not accomplish. In this then will consist the strength and wisdom of the clergy yet to come, that they will allow to the disguised enemies no weapon which they cannot themselves wield, and whether they employ philology, history, or archæology, will determine to be a match for them. The real importance of the German neological schools is greatly over-rated, from the simple fact that they take advantage of the lower attainments of their opponents. Let the latter watch them, and dispute with them step by step in their industrious and truly learned acquisitions, and they will at once lose their power. It is neither Christian nor manly to treat erudite men, and who, we have reason to believe, are sincere believers in their pernicious errors, with scorn and contempt, because we cannot really grapple with them in their profound acquaintance with the literature of the Scriptures. Before we can tell the world of the heterodoxy of a De Wette, we should be prepared in a workmanlike way to expose his errors; and if we would really neutralize the heresy of a Strauss, we must study his mythical theory, and show its baselessness. The time has gone by when a man could be ruined by being arbitrarily branded with heterodoxy, as a poor decrepit woman could with witchcraft. We must meet learning with equal erudition, and urbanity and politeness in our opponents with the same qualities. Any other course than this may satisfy a bigoted and ill-furnished mind, but will convey no satisfactory refutation of error to those who stand by; and we verily believe that more error has been propagated by an arrogant and despotic treatment of its disseminators, than by all their own efforts.

The Church of England has the warm attachment of her clergy on various grounds, each of which justifies it; but there is nothing, next to her presumed possession of apostolic truth, which ought to make her more worthy of being loved, than the fact, that she has always been the patroness of true learning in her children. If she were to cease to exist to-morrow, and all her colleges and noble foundations to be levelled with the ground, she never could cease to be influential in the world, from the extent and richness of her literature, embracing every topic which has the most remote connection with revealed truth. Her divines, her philologists, her masters in casuistry, her defenders of the outworks of Divine truth against the assailants of hundreds of years, have formed for her a monumentum ære perennius, destined to instruct the remotest generations, and only to fall when time shall be no more. Surely a commendable esprit de parti, a laudable ambition to keep up the character of the community to which they belong, will make her clergy adapt themselves to the advanced literature of the times, and become champions for the truth, as zealous and competent as their forefathers.

SYRIAC LITERATURE.

Das Heilige Evangelium des Johannes, Syrisch in Harklensicher Uebersetzung mit Vocalen und den Puncten Kuschoi und Rucoch, nach einer Vaticanischen Handschrift, nebst kritischen Anmerkungen, von GEORG HEINRICH BERNSTEIN. Leipsig, B. G. Teubner, 1853; London, D. Nutt. (The Gospel of St. John in the Harclean Syriac Translation, with the vowels and the points Kuschoi and Rucoch, after a Vatican manuscript, with critical remarks.)

Das Leben des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers, aus dem Syrischen übersetzt, und mit erläuternden Anmerkungen versehen, von J. ALSLEBEN. Berlin, E. Mai, 1853; London, D. Nutt. (The Life of St. Ephraem the Syrian, translated from the Syriac, with illustrative notes.)

We are glad to see Bernstein in the field again, and in so very attractive a dress. We know of old that he has a taste for elegant typography, since in his preface to the Chrestomathy of Kirsch, printed in the year 1832, he accounts for the delay of the work by the necessity he felt of procuring new Syriac typesQuum autem prima libelli plagula Lipsiae typis exscripta esset, hi propter hebetudinem deformitatemque quâ laborabant, ita mihi displicuerunt, ut editoris munus deponere quam talibus formis depravari librum pati mallem.' In consequence of this demur he gained his object, and the Chrestomathy and Lexicon appeared in a form highly creditable to both the editor and the publisher. But this volume far exceeds the others in elegance; indeed, it is, without exception, the most beautifully printed Syriac book we ever saw. The shape of the letters, we think, can scarcely be improved; and there are two sets of them, one size intended for the text, and the smaller for the notes. This is an advantage which was well understood and employed by Assemani in the 'Bibliotheca Orientalis,' where the small Syriac type of the notes strikes the eye as very light and elegant; but it is not often possessed by printing-offices in England, where generally only onesized type is used, often very inconveniently. The paper and binding are in keeping with the typography, and an illuminated title and head-piece to the Syriac text, copied, we presume, from the Ms., leave nothing of external decoration to be desired.

The Ms. from which this edition of St. John's Gospel is printed, was once the property of J. S. Assemani, and deposited, after his death, with many others, in the Vatican Library. S. Evod. Assemani thus describes it :

'A paper Codex in folio, of 635 pages, elegantly written in Syriac letters, marked No. 14, among the Syriac Mss. belonging to J. S. Assemani; in which are contained the four Gospels of the version of Philoxenus, the bishop of Mabug, examined by Thomas of Heraclea, and collated with three Greek copies. At the side there is a Carshun version, or Arabic in Syriac letters, which is seldom met with, and which is of great use for the understanding of the more difficult Syriac words. The Syriac text is furnished with the vowel points. This copy was written by Noë, a Jacobite, bishop of Phenicia, who had the name of Cyril, in the monastery of St. Michael at Sadad, a fortress belonging to Emesa, on Friday the 11th of July, 1483 (year of the Greeks 1794),' &c. To these particulars Bernstein adds :

:

'It is written beautifully and correctly in the more modern and plain writing, and has, like the Bodleian Codex used by White, neither the asterisks and obeli, nor the marginal annotations which in other manuscripts are found in greater or less number, as in White's edition, but only some critical remarks in the margin, which are quoted among the critical observations (appended by Bernstein to the Syriac text). But it is the only one among all the manuscripts of this version known to me which is fully furnished, not only with the vowels, but also with the points Kuschoi and Rucoch, which gives it a special value; whereas in other Mss. diacritic points are added only to certain words, or sometimes Greek vowels, as in the Codex used as the groundwork by White. It is this circumstance which has principally induced me to publish the Gospel of John according to this manuscript, believing as I do that it will be allowed to be not unimportant, not only for a beginner but also for one well initiated, to learn to know more correctly, from a considerable number of examples, the right pronunciation both of single words, especially those of rare occurrence, which the Gospel contains, and of the letters in their various situations.'

ܟܦܬ

This, then, is the great object of the book, and this constitutes its value, that it is a help towards the fixing the right use of the vowel points, about which, from being used so sparingly in the MSS., considerable doubt may exist. This authority, as we have seen, goes only back to the year 1483, and is therefore comparatively modern; yet, as it follows a uniform system, it has much weight and importance. Bernstein collects a vast number of examples in which the punctuation of his copy differs from the printed books. He also gives great attention to the use of the points Kuschoi and Rucoch, by which the Beged-Cepheth letters are marked as aspirated or not. These are particulars in the language which are only considered unimportant when its study is recent and superficial, but which always receive attention when it advances to perfection. The Hebrew points are talked of as of no value by those who look only at the surface of the language, but, by those who go deeper, are found to enter into its very nature, as the traditional exponent of its finer and more phi

losophical peculiarities. As the Syriac language has hitherto received but little attention, it was to be expected that its points would be thrown into the background, and the laudable and highly valuable dissertation on this subject is a step in the right direction. As our object is not to translate Bernstein's book, but to point out its value to our readers, we shall only give a few instances as illustrations of the different modes of pointing. We cannot help expressing a wish that all such works intended for the learned were written in Latin, the common tongue of literature.

In the Syrian metrical literature, which forms so important a portion of the existing remains of the language, the ancient use of the vowels must have had a conspicuous place in regulating the measures. If any pointed metres of.considerable antiquity could be discovered, they would have great value.

The words which occur in Assemani's description of this manuscript, Quatuor Evangelia, ex versione Philoxeni Mabugensis Episcopi, a Thoma Heracleensi recognita et ad tria exemplaria Græca collata,' bring before us a point which has been disputed in Syriac Biblical criticism, some having doubted whether the Philoxenian and the Harclean are the same or different versions. The testimony of antiquity does not leave the matter sub judice, for Bar Hebraeus plainly says, "The Peschito version of the New Testament was made in the time of Thomas the Apostle and Agbarus the King of Osrhoene; afterwards it was translated more diligently in the city of Mabug, in the days of the pious Philoxenus; and thirdly it was corrected (recensitum) at Alexandria by the labour of Thomas the Harclean.' Further, in a

a

a The whole of the observations of Bar Hebraeus on the Syriac versions may be seen in Assemani Bib. Or., tom. ii. pp. 24, 279; or in Wiseman's Horæ Syriacae, p. 83.

postscript of the Mss. of what is considered the Philoxenian, Thomas of Heraclea says, 'This is the book of the four holy Evangelists which was translated from the Greek language into Syriac, in the days of pious Mar Philoxenus. But it was afterwards collated with much diligence by me, poor Thomas,' &c. This agrees with the account of Assemani, whose words, recognita and collata, certainly apply to correction rather than to an original translation. Michaelis also says (Introd. Bp. Marsh's Translation, vol. ii. p. 65), 'Thomas of Heraclea, from whom the Philoxenian version is sometimes called the Heraclean, undertook a critical correction of it, for which purpose he made a journey to Alexandria, in order to compare it with the best Mss. of the Alexandrine library.'

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6

But the writer of the article Syriac Versions,' in Kitto's 'Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature,' is very positive as to the de novo character of Thomas's labours. He says, 'It (the Harclean) was not so much a new recension of the Philoxenian, as an additional version of the New Testament, and accordingly it is described as a third translation by Bar Hebraeus.' But this observation proceeds on an entire misconstruction of the words of Bar Hebraeus. When speaking of the work of Philoxenus, he says the New Testament was translated, but his reference to the labour of Thomas is altogether different; by him the New Testament A was collated or compared. In the same article it is afterwards said, 'From the preceding description it will be seen that what is usually called the Philoxenian, should be designated the Harclean Version; the two are quite distinct.' In Davidson's Biblical Criticism,' which is the latest authority on the whole subject, this reasoning in the Cyclopædia, apparently derived from Bernstein's Commentatio de Charklensi N. T. translatione, is discussed and refuted, the conclusion being the following:-This reasoning, however plausible, will not bear examination. The postscript to the Gospels, already quoted, plainly alludes to a revision of the Philoxenian by Thomas, not another translation. It is the work as revised by Thomas of Harkel which is extant and has been printed.' (Vol. ii. pp. 188, 189.)

The other work mentioned at the head of this paper is the first contribution to a translation in German of all Ephraem's extant Syriac works. It is the life of that father, from an anonymous Syriac work, first printed by Assemani in the sixth volume of the Roman edition of Ephraem Syrus. It is there entitled 'Acta s. p. n. Ephraemi Syriaca, auctore anonymo, ex Codice Nitriensi Vaticano V., nunc primum eruta ;' or, as it is in the Syriac, A History of the Life of the holy Mar Ephraem, the Teacher.' It occupies forty folio columns, with a Latin translation in the free style distinguishing the whole of the versions of Assemani and his