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faying, that he had before offered all the conjecture, that either he, or any man could offer. Mr. Toinarda, a French gentleman (who was reputed in his country one of the greatest scholars of the age), compofed a Harmony of the Gofpels in Greek, which was published about a year after his death, (A. D. 1707.) in which he feems to be of the very fame opinion with Mr. Whifton in this matter. I have not been able to procure the book itself; and so could not compare his and' Mr. Whiston's Harmony together. A general account of his opinion I learnt from the abftract of his book, which Mr." Le Clerc hath given us in his Bibliothéque Choifie, and from a short paragraph out of his Prolegomena, which Mr. Whif ton did me the honour to fend me. His words are to this purpofe; "St. Matthew's text was the only one of the four "Evangelifts, which I could not always place in my Har-.

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mony in that fame order, in which it is in our common co"pies; because from the twenty-fecond verfe of the fourth "chapter, to the thirteenth verfe of the fourteenth chapter, he "differs very much from the order of the other Evangelists. "This indeed seems very ftrange, when we confider, that the "Evangelift St. Mark, who feems to be a fort of an epi"tomizer of him, does exactly agree with St. Luke and St. "John, in relating all those particulars, which are now so "much tranfpofed in St. Matthew. This feems very hard to

See his character in the fupplement to the laft edition of Mr. Moreri's French Dictionary.

b Toutes les Evangeliftes font dans l'ordre, auquel ils ont écrit, excepté St. Matthieu, depuis le chap. iv. 22. jufqu'au chap. xiv. 13. parce qu'en cela cet Evangelitte s'eft éloigné de l'ordre des autres. Mr. Toinard ne fait, d'où ce défordre peut être arrivé, à moins que depuis le commencement, les papiers de l'Evangeliste n'aient été tranfpofés par quelque accident. Biblioth. Choifie, tom. 15. Art. 5. P. 251.

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Matthæi folius ex quatuor Evangeliis textum, eodem quo in

vulgatis legitur ordine, a principio ad finem exhibere non licuit, propterea quod ab aliorum Evangeliftarum ordine, a capitis quarti Evangelii fui verfu vicefimo fecundo, ad ejufdem Evangelii capitis decimi quarti verfum decimum tertium, plurimum difcedit. Quod fane mirari fubit; cum Evangelifta Marcus, ejus veluti epitomator, cum Luca et Joanne æquo pede in iis omnibus narrandis decurrat, quæ apud Matthæum varie tranfpofita leguntur. Quod unde evenerit, nifi ex perturbatione aliqua eaque antiquiffima Schedarum Evangelista hujus, difficile eft perfpicere. Proleg.

P. 5.

"be

"be accounted for, unless we fuppofe it done by fome very "antient confufion, or diforder, of the fheets (or papers) on "which this Gospel was wrote."

This is the hypothefis of these two learned men: it is ftrange a propofition, which feems fo much to need proof, fhould by them be taken for granted. This is fuch a postulatum, as one very feldom meets with; and it will be fo far from being granted to Mr. Whifton to be a truth, that needs not to be proved, (viz. that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel on loofe fcraps of paper) that it will appear to every impartial examiner to be a most unreasonable fuppofition. For the manifesting of this, I shall offer the best proof I can; and if it fhould be thought by any, that I have been at more pains in confuting this hypothefis, than was neceflary; I defire it may be confidered, that my arguing tends not only to overthrowthis propofition, about St. Matthew's Gofpel being difordered, but may be made ufe of (at least a good part of it) against Spinoza, Father Simon, and Mr. Whifton's opinion of several books of the Old Teftament, which has been mentioned in the Preface.

The method I defign to proceed in fhall be; firft, to fhew, what the manner of writing among the antients was, and particularly, after what manner the Jews wrote in our Saviour's time; and from thence fhew, how highly abfurd it is to imagine, that St. Matthew wrote after that manner, which Mr. Whifton fuppofes.

The accounts we have from antiquity of their manner of writing, are very defective and imperfect; and it is with not fmall difficulty and pains, that we are able to fay any thing. clear on this head. The firft and moft antient account that we have of any writing, is that which Jofephus tells us of the fons of Seth, before the flood; viz. that they " having made " some obfervations about the heavenly bodies, that they might "not be loft, made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of "stone, on both of which they wrote the discoveries they had "made; &c. a" It was after this manner the Decalogue was wrote,

a

Σοφίαν τε τὴν περὶ τὰ ἐράνια, καὶ τὴν τούτων διακόσμησιν ἐπενόησαν·

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wrote, viz. on tables of stonea. In fucceeding ages they were wont to write, in feveral countries, upon leaves of fome certain trees, which they found moft convenient to their purpose. Pliny tells us, these were made use of for writing before the invention of paper, and particularly the leaves of palm-trees; and that afterwards they wrote upon the inner bark of fone trees. What these trees were, we are informed by that learned antiquary Alexander ab Alexandro. Afterwards, they wrote their publick records in volumes or rolls of lead, and their private matters on fine linen and wax, as the fame authors tell usa; hence Suidas alfo tells us of writing upon plates or leaves of lead. And this (if I may be allowed to guess) seems to be a method of writing, which was in use in the time of Job, as is intimated in these words, ch. xix. 23, 24. Oh that my words were now written; ob that they were printed in a book; that they were graven with an iron pen and lead, in the rock for Hence we read in Suetonius, that Nero made ufe of a plumbea charta, a plate of lead, called charta, not only because it was like it in form, but because they used to write not only on paper, but on plates of lead f.

ever.

Afterwards, viz. about the time when Alexander the Great was in Egypt, the use of paper was first found out; I do not mean fuch fort of paper as we now use, but the inner coat or fkin of the great Ægyptian rufh, which they called papyrus, from whence comes our prefent English word paper. The coats or thin skins of this rush, when duly dried and prepared

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for use, they called charta. A larger account of the nature of this material for writing, the reader may fee in the place of Pliny last referred toa, and concerning the time of its invention, Polydore Vergil. Now if indeed any of those forementioned had been the method of writing in ufe among the Jews, when St. Matthew wrote his Gofpel, there had then been a much better foundation for the conjecture of Mr. Whiston and Mr. Toinard, than there really is. Had it been then the custom to write upon the leaves of palm-trees, or the little skin or inner bark of any other trees, the leaves of their books must have been very small, and consequently must consist of a great number of feparate pieces and scraps; and so perhaps, by reafon of the difficulty of fastening them together, would be more liable to confufion and misplacing. But it is very certain none of these methods were then in ufe amongst the Jews. If ever they were in ufe among them, they had now for a long time been disused, and another more expedient, and får more commodious invented, as will appear in the following chapter.

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CHAP. XV.

That St. Matthew did not write his Gospel on fmall Pieces of Paper, proved by a large Differtation on the Manner, in which the Antients wrote their Books. The ordinary Method was to write on large Skins, which were faftened together, and rolled up. This the Practice of the Jews long before, and in our Saviour's Time. The Words opened and closed the Book, Luke iv. 17, 20. difcuffed. The Words, Bring the Parchments, 2 Tim. iv. 13. confidered. It does not appear that the Jews made ufe of Paper, or any other Material befides that mentioned, to write their Books upon.

HAV

AVING, in the foregoing Chapter, premised some short account of the various methods of writing in ufe among the antients, I come now to confider, that which was of all the most common, viz. the writing on large fkins of parchment, which they rolled up. This was the way, in which the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, wrote their books, both before, and in our Saviour's time; and therefore it is very probable, this was the way St. Matthew wrote his Gospel, and not on small scraps or scrolls of paper. For the manifefting of this matter, I will endeavour to fhew,

1. That the antients did very much make use of parchment, or large fkins, to write upon.

2. That when they had wrote on these, they were wont to faften them together, and roll them up.

3. That the Jews long before our Saviour's time did write their books after this manner.

4. That the Jews ufually wrote thus about the time, when St. Matthew wrote his Gospel.

These things fully fhewn, will make the fuppofition of St. Matthew's writing his book upon small pieces, or scraps of paper (fome of which would not contain above a line or two), very abfurd and unreasonable.

1. The antients did very much use parchment, or large skins,

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