Seleucida, 170-172,) without vowels. on account of their similarity with No. 3, are often improperly called Samaritan, but correctly, Jewish coin-letters. . . . . . . The figures of four letters (1,,,b) do not occur; that of is doubtful."

3. The character of the Samaritans, with which they not only write the Hebrew Pentateuch, but also their own Samaritan and Arabic text. We find it a variety of the preceding, rendered more artificial in some features; but this is less obvious in the written than in the printed character." The Samaritans call this "Hebrew writing," in opposition to the square letter, which they call "Ezra's writing." It has no vowels, but has a diacritical mark, and observes a division of words and sentences. In the following inquiries upon the history of the writing and the alphabet, the nature of the subject demands that the consonants should be treated separately from the vowels.

$3.

MUTUAL RELATION OF CHARACTERS.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS.

After what has been said, there rises the question, (not unimportant for the criticism of the Old Testament,) Which of these was the old original alphabet of the Hebrews, and what was their mutual relation? . . . . . . It is not inconsistent with our design to make a careful examination of this subject, formerly so much contended about,a . . . . . . and to present the various views which have been entertained, with the reasons for them, to the attention of the reader.

a

Hottinger and Reland long ago opposed the opinion that these coins were struck before the exile. Their authenticity was contested by O. G. Tychsen, (Unächtheit d. Judischen Münzen; Rostock, 1779,) but triumphantly defended by F. R. Beyer, the chief writer on this subject, (De Nummis Hebræo-Sam.; Valent. 1781, 4to. Num. Heb. Sam. Vindicatio; 1790, 4to. Legitimatad de las Monedas Heb. Sam.; 1793.) See Eckhel, 1. c. iii. p. 458, and Tychsen, in Com. Soc. Göttingen, vol. viii. and xi. See the literature in Rasche, 1. c., (1729,) and Wahl's Erdebeschreibung von Ostindien, p. 404. R. Asarias (in Montfaucon, p. 122) collected the first alphabet of these characters. . . . . . . See Beyer, De Num. Heb. Sam. p. 224; Jahn, Archäologie, vol. i. § 2; his Hebrew Gram., 3d ed.; and Einleit. in A. T. vol. i.

See specimens in Cellarius, Epist. Sam. p. 1. Van Vloten, Spec. Cod. Sam.; Lugd. 1803. Blanchini, Evangel. Quad. p. 604, tab. 2.

с

Antiquitatt. Eccles. Orient. p. 125, 130. Eichhorn, Rep. vol. xiii. p. 288. See the writings in Wolf, Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 420, iv. p. 164. Rosenmuller, Handbuch, vol. i. p. 564. Löscher, p. 200, 213. Carpzov, Crit. sac. p. 227, 233.

The various opinions may be referred to the three following classes:

1. Writers proceeded from the obvious appearance that the square letters were only used in religious writings, while the coinletter was employed for more profane or common purposes, and so naturally came to the opinion that the Hebrews had two kinds of writing at the same time, the one (the square letter) a sacred and sacerdotal character, the other (the coin-letter) a character used for the circumstances of common life. Following the steps of some Jewish scholars," this opinion was greedily received by such Christian critics as deemed it an apologetic duty to represent every unimportant external of the holy books as sacred and very ancient. The younger Buxtorf, in particular, belongs to this class; he connected this opinion with the high antiquity of the square letter in the following manner: The square letter was the oldest, and the original alphabet of the Hebrews; but, before the exile, the Samaritan character was also used at the same time, first for holy things, and finally for common life. During the exile, the priests, and the learned portion of the people, cultivated the sacred character, while those who remained behind in Palestine, from whom the Samaritans sprung, used the common character. Ezra brought the former with him from the exile, and extended it more widely; therefore it was called Assyrian, i. e. Chaldee. The common character was mainly used by the Samaritans, but by the Jews only occasionally; for example, on their coins. . . . . . . [This opinion is, indeed, supported by the analogy of other Oriental languages; by some passages in the Bible, which are capable of a different explanation; by the authority of Tertullian, who did not understand Hebrew; and by the fact that the Jewish coins do not contain the same letters as the manuscripts. This is the substance of the author's remarks, which, in this sentence, I have condensed, and not translated.]

2. A careful consideration must lead to the other conjecture, that we find the square letter in the exclusive possession of the Jews, while the other character belonged mainly to the Samaritans, the descendants of the old kingdom of Israel. Before the exile, there may have been this difference between the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, in respect to the writing character; and this conjecture

с

a Obad. Bartenora, ad Mischnam, Tr. Jadaim, 4, 5. R. Jacob, in En Israel, fol. 413. Shalsheleth Hakkab. fol. 89.

Diss. Philol. Theol.; Basil. 1662, 4to. No. 4.
Paulus, l. c. p. 114.

is supported by the fact that, in other respects, the kingdom of Israel often inclined to the customs of the neighboring Phoenicians. But how, then, can it be explained that the same character appears on the coins struck at Jerusalem? Whence the name Hebrew or Assyrian writing? (See § 2, 1, 3, above.)

3. There remains only one other view, which is, that each kind of writing arose one after the other, so that one gradually displaced the other. Here there are two parties directly opposed to one another. The one gives the precedence to the square character, the other to the Phoenician-Samaritan. The opinion of the former, which is supported by the authority of most modern Hebrew scholars, has been already given above. But there is another, and more ancient opinion, or legend of the rabbins, opposed to it, which maintains that the Hebrews, before the exile, used an ancient character, which was the present Samaritan, but Ezra exchanged it for the present character, which had an Assyrian-Chaldaic origin.

First, let us follow this legend to its sources, in order to subject it to an impartial examination. It is found partly in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, and partly in the writings of Origen and Jerome, who received it from their rabbinic teachers. In the first it is said, (Sanhed. sect. 2, fol. 21, col. 2, fol. 22, col. 1,) "In the beginning, the Law, the Hebrew writing, and the sacred language, were given to the Israelites; but again, in the days of Ezra, the Assyrian writing and the Aramæan language (?) were given them; but the Israelites chose the Assyrian writing and the sacred language, and left the Hebrew writing and Aramæan language to fools, [idiotis.] Who were the fools? The Samaritans, says R. Chasda."

Ibid. cap. 1: “It may be that the Law was not given by the hand of Ezra, but the writing was changed by his hand; and it is called Assyrian because it came up from Assyria with them."

a

Origen derives authority from the same source, and says that, in the old alphabet, thau had the form of a cross, and that, in certain manuscripts of the Seventy, the name Jehovah was written in the old Hebrew; and adds, "It is said Ezra used different letters after the captivity." It is also an error of this Father, who was not very well skilled in the Hebrew language, that Jehovah was written in the old, i. e. the Samaritan characters; but this passage shows the author was acquainted with the former legend.

Jerome speaks more clearly and boldly, deriving his authority from

a In Ezek. ix. 4. Hexap. i. p. 86, ed. Montfaucon; ii. 94, ed. Bahrdt.

Origen, or, more directly, from his rabbinic teachers: "It is certain that Ezra the Scribe and Doctor of the Law, after the taking of Jerusalem, and the restoration of the temple under Zerubabel, invented (reperisse) other letters, which we now use, and which had been the characters of the Samaritans and Hebrews up to that time." The same tradition leads the Samaritans to call the square letter Ezra's writing.

Now, even if we do not consider that Jerome, according to his custom,' states as a fact what Origen only mentions as a tradition or opinion, and makes Ezra invent a character which he only introduced according to the Jewish opinion, the tradition, as he relates it, contains a contradiction; for it states the old alphabet had a ♬ in the form of a cross, and this was the Samaritan alphabet, in which the has not this form. ...... However, the contradiction disappears when we refer to the coin-letter, which the Jews also called a Samaritan character, and which may resemble the character in the Samaritan manuscripts still more closely. This must be considered as the sense of the Jewish authority; and the question, then, is merely this How far is this account- -after making the necessary modifications confirmed or weakened by other considerations and arguments? A close examination will show that many of the arguments which are frequently used are by no means satisfactory; and yet the result may be, that it contains substantially the truth, although, by reason of the imperfection of materials in our possession, the historic fact cannot be established; and the approbation it has received from many modern critics has been too unconditional and decided, and sometimes even hasty and uncritical.

с

(1.) The former defenders of this opinion derived their chief argument from the Samaritan Pentateuch, which they supposed

a

Prolog. ad Reg. Opp. iv. p. 7. See Eusebius, Chron. ad A. M. 4740, and Scaliger's note. Spanheim, De Usu Num. Opp. i. p. 63.

Faber, in Harmer's Observations, vol. i. p. 39, 148.

The first Jewish scholar in modern times, who declared in favor of this, was R. Joseph Albo, (about 1400,) in Sepher Ikkarim, iii. 16, fol. 81, col. 2. Then it became the favorite opinion of the Anti-Buxtorfian school, which contended for the corruption of the Hebrew text, and preference of the Samaritan text and version. See Jo. Morinus, Exercit. in Pent. Sam. p. 91. Scaliger, in Euseb. Chron. p. 62. Lud. Cappellus, Arcan. Punct. i. 6. Diatribe de veris, etc. Heb. Lit.; Amstelod. 1645. Walton, Proleg. iii. 30, sqq. Kennicott, Diss. i. p. 527. Houbigant, Prol. 49. Among the moderns, Eichhorn, Augusti, and Bertholdt, in their Introductions, and Hug, Gesch. d. Buchstabenschrift, p. 6.

descended from Moses in a straight line, and, remaining free from all Jewish influences from the time of Rehoboam, contained the old character, in its most correct form. But we cannot defend the existence of the Samaritan Pentateuch before the exile," and must maintain that it is a copy of the Jewish original, written in the Samaritan character, about the time when the Samaritan form of worship was established. The Samaritans wrote the Hebrew codex in their own characters, as they write the Arabic at this day, as the Syrians write Arabic in their Syriac letters, and as the Jews formerly wrote Arabic and Persian, and even Spanish and German, in their own characters. Notwithstanding this, the existence of this character among the Samaritans is most easily explained, if it is admitted to have been the character of their ancestors, which was better preserved by those who remained in the land, than by the Jews who returned from a foreign country.

b

With this question some have connected the hypothesis, that a manuscript written in the Samaritan or ancient character lay at the foundation of the Alexandrian version of the Pentateuch; and they have mainly sought to prove this by the confusion of letters, which are similar in the Samaritan, but not in the Chaldee alphabet. But we need only examine the examples with a little attention to see that scarce one of them has the smallest value as an argument. . . . . According to the author's investigations, the variants of the Seventy, which seem to have arisen from confounding similar letters in the Pentateuch, as well as in the other books, refer to the square letter."

e

(2.) The names of several letters can only be explained by a reference to their figures in the Phoenician-Samaritan alphabet, and not by the figures of the square letters, which shows that the former is older than the other, and nearer to the original alphabet.... But, in respect to other letters, this remark may be made in favor of the square characters, and, in some cases, the figure of neither alphabet applies to the name. This circumstance only proves that both alphabets were derived, in different times, from the original, in which, doubtless, the conformity between the name and the figure of the letter prevailed throughout; and that each has preserved some traces of this conformity, which were wanting to the other. But

a Comm. de Pent. Sam. § 2.

b Simon, Hist. crit. V. T. i. 10, 73.

Hassencamp, De Pent. LXX., &c.; 1765. Eichhorn, § 183.

↑ Simon, 1. c. i. 13. Michaelis, Or. Bib. vol. xxii. p. 122. Paulus, 1. c. p. 117.