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BRITISH AND FOREIGN

EVANGELICAL REVIEW.

JANUARY 1870.

ART. I.-The Jewish Synagogue.

Synagoga Judaica, hoc est, Schola Judaeorum, in qua nativitas, institutio,
religio, vita, mors, sepulturaque ipsorum e libris eorundem, M.
JOHANNE BUXDORFIO literarum Habraearum in inclyta Academia
Basiliensi Professore, graphice descripta est.
Addita est mox per

eundem Judaei cum Christiano disputatio de Messia nostro. Quae
utraque Germanica nunc Latine reddita sunt opera et studio M.
Hermanni Germbergii. Accessit Ludovici Carreti epistola, de con-
versione ejus ad Christum, per eundem ex Hebraeo Latine conversa.
Ilanoviæ, apud Gulielmum Antonium. MDCIV.

JOHANNIS BUXTORFI Synagoga Judaica, auspiciis authoris jam olim Latinitate donata, nunc primum in vulgus emissa. Basileae, impensis Ludovici König. MDCXLI.

IT

T is now some years since we first visited the old city of Basle, in the calm peacefulness of an autumn evening: the full waters of the river were flowing past in unruffled majesty; the sun was setting behind the woods and knolls and picturesque landscape of Alsace, shedding a stream of glory on the peaks of Jura, and casting its splendours on the hills and sombre scenery of the Black Forest. There was a meditative silence and solemnity in the scene, as we stood on the left bank of the Rhine, and entered within the precincts of the Münster, the cathedral of the city, celebrated by the labours or hallowed by the ashes of Reuchlin, and Erasmus, Ecolampadius, and Grynaeus, the Bernoullis, and the Buxtorfs.

It has been repeatedly observed, that there is a hereditary genius in certain families. In our own country, the Gregories,

VOL XIX.-NO. LXXI.

A

James the uncle, and David, James, and Charles the nephews, excelled in mathematics; the Bernoullis, James and John the brothers, and Daniel the son of the latter, with a fine mental idiosyncrasy, going forth in the same direction, did for Switzerland what the Gregories did for Scotland; and, as fellowcitizens of the Bernoullis, the Buxtorfs, John the father, John the son, Jolin-James the grandson, and John the nephew of the last, stand out, names as great and distinguished in Hebrew literature, as the Bernoullis in abstract science.

The Synagoga Judaica is the work of John Buxtorf, who, born at Camen in Westphalia in 1564, and settling down as Professor of Hebrew in Basle, is the founder of a family that successively have been the lights of Jewish learning, criticism, and lexicography, during a period of not less than two centuries. The Synagoga Judaica was first published in German at Basle, in 1603. It was then translated into Latin by Hermann Germberg, rector of the Academy of Corbach, the capital of Waldeck, in the circle of the Upper Rhine; and published at Hanau, in Wetteravia, in 1604 and 1622. It appeared in Flemish at Amsterdam, in 1650. A new Latin translation, which was executed by David le Clerc, Hebrew Professor at Geneva, and John Buxtorf, the son of the author, was published at Basle in 1641; and, again, revised and corrected by James, the author's grand-nephew, it was published in the same place in 1682. Of those editions, that of 1604, and that of 1641, are now before us. The former, that of Germberg, in clear and easy Latin; the latter, that of Le Clerc and the younger Buxtorf, in the same language, in a style more complicated and ambitious, interspersed occasionally with criticisms, and imbued with a spirit of anti-judaic sarcasm, in which, certainly with no injury to the Christian argument, it would have been more seemly not to indulge.

The Synagoga Judaica, a small octavo or duodecimo of not more than five hundred pages, or at the most under seven hundred, is in many respects a great work. Consisting of thirty-six chapters, drawn from Biblical, Talmudic, and Rabbinical sources, it is a rich and authentic repertory of the usages and customs and antiquities of the Jews; we know of nothing in so small a compass that is, in point of information, so full and comprehensive, so interesting and satisfactory, so curious and amusing, and yet by turns so sad and melancholy; we seem at times to rise from the ludicrous jollity of a play of Plautus, and then to be absorbed in the deep pathos of a drama of Euripides. Here we have laid before us the articles of Jewish faith, or Creed of Modern Judaism, the birth and up-bringing of the Jews, their training and instruction in piety; the niceties of their toilet and morning prayers, their exercises

Spencer on Laws of the Hebrews.

3

in the synagogue, their conduct after morning prayers, and preparation for dinner; their usages when at table, their evening prayers and retirement to rest, their mode of worship on Mondays and Thursdays; their observance of the Sabbath, how they begin and end it; their mode of observing the feast of the Passover, its seven days' observance, its beginning and close, the feast of Pentecost, that of Tabernacles, and of the new moon; how the Jews prepare themselves for the festival of the opening year, and how they celebrate it; how they prepare themselves for the feast of expiation, with some unusual rites; how they hold the festival of gladness for the law, and the manner in which ecclesiastical offices are distributed, the feast of dedication and of Purim, the observation of fasts, distinctions in food, its preparation and culinary vessels; the laws of marriage and divorce, the peculiarity of a woman marrying her brother-in-law, ceremonial pollutions and local affections, Jewish poverty and mendicity, diseases of the Jews, certain punishments inflicted upon offenders, customs in relation to the sick and the burial of the dead; and then the notions of the Hebrew nation in reference to the Messiah whom they expect still to come.

Such are the topics discussed with great precision and minuteness in this work of rare and multifarious erudition,themes of no passing or trivial importance, presented with a strong claim on the attention of the sage, the antiquarian, and the Christian. "An inquiry into the peculiarities of the Mosaic laws," says Spencer, "deservedly commends itself, on the ground of its attractiveness. For, if the laws of Athens, and Rome, and others, venerable on account of their antiquity and wisdom, afford so great an attraction to the sons of wisdom, it must be that we are at once ridiculously foolish and impious if we should be able to peruse these divine laws, unmoved by any pleasure. If we pursue with such eager eyes the fleeting forms of ancient statues, if touched with a certain reverence we contemplate the ruins of an old monument or city, if we purchase at so great a price brazen coins bearing the face of a Cæsar or an Alexander, if imbued with so much delight, we discover the origins of ancient nations or antiquated words, rescued from the darkness of antiquity, shall we be so silly as to pass by in a perfunctory manner the most ancient laws of the Hebrews, and suppose that they can recompense our attention with no pleasure? Scaliger derived so great pleasure from the knowledge of Roman laws and customs, that he hesitated not to say, 'If the knowledge of Roman antiquity is of no use, I do not see of what use to us letters are.' But he would have been much nearer the truth, if he had said, letters are of no use if there be no use in the knowledge of Jewish

antiquity, far surpassing that of Rome, at once in point of time and of dignity. But not only the antiquity, but also the hidden wisdom of the Mosaic laws will supply the student with great delight. For, if we look at those laws and rites with attentive and clear eyes, we shall easily perceive certain truths, natural, moral, and evangelical, often lying hid under the outer rind of the Mosaic dispensation. If we are, therefore, instigated by an almost insatiable thirst to examine the mysteries of the Chaldees, the Egyptians, and other ancient nations; if we torture, with sundry and anxious conjectures, the obelisks of the Egyptians, and the magical shapes of animals that they bear, that they may disclose to us the sacred mysteries which they conceal; much more, it must be, that we should know the very institutions of God, not unfrequently pregnant with mysteries, unless we have a vitiated taste, or think that the pearl of wisdom may be sooner found in the dung-hill of heathen dogmas and institutions, than in the treasury of the divine law. If any one well disposed will come to the study of this law, it will undoubtedly be pleasant to contemplate the mysteries of our faith, here and there transparent through the intermediate shadows of Jewish rites, and in them, revealed in some ruder draughts, the Messiah who was about to come. It will also be delightful to perceive the Church uttering her voice, as it were from her first cradle, and apprehend the means or steps by which the light of the gospel, from the first dawn of the Mosaic ritual, advanced to this full blaze of meridian splendour.'

So far the elegant author of the famous work "De legibus Hebræorum" speaks well, and to the purpose. There can be no doubt that the Hebrew ritual, the lex scripta, as given by Moses, is a glorious hieroglyphic, a hidden wisdom, a marvellous theosophy, containing under it a still more wonderful reality, the wisdom of God in a mystery, the germ and incipient blossom of the everlasting gospel. But the Hebrew ritual, the lex oralis, thorah shebeal peh, as given by the Rabbis, is a curious conglomerate of all imaginery things, where strange customs and outlandish rites have been thrown together with things of a sacred origin, and having the name of Moses inscribed upon them, like the name of Hermes on an Athenian statue, opens up sights rare and mystical, but the true are mingled with the false. It is with this latter ritual that we have to do in the pages of the Synagoga Judaica. Paganism has in it some truth; but it holds error in strong solution : modern Judaism has in it a larger portion of truth; but, in

* De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, et earum rationibus, libri tres. authore Joanne Spencero, S. T. P. Cap. 3, Sect. 1.

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