents a number; every word, viewed as the sum of its constituent letters, has a numerical value: and for

any word may be substituted one of equal value'. Thus the one language of Gen. xi. I becomes the sacred tongue. On the same principle we may read, not: 'Rebekah his wife conceived' (Gen. xxv. 21), but 'Rebekah conceived fire and stubble,' i.e. Facob and Esau; for is it not said that 'the house of Jacob shall be a fire...and the house of Esau for stubble' (Obad. 18)? The words 'till Shiloh come' (Gen. xlix. 10) refer, still on this principle, to the Messiah.

Two other methods of substitution, which will next be considered, have been thought to occur in the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah respectively.

2. According to one of these methods, the letters of the alphabet, taken in their natural order, are divided into two sets of eleven, and any letter out of one set may be interchanged with that which holds a corresponding place in other. Thus Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet may be interchanged with Lamed, which begins its latter half: Beth, the second letter of the alphabet, with Mem, which follows Lamed: and so with the remaining letters taken in order. This method, which is styled albam (a word containing the four letters specified, and thus representing the principle on which the interchange proceeds), is thought to have been used in Is. vii. 6, as a cipher-writing; the name Tabeal becoming Remaliah', if treated by this method.

3. By another species of substitution, athbash, Babylon is thought to be disguised under the form Sheshach (Jer. xxv. 26; li. 41). This method is of the same nature as the preceding; the difference being, that the letters in the two halves of the alphabet are numbered in opposite directions, viz. from the extremities to the centre. Thus the central letters, Caph and Lamed, are interchangeable: the first letter, Aleph, may

1 Compare the cipher-writing of Rev. xiii. 18.

2 Buxtorf, Lex. Talm., p. 447, states this case inaccurately. He writes:

.794 valet שפה אחת • לשון Totidem .הקדש = 409 = אחת But .הקדש not ,רמלא

3

רמליהו

the Biblical form