AND SUCCESSION OF SACRED LITERATURE.

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Viewed as a portion of Biblical criticism, the Talmud is utterly contemptible. Its language, particularly in the Gemara, is a barbarous compound of all the Semitic dialects, with a sprinkling of the Greek, Latin, and Gothic languages; it has not, and cannot have a grammar, for its authors affected to despise all laws of analogy and rules of grammar, pretending, like the fanatics of most ages, that their barbarous ignorance was an additional proof of their inspiration. It is, however, not without its value to the Biblical student, for the Mishna contains a fair summary of the Jewish traditions as they existed in the age of Gospel history; and the Gemara is the best guide to the creed of modern Judaism. As a specimen of its contents we shall translate part of a passage relating to the Watches of the Night, or intervals at which the prayer, or rather confession of faith, called Shema, should be offered. It derives its name from the first word you Shema, or "Hear," being, indeed, the well-known passage in Deuteronomy, beginning "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is our Lord," to the repetition of which, at stated times, great importance has always been attached by the Rabbins. In the Talmudic discussion of these proper seasons we find the following strange narrative.

"Rabbi Isaac, the son of Samuel, said in the name of another Rabbi, There are three watches in the night, and in each of these the Holy One (Jehovah), on whose name be blessings, sits down and roars like a lion, and says, Woe is me, who have desolated my house, burned my temple, and exiled my children among the nations of the earth. Rabbi Jose said, One day while I was travelling I went into the ruins of Jerusalem to pray; Elias, of blessed memory, came there, stopped at the door, and waited until I had finished my prayer. When I had concluded he said, Peace be upon thee, Rabbi; to which I replied, Peace be with thee, Rabbi and Mori (doctor); he asked me, Why, my child, have you come into this ruin? I said, To pray. He replied, You might have prayed on your road. I said, I feared to be interrupted by the passengers. He replied, You might have said the short prayer. I thus learned three things from him, 1. that it was unnecessary to enter into a ruin; 2. that it was lawful to pray on a road; and 3. that it was permitted to use the short prayer. But Elias continuing to converse with me, said, What voice have you heard in this ruin? I replied, that I had heard the Bath Kol, (literally, the daughter of the voice;' but by the Jews used to signify 'the voice of the Holy Spirit,') moaning like a wood-pigeon, and saying, Woe is me who have desolated my house, burned my temple, and dispersed my children among the nations of the earth. Then Elias resumed: I swear by your life, and the life of your head, that it is not only at this hour that the Divine voice thus speaks, but it repeats the same thing three times every day; and not only that, but as often as the Jews go into their synagogues and schools, and make the proper responses at prayer, so often the Holy One, blessed be his name, shakes his head, and says, Happy is the king who is thus honoured in his house! How foolish is the Father that exiled such children! How sad it is for such children to be exiled from the table of their Father!"

It would be easy to quote from the Gemara specimens of blasphemous nonsense still more offensive, but this passage is quite sufficient to show how erroneous is the common belief that the Talmud is a repertory of valuable Biblical information. It deserves also to be remarked that the Rabbis were the original devisers of those strange systems of cosmology and geography which were eagerly adopted by the monks of the middle ages. For instance, in order to prove that the earth is a fixed and immovable plain, over which the firmament inexplicably revolves, the Talmud tells us that Rabba, the son of Chandra, having got to the top of a very high chimney, allowed his breadbasket to be caught by a hook in one of the windows of the firmament, and could not recover it until the same hour on the next day, when that identical window was again over his head. Similar to this is the commentary on the building of Babel by Ægidius de Columna, who asserted that the sons of Noah designed their tower to reach up to one of these windows of the firmament through which they might climb upon the solid sphere of heaven, if the earth should again be exposed to the ravages of a flood.

Several translations of the Old Testament into Greek were made by Jewish writers or by Ebionite Christians, during the second century of our era. Origen, a celebrated Christian teacher of Alexandria, may be said to have laid the foundation of Biblical criticism by collating these several versions, and comparing them with the original Hebrew. He wrote some very valuable commentaries on the Scripture, but like Philo-Judæus, he adopted the mystical system of interpretation, and endeavoured to establish an union between heathen philosophy and Christian doctrine. He was the first who raised the controversy respecting predestination and free-will; his critical explanations

indeed are too intimately blended with doctrinal and philosophic expositions, and hence he opened the way to a long series of controversies in which Biblical criticism was utterly forgotten.

Though Ephrem Syrus, who flourished in the fourth century, is not so renowned as Origen, he produced a much more decisive effect on the Biblical criticism of his own and of succeeding ages. He was the first who attempted to lay down, with authority, a system of Biblical cosmology and geography, which was implicitly adopted by the Greek and Oriental Christians, and the effects of which are not yet obliterated in the Western churches. He taught that the earth was a large plain, surrounded by the ocean, beyond which Paradise was placed, and rendered by the intervening water for ever inaccessible to mankind. Regarding the Bible as a perfect system of natural philosophy, he deduced from it what he was pleased to term the certain and sacred principles of all sciences, and then applied these principles again to the interpretation of the Bible itself. From this unfortunate confusion between science and theology, the Byzantine writers never recovered; they tried to make their own conjectural deductions from Scripture the basis both of natural and civil history, of geography, and of most other sciences; so negligent were they of the information to be derived from other sources, that Malalas, in his Paschal Chronicle, actually declares that Great Britain is a city built by Claudius Cæsar on the borders of the Ocean!

To the influence of Ephrem Syrus and his followers must mainly be attributed the countless treatises, by which Biblical literature has been disfigured, on the site of the Garden of Eden, on the condition, geographical and physical, of the antediluvian world; and on the peopling of the world by the descendants of Noah. As these subjects have not yet been quite discarded, it may be necessary, in a few words, to point out the utter fallacy of every investigation respecting them.

The Scriptural narrative declares that when our first parents were expelled from the Garden of Eden, their return to it was supernaturally prevented by a flaming sword, which prevented any approach to this paradise of delight. As there is no record that this impediment was ever removed previous to the Deluge, it is clear that it must have prevented the access of Adam's posterity to this favoured spot, and consequently that all knowledge of the locality must, in the course of time, have been obliterated. It is certain that no spot exists upon the earth now, fulfilling the conditions of the Scriptural description of the four rivers by which the garden was watered. It would be absurd indeed to expect it, for such a cataclysm as the Deluge must have so changed the physical aspect of the entire country, as to render all former localities utterly incapable of being recognised. The Scripture itself not obscurely indicates that this was the case; it shows that Noah and his family came out of the ark into what was to them absolutely a new world. They made no effort to locate themselves in their ancient habitations, clearly because every trace of them was obliterated; and they abstained from any attempt to seek for the terrestrial paradise, because they felt assured that every trace of it must have been swept away from the face of the earth by the Deluge.

The preceding observations sufficiently show the absurdity of every attempt to construct a system of antediluvian geography; our only source for such a system must be the Scripture, which is all but entirely silent on the subject. All the changes on the earth's surface which can plausibly be assigned to this last great cataclysm indicate that it must have changed the entire physical aspect of everything within the sphere of its influence; the straits which separate Europe from Asia, the British Islands from the Continent, Sicily from Italy, Ceylon from India, and many others, seem to show that they were formed by some sudden disruption of the land occasioned by the rush of some enormous body of water. It would be presumptuous to assert that these great disruptions all took place at the period of the universal Deluge; but they afford indisputable evidence that at some distant period the distribution of land and sea on the surface of the earth was different from what it is at present, and that we have no existing records by which we can determine the nature or extent of the changes that have been wrought. A treatise on the situation of Eden, or any other point of antediluvian geography, must be as fanciful and as essentially absurd as the well-known Essay on the Geography and Topography of Hell, written by Ægidius de Columna at the close of the thirteenth century, and illustrated with maps and elevations, for the accuracy of which the worthy monk was as ready to vouch as any antediluvian geographer of the present day.

The Moral Commentaries on Scripture produced by the Greek Fathers, particularly those of St. Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen, must not be included in the censure passed upon their physical dissertations. The Homilies of Chrysostom contain a body of theology not unworthy of a prelate whose eloquence procured him the name of John "with the golden mouth." Gregory

AND SUCCESSION OF SACRED LITERATURE.

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Nazianzen's Orations, particularly that on "The duty of loving the poor," are replete with affectionate warning and gentle rebuke, well suited to the character of a Christian prelate.

He

Closely connected with this subject is the attempt made by the Byzantines to christian ze the literature of ancient Greece, an attempt in which Gregory Nazianzen occupied a conspicuous place. The first effort to unite the grace of classic composition with the discussion of sacred subjects was made by a Jew of Alexandria, named Ezekiel, about the middle of the second century. constructed a tragedy, according to regular dramatic rule, on the history of Moses. Although the language is disfigured by many barbarisms, and the laws of metre violated without scruple, many passages in Ezekiel's tragedy possess considerable merit. We shall translate one as a specimen. In low obeisance; as I counted them They seemed a host: I started in affright And woke from sleep.

MOSES RELATES HIS DREAM TO JETHRO

I dreamed that I beheld a mighty throne,
Based upon earth, but mounting up to heav'n;
On it there sat a more than human form,
A crown and sceptre of pure gold he bore,
And leftwards sat; but to the vacant right
Pointing, he beckoned. I approached the throne;
He yielded up his sceptre; bade me sit,

Placed on my head his golden crown, and then
Freely gave up his throne. Now far beneath

I saw the rolling earth, the vast profound

And heaven's cærulean azure gemmed with stars;
Then at my feet a thousand stars there fell

JETHRO INTERPRETS THE DREAM.
Stranger thy God has promis'd mighty things;
Would that I lived when such events befal!
Thou shalt dethrone a mighty king, and take
A nation's captaincy as thy reward.

And as thou saw'st the wide terrestrial globe
And all beneath and all above the heavens,
A mighty prophet thou shalt be, and know
What's past, what's present, and what is to come.

A Christian tragedy very similar in style to that of Ezekiel, was written about the year 362 by Apollinarius of Alexandria, the author of several other tragedies, comedies, and odes, which have long since sunk into oblivion. His principal drama, the Christus Patiens, has been falsely attributed to Gregory Nazianzen; it is very little known even to scholars, and we shall therefore translate a specimen, selecting the speech which the Virgin Mary is supposed to make when the Roman soldier strikes his lance into the side of the suffering Redeemer.

Alas! alas! alas!

I saw, ye maids, one of the numerous guards,
Who broke the robbers' legs, uplift his lance,
And thrust the point into my darling's heart.

I fear some new calamity impends,

And I must see the body of my son

Spurn'd and insulted by the vile and base;

Alas, me wretched!

But, oh! what awful prodigy is this?

Behold, what's streaming from the wounded dead!

A double fountain from his side is gushing,―

A sanguine stream is one, the other clear

As mountain rill. See, both together spring

Soon as the Roman spear has reached his heart.
And he who gave the wound, with awe overwhelmed,
Shuddering, I know not why, shouts out aloud,
"The victim I have struck is God's own Son."

Behold him suppliant bow before the cross,

And beat his breast, and grasp the very earth
Where he had fixed his blood-stained cruel spear;
And lo! he catches at the mingled stream,
And rubs it as an ointment to his eye,
To purify his vision with its power.

Gregory Nazianzen's contributions to the Christian literature of the Greek church were very numerous, and some of them possess considerable poetic merit. They have never been translated, and it appears to be no unacceptable service to furnish English readerss with a few specimens of an interesting school of sacred literature, with the very existence of which they are unacquainted, and which, indeed, is scarcely known by name to the majority of scholars. The following is a pretty literal translation of

GREGORY'S LAMENT FOR HIS SOUL.
How often we behold the new-made bride
Find grief invade her hour of joy and pride,
And see her spouse in manhood's brightest bloom,
Reft from her arms to moulder in the tomb.

Her faithful maids, a late-exulting band,
Dissolved in tears around their mistress stand,
Drop tear for tear, respond to every groan,
And aggravate her sorrows by their own.
How oft we see the tender mother wild,
Follow the bier that bears a favourite child,

And as she sees the body sink in earth,
Feel once again the tortures of his birth.
We see the patriot mourn his city's fall,
When foes triumphant mount the battered wall;
When through the streets the savage soldiers roam,
And rising flames consume his darling home.
But O my soul! what sorrows can prevail
Thy lone and lost condition to bewail;
For deep in thee the serpent makes abode,
And soils the image of the living God?

Weep, sinner, weep,-let floods of anguish roll,
The tears of penitence alone console.

Ye social haunts, endeared by every charm,

Ye friends whose hearts with love sincere were warm;
Thou, Eloquence, the source of spreading fame,
Ye empty honours of a noble name;

Ye palaces so splendid to behold,

Ye hoarded treasures of uncounted gold;
Thou, lovely Sun, so dear to mortal eyes,

Ye bright wide-spreading mansions of the skies,
Ye glorious stars that in these mansions dwell,
To you, to all, I soon must bid farewell!
Your influence still on other hearts shall shine,
Whilst blind and senseless I in death recline.
Awhile surviving friends my loss shall grieve,
But soon from time oblivion's balm receive:
The pillar then alone records my name,

Raised o'er the tomb that shields my mouldering frame.

But not for this I grieve. From guilt I pine,
And dreaded vengeance of the wrath divine.

Oh, how shall I from conscious guilt withdraw?
How 'scape the terrors of the outraged Law?
Shall I to mountain rocks and caves repair,
Or ocean's depths, and seek a refuge there?
Oh, could I find a spot from guilt secure,
A spot where all is holy, just, and pure,
(As poets say, in fabled isles of joy,
No serpents hiss, no ravenous beasts destroy,)
Thither, thither, would I wish to fly,
And hide myself from every human eye.

Safe in the port no more we danger fear;
The shield averts the terrors of the spear;
The heat or cold we 'scape our house within,
But oh! what guard can save the soul from sin?
On every side, above, beneath, around,
Evil, a constant, watchful guest is found.

To Heaven Elijah went on wheels of fire;
Moses by flight escaped a tyrant's ire;
The whale saved Jonah from a wretched fate;
Daniel, exposed to beasts by envious hate,
Found that his God the lion's strength could tame;
Three pious youths uninjured passed through flame;
But from my guilt what hope of rescue's shown?
Save me, O Christ! the power is thine alone.

The Distichs of Gregory Nazianzen are still highly valued by the Greek Christians, amongst whom they have passed into proverbs. They were designed to imitate the golden verses or poetic maxims of the ancients; the two lines of which they are composed conveying some moral precept in a pointed and epigrammatic form. We shall quote a very We shall quote a very few specimens.

Light be thy bark to sail life's stormy sea,
Too large a cargo sinks itself and thee.

Devote thy soul a temple to thy God,
The Deity will there make his abode.

Trust not to wealth, it comes and goes for ever,
In ceaseless currents like a rapid river.

To words as to thy life attention pay,

The former gone, the latter wastes away.

Man, know thyself and whence thy life is given,
And thus regain the archetype of Heaven.

The most interesting cultivator of sacred literature amongst the Greeks was the Empress Eudocia, the wife of Theodosius the Younger, who flourished in the fifth century. She was the daughter of an Athenian philosopher, and for her wit and beauty was elevated to a throne, which she adorned by piety and learning. Being falsely accused by envious courtiers, and unjustly suspected by her husband, she retired to Jerusalem, where she sought and found consolation in the pursuits of literature and religion. Here she commenced her greatest work, the Homeric Centos, which we shall describe hereafter. Her innocence being recognised, she was recalled to court, and reinstated in her former rank and dignity; but the pomp of the palace did not seduce her from her favourite studies; after her restoration, she translated several Books of the Old Testament into hexameter verse; she also wrote an epic poem on the martyrdom of St. Cyprian and Justina, and another on her husband's victories over the Persians. After the emperor's death, she returned to Jerusalem, where she spent the rest of her life. The completion of the Homeric Centos formed her chief occupation. These consist of lines taken from various parts of Homer's poems, so ingeniously strung together as to form a pretty accurate outline of the Gospel history. They are highly esteemed by continental scholars, but are almost wholly unknown in England; we shall therefore translate one or two specimens of so curious and ingenious a performance.

THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST.

Among his servants one vile wretch there was,
Whose wicked mind was ever filled with fraud,
His baleful arts performed the monstrous crime,
Reckless of wrath divine or social law,
Whose penalties he dared, and found them death; -
He pondered long upon the mighty sin,
And silent shook his head with mischief fraught,
Bold, daring, spurning the divine decrees,
He took the purchase of the guiltless blood,
And thus in silence pondered with himself,
Oh, sure this man's beloved by all, revered,
In every clime and town where'er he goes,
But him I'll slay if cunning can prevail;
Of God he spoke regardless, for he sought
To bring the wisest and the best to shame,
But certain vengeance his dark crime o'ertook,
Wretch, who regarded not his latter end.

1425

N. 14

Od. 11

N. 16

I. 21

Od. 5

Od. 5

I. 24

We find that several Greek prelates followed the example of Eudocia in translating Books of the Bible into hexameter verse, and writing sacred epics on various parts of the Jewish history. Some. of these were creditable performances, as the following passage from the Sacred Epic of Theodotus will show:

God, in thy rage the Sichemites destroy,
Who all their hours in wickedness employ;
The pious stranger finds them tyrant lords,
And no redress their judgment-seat affords.
Reckless of law and equity's control,
They mingle poison in the festive bowl.

But it must be confessed, that far the greater part of these sacred poems were worthless effusions of perverted taste, such as could scarcely be quoted without giving offence. We may however notice the poem of George Pesides, in the seventh century, on the Vanity of Life, as a fair specimen of the wretched puerilites into which some of the Christian poets fell; it commences with this ominous

stanza:

Open, O Lord, to me the gates of speech,
Through which the words of pure instruction pass;

The very humblest, thou, my God, canst teach,

Thou mad'st a preacher out of Balaam's ass.

John of Damascus, an honourable name in the scanty catalogue of the Greek cultivators of Christian literature, flourished in the midst of the eighth century. During the greater part of his life he devoted himself to public affairs, and held an honourable post in the court of the Saracenic Khaliphs. In his old age he retired into a monastery, and devoted himself to sacred literature. His principal work on Biblical criticism is the Sacred Parallels, in which the precepts of Scripture are compared with the doctrines taught by the Fathers of the Church. The work abounds with mystic and strained interpretations; he allows tradition the same authority as the written word, and he inserts several Rabbinical fables which were probably communicated to the Greeks through the medium of the Syrian church. But the fame of John of Damascus rests chiefly on his penitential hymns, which display an extraordinary depth of devotional feeling, sullied, however, with some of the corruptions which, in this age, had seriously impaired the purity of Christianity. An extract from one of his hymns is translated as a specimen of Greek devotional poetry; its length may be pardoned, not only on account of its merits, but also because the very name of the author is scarcely known to the bulk of modern readers.

From lips polluted, Lord, by sin,

From a heart that's foul within,

From a mouth by crime debased,

From a soul by sin defaced;

Hear me, Christ, in mercy hear;

To my prayers afford an ear.

Though my words be faint and dull,
Though my life of crime be full,