that, from ancient times, a third part of instruction has consisted of traditions, allegories, and parables. And there is no doubt that this judgment is correct. Not only the oldest Cabalistic books, the Zohar of Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, and the Jezira of Rabbi Akiba, the later commentaries, the Rabbot, and Jalkut Chadasch, but also the Mishna and Gemara and the Targums, are entirely filled with allegory; and even the interpreters, whose proper office is to explain only the literal sense of the words, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Rabbi Solomon, frequently give, after the historical, an allegorical interpretation. Rabbi Solomon, in particular, is very fond of allegory. Whence comes this great proneness to allegory? We cannot ascribe it to a philosophizing spirit, to a desire of finding shelter from the ridicule of the Greeks, or to an imitation of the interpreters of the Greek mythoi. It may be replied, that the oldest of these books does not reach beyond the second century; and that allegory might have passed from Alexandria to Palestine more than a century before Christ. This is possible, but it is not necessarily the fact. The system of the Rabbins contained, not merely a legal, but also a mystical element. From the former sprang the Talmud, from the latter the Cabala. Shortly after the Babylonian captivity Ezra was distinguished for his scriptural learning, and from Chaldæa the Jews brought with them remains of the old Oriental philosophy, and the whole system of the different classes of angels and of the kingdom of evil spirits. We see, even in the oldest Targums, a strong disposition to represent God as acting incorporeally, and with this view the word, and the ministry of angels were devised. To this was added the establishment of synagogues, wherein discourses were delivered from texts taken from the Scriptures, (Campeg. Vitringa de Synag. Vet. Lib. I. P. II. chap. xii.; P. Dan. Huetii Demonstr. Evang. Propos. ix, cap. 171, sect. 7, 8, 9; Joan. Spencerus de Leg. Ritual. Hebr., Lib. 1, cap. 11.) The notions of men both on legal and religious subjects, had become very different from the system of Moses, and yet there was a strong wish to preserve a perfect agreement with him.* In order to confirm all these new ideas, by the authority of passages from the Scriptures, an artificial sys * Concerning the influence of the philosophy of Zoroaster upon the Jews, especially those dwelling in Babylonia, see Eichhorn's Einleitung in d. Ñ. T., II. 160-169. tem of interpretation was required. In the case of legal relations, nothing was necessary but subtilties in the interpretation of words; in regard to religious conceptions they begun, undoubtedly, with the passages which describe the Deity as having a human form, and gave them another sense. Their high ideas of the wisdom of their lawgiver, made them assume, that the ideas which appeared to them most rational must have been his. On this highway to allegory, they had good guides in the Old Testament itself. Of Moses it is said, that he made all things after a celestial model. (Exodus xxv. 9.) In some parts of his system of religious worship, he has himself referred to an interior meaning. See Deut. x. 16, xxx. 6; Exodus xxviii. 38; Lev. x. 17; where reference is made to the circumcision of the heart, as well as to the transfer of guilt from the people to the priest. The prophets frequently contended against merely external sacrifices, and insisted upon purity of heart; they frequently applied images, drawn from celebrated histories of persons, to the description of events to be expected in future. Under the sanction of these examples, the Jews might seek a hidden meaning in other ceremonies, where it was not pointed out by the lawgiver; and they might, with little trouble, attach to the original narration, as its secondary meaning, those images of persons and events which had been derived from it. With such high conceptions of the Scripture, in which every syllable was thought to have a meaning, it was necessary to seek for a hidden sense even in the most insignificant expression. How far all this may have proceeded before the Jews came into connexion with the Greeks cannot be ascertained; but in Alexandria, at all events, the system was carried to the greatest perfection. From the preceding investigation it may be considered settled, that allegory sprang from the conflict of philosophy with the hereditary religion, which, resting on written monuments, could not advance with the progress of the people, and was besides founded merely on local and political grounds. We need not dwell on the history of allegory in the Christian church. It is merely an imitation of the system of the Alexandrine Jews, rendered so much the more necessary by the * Brucker, Hist. Phil. Crit., II. 731. Lüder's Geschichte der vornehmsten alten Völker, p. 47. fact, that the Fathers of the Christian church were always obliged to prove their new doctrines by the authority of the Old Testament. Being so ready to borrow from Jewish opinions, they were almost compelled to take this course; and the interpretations of the Old Testament, by Barnabas, Ignatius, the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, and Origen, are partly borrowed from Philo, and partly formed on the model of his; as Rosenmueller in his History of the Interpretation of the Sacred Books, has very clearly proved. From the same source were derived the strange interpretations of certain Gnostics, for instance, the Nicolaitans and Basilidians, who from Isaiah xxviii. 10, p (line upon line ") formed the Eon xaviaxavas or xavλavzauz. (Irenæus, ed. Massuet, p. 102; Epiphanius, Hær. XXV. Opp. I. 79; Brucker Dissert. de Caulakau Basilidianorum in Museo Helvet. Part xxI. p. 229; Neander über die gnostischen Systeme, p. 85.) In general, allegory prevailed throughout the Christian church with but few exceptions; such as the author of the Recognitions of Clement, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Dionysius of Alexandria. Even the great progress of exegesis since the last ten years of the last century has not entirely banished allegorical interpretation. Ir still remains for us to investigate the origin of allegorical interpretation among the Persians and the Turks. Among them too, it sprang from the conflict of philosophy with the popular religion. The mystic wisdom of the Persian and Turkish Sufis reached its height a considerable time after the diffusion of the Mohammedan religion, but its principles may be traced to the remotest antiquity; it appears to have grown up in part on the soil of India. It has a mixed theoretical and practical character, and seeks, partly through speculation and partly by the way of feeling, to reconcile the opposition between the divine unity and the existence of individual beings. The greater part of these mystics must be allowed to have a high degree of religious fervor. When this mystic philosophy comes in contact with Mohammedanism, it either takes an attitude of open opposition to it, or seeks to give its own spirituality to the sensual ideas of the Koran. In the midst of their religious fervor, most of them hold Mohammed in great esteem, and therefore the latter course is the more usual one. This pro cess is very much facilitated by their custom of using a symbolic language, dealing in images drawn from objects of sense. VOL. XXI. 3D S. VOL. III. NO. II. 23 They represent the divine unity as the object of supreme love, in which the individual longs to be swallowed up. The aspiration after a union with God is called by them ardent love; the enjoyment of the mystic union is typified by intoxication, kissing, or sexual intercourse. (See Tholuk's Sufismus, sive de Religione Persarum pantheisticâ, p. 94 et seq.) It is easy for them, therefore, to spiritualize the sensual pictures in the Koran of the joys of Paradise, &c. But what is more remarkable, this mysticism has been carried so far, that now, in the East, it is common to give a mystic meaning to the acknowledged love songs of Nisamis, Leila, Mejnoun, Youssouf, Zuleika, Hafez, and others. The Turks are particularly fond of this practice. Certain conclusions too have been drawn from it respecting Solomon's Song, but such as show an ignorance of the true character of that work. From the preceding investigation, I think we may with some confidence draw the conclusion, that when philosophical refinement comes in conflict with an antiquated form of popular faith which it dares not openly oppose, allegory is the result. Religious interests give rise to it; but it may subsequently be used and abused in various ways. Ignorance of languages and facts, inability to discriminate between the successive steps in the progress of mankind, and to contemplate an intellectual production with reference to the time of its origin, and as unaffected by the influences under which one's own intellect has grown up, continually give rise to allegorizing; while an opposite state of things is the best security against such a disposition. E. W. ART. III.— A Discourse at the Funeral of the Rev. JOHN PRINCE, LL. D., Senior Pastor of the First Church in Salem, on the Ninth of June, 1836. By CHARLES W. UPHAM, surviving Pastor. Salem: 1836. 8vo. pp. 31. It is with no ordinary regret and sadness of heart, that we behold that venerable company of ancients, whose hoary heads have so long graced the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational ministers, and who, there and everywhere, have so nobly lifted up their voices and borne their testimony for truth and freedom, falling away one by one. It is sometimes numbered among the final causes of that law of Providence, according to which one generation passeth away and another cometh, that thus the prejudices of every successive generation are buried with it; those prejudices by which, otherwise, the progress of society and the human mind would be obstructed, and the world continue entangled for ever in the errors of the past. But the men of whom we are now speaking, can hardly be said ever to have had any prejudices, in the bad sense of that term. For, to the last, who amongst us all have been less disposed than they, to come to a period in religion; or who more ready, or more happy, to welcome from time to time whatever new light has broke forth out of God's holy word. This consolation, however, we have, that, after living through one of the most perturbed and eventful epochs in the history of the world, their sun has been permitted to go down in tranquil and serene heavens; and, as they have rested from their labors, they have not wanted those who knew how to cherish and record their virtues. A summary of the principal incidents in the life of Dr. Prince is thus given by Mr. Upham. "He was born in Boston on the 22d of July, 1751. His parents resided in the north part of the city, and were worthy and excellent members of the religious society now under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Parkman. They were of Puritan descent, and, as was the case with all who worthily claimed that name, were careful to give their son a good education, and to impress upon his mind a reverent sense of religious truth and duty. His father being a mechanic, the son naturally was intended and directed by him to similar pursuits. He was early bound out as an apprentice to a pewterer and tinman, and continued industriously and faithfully to labor in his calling until his indentures had expired. "But his genius, from the beginning, had indicated a propensity to a different mode of life. From a child his chief enjoyments were found in books. He was wont to retire from the sports of boyhood. There was no play for him to be compared with the delight of reading. During the hours of leisure in the period of his apprenticeship, he sought no other recreation than in the acquisition of knowledge. "It followed of course that, upon becoming free, he abandoned his trade and devoted himself to study. In a very short time he was prepared to enter college, and received his bachelor's degree at Cambridge in 1776, at the age of twenty-five. After leaving col |