Nero, when his persecution was almost over, he writes a prophecy concerning him, veiled in terms, which no one early writer ever thought of applying to the actual Nero. To shew, however, that he was meant, he forms a number out of the Hebrew letters of his name, as it occurs in some writings of the Rabbis at a later period. This prophecy he sends, without further key, to the churches of the East and the West. When it reached them, which with many of them, could be only a couple of months before that Emperor's death, they were to begin guessing out the name of this sevenheaded monster. Nine-tenths of them, of course, would begin guessing in Greek letters, and all these would lose their labour entirely. But some perhaps, in the Eastern churches, would be lucky enough to guess in Hebrew, and they might possibly divine the real name, within a month of the Emperor's death. No one, however, so far as evidence remains, ever made this guess, and Irenæus, who conversed with Polycarp, had never heard of it. It is mere" fancy and guess work" that any one in those days discovered this Rabbinical solution. Yet on this key the right application of the prophecy was to depend, and all the comfort of the churches under Nero's persecution-after it was over! If this scheme were due to St. John himself, what could have been a clearer proof of dotage? Or if we call to mind the true author of the Apocalypse, what more profane aspersion could be cast on His infinite wisdom? The very passage, where the reader is called to a special exercise of spiritual understanding, would be the one where the writer had signally displayed his own utter folly. But enough of these fancies and fictions of modern exegesis, which are really almost unworthy of a serious refutation. Those who have so far confused their own minds on the subject of Divine inspiration, and debased to such a level their conception of these august and sublime visions, instead of assuming to be leaders and guides to the church, and castigators or censors of our old divines, have need rather to be taught again the first principles of the oracles of God. The simplicity of the despised Papias, where a heart of faith beats soundly underneath, seems wisdom itself, compared with these theories of pretence and show, which would resolve these sacred visions into a mere piece of badly arranged Roman history, for three or four years, under a vast bond of asthetic costume, and make the holy angel the direct messenger of a lie. We will close with the words of Vitringa, whose learning, reverence, and deep and solid thought, form a refreshing contrast to the theories now exposed. "We need not fear that any man will ever be able to withdraw pious men, who reverence God's word, from the reading and meditation of this book. They see in 126 PROFESSOR STUART ON THE APOCALYPSE. it the stamp and mark of the Holy Ghost, which mark is spirituality, revealing itself in the most exquisitely selected phrases, borrowed from the deep wisdom of God, and the state of a soul moulded into a spiritual being; so that those who read the book feel themselves not only drawn, but even carried powerfully to God; they are raised to contemplate the wonderful works, they are sanctified by his glory, and inflamed with celestial fire, with the purest and most tender love of God, wherewith saints and the redeemed ones in heaven glow continually. There is here nothing trifling, idle, or common-place; all is solid, masculine, powerful, spiritual, sublime, not invented, nor possible to be invented by human skill. Let human skill, let the noblest genius, make the attempt-let many attempt with combined diligence, whether they can produce the like, and they will be covered with shame. Therefore let us read and meditate upon this book, where also many moral truths are joined with prophecy, most useful for the pursuit of piety; and if our eyes, here and there, are dimmed with the brilliance of its celestial light, even herein let us give God the glory." A GRAMMAR OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. 1827. By the A LEXICON HEBREW, CHALDEE AND ENGLISH. By SAMUEL LEE, D.D. Duncan. 1840. GESENIUS'S HEBREW GRAMMAR. Translated by DAVIES. Bagster and Sons. 1846. HEBREW READING LESSONS, WITH ANALYSIS, &c. Bagster. 1846. THE INTERLINEARY HEBREW ENGLISH PSALTER. Bagster. 1846. ANALYTICAL HEBREW AND CHALDEE LEXICON. Nos. I. and II. Bagster. 1846. A NEW HEBREW ENGLISH LEXICON. Bagster. 1844. GESENIUS'S HEBREW AND CHALDEE LEXICON. Translated by S. P. TREGELLES. Bagster. 1846. GESENIUS'S HEBREW AND CHALDEE LEXICON. Translated by Professor LEO. Cambridge University Press. 1828. WE are sometimes tempted to regret that our limits do not allow us to expatiate in those abstract dissertations headed by the title of a book or two (never to be mentioned again except perchance in a foot-note,) which not unfrequently occupy a hundred or more of the pages of our quarterly cotemporaries. The theme suggested by the works now before us is precisely of a nature to revive this regret. Hebrew literature, its rise, its progress and its decline, down to its present state of almost utter extinction in England, is a subject dear to our hearts, and full of considerations of the highest interest and of the deepest importance, in connexion with the great questions that now agitate and perplex the Church of Christ, and to do justice to which would demand the amplest space that the utmost bounds of modern criticism would allow to a single essay. We are, however, longing for an impossibility. Our few pages give no room for long discursive histories, making the books at the beginning of them mere starting-posts to run away from; to them we are driven, by the curt outline to which our space confines us, to return, as to the staple of our article. Hebrew literature, in common with all other good learning, dates its commencement as a branch of Christian theology from the Reformation. The burning words with which Luther never ceased to exhort his readers to illustrate and adorn the inestimable truth he had shown them in the Bible, with all that mental effort and research could contribute to so glorious a purpose, thrilled through the hearts of the noble army that marched after him. In Germany, in Switzerland, in Holland, his followers became the pupils of the Jewish Rabbis, and Hebrew literature arose in Europe. The Jews were encouraged and stimulated by this demand for their sacred learning, to print their grammars and commentaries upon the text, as well as the text itself. These early issues (from the press of Daniel Bomberg of Venice, especially,) as specimens of typography, are scarcely to be surpassed by the printers of the present day. The effect of this sudden throwing open of a new and hitherto unexplored field to the research of a studious age was instantaneous. Hebrew, and especially Rabbinical literature, became a perfect passion in the Protestant schools of Germany and Holland during the last thirty years of the 16th century. Many eminent scholars arose; amongst whom the Buxtorffs, father and son, were facile principes. The Jesuits also at once perceived the danger to the cause of Romanism from this new literature, and sprang forward to meet it with their usual alacrity. The Thesaurus of Santes Pagninus was one of the earliest Hebrew Latin Lexicons. Its author was a Jesuit. It contains the Latin vulgate translation of every word in the Hebrew Bible: thus establishing perfect equality in point of authority, between that version and the original, as the Council of Trent had decreed; whence of course it would follow that Hebrew was of no value to the theological student, and the study of it a mere waste of time to him. Both these conclusions it was the object of the work to establish. This book was in high repute among the Hebrew students of Europe for many years after its first appearance. It maintained a high character, which as a literary work it certainly deserves, with Protestants as well as Catholics. Nor was it until the commencement of the following century, that it was, in a measure, superseded by the Lexicon Manuale of the younger Buxtorff. We must now consider the state of Hebrew literature in England during this, the period of its dawn in Europe. If there be any truth in the aphorism of Butler that "Hebrew roots are always found To flourish best in barren ground," we are paying our own country a very high compliment when we state, that the contributions of English scholars to the progress of At the Hebrew learning, have never been very important ones. period now under review, Hebrew was certainly talked about in England, but so far as appears, scarcely at all understood. It was considered as a flourish at the summit of the capital that surmounted the ponderous column of theological learning. The utmost to which the most learned of the Elizabethan divines aspired was, to "paddle a little in Hebrew." paddle a little in Hebrew." Quotations in that language (in type worn until scarcely legible, evidently the imported refuse of the Dutch press) may occasionally be found in the huge pages of the ponderous folios wherein these divines blew their thoughts into bubbles;-but they appear to be there merely as a typographical ornature. What other purpose they answered it would be hard to say, except perhaps occasionally to clench the matter in hand against a Jesuit or Puritan antagonist with an "as the Hebrew hath it." Illustration they afford none; inasmuch as the acquaintance of the worthy author with the language he quotes, extends just far enough to enable him to identify the quotation; and evidently no further. The reigns of James and his unhappy son witnessed the rapid advance of a tone of pedantic dogmatism, especially among the court divines, which brought the quotation of Hebrew in tractates and discourses into especial favour. The appearance of the Hebrew Bible of Arius Montanus the Jesuit, with an interlineary Latin translation, had given them considerable facilities over their predecessors, of which they took the advantage. Hebrew quotations abound in the controversial writings of the time. But it will be found that the quotation might just as well (and with much economy of space and trouble to the printer) have been confined to Montanus's Latin, inasmuch as it is with that alone that the learned quotator has any real acquaintance. The necessity, however, of Hebrew learning in England was evidently pressing itself upon the notice of those who had the entire control of its education. The foundation of one or two of the Hebrew professorships at the universities, and the liberality of Laud in presenting Oriental manuscripts to the libraries at Oxford, are matters too familiar to the general reader to require an extended notice on the present occasion. The authorized version of the Bible also belongs to this period. The profoundly learned scholars to whom it was entrusted, took the utmost advantage of the critical labours of the continental divines. Their own attainments in Hebrew were also far in advance of their age and country. It is, however, remarkable that no elementary works on Hebrew of any note appeared in England at this period. The earliest |