give in the margin (C); but that they are the most negligent in that important point, leaping over whole fcores of years, if (C) We need not here repeat what we have obferved in our ancient history of the imperfect calculations of the antient Jerus (7), before the Babylonish captivity. And though it was in fome measure rectified, as we have elsewhere fhewn under the Maccabitifh princes (8), yet was this amendment far enough from being fo exact as thofe of other nations. Befides, their writers made no fcruple to compute their years from different æras, fuch as from the flood, from Abraham's or Jacob's defcent into Egypt, others from the exod, from their being formed into a monarchy, from the first or second deftruction of the temple under Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, &c. And it doth not appear, that they began to reckon from the creation till after their Gemarrah was finished; at which time they fixed that for their common æra. But, in this, we muft obferve, that the Ferus fince fix the birth of Chrift in the year of the world 3760, contrary to our chronology, which fixes it at the end of the 4th millenary, fo that they come fhort by 240 years from ours; for add that number to 3760, and that makes up the whole 4000 years. But, befides this, they have another, which they call the leffer reckoning, in which they throw off all the millenaries, and reckon only the years that have elapfed fince the laft; which being add not ed to the 240 years above-mentioned, brings it exactly to the chriftian æra. Thus when we read of any of their famed Rabbies who flourished, or of any perfecution, or other confiderable event that happened to them in the year 460, according to this leffer calculation, the above-mentioned addition of 240 to that number will bring it to the 700 of Jefus Christ, and fo of the reft. Our readers will not be difpleased to have a farther and fuller idea given them of this new way of the Jewish computation which is taken from the year of our Christian æra 1674, which was with them, according to their short reckon- ` or 435th year, their chronology "ran thus (9): תלה ing, the year From the 5435 3779 3439 3487 3387 3327 3197 3067 2987 2947 Creation Flood Confufion of tongues Birth of Abraham -of Ifaac of Jacob Defcent into Egypt Birth of Mofes Exod, and the giving of the law Entrance into Canaan Anointing of David king 2547 Building of the temple 2507 Captivity of the ten tribes 2231 Destruction of the first temple Beginning of the Mede and Perfian monarchy 2097 2046 (7) See vol. iii. p. 22. fub note p. 30, & feq. p. 36, and notes p. 238, & feq. (8) See Anc. Hift. vol. x. p. 177, & f1. p. 302 (K) & alib, poff. (9) See Bafnage Hift. des Juifs, lib. vi. c. 29. From not fometimes more than a whole century, to make their fabulous conceits coincide, of which we may have occasion to give fome pregnant inftances in the fequel; it will be no wonder that we decline a tafk, which would make us continually liable to stop, either to confute fome of their abfurd fables, or rectify their wretched anachronisms. FOR, with respect to this tafk, they appear wholly careless and unconcerned about it; and, as long they know, that their people never read any of our books, and wholly rely upon their own, they are in no pain about any objection we raise against them, or any error or falfhood we prove against them. more un known to Jus. WITH relation to the history of the eastern Jews we are Eaftern ftill more in the dark. The Jews themselves being ignorant of Jews fill what hath happened to their brethren in those remote countries; and having received but a very imperfect intelligence from thence, either from books written there, or from any epiftolary intercourse. Their chronologers have indeed taken the pains to tranfmit the names of those doctors who have prefided at their most celebrated schools, both in the east and in the weft; but they speak rarely of those whom they style the chiefs or princes of the captivity, in the former. We find at most but three of them mentioned from Huna, who was the first of them (D), to the time of the finishing of the Talmud, Jews banished out of France 279. 183 175 Ceffation of prophecy 1982 Beginning of the Afmonean kingdom 1772 Beginning of the Chriftian æra 1674 (D) This chief did not flourish till about the End of the fecond century of the Chriftian æra, and was cotemporary, according to the Jewish chronologers, [except D. Gantz, who makes him near a century more recent] with the famed Jehudah Hakkodef, or the faint of whom we shall speak in the fequel; and was chofen chief of the oriental Jews about an. Ch. 220, or 222. Before him we meet with no mention of any; and we may affirm, that in the west that dignity did not begin till after the deftruction of JerufaK 2 Jem B. XVI. Chiefs or that is, during the space of three whole centuries; which is princes of a plain proof that they knew little of them, or, at least, that the capti thofe fo much boafted dignities were inconfiderable there, and had little or nothing in them that could raise the honour or credit of the Jewish nation; as the learned Mr. Bafnage, whom we have chofen to follow in the most material tranfactions of this history (E), hath fully proved in his. And yet fome of vity. lem; for till then, thofe that Some critics (10) indeed pre- the rias, being the only one acknowleged in the Roman empire, the other feems of courfe to have been fubje& unto him. But as to that of Babylon, who was independent of the Romans, it is more likely that the Jews chofe him there to exempt themselves from the homage and tribute which thofe of Judea exacted from them. It were prefumptuous to affirm any thing pofitively in fo dark and difputed a matter; and we fhall trouble our readers no farther with it. (E) We do here readily acknowlege, that we have for the most part chosen to follow that excellent author in the fequel of this chapter, not only as his hiftory of the Jews from their difperfion is the moft elaborate and diffused, but as it hath hitherto been efteemed by the learned the most exact and accurate; and hath stood the test of fo many editions in other countries as well as in Holland; infomuch that the editor of that of Paris, the famed Dupin, who published it without the author's name, hath not been able to accufe him of any one material error or omiffion; tho' he hath made no fcruple to curtail and caftrate it of a great number of facts and remarks (10) Vide Garbofred. Cod. Theod. tom. viii. c. 21. Vide Bafnage, ubi fup. lib. i. c. 4 the Jews pretend that thefe chiefs were fuperior in dignity and authority to the patriarch of Judea; because all that which he thought would difplease those of his own church. We have had two editions of it in English; the first by Mr. Tho. Taylor, A. M. ann. 1708, which the author himself owns to be faithful and exact; and the other, which is rather an abridgment of it, by J. Cruth, M.D. F.R.S. in two vols. 8vo. and printed in the fame yearBut we have chofen to follow the last French edition, which Mr. Bafnage hath not only much enlarged, but hath cleared it from all the little cavils raised against it on the other fide of the water; for on this fide his work hath met with all the kind reception which it fo justly deferves. In his preface to this new edition, that learned author hath not only acknowleged and corrected every fault, fupplied every omiffion, which hath been objected to his first, and expofed the unfair practice by which his pirated and mangled history was ushered into the world by Mr. Dupin, and his learned licenser Arnaudin, but hath been at the pains to confute a great number of objections raifed against him, with more prejudice and partiality than reafon or candor from thofe of the Roman church; among which we may reckon thofe of the learned father Hardouin, written chiefly in vindication of his own chimerical fyftems, which yet his whole fociety were fo much ashamed of, as to oblige him to recant it, notwithstanding the great honour and commendation, which they forefaw fuch were a public act muft reflect on the Jewish history and its author, a perfon, in all other refpects, the leaft in favour with the Jefuitical Society. Some other libels, as we may juftly ftile them, came out against his learned work from the fame Romish quarter; one in particu lar written by Mr. Simon, tho' published by his kinfman Barat, anno 1714; to fay nothing of fome others from the monkish tribe, not worth mentioning here; all which the author hath likewife condescended to give a full and fatisfactory answer, either in the faid preface, p. 10, & feq. or in the body of the book; on which, for that reason, we shall not dwell longer But there is still an extraordinary one which we cannot, in juftice to the author and ourselves, omit taking notice of, as it came out from a very oppofite quarter; and, by its menacing ftile and afpect, joined to a more than common difplay of learning, feemed to threaten no lefs than the utter explosion of that great and learned work, and the ruin of its author's character. This fingular piece was published under the pompous title of Entretiens fur divers fujets d' Hiftoire, de Religi on, Litterature, & de Critique; but the writer, who was likewife a minifter of the French reformed church, and had been librarykeeper to one of the late kings of Pruffia, prudently conceals his name, as well he might; and, to give his cenfures the greater fanction, puts them into the mouth of a pretended Jew, but half converted to Christiani were left of the race of David are affirmed to have left that province, and to have retired into that of Babylon, where ty, by way of dialogue; in which himfelf bears no other part than that of commending, applauding, and fometimes backing, his objections with fome fpecious proof, but more frequently by prefacing them with expreffions the most derogatory, and reflecting on his antagonist, or with fome fulfome encomium on his pretended Jew. The two firft dialogues being merely introductory to his defign, and to apprize the readers, how this Aboab (that is the Jew's name) came by his ftock of polite literature, we fhall fay no more of it, but proceed to the third, where the threatened cenfure on the Jervish history begins at p. 126, and ends at P. 244. Aboab comes punctually at the hour, is fo eager to vent his fpleen against his adverfary, that he breaks out with this exclamation, Di magni borribilem & facrum libellum! and then bluntly opens his firft hea vy charge against our hiftorian, which is, that he hath falfly accufed the Jews of preferring their Talmud to the Sacred Scripture, by their comparing the latter to water, and the former to wine. We have formerly obferved t, that the Talmudifts compared the Written Law to water, the Mishna to wine, and the Gemarra to hippocras, or a rich compound wine. The fact is fo undoubted, that no few, before his pretended Aboab, ever denied or pretended to difprove it; and he is the firft, if not the they only one, who hath attempted to expound that proverbial faying in a quite oppofite fenfe. The method he takes to do it is no lefs new and fingular; water, fays he, being the most use ful and neceffary liquor, efpecially to the Jews, on account of their frequent washings and legal purifications, it plainly follows, that the comparing the written law to it must imply their giving the preference to it on the very account. A man muft indeed have the ftupidity as well as impudence of the worst of Jews, to father fuch an unheard of expofition on atalmudift, fo contrary to their avow ed fenfe of it, and to the manifeft import of the gradation from water to wine, and from com. mon wine to the most excellent and cordial of that kind. Mr. La Croze therefore rightly judg ed, that fuch an unfair and unjuft cenfure would better fit the mouth of a few in nubibus, than the pen of a proteftant: though, in order to qualify him for that part, and to give fome colour of reafon to his cenfure, he hath been forced to fupply him with fome quotations out of the Greek poets, and other parts of literature; for which the talmudifts always expreffed a more than ordinary contempt. But there was ftill, it seems, a farther occafion for furnishing his Aboab with all this pompous fhew of literature, as the bulk of his cenfures were to be merely critical, and of the lowest of that kind, and every Hebrew, Greek, or Latin (†) Annot, bib, vol, iii. p. 5, note B. word |