them were translated into Greek, and the knowledge of Chaldee was long preserved among the Jews, who retained it as a learned language many ages after their final dispersion. Chaldee and Syriac assist also each other: for in fact they are not so much different languages, as different dialects of the same language. The chief difference between them consists in the vowel points, or the mode of pronunciation. And though the forms of the letters are very unlike, the correspondence between the languages (or rather dialects) themselves is so close, that if Chaldee be written with Syriac letters without points, it becomes Syriac, with the exception of a single inflexion in the formation of the verbs.

Another oriental source, from which we derive a knowledge of Hebrew words, is the Arabic. The most ancient among the Arabic versions of the Hebrew Bible was made indeed above a thousand years after Hebrew had ceased to be spoken. But on the other hand, we have the means of determining with the greatest exactness the sense of Arabic words, because Arabic is still a living language, and is spoken over a greater extent of country, than almost any other language. It is at the same time a kind of classical language: it has authors on almost every subject; and has undergone the investigation of native grammarians and lexicographers. Its importance therefore to the interpretation of Hebrew is apparent. It serves indeed as a

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LECTURE XIV.

key to that language; for it is not only allied to the Hebrew, but is at the same time so copious, as to contain the roots of almost all the words in the Hebrew Bible.

But of all the ancient versions of the Hebrew Bible, there is none so important, both to the critic, and to the interpreter, as the Greek version, which is known by the name of the Septuagint. Nor is the advantage, derived from the Septuagint, confined to the Hebrew. It is a source of interpretation also to the Greek Testament: aud so valuable a source, that none other can be compared with it. The Septuagint version was made in Egypt, under the government of the Ptolemies, for the use of the Jews then settled in that country, who were as much in need of a Greek version, as the Jews of Palestine were then in need of a Chaldee version. The Egyptian Jews, to whom Greek was become their vernacular language, were of course desirous of possessing in Greek a faithful representation of the Hebrew Scriptures. But then the structure of the two languages was so widely different, that the translators, adhering to the original, more closely than perhaps necessity required, retained Hebrew forms and modes of expression, while the words, which they were writing, were Greek. The language therefore of the Septuagint is a kind of Hebrew-Greek, which a native of Athens might sometimes have found difficult to understand. But, as this version became the Bible of all the Jews, who were dispers

ed throughout the countries, where Greek was spoken, it became the standard of their Greek language. St. Paul himself, who was born in Tarsus, and was accustomed from his childhood to hear the Septuagint read in the synagogue of that city, adopted the Hebrew idioms of the Greek version. And when he was removed to Jerusalem and placed under the guidance of Gamaliel, the Hebrew tincture of St. Paul's Greek could have suffered no diminution. The other Apostles were all natives of Palestine; as was also the Evangelist St. Mark, and probably the Evangelist St. Luke. Their language therefore was Syriac or Chaldee, of which the turns of expression had a close correspondence with those of the ancient Hebrew. Consequently, when they wrote in Greek, their language could not fail to resemble the language, which had been used by the Greek translators. And, as every Jew, who read Greek at all, (which they who wrote in it must have done) would read the Greek Bible, the style of the Septuagint again operated in forming the style of the Greek Testament. Both the Hebrew Bible therefore and the Greek Testament are so closely con nected with the Septuagint, as well in their language as in their matter, that the Septuagint is a source of interpretation, alike important to the one and to the other.

We now come to the consideration of that source, from which we have most copiously drawn, and which has had greater influence on our modern trans

lations, than is commonly supposed. This source is the Latin Vulgate. It has been applied to the interpretation, as well of the New, as of the Qld Testament. But it is of more especial use in the latter, because our sources of intelligence in respect to Hebrew words, are more circumscribed than in respect to Greek. Its intrinsic value also in the Old Testament is greater than in the New. The Latin Vulgate in the New Testament was only corrected by Jerom; but in the Old Testament it is a translation made by Jerom himself, and made immediately from the Hebrew. Now Jerom was by far the most learned among all the Fathers of the Latin Church: and in order to make his translation of the Hebrew Bible as correct as possible, he passed several years in Palestine, where he was assisted by learned Jews, belonging to the celebrated college of Tiberias. Indeed the benefit to be derived from the Latin Vulgate, was acknowledged by our early Reformers, in the extensive use which they made of it themselves. Wickliffe's English translation was made entirely from the Vulgate: and Luther himself, when he made his German translation, translated indeed from the Hebrew and the Greek, but with the assistance of the Latin Vulgate. This assistance is visible throughout; and passages have been discovered in Luther's German translation, which agree with the Latin, even where the Latin differs from the Hebrew.

But the use of the Latin Vulgate, in translating from the Hebrew, was at that period not merely matter of convenience. It was matter also of necessity. Without the Vulgate, Luther would not have possessed the means of translating from the Hebrew. The knowledge of Hebrew had for ages preceding the period of the Reformation, been confined to the learned among the Jews; and when Luther undertook the task of translating from the original Scriptures, this knowledge had begun only to dawn among Christians. The comprehensive grammars and lexicons, to which we have now access, are sources of intelligence, which were not open to our early Reformers. The elder Buxtorf, one of the fathers of Hebrew learning among Christians, was not born till after Luther's death; and Luther's only helps in the form of a Hebrew Lexicon, were those of Reuchlin and Münster, extracted from the meager glossaries of the Rabbins. Under such circumstances a translation from the Hebrew, without the intervention of the Latin, would have been wholly impracticable.

Here the subject requires a few observations on our own authorised version. It was published by royal authority in the reign of James the First, having been then compiled out of various English Bibles which had been printed since the time of the Reformation. To judge therefore of our authorised version, we should have some knowledge of those previous English Bibles. The first of them was a