readings have been actually selected from the manuscripts of the Old Testament, it would not be worth our while to expostulate.

In justice, however, to this subject, and to allay the fears of well meaning men, who are not experienced in matters of criticism, and therefore often exposed to be agitated with groundless. fears, we must say a few words with respect to the danger of the position that has been now discussed.

A great part of it is evidently imaginary. For out of some eight hundred thousand various readings, some seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand are of just about as much importance to the sense of the Hebrew Scriptures, as the question in English orthography is, whether the word honour shall be spelled with u or without it. Of the remainder, some change the sense of particular passages or expressions; or omit particular words and phrases; or insert them; but not one doctrine of religion. is changed; not one precept is taken away; not one important fact is altered, by the whole of the various readings collectively taken. This is clearly the case, in respect to the various readings which are found in the Samaritan and Septuagint, if we except the very few cases of alterations in them, which plainly are the result of design, and which belong to more modern times. There is no ground then to fear for the safety of the Scriptures, on account of any legitimate criticism to which the text may be subjected. The common law has a maxim, which is the result of common sense, and must ever be approved by it; which is, De minimis non curat lex. Another maxim too it has, equally applicable to the subject before us, namely, Qui hæret in literâ, hæret in cortice. All those, who suppose that the Scripture depends on a word or a letter so essentially, that it is not Scripture if either be changed or omitted, must, if they will be consistent, abandon the whole Bible, in which many changes of this kind, it is past all question, have actually taken place. The critic wonders not that so many have taken place, but that no more have been experienced.

It is sometimes said, that he who knows nothing, fears nothing.' We believe this is occasionally true. But we apprehend the proverb would have come much nearer to a true statement of what usually happens, if it had been thus: He who knows nothing fears every thing.' In innumerable cases do we see this verified. It is quite applicable to the subject of various readings in the Scriptures. The first attempt to compare manuscripts and collect these readings, was denounced as something

horribly profane and dangerous. Yet the comparison went on. Next, it was admitted to be right in respect to the New Testament, but very wrong in regard to the Old; every word, and letter, and vowel point, and accent of which, Buxtorf roundly asserted, are identically the same, all the world over. More than eight hundred thousand various readings actually collected have dissipated this illusion, and taught how groundless the fears of those were, who were altogether inexperienced in the criticism of the sacred text. Do Christians love and honour the Bible or its contents less now, than before the age of criticism? Let the present attitude of the Christian world answer this question.

Jerome, long ago, had shrewdness enough to say, that 'the Scripture was not the shell, but the nut; by which he meant, that the sentiment of the Bible is the word of God, while the costume, that is, the words in which this sentiment is conveyed, is of minor importance.

So the apostles and so the Saviour thought; for they have, in a multitude of cases, (indeed, in almost all the appeals recorded in the New Testament,) appealed to the authority of the Old Testament, by quoting the Septuagint version of it; a version incomparably more incorrect, and differing from the original Hebrew in innumerably more places, than the very worst version made in any modern times. But, de minimis non curat lex ; a truly noble maxim; yet one which superstition or ignorance knows not well how either to use or to estimate.

There is, then, no more danger, in supposing that very early there were different recensions of the Hebrew Scriptures, than in supposing, that there are different ones of the Scriptures of the New Testament; which all now admit, for it is not a matter of opinion and judgment, but of fact. The Bible, spreading through the whole earth, and becoming the rule of life and salvation to all nations, is, at least, as important now, as it was when only one small nation admitted its claims. It is surely no more an objection, then, against the watchful care of Providence over the church and the records of its holy religion, to admit that divers recensions of the Scriptures existed at an early age, than to admit that they now exist.

Thus much for the danger of the principle, which we have admitted. We will now add, that if those who cherish any apprehensions of the kind which we have endeavored to remove, will faithfully examine the Hebrew Scriptures as they now

stand, they will find discrepancies in the recensions of the same compositions, which stand inserted in different places of the sacred records. Let them compare, for example, 2 Sam. xxii, and Ps. xviii; Ps. xiv, and Ps. liii; Ps. cv, and 1 Chron. xvi. 7, seq. If this do not satisfy them, we will point them to some more appalling comparisons, which they may make by reading Ezra ii, in connexion with Neh. vii. 6, seq. It were very easy to extend the same kind of comparisons to a multitude of places in the books of Kings and Chronicles, where the result would be the same. Those who have examined such matters, never can doubt how they stand; it is only those who have not examined them, that pronounce a judgment which has its foundation only in their own theological views, or depends on reasoning à priori. Facts cannot be denied; nor can facts be theorized away.

In the end, which is the safer way, in respect to the interests of truth and religion? to assume positions on mere doctrinal grounds, and established only by reasoning à priori, which will be overthrown by the careful examination of facts; or to examine facts first, and then to make out positions that are not liable to be overthrown? The first method may wear the appearance of zeal and deep concern for the honour of the Bible; but zeal without knowledge is not very auspicious to the best interests of the truth. The fact is, too, that in many cases of such zeal, it amounts to very little more than a cloak to cover ignorance of a matter which men have not studied, and which it gives them pain to see that others have. How prone men are to regard that as worthless, which they do not possess, or to decry it, and to make it obnoxious, need not be proved, after all the facts which lie before the world relative to such matters.

For our part, we believe that truth needs no concealment ; and that at the present day, it admits none. The Bible has nothing to fear from examination. It has ever been illustrated and confirmed by it. We doubt not it will be still more so. But all pious fraud, all expurgatory indexes,' all suppression of facts and truths of any kind, only prove injurious, at last, to the cause, which they are designed to aid. This is a sufficient reason for abjuring them forever; not to insist on the disingenuousness, which is implied in every artifice of this nature.

The fact, that various readings are found, not only in different classes of manuscripts, which have come down to us through different channels, but in cases where the same original docu

ments are inserted in different places of the same class of manuscripts, is proved beyond contradiction. The first, by the actual comparison of manuscripts; the second, by a comparison of such parts of Scriptures as we have last alluded to above. Such a comparison may be extended very much farther, indeed to a great portion of the books of Chronicles, by reading them in connexion with the parallel passages in the books of Kings, and other parts of the Old Testament. Jahn's Hebrew Bible is not only the best, but the only work, which will enable one to do this without any trouble; as he has disposed of the whole books of the Chronicles in the way of harmony with other parts of Scripture. One thorough perusal and study of this, will effectually cure any sober man of all extravagant positions and theories about the letters and apexes of the Bible, and probably of all extravagant notions about verbal inspiration. Those who have never examined, are the only persons to be confident in such minima as these; those who have, pass by them in silence.

But we are diverging from our way, and hasten to return. We have only one topic more, respecting the Samaritan Pentateuch, which remains briefly to be touched.

It will be understood, of course, by every scholar who knows any thing of the Samaritan Pentateuch, that it is not in the later Samaritan dialect, but in the proper Hebrew tongue; like the Pentateuch in our Hebrew Bibles, except that it is written in the old Hebrew character, which the Samaritans have always retained, with only slight variations. Of this document, and this only, have we hitherto spoken, whenever the Samaritan Pentateuch has been named. But we come now to state, that there is a translation of the Hebrew Samaritan Pentateuch into the proper Samaritan dialect, which is a medium between the Hebrew and the Aramæan languages. This version is very ancient; having been made at least before the time of Origen, and not improbably near the commencement of the Christian era. It is very literal, and close to the original; and what is very remarkable, is almost exactly the counterpart of the original Hebrew Samaritan Codex, as it now exists, with all its various readings. This shows, in a degree really surprising, how very carefully and accurately the Hebrew Pentateuch has been copied and preserved by the Samaritans, from the ancient times in which their version was made. This is its greatest value to us; although it is of importance as one of the best means of becoming acquainted with the Samaritan dialect, which has so few remains, and has been so long extinct as a spoken language.

Besides this version of so ancient a date, there is also a version made by Abusaid, in the eleventh or twelfth century, into the Samaritan Arabic dialect, that is, the Arabic as spoken by the Samaritans. The translator appears to have been a man of talents; and he has often hit, in a very happy manner, upon the best way of expressing the real sentiment of the original text in difficult passages.

There are also a few scattered remains of an ancient Greek version, made from the Samaritan Pentateuch, some of which have been collected together by Morin, Hottinger, and Montfaucon; but they are too scanty to be of much critical value.

It is easy to perceive, from what has already been said respecting the important scriptural documents extant among the Samaritans, that their language and history ought to be a matter of deep interest among biblical and oriental critics. It has in fact been occasionally so, at different periods, since the Samaritan Pentateuch was first brought to Europe. Among the older critics, Hottinger, Morin, Cellarius, Reland, Basnage, Castell, and Mill, distinguished themselves by cultivating an acquaintance with these subjects; and they have left behind them various monuments of their progress in the knowledge of them. Among the more recent critics, Schnurrer, Bruns, De Sacy, Winer, and Gesenius, stand most distinguished for this sort of knowledge. The last, in a particular manner, has carried his researches far beyond any of his predecessors. In the year 1820, this celebrated critic made a visit to England, and examined the Samaritan manuscripts deposited in the library at Oxford. Castell, long ago, in his Heptaglott Lexicon, had mentioned some Samaritan documents, which have often been referred to by the name of Liturgia Damascena, from which he gave some extracts in his Annotationes Samaritica. These documents lay in the obscurity in which Castell left them, until Gesenius, on examining them, found them to be hymns of a religious nature. A minute examination enabled him to discover, that they were composed in an alphabetical way; and this led to an arrangement of their several parts, which were before in a confused, chaotic state. From this discovery proceeded the second and third publications, which are named at the head of this article.

The first of these two is a discourse delivered during the solemnities of Christmas, before the university at Halle. It consists of a brief account of the state and sources of Samaritan literature, and an exposition of the theological opinions of the Vol. II. No. 8.

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