great literary power, sanctioned by the "Quarterly Review" in its number for October last-a number which has reached a sixth edition, and is diffusing error among readers of all ranks and sects. It is desirable that the corrective should be widely distributed; and as among the readers of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine there are probably many who have seen the article in the "Quarterly," but to whom the "Scattered Nation" is unknown, the following extracts from the pages of the latter may be of service to the cause of truth.

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The editor of that Magazine very truly says, "The writer of the article, The Talmud,' in the Quarterly Review,' misrepresents Christianity by identifying it with the Talmud. I have no hesitation in saying that the article is destructive to the claims of Christianity as a Divine revelation, and to those of Jesus as the Son of God. It ought, therefore, to be resisted, and its fallacies must be exposed. We doubt not that the production of Professor Delitzsch (The Saviour and the Rabbi,') will do us this service, and therefore tend to the glory of God."

The Jewish traditions which are embodied in the Talmud rest on the authority of the Rabbi Hillel and his successors in the Jewish Sanhedrim. It is worthy of note that Hillel was the grandfather of Gamaliel, at whose feet sat the Apostle Paul, and that he was the progenitor of a family within which the presidentship of the Jewish Sanhedrim was for some centuries hereditary.

The following account of Rabbi Hillel, abridged from Dr. Delitzsch's article, is believed to be historically true.

About fifty years before the birth of Christ an incident occurred in Jerusalem, which is thus recorded. Two of the most celebrated teachers of that age, during the night preceding the Sabbath, were conducting the studies of a large circle of pupils. At the appearance of early dawn, the light being unusually obscured, they discovered a human form covered with snow, for it was winter, darkening their window outside. It was Hillel, who had climbed up into the window, and had become insensible through the cold. They brought him down, bathed him, rubbed him with oil, and placed him near the stove, saying, "He is worthy that we should desecrate the Sabbath for his sake."

What had prompted him to climb into the window? Hillel was a poor scholar who had wandered from Babylon, where his family, descended from David, was in exile, that he might satisfy his thirst for knowledge at Jerusalem, the chief seat of Jewish learning. To accomplish his earnestly desired object, he wrought as a daylabourer, making one half of his earnings suffice for the support of his family, and the other half he paid to the proprietor of the Beth ha-Midrasch, the school which he attended. It so happened that he had been refused admission that evening, because of his poverty. He had failed to obtain work during the day, and consequently could not pay the fee; but, favoured by the darkness of the night, he climbed up into the window, where he could both see and hear. Overcome by the cold, he fell into a state of insensibility, and was with difficulty restored to consciousness.

Thus did Hillel commend himself by his zeal and diligence to the attention of his contemporaries. He spared no pains to make himself the heir of the learning of the first Jewish teachers of the age, and he was successful, and came to be regarded as one of first authority in the knowledge of the so-called oral or traditional law. Rabbi Hillel, and those instructed by him, were the authors of the Talmud, which is now presented by the writer in the "Quarterly Review" as equal in authority with the New Testament.

The training, eminence, and doctrines of this great Rabbi and Saint of Judaism, the authority on which the Talmud rests, are contrasted by Dr. Delitzsch with the Divine origin and training of our blessed Saviour :

Jesus also belonged to a decayed branch of the family of David. He was born not at Babylon, as was Hillel, but at Bethlehem, and passed His youth at Nazareth. It was not on record that any great man had proceeded from Nazareth, the despised village of Galilee, where He was educated. Its want of reputation was implied in the question, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Josephus enumerates two hundred and four towns and villages of Galilee, but Nazareth is not on his record. If the village had been mentioned in the Gospels only, and could now be nowhere found, enlightened and modern scriptural criticism would perhaps have asserted that it had never existed. But happily to this day Nazareth remains as it existed two thousand years ago, among the Galilean hills, built up the hill-slope, in a deep narrow valley, which on the south declines towards the plain of Jezreel, the field of battles ancient and modern. Here in quiet seclusion Jesus grew, and "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

Hillel laboured by human means to perfect the Jewish traditional system; and the Talmud is his monument; while of Jesus it is said prophetically, Isaiah 1. 4, "The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the learned." Under this Divine guidance, throughout childhood and youth, we know by the Gospels what a Teacher Jesus became. When, in the synagogue of Nazareth, the Book of Isaiah was handed to Him, that He might read the Sabbath lesson, He began at the words, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,......to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Full of the Divine assurance that He and no other was the Servant of Jehovah, who speaks in the prophet, (Isaiah Ixi. 1, 2,) He opened His discourse, while the eyes of all present were fixed upon Him, with the confirmatory exclamation, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." (Luke iv. 21.) The effect of the first appearance of Jesus as a Teacher was that of amazement: "Whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter?" &c. He lacked the credentials, such as Hillel's, of an authorized Jewish teacher. He came

not from any rabbinical school. He drew freely and directly from the fulness of the Divine Spirit. He could say, as no other man could, “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matt.xi. 27.) Professor Delitzsch's article has done good service in directing attention to the contrast between the training and authority of Hillel, the Jewish rabbi by eminence, and the training and authority of the blessed Saviour of the world.

It is to be hoped that the editor of the "Quarterly Review" will not again grant his sanction to a covert attack on Christianity, such as has been made in its pages by a Jewish contributor; and that the proprietors and readers of the "Quarterly" will protest against a repetition of it. ELIJAH HOOLE.

THE "Quarterly Review" for October (1867) contains an article on the Babylonian Talmud, which has drawn such attention to that Thesaurus of Jewish traditionary lore as is unprecedented in this Christian country. Many learned men had written on the subject; but they wrote for students, rather than for the public, and charms of style and imagination were wanting to interest general readers, and, at the same time, command the admiration of the few, the very few, who have sufficient knowledge of Rabbinism to appreciate the nearly perfect mastery of the Quarterly reviewer. The marvel is, that so profound a student of those twelve immense folio volumes, closely printed in small Rabbinical Hebrew letter, which it is often hard to translate, and much harder to understand, should not have fallen into a style as enigmatical as that of the Talmudists themselves.

In saying that the reviewer's mastery of the subject is "nearly" perfect we make a necessary reserve. On the one hand, his attributing a very high and almost primitive antiquity to the Talmud must be received with considerable abatement. The Mischna, or text, compiled about A.D. 150, consists chiefly of the sentences of Jewish expositors of the law of Moses, relating almost entirely to the ceremonial of religion and the administration of justice; and after having read, as we believe, every word of the Mischna, we confess ourselves unable to receive the impression of any such antiquity as is claimed for it. The men of the Great Synagogue, the last of whom, Simon the Just, guided of course by his knowledge of the mind and faith of his nation, set the seal on the canon of Old Testament Scriptures nearly three centuries and a half before Christ, are but feebly represented in the Mischna. "Hillel said," "Shammai said," "The Rabbins say," "Some say," are the formulae most prevalent in its chapters. There are, undoubtedly, exceptions numerous enough to claim regard; and one document, "The Chapters of the Fathers," usually quoted as Pirkey Aboth, appended to the Sěděr Nezeekeen, or "Order of Injuries," in the second volume of Surenhusius, is a precious, nay, an invaluable, remnant of purely Hebrew ethics. The truth, however, is, that soon after the publication of the Six Orders of the Mischna," by Rabbi Judah the Holy, the zeal and learning of the

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Jews in Palestine and Babylonia were engaged in collecting more copious expositions of this traditionary law, whether in writings then existing and unwritten sentences, or by the composition for themselves of written comments on the Mischnaic text. This process probably began about the close of the second century or beginning of the third of the Christian era; and the redaction was completed in the year 498, under the direction of the rector of the famous school at Sora, on the Euphrates. Dispassionate critical students of the Talmudic writings will estimate each of those writings on its own merits, and learn to appreciate its relative worth. The young student may reasonably expect more from the elder traditionists than from their more degenerate successors in later times, with a few bright exceptions, such men, for example, as Maimonides. It is alleged, moreover, that many of the Talmudic writers teach a morality more nearly scriptural than did the old Pharisees, who were, if you please, the Ritualists of their times, whom our Lord condemned for making the commandments of God of none effect by their traditions: and this we entirely believe. "The Chapters of the Fathers," just mentioned, give evidence of such a superiority; and so do the abundant gleanings of Lightfoot and Schottgen, in their Hora Hebraicæ et Talmudicæ, and many of the extracts collected by Wetstein and others in illustration of the New Testament. This purer teaching may be taken to represent the better class of Jews in the time of Christ-a class continuing four or five centuries after, in the descendants of the sincere and devout Israelites that were clearly distinguished by His constant commendation from the "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Thus much we may concede, but no more.

Another exception, which, in our admiration of the article in the Review, we regret to make, is that it exhibits the want of correct appreciation of the New-Testament Scriptures and of Christianity. It lacks the full, unreserved, devout, earnest acknowledgment of that sempi ternal verity which speaks out in all inspired Scripture, and of that supreme and independent authority which belongs to the New Testament. The reviewer does not recognise, as the inspired writer of the Epistle or treatise to the Hebrews taught, the Divine supremacy of the "Only Begotten" Son of God over angels, over Abraham, and over Moses; but any criticism on this divergence from the great body of Christian theologians should be conducted very seriously and with full scope, and therefore cannot be attempted here. Perhaps the writer in the "Quarterly" may himself see fit to show us that he has been misunderstood; and it will be well if no controversy is found necessary that would interrupt the speedy accomplishment of the work we hope he has initiated, namely, a thorough study of Rabbinical literature, and an application of the results to the purposes of Christianity. A writer in a recent number of the "Contemporary Review" treats this point well. He does not state it controversially; but, more wisely, because more effectually, he propounds the truth according to his own view of it, a view in which we can safely agree.

At the time these sentences were penned, the present writer was not aware that the author of the article in the "Quarterly" is himself a Jew.

A paragraph from the latter Review, bearing the signature of "Reginald Stuart Poole," hints at much that should be said on the respective characteristics of Judaism and Christianity as to ethics.

"They (the Jewish) are rather similar than identical, rather parallel than historically related, if we compare them with those of the Gospel. The Talmudic adage says, "Above all things, study." Christianity teaches the simplicity, almost the ignorance of childhood. Jewish ethics were, if not limited to the doctors and schools, yet their property; Christian ethics were preached to the common people, the ignorant, and the vicious, 'publicans and harlots.' Jewish ethics had a fragile and tender beauty that made them scarcely equal to pass from the ideal calm of learning into the great conflict of the world. Like certain taking modern systems, the systems of pure-minded idealists, they almost failed to realize the existence of evil. But, after all, there is evil, and any system that does not look it in the face, and fight it to the last, must go down in the wear and tear of life, if indeed it do not end in self-righteous separation from it. Christianity, while in no way inferior in its ethics, recognises the existence of evil, combats it, releases its slaves, points sternly to the end of its servants. The Mischna has no hell.”

The article in the "Quarterly" has caused quite a sensation. The discovery of Pompeii, Nineveh, or Babylon, could hardly have caused more; and this mere fact leads to the disclosure of a negligence, to say the least, that is not creditable to our country. It would not have been so two hundred years ago. The names of Lightfoot, the Buxtorfs, Castell, Drusius, and others, were then familiar to the clergy of Protestant Europe. But their thorough way of learning Hebrew could never be followed by any other than diligent and earnest men; nor yet their application of Hebrew learning to the elucidation of the New Testament, as well as the more correct perception of what is written in the Old. The Hutchinsonian folly rose up like fungus on the oak, to indicate the decay of that hard-earned scholarship which gave to the Western Church the Vulgate, and to Protestant Germany its imperishable Bible, and to England her glorious authorized Version. The Talmud, now known only by its disjected fragments, was idly laughed at by the many, and despaired of by the few. Even University men needed to ask "What is a Targum?" The great Hebrew commentators could not find readers; and the "Fiery Darts" of Wagenseil, who took the Jewish infidels as his target, did little more than show men like Volney how to cry down Christianity, and help the despisers of the Jew to hate him yet more bitterly. Those dark days are past. Hebrew studies may revive again, and their real value may be understood better than ever, seeing that oriental learning now covers a far wider field, and even the Talmud has latterly found some laborious expositors. The golden little book of the late Dr. Etheridge, entitled, "Jerusalem and Tiberias: Sora and Cordova," or, more briefly, "Hebrew Literature,”* is a full and trustworthy manual, open to the youngest beginner, but useful to the more advanced reader of volumes long unintelligible, that will now, as we expect, rise in value in the market, in answer

Longmans, 1856.