To the pursuit and discovery of truth, fashionable modes of thinking, and the prejudices of hoftile parties, have ever been unfavourable. This remark is fatally exemplified in the hiftory of the Pagans, Jews, and Christians. The Pagans, cenfured the Jews because their facred rites and national laws were diverfe from all people and the Jews hated the Pagans, whom they very uncharitably pronounced the profane and accurfed out-cafts from the divine favour. One grievous confequence of predominant degeneracy, among the heathen tribes, was the lofs of primeval tradition; and then vain imaginations fupplied the want of true hiftory. Generations and reigns, multiplied at pleafure, fuggefted the notion of enormous antiquity. This was the prevailing foible of the gentile empires, about the time when the oracles of history and prophecy ceased among the Hebrews, which was the era, or dawn of alphabetical compofition, over the wide domains of paganism: and that foible had become both extravagant and epidemical, in the age, when the MedoPerfian Empire fell. WHEN the Alexandrian interpreters fet about their verfion of the Mofaical volumes, the Egyptians had previously claimed, by immemorial prescription, an origin of 36,000 years prior to Cambyfes; nay Cicero reports, that they boafted of celestial obfervations during the lapfe of 470,000 years. Thofe interpreters, confidering their kingdom as one of the oldest De Divin. 1. 5. in the world, wifhed to impart to the Hebrews, whofe religion they profeffed, a small moiety of the reputation derived from antiquity; and in the manner already fet forth, enlarged the times prior to Abraham, by the addition of 15 fictitious centuries. This is one inftance of fashionable opinions, in their unhappy influence to mislead the minds of men. Other examples are in reserve. 11. A FORMER hint muft here be repeated. Thofe Hellenift Jews, who had been inftructed in the religion of Mofes, and with it in the language of Greece, were generally unacquainted with that in which the Pentateuch, and subsequent volumes of the facred canon, had been compofed. They therefore could not discover the frauds of the tranflators, in amplifying the years of the patriarchal genealogies. Not incongruous with reafon or probability is the furmife, that fome individuals, at least, of thofe Hellenifts, or that multitudes of their defcendants, embraced the gofpel. Such profelytes from Judaism to Chriftianity, doubtlefs continued as ignorant as before, of the primitive Mofaical chronology; and to the writings of Mofes and the Prophets, as then extant in the Greek tongue, were they referred for the things concerning the character of Chrift. Be it not supposed, that Jefus or his apoftles appeared in that age to give the fanction to any one scheme of Chronology. Much more august were the objects of their commiffion. Befides, the true chronological numbers, entire and unvitiated, were then, as now, extant in the Hebrew Pentateuch, the fole and supreme ftandard ftandard for computation in every age. The fact here principally intended is the force of early difcipline, and of immemorial prefcription, on the minds of individuals, fects, and fucceffive generations. It remains to confider the hostile spirit of faction, in its baneful tendency to pervert the human judgement. Of the Chriftian Fathers a very great majority was better acquainted with the Greek, than the Hebrew Bible, and most probably the incredulous Jews of Palestine, in the first century of our era. During the 'currency of that one century, it may be prefumed, the controverfy was firft broached, concerning the time fore-ordained for the appearance of the Meffiah : and the tradition already mentioned feems to have been common to both parties ;—that the vith millenary of the world was the proper date; and, by the Greek computation, the then current century was about the center, or intermediate point, of that age, A. M. 5500. PRESSED with this perplexing difficulty, the Rabbis of that time, who were beft acquainted with the Hebrew notations, betook themselves to the ftudy of the original, and first discovered the profane difingenuity of the Alexandrian interpreters. Thus furnished with well-tempered weapons from the Sacred Armory, thefe Rabbis might, as they very probably did, argue with the Chriftians, that in perfect harmony with the genuine Chronology of the world, as flated by Mofes, 2000 years were then to elapfe before the appearance of the Meffiah. Both parties mifunderflood the SCRIPTURES to which they severally appealed. The Jews erred in deferring the advent of their Prince, to the end of the vith millenary, and the Chriftians, in adding 15 nominal centuries to the then age of the world. The natural effect of fuch remonftrances would have been conviction on both fides. But the Jews continued incredulous, and the Chriftians falfely charged their antagonists with the facrilegious guilt of mutilating their chronology, to elude the characters of time which defined the advent of the Meffiah. 12. JACKSON, with our other modern patrons of the Greek chronology, refers to certain records, where it is affirmed, that the Jews kept a yearly festival in honour of the old Greek verfion, and in pious thankfulness for fo great a bleffing; but that about A. D. 130, they not only declared it to be full of errors, and forbade the reading of it; but also kept a folemn Fast on the 8th day of Tebeth, in order to curse the memory ofits being then made *. On the authority of Philo, a contemporary writer, it is but equitable to admit the fact; because it is not rendered doubtful by contradictory evidence; but the affigned reason, favouring fo ftrongly of calumny and of virulence, may juftly merit reprobation. Inveterate prejudice feels the heart, fo as to obftruct and defeat the operations of fweet humanity, to violate all the regards due to that inviolable, that awful, that sacred thing, TRUTH; and to arm the hand, that organ of fkill, power, and mercy, with the bloody weapons of perfecution. * Kennicott, Differt. ii. p. 366. MAY MAY it not be prefumed, with every signature of truth, that the Jews, yet declared enemies to the doctrine of the crofs, convinced that the Alexandrine verfion of the Pentateuch (from certain finifter motives had been wrested to a partial conformity with the licentious computations of paganifm) had detected the gross prejudices of the unprincipled tranflators, in favour of an incredibly remote antiquity; and, in confequence of a difcovery, at once fo unexpected and important, employed Aquila to prepare a Greek version lefs repugnant to the original. That translation was published, and, in process of time, two more by Theodotion and Symmachus, (all within the space of 70 years, ending A. D. 200), in which the genealogical numbers agree in quantity with the Hebrew texts. "It is remarkable, that Eufebius Emifenus who flourished about A. D. 340, mentions Symmachus, (and not Aquila or Theodotion), as always putting 100 years LESS, in the ancient generations, agreeably to the Hebrew; fo that if the Hebrew chronology was [were] contracted, it was probably done in the interval between Theodotion and Symmachus." The above affertion of Eufebius is given by Montfaucon in his Prelimin. Differt. p. 54*. 13. THIS affertion of Eufebius Emifenus, though approved by Montfaucon and Kennicott, no lefs merits rejection, than the flander raised by the Chriftian Fathers against the Jews of the fecond century, that they mutilated the genealogical notations in their Pen Kennicott, ii. 369. tateuch. |