then also subjoins in Syriac, the readings of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, whose respective names are written at the head of each reference with red ink in Syriac characters. Now, as he confessedly translated, himself, the Greek of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, into Syriac, for the purposes of his Commentary, it seems probable that he translated, himself also, the Greek of the Septuagint, particularly when it is considered that he makes the phrases, the Greek and the Septuagint, synonymous.

The question, upon which I take the liberty of differing from Dr. Holmes, is certainly one of some importance to the text of the Septuagint; because, if Bar-Hebræus used a Syriac translation of the Septuagint made at the commencement of the seventh century, which is the date affixed by Marius to his Syriac version, the readings collected from the Horreum Mysteriorum will be of infinitely greater value, than if Bar-Hebræus translated, himself, from a common copy of the Septuagint in his own days, viz. in the thirteenth century. I wish I could persuade myself that Dr. Holmes's conjecture is the most

correct.

I should perhaps add, that the above reference to Genesis i. 2. in Bar-Hebræus is not made by Dr. Holmes; and that very properly; because it furnishes no various reading. The first reference, which I have observed in the Collation is Genesis iii. 20. where it is said, "Zw) Evam in Bar-Hebr." A reference, however, which, like the former, should not have been made for the very same reason. BarHebræus quotes this passage in the Peshito thus: "and Adam called his wife's name lo" adding, that is, "in the Greek, Life," the precise translation of Zn in the common text of the Septuagint. Besides, how can which signifies life, be correctly rendered Evam?

The Horreum Mysteriorum, as Dr. Holmes remarks, has never been published. Asseman, in his Bibliotheca Orientalis, gives an extract or two from its Preface, relative to the different Syriac versions. The first part indeed of this Preface is wholly unimportant, containing only a poetical invocation and introduction in rhyme, which thus commences: "To Thee, who hast elevated the earth above the waters→→→ And who hast restrained the waters above the skies-Every knee shall bend, &c." But as the latter and principal part of it gives the best account extant, although a brief one, of the versions alluded to, I subjoin it in an English translation. "Because the Peshito," he remarks, "which coincides with the Hebrew, is in the hands of every Syrian, I have used it as the foundation of my commentary, although a tottering one; and from the version of the Greek, that is of the Septuagint, have made many extracts in confirmation of it, and have also quoted from Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Pentapla, and Hexapla, not indeed by way of confirmation, but only for the sake of elucidation. Respecting this Syriac version there are three opinions. The first is, that it was translated in the days of the kings Solomon and Hiram: the second, that Asa the priest, when he was sent from Assyria to Samaria, made the translation: and the third, that the version was not in existence before the days of Adæus the Apostle, and

of Abgarus, King of Edessa, when also the Peshito, or simplex versio, of the New Testament was produced. Afterwards this (i. e. the New Testament) was again translated with more circumspection in the city of Mabug in the days of the pious Philoxenus; and was collated three times (22) in Alexandria, by the pious Thomas of Harkel in the holy monastery of St. Anthony. With respect to the Septuagint of the Old Testament, that was translated from the Greek into Syriac by Paulus, Bishop of Tela of Mauzalat.”

With the last paragraph the Preface concludes, and the commentary begins. It seems singular, that the Peshito should rank so low in the estimation of Bar-Hebræus; but Asseman assigns from another work of the same author the grounds of this depreciation, and defends it against them. Vid. Biblioth. Orient. V. 11. p. 283. The principal one appears to be the inelegance of its diction, particularly its deficiencies in ornamentative particles. But upon this principle the corrupt Chaldee of the Gemara in the Talmud would be preferred to the purer Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra.

There is a happy critical conjecture of Asseman upon a passage in this Preface worth recording. In the manuscript, which he used, the account of the Philoxenian version of the New Testament seems to have been mutilated by the accidental omission of some very effective words. He renders it thus: "It (that is the New Testament) was again translated more accurately in the city of Mabug in the days of the pious Philoxenus, by the pious Thomas of Harkel in the holy Monastery of St. Anthony." Mendum Manifestum! he adds: Nam Philoxenus obiit circa annum Christi 520. Thomas vero editionem suam elaboravit anno 616, ut suprà vidimus. Bib. Orient. V. 11. p. 24. He then proposes to restore the passage, imperfectly perhaps transcribed, by an insertion after the words "in the days of the pious Philoxenus" of the following clause, and afterwards collated according to the copy of Philoxenus himself, concluding as before, "by the pious Thomas of Harkel, in the holy Monastery of St. Anthony." Now it is remarkable that the Bodleian manuscript supplies the deficiency of Asseman's, and exhibits a reading,' not precisely the same in words, but much to the same effect, with the additional circumstance, that it was collated three times, viz. "and was collated three times in Alexandria," by the pious Thomas of Harkel, &c.

But I have principally quoted the preceding Preface in order to confirm what I have previously remarked, that, when Bar-Hebrææus speaks of his extracts from the Septuagint, he seems to represent himself as occasionally translating from that, in the same manner as from the other Greek versions. And let it be observed, that he does not even mention the version of Paulus, until the close of his Preface, when he barely notices it, without either censure or commendation.

ܐܬܦܚܡܬ ܠܠ ܨܚܚܐ ܕܝܠܗ The realing proposed by Asseman is

maj.molo. That which is found in the Bodleian MS. is 1-ġramoto ZolaA.

For the fidelity of the translation, unless he had stated another source from which it was derived, he must himself, I conceive, be deemed responsible; a responsibility of which he could not but have been aware, and would not have unnecessarily incurred. Besides, what critic of eminence, anxious to give the precise meaning of a passage in a foreign language, would like to do it in any translation but his own?

By the preceding remarks, I shall, I trust, be considered as rather solicitous to correct probable misapprehension, than to expose critical inaccuracies. The high character of Dr. Holmes's collation is indisputable; and had the superstructure simply rested upon the basis of Greek manuscripts alone, without borrowing the feeble support of versions, would have been still invaluable. It is a work which reflects honor upon its original compiler, upon his successor in the laborious undertaking, and upon the University of Oxford in particular, which, from its very birth, adopted and fostered it; cherishing it, in spite of its occasional frowardness, with all the fondness of a parent, and incurring no inconsiderable expense in its nurture, without the prospect or perhaps the possibility of indemnification.

I am, Sir, your's, &c.

R. L.

BIBLICAL SYNONYMA.

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.-Gen. iii. 24.

THE Indian Americans have certain supposed Cherubimical figures in

their Synhedria, and through a strong religious principle, dance there perhaps every winter's night, always in a bowing posture, and frequently sing Halelu-yah Yo-He-Wah.-I have seen in several of the Indian Synhedria two white painted eagles carved out of poplar wood, with their wings stretched out and raised five feet off the ground, standing at the corner, close to their red and white imperial seats; and on the inner side of each of the deep-notched pieces of wood, where the eagles. stand, the Indians frequently paint, with a chalky clay, the figure of a man with Buffalo horns, and that of a Panther with the same color; from which I conjecture, especially connected with their other rites and customs, that the former emblem was designed to describe the divine attributes, as that bird excels the rest of the feathered kind in various superior qualities; and that the latter symbol is a contraction of the Cherubimical figures, the man, the bull, and the lion. And this opinion is corroborated by an established custom, both religious and martial, among them, which obliges them to paint those sacred emblems anew, at the first-fruit offering, or the annual expiation of sins. Every one of their war-leaders must also make three successful wolfish campaigns,

with their reputed holy ark, before he is admitted to wear a pair of a young Buffalo's horns on his forehead, or to sing the triumphal war song, and to dance with the same animal's tail sticking up behind him, while he sings Yo-He-Wah. Adair's American Indians. p. 30.

It is well known that Adair wrote his work in support of an extravagant theory, that the North American Indians were actually descended from the Israelites. We should therefore be cautious in admitting his assertions, unless strengthened by other accounts; which, in the present instance, establish his veracity. For the Chevalier de Tonti' informs us that in one of the temples dedicated to the sun in Louisiana, in which particular respect is paid to the deity," a closet is made in the wall, which they call the tabernacle of the god. Two eagles with extended wings hang in it, and look towards the sun". And in Picart's Rel. Con. there is a plate representing a temple containing three Chemims or Zemims of the Indians of Hispaniola. The chief has five heads; those of a Lion, an Eagle, a Stag, a Dog, and a Serpent. In front of his body, also, another Eagle's head projects. A Serpent infolds his leg, and he bears a trident in his right hand. The two others have horns, both are human figures, but one has the head and claws of an eagle. Parkhurst cousiders the word Chemim to be plainly taken with little variation from the Heavens or what declare and exhibit the glory of God. Ps. 19. 1. and are, he apprehends, according to that of St. Paul, Rom. 1. 20. the created, visible emblem of his eternal power and Godhead. In conformity with this opinion, the Spaniards, who were present at the first conquests which were made in America, tell us that the inhabitants of Hispaniola looked upon the Chemens or Zemes, as the messengers, the agents or mediators of a supreme, sole, eternal, infinite Almighty invisible being, and imagined that they presided over the affairs of men. Whenever they went to war, they used to fix two little Chemens on their foreheads. With respect to the reverence due to the Bull, so generally discovered amongst all nations, and existing from the earliest times, it cannot be said that it originated with the North American Indians from any agricultural or domestic use to which the species might be applied, since the Buffalo was the wild inhabitant of their woods. The natural conclusion therefore, is that it must have been derived from some more occult cause connected with religious worship. And it is a curious fact that the East Indians think it a great honor, and fancy themselves sure of eternal happiness, whenever they expire with a cow-tail in their hands ;3 and Diod. Siculus+ further informs us that it was a custom among the Troglodytes, when they were grown so old as to be unable to follow their flocks, to tie themselves to an Ox's tail and so put an end to their days.

That the Cherubim were a mystical representation of the divine Aleim, the Hebrew appellation for the Trinity, and that this Aleim has been invoked and worshipped as a plurality in unity, παντὶ γὰς ἐν κόσμῳ λάμπει Τρίας, ἧς Μόνας ἄρχει is, I think, proved beyond the possibility of doubt by Mr. Parkhurst in his lexicon under the head and in the

See Coll. of Voyages to the North, V. 5. 2 Picart v. 3. p. 129. Picart v. 3, 219. 4 Diod. Sic. B. 3. c. 2. 5 Damascius, see Cudworth, p. 294.

6

more elaborate treatise of Mr. Cudworth, in his intellectual system." We discover amongst the idols of almost every nation a triple-formed deity frequently represented with some and occasionally with all the characteristic marks of the Lion, the Hawk and the Bull, which, we learn from Ezekiel, 1. 10. and 10. 14. were essential to the cherubic forms. Thus, the symbol of Serapis, who Philarchus tells, was that God who governs the whole world, was an animal with three heads, a Dog's, a Wolf's, and a Lion's, this last being in the centre. Orpheus, according to Damascius, made one of his principles a Dragon having the head both of a Bull and a Lion, and in the midst the face of a God with golden wings upon his shoulders, and we have the authority of Diodorus. Sic for paying the highest attention to whatever he advanced upon the subject of religious mysteries. Diana was usually represented with three heads, and some ascribe to her the likeness of a Dog, a Bull, and a Lion; in her temple of Olympia she was seen as a winged figure with the right side like a Panther, the left like a Lion. Rodigast a deity of Lusatia in Germany, was represented with an Ox's head upon the breast, an Eagle upon his head, and a Pike in his left hand. Mithras and Orosmasdes, who may be considered as the same deity, are called the threefold, he has been described with a human body, a lion's head, and four wings standing on a Bull. The Sphinx had a human head, the wings of a bird and the form of a Lion. In short, whether we examine the symbols and Idols of the Scythians, East Indians or Americans, we invariably discover races of the Lion, the Bull, and the Eagle, and that these were not selected from caprice or accident might be more fully proved by a further comparison between the Pagan and the Jewish Trinities. But as it is the particular object of this article to illustrate merely the cherubic forms, such inquiry would lead to irrelevant details. The corroborating evidence here given appears to substantiate a fact, which I conceive establishes in the highest degree the authenticity and antiquity of the Bible: for however sceptical may be the advocates for limiting to the Jewish nation alone all participation and knowledge of the Mosaic dispensation, such an accumulation of similarities must surely be beyond the power of chance to effect.

Gen. vi. 4.

There were Giants in the earth in those days. I must confess that were there no other grounds for supposing that the term Giants applied to persons of a superior size, I should feel inclined from the meaning of the word to conclude that it signified nothing more than a race of violent and lawless people who were in the habit of committing depredations upon their more peaceable neighbours. As the Scriptures, however, in other places refer evidently to the existence of men of more than ordinary stature, and as the septuagint translates the word yiyas, this opinion is materially weakened, and if we may depend upon the following accounts, no doubts must remain as to the truth of the scriptural assertion.

During the disputes between the Lacedæmonians and Tegeans, the former having been repeatedly defeated, sent to consult the Delphic oracle what particular deity they had to appease to become victorious

1 Cudworth, B. 1. c. 4. 2 Cudworth, 351. 3 Cudworth, 298. Diod. Sic. B. 4. C. 1. 5 Parkhurst Lex. 351. 6 Sam. Grosser, Hist. of Lusatia