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this time of his being at Rome, and then made use CHAP. of by St. Mark at Alexandria for the converting of those Jews whom Philo describes under the name of Therapeuta. When as Eusebius sheweth us himself elsewhere in his history, he had so great an authority as that of Irenæus to assure him, that St. Mark's Gospel was not written till after St. Peter's death. [Euseb. Hist. v. 8.] All that can be said for him is only this, that when he was writing this passage of Philo, he did not think of what he had writ before. Indeed if he had thought of it, he had not been that man we take him for, if he had suffered it to pass, as it stands now in his history.

I thought it was proper to enter into this disquisition concerning the writings of Philo, and the time when they were written, that I might leave no doubt in the minds of my readers, concerning the authority of Philo, whom I intend to produce as an authentic testimony of the opinions of the synagogue before our Lord, in the matters disputed between us and the Unitarians.

Let us proceed now to the Chaldee paraphrases.

CHAP. VII.

Of the authority and antiquity of the Chaldee paraphrases.

I SHALL have occasion, in many points, to cite the paraphrases of the Jews upon the books of the Old Testament; and perhaps it may appear strange to some, that I oftentimes cite them without distinguishing between those which pass for ancient, and those which are reputed by the critics altogether modern. Therefore I think myself obliged once for all to give the reasons of my doing thus, and to satisfy my reader thereupon.

CHAP.

I shall not spend time to discover the original VII. of these paraphrases. It is enough to mind the reader, that the Jews having almost forgot their Hebrew in the Babylonian captivity, it was needful for the people's understanding the holy Scriptures, which were read in the synagogue every sabbath day, that some persons skilful both in the Hebrew and Chaldee should explain to the people every verse in Chaldee, after they had read it to them in Hebrew. The Jews make this practice as ancient as the times of their return from the Babylonian captivity, Nehem. viii. 8. as one may see in the Talmud, title Nedarim, ch. 4.

Magil. c. 3.

The Jews all agree, that this way of translating the Scriptures was made by word of mouth only for a long time. But it is hard to conceive that they who interpreted in that manner did write nothing for the use of posterity. It seems much more probable to believe, that from time to time those interpreters writ something, especially on those places which were most difficult, or least understood.

The first, according to the Jewish writers, who attempted to put in writing his Chaldee version of the Prophets first and last according to the Jewish distinction, (except Daniel,) or rather, who interpreted the whole text in order, was Jonathan the son of Uzziel; who also not contenting himself always to render the Hebrew, word for word, into Chaldee, does often mix the traditional explication of the difficultest prophecies with his own single translation.

The Jews seem to agree that this Jonathan lived a hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem; that is to say, he lived in the reign of Herod the Great, about thirty years before the birth of our Lord. And some critics believe our Saviour does cite his Chaldee paraphrase Luke iv. 18. in quoting the text Isa. Ixi. 1. Thus much may at

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least be said for it, that all that which is there cited CHAP. does agree better with his Targum than with the original text.

Onkelos, a proselyte, was he, according to their common account, who turned the five books of Moses into Chaldee. This work is rather a mere translation only, than a paraphrase; and yet it must be allowed, that in divers places he does not endeayour so much to give us the text word for word, as to clear up the sense of certain places, which otherwise could not well be understood by the people. This Onkelos, according to the common opinion of the Jews, saw Jonathan, and lived in the time of that ancient Gamaliel, who was master to the Apostle St. Paul, as some would have it.

We find in Megillah, c. 1. that he composed his Targum under the conduct of R. Eliezer and of R. Josua, after the year of our Lord 70, and that he died in the year of our Lord 108, and that his Targum was immediately after made of a public. use among the Jews; what other Targums there were on the five books of Moses having almost wholly lost their credit and authority.

As to the other sacred books which the Jews call Cetouvim, or Hagiographes; they ascribe the Targums of the Psalms, the Proverbs, and Job, to R. Joseph Cæcus, and affirm that he lived a long time after Onkelos. And for the Targums of the other books, they look on them as works of anonymous authors. However the most part of these Targums have been printed under the name of Jonathan, as if he had been the author of them all.

There are moreover some scraps of a paraphrase upon the five books of Moses, which is called the Jerusalem Targum; and there is another that bears the name of Jonathan upon the Pentateuch, and which some learned Jews have said to be his. As doth R. Azaria (Imrebinah, c. 25.) and the author of the Chain of Tradition, p. 28. after R. Menahem

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CHAP. de Rekanati, who cites it under the name of Jonathan, following some ancient MSS. These Targums ordinarily exceed the bounds of a paraphrase, and enter into explications, some of which are strange enough, and appear to be the work of divers commentators, who among some good things have very often mixed their own idle fancies and dreams.

Beckius, nineteen years ago, published a paraphrase on the two books of Chronicles, of which also there is a MS. at Cambridge. This deserves almost the same character with these paraphrases I spoke of last. For the author of this, as well as those before mentioned, does often intermingle such explications as taste of the commentator, with those which appear to have been taken from the ancient Perushim, or explications of the most eminent authors of the synagogue. A man must be mighty credulous, if he give credit to all the fables which the Jews bring in their Talmud to extol the authority of Jonathan's Targum; and he must have read these pieces with very little attention or judgment, if he maintain that they are entirely and throughout the works of the authors whose names they bear, or that they are of the same antiquity in respect of all their parts.

Onkelos is so even and natural, that, as it seems, nothing, or very little, has been added to him; and he has been in so great esteem among the Jews, that they have commonly inserted his version after the text of Moses, verse for verse, in the ancient manuscripts of the Pentateuch. And from thence we may judge if there is any ground for the conjecture of some Jews, who would persuade us that it is only an abridgment of the Targum of Jonathan upon the Pentateuch. Certainly Jonathan's Targum upon the Pentateuch must be of a very dubious origin, since we see that the Zohar cites from it the first words which are not to be found in it, but in the Targum of Jerusalem, (fol. 79. col. 1. l. 17.)

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It is uncertain if the Targum of Jerusalem hath CHAP. been a continued Targum, or only the notes of some learned Jew upon the margin of the Pentateuch, or an abridgment of Onkelos; for it hath a mixture of Chaldaic, Greek, Latin, and Persian words, which sheweth that it hath been written in the latter times, according to the judgment of R. Elias Levita.

Jonathan, who explained the former and the latter Prophets, has not been so happy as Onkelos; for it seems those that copied his Targum have added many things to it, some of which discover their authors to have lived more than seven hundred years after him; one may also see there a medley of different Targums, of which the Targum on Isa. xlix. is a plain instance.

As to the Targums on all the other holy books which the Jews call the first Prophets, it is visible that all the parts of them are not equally ancient. Those which we have on Joshua and Judges are simple enough, and literal. That on Ruth is full of Talmudical ideas. The same judgment may be made of those on the two books of Samuel. Those which we have on the two books of Kings are a little freer from additions. But that on Esther is rather a commentary, that collects several opinions upon difficult places, than a paraphrase. In that on Job attributed to R. Joseph in the Jews' edition at Venice in folio, anno 1515, there are divers Targums cited in express terms, as there are also in the Targum on the Psalms, which bears the name of R. Joseph in the aforesaid edition of Venice. One may also observe many additions in the Targums on the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, but especially in that upon the Canticle, all which have been published under the name of R. Joseph. I have said almost as much of that on the two books of Chronicles, which Beckius published about eighteen or nineteen years ago.