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It is here also not unimportant to remark, that in the second and third centuries there existed throughout all the churches a tendency to lose sight of the distinction between the economies of the Old and New Testament, and to overlay the liberty and simplicity of the latter with institutions and observances drawn from the former. Thus there was introduced into Christianity a separate priesthood sustained by tithes; a division of the church-buildings, resembling that of the temple; the offering of incense; and many other rites and ceremonies and customs, borrowed from the Mosaic ritual and laws.* All this was adopted from the Old Testament, as the authoritative rule of the Jewish economy, and became current more or less throughout Christendom to the present day. Most obviously, however, it all affords no evidence whatever of any identity of lineage between Christians and Jews.

We have yet to take up the arguments which Dr. Grant derives from the language, the traditions, and the country of the Nestorians.

The Nestorians, it appears, urge the resemblance of their own language to the Hebrew, as an evidence of their descent from the Jews. The argument is dangerous; for it proves rather the ignorance and credulity of those who thus employ it. It proves also far too much for their purpose, or that of Dr. Grant ; since, allowing for it the force which they claim, then all other Christians of the Syriac church, who still know no other than the Syriac liturgy and church books, must also for the same reason be of Jewish descent. Such are the Jacobite Syrians and the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. Nor does it avail to say, that these Christians no longer speak the Syriac; for the evidence is unquestionable, that the Syriac was once their vernacular tongue, and has only been supplanted by the kindred Arabic in no very remote centuries. Indeed, the Syriac is to this day spoken in a corrupt form in a few villages around Malula in the north Damascus ; and it would be interesting, had we the materials, to trace the relation between this dialect and that of the Nestorians. Further, the argument cannot be limited to the Syriac tongue; but would prove, in itself, with equal strength, that the many millions to whom the Arabic language is vernacular, must also be descended from the Hebrew stock.

* See Neander's Kirchengesch. Bd. I. p. 297–299. Perkins on the Nestorians, Am. Bibl. Repos. Jan. 1841. p. 2. Bibl. Research. in Palest. III. App. p.. 172. Compare Browne's Travels, p. 405. Volney Voyage, I. p. 231, seq.

But Dr. Grant derives what he supposes to be a still stronger argument, from the close resemblance between the spoken language of the Nestorians, which may properly be called modern Syriac, and the language spoken by the Jews resident among them. This resemblance is so strong, that individuals of the two races are able to understand each other without difficulty, each speaking his own tongue. This Jewish idiom Mr. Perkins calls 66 a corrupt dialect of the Hebrew;" Messrs. Holladay and Stocking regard it and the modern Syriac " as different dialects of the same language;" while Dr. Grant, more in accordance with his theory, pronounces "the vulgar Syriac to be the vernacular tongue of the Jews, and to be spoken as exclusively in their families as it is in the domestic circle of the Nestorians."* Of this Jewish dialect there appears to be no written documents whatever; so that we are without any means of ascertaining its real character. In the mean time, whether it be of Syriac or Hebrew origin, there are two ways of accounting for its existence in that region.

One, and perhaps not the least unlikely, is the supposition, that these resident Jews may have adopted the language of the country, giving to it certain features of dialectical difference. It is at least the characteristic of all other Jews, in every nation where they have become domesticated, thus to conform in general to the language of those around them; while they nevertheless give to it a peculiar form. Thus in Germany, the common Jews everywhere speak a German so corrupt and disfigured, chiefly by Hebrew or Rabbinic words, as to be scarcely intelligible to the Germans themselves. In Spain likewise, the Hebrew-Spanish has assumed a character so definite, as to have spread into the Levant and become the leading dialect of the Jews in Turkey. It is a sort of mongrel tongue; yet so important and so current, that Mr. Schauffler has translated and is now printing in it an edition of the Scriptures, for the use of the multitudes of Jews who use it, but can read neither Hebrew nor Spanish. The supposition certainly does not lie very remote, that something of the same kind may have taken place among the Jews mingled with the Nestorians (if their language be in fact the same); where a general affinity of language and other circumstances, would naturally lead to less striking diversities of dialect, than in the examples above given.

* See the former part of this article, Vol. VI. p. 460. Dr. Grant, pp. 180, 181.

But should it hereafter turn out, that the language of these Jews has a nearer relationship to the Hebrew, or rather the Chaldaic, this might be readily accounted for in another way. In connection with the exile, the ancient Jews, as we know, laid aside the common use of the Hebrew tongue, and adopted the Aramean, the language of their conquerors, among whom they dwelt. In the times of the New Testament, the Aramean, as we know, had extended itself as the dialect of common life, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Tigris at least, and probably much further; except as the Greek was also partially spoken in Palestine and elsewhere. Of this early Aramean, no documents survive from the heathen nations to whom it was vernacular; all we know of it has come down to us through the Jews and Christians.

From the Jews we have in this dialect portions of the books of Daniel and Ezra, which exhibit a strong coloring of the Hebrew; and also the Targums, or translations of parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, apparently much nearer to the language of the common people. These documents extend over a long period, from the exile to several centuries after Christ; and constitute all our materials for a knowledge of the Chaldaic tongue so called, or in other words the Jewish Aramean. The language of the learned Jews of the great school of Tiberias in the third and fourth centuries, as it appears in the Jerusalem Talmud, exhibits the same general features, with a constant tendency to further decay; and this was continued in the still greater school of Babylon, whence the Babylonian Talmud emanated about the sixth century. Similar schools of Jewish learning flourished in Mesopotamia and Persia as far down as into the eleventh century. So late as after the middle of the twelfth, Benjamin of Tudela found at Mosul seven thousand Jews with Rabbins claiming to be of the race of David at their head; and at Bagdad he speaks of various academies or councils of Rabbins, over whom presided a Rabbi Daniel with the title of "Prince of the Captivity;" apparently a worthy predecessor of our occidental "Judge of Israel." The same species of Jewish learning and learned schools revived and flourished after the crusades, at Safed, in the north of Palestine.‡

*

*Nordheimer's Hist. Sketch of the Rabbinical Schools in Persia, Am. Bibl. Repos. July 1841, pp. 154-163. † Benj. de Tud. par Baratier, pp. 131, 146. Bibl. Res. in Palest. III. p. 331, seq.

The documents of the Aramean which we have from Christian hands, extend down from the Peshito or ancient Syriac version of the Scriptures (including the New Testament) through a long series of writers, from the venerable Ephrem Syrus in the fourth century to Bar Hebraeus in the thirteenth. This is the common Syriac tongue, so called, or Christian Aramean; and there is no evidence either in its history or character, that it originally differed from the Chaldaic, except in the alphabet; like the Servian and Illyrian of the present day. But in a course of ages, differences would naturally and unavoidably arise in the language, as employed and written by different races and the followers of different religions; and thus dialects would arise; just as in modern times they have arisen among the various Slavic tribes out of the old Slavonic, the common source of all. Still, these idioms, although quite distinct, would naturally retain so much affinity, that the common people of the two races would not be hindered from readily understanding one another, while each spoke his own dialect. Such at least is the case among the various Slavic races; the Servian can hold converse with the Bohemian; and the Pole with the Russian; and we know too, notwithstanding the apparent diversity of the written languages of Denmark and Sweden, that the common people of the two countries are daily in the habit of communicating understandingly with each other, through the medium each of his own tongue.

We have thus traced the history of the two great divisions of the Aramean, in order to show, that while the Nestorians, as we know, have a corrupted dialect of the Syriac, it would be perfectly analogous, should the Jews among them, the relatives, at least, if not the descendants, of those of Mesopotamia and Persia,-be found to speak a corrupt Chaldaic; and should this turn out to be so, this circumstance would be sufficient to account for all the facts presented in the case.

We do not think it necessary to travel through the conjectural argument of Dr. Grant, by which he persuades himself, that it is not difficult to account for the fact, that the ten tribes, before their captivity, spoke the Syriac language!" p. 187. We would merely remark, that this fact rests on no foundation whatever; for all the historical testimony extant, is on the other side. It is a mere airy nothing; in which, if in nothing else, the author certainly has the merit of entire originality.

We turn now to the tradition current among the Nestorians, that they are the descendants of the ten tribes. "Common, and perhaps universal tradition among themselves, claims the Jews as their ancestors.'* This would indeed be a singular and striking circumstance, did we not find similar traditions among other tribes of interior Asia, where they can be still less readily accounted for, and yet scem to prove nothing. Some of these we shall refer to afterwards. It may here be proper to remark, that in the east, and especially in the Christian churches of the east, there exist multitudes of traditions, referring back to the very earliest ages, and often recounting the origin and spread of their own communion and rites. Of these traditions, many bear upon their face the stamp of legendary invention; while others, having perhaps a slight foundation in truth, have been dressed out with legendary circumstances, until the little which was once true, is no longer to be recognized.

An example or two may suffice to show the nature and value of these traditions. In Palestine, for instance, every ancient church is uniformly referred by priests and people to the munificence of the empress Helena; and if we take the pains to examine the Greek historians of the middle ages, we find it recorded, that the devout Helena did actually provide for the erection of more than thirty churches in the Holy Land.† But if we go back to earlier writers, to Eusebius and others who were cotemporary with, or lived just after Helena, we find them utterly silent as to any such extensive munificence on her part; and with one voice they relate only that she built churches at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives, and perhaps took part in that of the Holy Sepulchre.‡ In like manner, the church thus erected by Helena upon the summit of the Mount of Olives, was placed there in consequence of a tradition, that this was the place of our Lord's ascension,—a tradition which existed at least as early as the third century, when pilgrimages were already made to that spot. Yet the tradition was and is necessarily false; because it contradicts the express words of the sacred writer; who declares that our Lord led his disciples out as far

*Perkins in Am. Bib. Repos. Jan. 1841, p. 2. Dwight, II. p. 242.

Smith and

† So Niceph. Callist. about A. D. 130. H. E. VIII. 30. See Bibl. Researches in Palest. II. pp. 16, 17.

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