of the Sadducees, ch. ii. ver. 1 to 22 inclusive; of those of the Pharisees, from the latter verse to the end of ch. v. This book has been attributed to Philo-Judæus, and carries intrinsic marks of having been the production of one who had adopted Platonic notions: from certain passages, however*, it seems more than probable that it is of a later date, and the work of some unconverted Jew, who yet had read the Christian Scriptures, or at least the Epistles of St. Paul. It is a valuable record, as shewing how very much the Hellenistic Jews, about the time of Christ's ministry, had increased the superstitious load with which the introduction of the Magian notions had previously encumbered their religion, by superadding to them the reveries of the Platonic school: to this they were no doubt more readily induced, from the dogmas of that school having, like their own previously adopted superstitions, been derived from the same Magian sourcet.

The Second Book of Esdras is the last in date of the Apocryphal writings, and can scarcely be older than the second century after Christ, as it

* Compare ch. v. ver. 16, with 2 Tim. ch. iv. ver. 8, and ch. v. ver. 17 to 20, with Eph. ch. vi. ver. 13 to 17.

In addition to the passages referred to in the text and last note, see ch. viii. 20; ix. 15, 17; x. 16; xii. 1; xv. 3; xvi. 13, 14; xvii. 21.

contains numerous passages from the Revelations; and ch. xii. ver. 10 to 17, is generally held to allude to the twelve Cæsars. It is full of allusions to the doctrines of Christianity, and is most probably the composition of some philosophical Jew convert of the Alexandrian school, and shews that the same proneness to imitation which had led the Jews of the Captivity to engraft the Magian, and those of the Alexandrian school the Platonic dogmas, on their Scriptures of the Old Testament, still continued to operate on many of the Christian converts, and made them endeavour, even at that early period, to entwine the philosophy of the schools with the new religion; being, perhaps, unwilling that the name of Philosopher should be sunk in that of Christian.

The most important event, in its consequences, which occurred between the cessation of prophecy and the birth of Christ, was undoubtedly that translation of the Scriptures into Greek commonly termed the Septuagint. This version appears to me to be entitled to much more weight in the interpretation of difficult passages, than modern scholars are inclined to allow to it. For as it is agreed on all hands that—

1st. There is every reason to believe the translation to have been made from a genuine copy of the Hebrew canon as settled by Ezra, at a period

when the Jews could have had no motive for garbling their Scriptures; before they had been subjected to the Masora; and before the Jews had been infected with the Platonic philosophy; and,

2dly. Even admitting that at the time when this translation was made, the Hebrew had ceased to be a vernacular tongue, still it is reasonable to suppose that it continued to be spoken among the educated classes of the Jews, or at all events to be cultivated and well understood by them; and surely, therefore, such persons would be more likely to know the idioms of such language, and to render them correctly into colloquial Greek, than it would be possible for any persons to do who did not live until twenty centuries after the first, and several centuries after the second had ceased to be a living language.

3dly. It was the version in general, perhaps universal, use in the Jewish synagogues when Christ appeared-was constantly used and quoted by him during his ministry, and afterwards likewise by his apostles, without any question as to its fidelity to the original-and was consequently held in the highest veneration by the first Christians.

Having thus adverted to what seemed german to the matter of this Essay, in the Apocryphal books, and in the events which happened

between the times of the Old and New Testaments, I shall only repeat, that at the time of our Saviour's appearance, the Jews had so overloaded their creed with traditions derived from Magian superstitions, Platonic reveries, and fanciful glosses on their own Scriptures, that the religion they practised, however exact in ritual observances, bore no resemblance in its moral features, or in the tenets it circulated, to that delivered by Moses, and insisted on by the Prophets.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GOSPELS, AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

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General preliminary Remarks.-The Senses in which Spirit" and "Spiritual" are used.-The Discourses and Parables of Christ; his Prophecies, and their Fulfilment of his own Death and Resurrection: those Facts constantly insisted on by the Apostles.

PREVIOUSLY to entering on a consideration of those passages of the New Testament connected with the matter of this work, it may not be amiss to say a few words, first, on the contradictions which the discoveries of science are supposed to give to the Scriptures; and secondly, among the numerous senses in which the words spirit and spiritual are used in the Scriptures, to enumerate such as bear on the subject.

And first, concerning the supposed contradiction between science and revelation. This idea of, perhaps well-meaning, but surely not very clear-headed men, which, so lately as the seventeenth century, consigned Galileo to the prisons of the Inquisition, and has, in