tervelt); even the Rabbi Kimchi does not understand the verse to allude to this life, for he thus quotes from Midrash: "He tells that after death the worm or moth shall not bear sway over himself."

Another "extremely unfortunate rendering," says the same critic, "involving a gross anachronism, is that of silk,' which could not be known in the Bible countries during any part of the Old Testament period. There is a word, shesh, one of the terms for 'fine linen,' or perhaps muslin, used in Gen. xli. 42, and rendered there in the text fine linen;' but not satisfied with that the translators must add in the margin 'or silk,' although they render the same word 'linen' in a great many other places. But worse than this, 'silk' occurs in the text itself of Prov. xxxi. 22; as though an industrious Hebrew woman of the middle class could be clothed in such a precious material, which certainly was unknown even to Solomon, and hundreds of years after his time was sold for its weight in gold. Silk' is again used for another word, in Ezek. xvi. 10-13, meschi, where, perhaps, is meant a net worn over the head by women, etc.” In a note it is added, "There is only one word in the Hebrew Scriptures which looks at all like silk, though it cannot mean it, and that is in Isa. xix. 9, serikoth;" A. V., fine flax.

The word silk occurs in the text of the A. V. only four times, viz., Prov. xxxi. 22, Ezek. xvi. 10, 13, and Rev. xviii. 12, and that the correct term has been used by the translators, except in the first-mentioned passage, is evident from the following considerations. Shesh, from a root which means to be white, ought to be translated fine linen, and the word is so rendered 32 of the 33 times it is found in the Hebrew of the Old Testament by the translators of the A. V., there being nothing to justify a different translation of the same word. The word for linen itself is bad, and so rendered in the English Version, where we also find butz, pishtah, and shesh, translated linen or fine linen; Mr. Yates and others also maintain they all mean linen, except pishtah, now considered by all scholars who have investigated the subject to mean flax. Mr. J. E. Ryland gives good reasons in Dr. Kitto's Cyclopædia (art. Shesh) in support of the opinion that butz (A. V., fine linen) is cotton. The karpas of Esther (i. 6) is proved by Mr. Yates to mean either muslin or calico, and it is translated fine muslin by Dr. Vincent, while Mr. J. E. Ryland thinks that cotton, white and blue, is the meaning of the passage in Esther; in a new translation the word ought to be rendered muslin or cotton instead of the present rendering in the A. V., viz., green. Serikoth refers to flax, the fibres of which, Sir G. Wilkinson (Anc. Egyp.,

vol. ii., p. 99) shews, was parted and cleansed with a sort of comb: combed flax is therefore nearer the original than fine flax.

In Ezek. xvi. 10, 13, is the word (meschi) from to draw out, and nowhere else is it found in the Hebrew of the Old Testament writings. It is rightly translated in the A. V., "silk;" the Vulgate has subtilibus, but omits to translate the word in ver. 13. Luther has schleier (veil), and seide (silk); De Wette has seide; Trem. and Junius have muslin (serico and sericum), or rather silk. What was the fine linen of Scripture? Just the celebrated linen of Egypt which the Hebrews evidently knew how to make (see Ex. xxxv. 25, etc.), and which we cannot as it is equal to our silk; the quality of one piece of linen found near Memphis excites admiration at the present day, "being," says Wilkinson, "to the touch comparable to silk, and not inferior in texture to our finest cambric." The very fact that the products of India are traced to Greece in the time of Homer (Il., vi., 289), to Egypt in the time of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 25, the names of the spices prove this, see Wilkinson's Anc. Egyp., vol. ii., p. 134), and to Jerusalem in the days of Solomon (1 Kings ix. 26, etc.), shews that it is highly probable that silk was early introduced from the East into Palestine and Egypt. This trade also introduced into the Hebrew language Sanskrit words, e. g., nard, bdellium, calamus, and cassia. As these words bear terminations characteristic of the Dekkan, it has been maintained that the Ophir of the Old Testament must have been in India, and probably on the Malabar coast; see Speir's Life in Anc. India. The art of making silk was discovered at a very early period by the Chinese; that things arrived from China and were used in Egypt is well known. In the tombs of Thebes and other places in that country have been found bottles of undoubted Chinese manufacture; they were in the opinion of Sir G. Wilkinson brought from India by Arab traders. The historian Gibbon states that "silks which had been closely woven in China, were sometimes unravelled by the Phoenician women, and the precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture and the intermixture of linen threads" (Dec. and Fall, chap. xl.) The same historian eloquently remarks that the capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of Homer. And it is his opinion that "in every age a variety of animal and vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool, flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been skilfully manufactured to hide or adorn the human body." If the periods during which Solomon and Ezekiel flourished were exceptions, Gibbon certainly was the last person in the world to have forgotten such a fact. Ezekiel, who was contemporary

with Jeremiah and Daniel, is the first ancient writer who mentions silk (594 B.C.); Aristotle (Hist. Anim., v., chap. xix.) is the first Greek writer who gives information respecting its use, and Pliny, Clemens Alexandrinas, and Basil, in the opinion of Dr. Wm. Smith, have adopted his account with various modifications. The objection that silk could not be known to Solomon or the Bible countries during any part of the Old Testament period, because it was expensive in Rome when imported in the age of Aurelian, applies also to the article linen, the then existence of which our critic does not deny, because linen was as great a luxury as silk to the Roman, "insomuch," says Professor Ramsay (Rom. Antiq.), "that the priests of Isis were at once marked out to the eye as a distinct class by the circumstance of their being robed in linen." When silk was imported into Rome from the island of Cos, near the western coast of Asia Minor, the price was certainly so high that thin gauzes (coa vestes) were chiefly used, or a mixture in which the woof was of silk, and the warp of flax; this kind received the name vestes subsericæ; cloths composed entirely of silk were called vestes holoserica. During the reign of Tiberius, the Senate passed a decree:-Ne vestis serica viros fœdaret (Tac. Ann., ii., p. 33); Elagabalus, *however, using silk robes, etc., was the first Roman who dared to disobey the decree of the Senate. It is true that Aurelian complained that a pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold, but then as the historian Gibbon remarks, the supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with the supply. When the article ceased to be imported, at least to any extent, in the reign of Justinian (A.D. 532), the manufacturing of silk by the Romans was considered in the reign of Justin II. as not inferior to that of China.

It is certainly nothing but sophistry, and that of the worst kind, to assert that a substance could not exist, or become common, in a certain country in a certain age, because the same substance was dear in another country during a later age. But even although no trace of any connexion whatsoever with India or the East could be proved as having ever existed in Old Testament times, no one could be justified in questioning the truth of the statement contained in Ezekiel, viz., that silk garments were common in Jerusalem. Until the word in Ezekiel is proved to be an interpolation, it is absurd to maintain that by rendering it as meaning silk, the only meaning we can give to the word, is just to commit "a gross anachronism." The assertion has been made, and it is no imaginary statement, that certain arts, or the manufacturing of certain articles, have been discovered or practised by one people or nation, lost at their decline, and re

discovered by another people, and probably more than once this discovery and loss has taken place in the history of nations. For instance, the art of casting in core, as it is technically called, is said to have been discovered in Greece; now, from a comparison of ancient colossal statues with two of the largest modern ones, and a few brief notices found in the oldest of books, we are enabled to prove that the three stages into which the art of casting has been divided, were certainly known to the ancients; the molten sea described in 1 Kings vii. 23, shews beyond doubt that the three stages were perfectly well known in Solomon's reign, while the golden bells (Ex. xxviii. 33, 34), shew that in the casting of small articles, they were known long before his time." A history ofthe progress made in the arts by the ancient Hebrews has been, until lately, a subject totally neglected; this, however, is not now the case, as it is fully investigated in a work just published called The Ancient Workers and Artificers in Metal, from references in the Old Testament, by Mr. James Napier, F.C.S., a gentleman of undoubted scientific attainments. From this work the following extract is taken :-"It must have been observed by those who have read works on the genuineness or authenticity of the Pentateuch, and other books in the Old Testament, that one argument often used by a certain class of thinkers is, that articles of manufacture are named in these books as being in common use at the time they were written; while, from profane history, it can be shewn that materials or substances capable of making such articles were not discovered till long after the reputed author of the sacred books was dead, and, consequently, such books could not have been written by that author, or the account of these articles must have been interpolated by later hands, and thus Scripture history must be considered doubtful. It appears probable that many of the ancient nations besides the Israelites often attained to great perfection in particular arts, but by a change of dynasty, or a series of wars, the arts fell into desuetude, and were forgotten by the artificers dying out, no written record or description being left of the art. Long after this period the same art is again discovered and – practised, and the history of this last discovery being written, it is remembered." His assertions are illustrated by several instances, "out of a great many mentioned in history;" we have only room for two, and those the most remarkable on record:Marking ink, made with silver solution, is another discovery of modern days; and it is found by analysis of the writings on

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a See an article by the present writer in Macphail's Edin. Magazine for July 1856, from which the above instance is taken.

linen, over the mummies, to have been used by the ancient Egyptians. I remember passing through the antiquity department of the British Museum a few years ago, when a gentleman present, pointing to a form of clasp amongst the Egyptian articles, stated, that recently a mechanic in England had registered the same clasp as a new invention, and no doubt it was to the inventor: 'The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.'” In an age when scholars of undoubted learning and ability are doing their utmost to prove the Scriptures to be spurious and unworthy of belief, it is exceedingly gratifying to observe issuing from the British press, year after year, works illustrative of the truth of Holy Writ, written by laymen of great scientific and literary attainments, for Mr. Napier is not the only layman who has of late thrown great light on various passages which otherwise would still remain obscure and unintelligible; Sir G. Wilkinson, Mr. J. Smith, Mr. Layard, and Mr. J. Y. Akerman, have all contributed to this good work; all honour and praise is due to such men, and long may their works continue to be read and studied by the young and the aged, to the utter confusion of the Adversary.

"But there are some places," continues this new critic of the A. V. in the Westminster Review, "where the state of the text does not admit of a construction; and a translator must not act upon conjectural emendations. These places may be sufficiently comprised under three heads: (1) defective passages where something has evidently dropped out of the text; (2) redundant passages, where some word or words have crept in; (3) corrupt passages, properly so called, and untranslateable as they stand." Examples are given of the three heads: (1) of the first we have Gen. iv. 8, "And Cain talked with Abel his brother.'-A. V. But the word vayyomer signifies not talked but said; amar is the common word for said, and must be followed

In a review of Mr. Napier's work by Dr. Goold in the News of the Churches, it is stated that "There can be little doubt that the author has entered on an untrodden path of scriptural investigation. It evinces thorough science and practical skill respecting metallurgical operations, the two great requisites for an author on such a theme. Had the lamented Kitto been alive, he would have prized and esteemed it as a book after his own heart."-N. C. for November, 1856.

It is to be hoped that editions of Ancient Egyptians, Shipwreck of St. Paul, and Numismatic Illustrations of the New Testament, will soon be published in a cheaper form, so that all classes of the community may receive benefit from their exceedingly interesting investigations. This objection, it is but right to state, does not apply to Mr. Napier's valuable work.