tion of those nations who had so many means and so many other reasons of communication with the Hebrews. Nor did this decline when the political power of the people began to do so. The withdrawment of the outward favour of Jehovah was not at first connected with the loss of spiritual means. On the contrary, the spirit of inspiration seemed to have been given in special abundance. "The 2 Chron. Lord God of their Fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes and sending, because he had compassion on His people and His dwelling-place." The profound attainments and vast information of the Prophets have been acknowledged on all hands. 66 xxxvi. 15. This Hebrew literature was carefully col- Prideaux. lected in the days of Hezekiah, who maintained skilful scribes to collate together and to write out copies of the Holy Scriptures." And though with the defection of their rulers there was a wide departure from the truth on the part of the people, and it thus became a national sin, yet there is every proof that a large number of the people, in their distress, found their consolation in their sacred books, and carried them as their best possession into the countries whither they were led captive. In later times the Israelites are found in The Jews in Egypt. large numbers in Egypt, either as a place of refuge from their Eastern conquerors, or as a place of captivity. About the year 610 B.C., Necho is a conqueror at Babylon, and unites with his numerous Babylonian captives the king of Judah and many of the inhabitants of JeruAnt. x. 9, 6. salem. And, according to Josephus, many Hebrew refugees went down to Egypt when Jerusalem was finally destroyed. Professional Hebrew scholars. It appears too, that in proportion as the national Hebrews became depressed in their political power, and had nothing else to boast of, they prided themselves in their literature; and when, after the Babylonian Captivity, the dialect in which it was written was no longer understood by the common people, a numerous and respectable profession of scribes made it the whole object of their lives to copy and interpret their sacred books. And with the view, perhaps, of making it more palatable to philosophers of other nations, they seem to have connected with their explanations of these writings some of those Pythagorean and Platonic opinions which had, in fact, originated from the Hebrew Scriptures. And the LXX. translators phic form. adopted many of the terms of this philosophy in their version. Hebrew literature takes a a philoso Septuagint translation. With regard to the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, the colouring which appears in the work of Aristeas, the principal authority for the time and manner in which the LXX. translation was made, has exposed his whole account to the scepticism of some modern writers. With the exception, however, of a few unimportant circumstances, that account has been deemed worthy of credit, not only by ancient writers from Josephus downward, but by the most sober investigators since, at least as to its main features. But Aristobulus, a peripatetic Fabric. 2. Jew, who lived at least as early as Ptolemy Philometer, asserts, that at the instance of Demetrius, under P. Lagus the work was proposed and was carried out under P. Philadelphus. And this testimony is shewn by Hävernick to be quite unexceptionable, from Einleitung the age of the writer, the simplicity of the Test. Vol. I. statement, and its perfect agreement with the history of the time. 280. Born about 180 B.C. in das alte part 1, p.39. But the same writer in a fragment given Strom.1.22. by Clem. Alex. states with equal simplicity, that before Demetrius Phalereus and the time of Alexander, translations had been made into Greek of the events of the Exodus, Transla the conquest of Palestine, and a description the LXX. of the Hebrew institutions καὶ τῆς ὅλης νομοθεσίας éπečnуnois. Nor does there seem much weight Vol. 1. p. 38. in the objections made to it, as these are stated for example by Prideaux. "It looks all like fiction: the light of reason, or else ancient traditions might have led the Greeks to the saying of many things, especially in moral matters, which accord with what is found in the writings of Moses; and if not, Doubted. yet there were other ways of coming at them without such a version. Converse with the Jews might suffice for it, and particular instruction from some of their learned men might be had for such purpose; and such Clearchus tells us Aristotle had from a learned Jew in lower Asia." All this may be a reason why the Greeks had other means of obtaining an acquaintance with Jewish matters; but is surely no valid objection to the unvarnished statement of Aristobulus. It is hardly likely that a work of this extent should have been undertaken, if the habit of translating had not existed before, and if portions of the Hebrew writings already in the hands of Greeks had not excited the desire of obtaining the whole of that most ancient collection. If the statements of Aristeas, and after him of Josephus, are not in the main true as to the rise of the LXX. Translation, then we have no account whatever of its origin : it is therefore surely no proof that no translation existed before it, that we have only the single testimony of Aristobulus. Without solid reason. CHAPTER VII. APPEARANCE OF PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE. IT is however a remarkable fact, that from Appear ance of in Greece time of the of the Is the time of the dispersion of the Israelites, philosophy a number of distinguished men begin to from the emerge from the darkness of heathenism. We dispersion say the darkness of heathenism, for though in raelites. Greece the arts of civilized life were beginning to attain a high degree of perfection, this was one circumstance which detained the minds of men in the physical world. the Epos. The Poems of Homer and Hesiod, or of Effects of that class of writers who may be represented by these names, had fixed the thoughts of men by a kind of ravishment on a scene in which the gods performed for their entertainment, in characters wherein at the best human nature was merely made romantic, but by which also the worst vices were exemplified. condition arts. And the professors of the fine arts contri- of the buted in their way to increase this mischief. of the fine The temples which once contained only the deity to which they were consecrated in some simple form, became galleries of sculpture, in which foreign deities, and human heroes, and T. H. E. I |