persecutio quam Abraham passus est sub Nino seu Nimrodo, erat XX. (aut forte multo pluribus) annis ante Abrahami pugnam cum IV. regibus." Ibid. His father too was a Zabian idolater, and because Mohammed in the Koran was ignorant enough to call him Azer, and was of course followed in this by his commentators, Hyde sees in this a strong confirmation of the rest of the tradition about him. "Patri suo Terach etiam convertendo allaboravit (Abraham) usque ad pugnam; idque (ut fas est credere tandem effecit: nam quod fuit Terach, conversionis nomen nullus dubito, cum aliud ejus nomen ethnicum habeamus compextum fuisse Adur, seu Azur. Cumque Abrahami pater hoc nomine Azer alibi inclaruisset, in Alcorano quoque (tacito nomine Terach) ita appellatus fuit. Orientales narrant Terach fuisse magnatem (de quâ re non dubitamus) et in summo favore apud imperatorem, quippe pro quo idola parabat, cùm professione esset idolorum sculptor, seu fabricator (quod apud eos honorabile, ut formator deorum,) in quâ arte erat omnium peritissimus. Hoc enim ritè præstare non poterit qui vis lignifaber, seu communis lignorum aut lapidum exasciator; cum hæc ars deposceret peritissimum astrologum qui esset gnarus talia fabricandi apto tempore et ex aptâ materiâ, cum ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius. Et quidem talis artifex fuit Abrahami pater Azer." Ibid. c. ii.

He proceeds in the same credulous tone, "Satis probabile, quod Abrahamus incarceratus fuit in Ur, quia ibi vixit et (dicente S. Scriptura) inde eductus est. Orientales volunt eum natum in Cûtha, et ibi etiam (ut vides) incarceratum; quod valde probabile, quia ea tunc fuit imperialis civitas, seu sedes regia, ab ipso imperatore, seu patriarchâ Cûth denominata, ubi Abrahami pater Azer fuit ex supremis ejus ministris atque ideo Abrahamus necessario ibi natus: forte autem propter persecutionem, inde fugerit ad Ur." Id. c. 2.

In giving these particular details, Hyde does not appear to have been at all staggered by Josephus's ignorance of them; nor to have bestowed the least reflection on the want of intermediate authorities, as vehicles of information beween these Mahometan writers and events which passed nearly three thousand years before they flourished. Minor difficulties do now and then offend him; thus, he says, "Arabum traditio vult insinuare Abrahamum, trajecto Euphrate, tetendisse sinistrorsum per Arabiam felicem. Sed credat Arabs Apella. Credendum vero potius eum ivisse rectiore viâ ad Syriam: nam ipse habitavit etiam in Damasco, ubi est vicus dictus Aßpane Oinois Domicilium Abrahami; quod etiam ab illius regionis hominibus audivi. At ut aliqui Arabum volunt eum tetendisse nimis australiter per Meccam, sic alii eorum nimis borealiter per Haleb,

quæ Aleppo, Proh Nuga!" The mixture within so few lines of most absurd credulity on his own part, and of contempt for the same failing in others, is an amusing, or a melancholy picture, as the reader may be disposed to view it,

On such authority, aided by a few words from Selden, the antiquity of Zabaism is to be believed; and Hyde gives this religion an extensive range with the same facility as he asserted its antiquity; "Dictus Sabaismus non tantum per orientem, sed et per occidentem obtinuisse constat, cum veteres gentes Europea, scilicet Teutones, Germani, Suevi, Gothi, Danici planetas etiam coluerint."

But the learned and indefatigable Brucker, in his critical history of philosophy, swept all this rubbish away. Indeed in the absence of all authority previous to the Koran, it is evident that coincidence in certain follies or superstitions is very far from a proof of identity of religion. "Si quæstio accurate formatur," says Brucker, "non de eo disceptatur, an cultus siderum, spiritu aliquo præside animatorum, sit antiquissimus; sed num eum Zabii ita a Chaldæis et Babyloniis acceperint, ut hi sectæ Zabiorum parentes atque auctores dici queant? Quod nemo affirmaverit, qui cogitat, Zabiorum sectam non in hoc uno constitisse, ut sidera coelestia coleret, sed peculiare systema cultus hujus sibi effinxisse, quo a reliquis sectis distingueretur. Hoc vero probandum est Chaldæis atque Babyloniis placuisse; si concedendum est, materialiter Zabios esse antiquissimos, id est, systema Zabianum inter istas gentes antiquissimas reperiri. Hoc vero probari non posse, ipse, quo fuit acumine, Spencerus satis intellexit, fassus, Zabiorum nationem et religionem formaliter spectatam, vel quatenus a sectis aliis, doctrinis et ritibus quibusdam sibi peculiaribus distincta sit, recentiorem multo esse. Hoc enim si est, et non nisi doctrinas quasdam universales, erroresque late se diffundentes cum Chaldæis et Babyloniis vetustissimis communes habet, qua ratione Zabianismum canis istis temporibus materialiter extitisse dici potest? Nam si consensus quarundam communium doctrinarum sufficit ad probandum antiquitatem alicujus non systematis solum, sed et sectæ, recentissimas sectas vetustissimis seculis adscribere erit facillimum. Hisce vero demonstratis, omnia concidunt, quæ pro incrustanda Zabianismi antiqui fabula, et quæ illa nititur, legum Mosaicarum opposita ratione dicuntur." Hist. Crit. Philosophiæ, lib. ii. c. v.

In the face of this reasoning, Dr. Townley commences his Essay as follows:

A❝ The ZABII, or ZABIANS, were a sect of Idolaters who flourished in the early ages of the world, considerable in their numbers, and extensive in their influence. Maimonides, whom Scaliger designates as

"the most learned and acute of all the Jewish writers," assures us in his celebrated Moreh Nebochem, or "Instructer of those who are perplexed," that a very principal object in the ceremonial institutions of Moses, was, the eradication of their idolatrous principles and practices; and has supported his position by an excellent exposition of the grounds and reasons of the Mosaic laws." P. 1.

The assertions of Maimonides, with references to Hyde, Spencer, Pocock, and Selden, for Mohammedan authorities, or for repetitions from Maimonides in another shape, form the bulk of the Essay, which this passage introduces; but Dr. Townley has not learnt from Brucker to distinguish between similarity of error and identity of system; for he quotes Lactantius, as supposing" Egypt to have been the country in which Zabaism, or the worship of the stars, first prevailed." P. 3. This is a mode of speaking which would lead many readers to imagine, that Lactantius had mentioned Zabaism by that name, and therefore should not have been used.

Indeed had Dr. Townley weighed Brucker's arguments more thoroughly, he could not have represented them, as merely turning on the incompetency of Arabian writers to prove facts unknown to the Greeks or Romans.

Persons who only range amidst the choicest writers of the day will, perhaps, think we have been combating opinions about this sect, which no one, but the writer before us, has thought of reviving. But the truth is, and we have before alluded to it, that the exploded notion of the vast antiquity of the Zabians, has lately furnished several persons with so many strange theories, that we believe ourselves justified in exposing the weak authority on which these airy fabrics have been erected.

The second Essay contains different versions of the singular calumny which charged the Jews and early Christians with worshipping the ass; and several ingenious, though none appear to us very plausible hypotheses on the origin of this strange accusation. Perhaps Le Ferre's conjecture is the best; viz. "That the schismatic temple in the province of Heliopolis in Egypt, being called Ous aos, and ovetov, the surrounding Pagans invented the fable, that the ass "Ovos was worshipped there."

The next Essay is on the popular notions respecting Mary Magdalene. It contains some extracts from Rabbinical writers, . whose malignity has taken advantage of the vulgar opinion respecting this woman. Dr. Townley thinks, that the term sinner, as publicly given her, meant that she was a heathen.

The subject of the seventh Essay connects itself with the origin of several peculiarities in Romish ecclesiastical antiquity.

"The terms IXOYE (Ichthus) a fish, and PISCICULI, fishes, were, at an early period of the Christian æra, adopted as symbolical words, suited to the views and practices of the orthodox members of the primitive churches. By the former, the Greeks designated the SAVIOUR of the world; and by the latter, the Latins distinguished the persons who had received the ordinance of baptism. The term IXOY was formed from the initial letters of the Greek words Ιησους Χριστος, Θεοῦ Υιος, Zwrηp, JESUS CHRIST, the SON OF GOD, our Saviour.'

"From the use of symbolical terms, the transition was easy to the adoption of symbolical representations, and it therefore soon became common for the Christians to have the letters of the word IXOYΣ, or the figures of fishes, sculptured on their monuments for the dead, struck on their medals, engraved on their rings and seals, and even formed on their articles of domestic use.

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Aringhius, in his laborious work, entitled Roma Subterranea, (in 2 vols. folio,) has given several representations of sepulchral sculptures, in which the Fish forms a prominent figure. One of these, accurately copied on a reduced scale, will be found in the plate prefixed to this volume, fig. 2. It was taken from a marble sarcophagus, found in the Vatican at Rome, and represents Jesus Christ as the good Shepherd,' with the lost sheep upon his shoulders; on either hand appears a sheep looking up to him, apparently with affection and attention; on the right is the figure of a fish; and on the left an anchor, symbolical of hope: the whole forming an interesting group, and probably intended to intimate that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of mankind, that he seeks and saves the lost,' that his sheep hear his voice and follow him,'-that in order to be a true Christian, a man must be born again of water and of the Spirit,'-and, that is by becoming true Christians, that we obtain a sure and certain hope' of eternal life; and hence Christians were sometimes called Piscis Filii," -Sons of the Fish,' by the ancients.

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"In some cases the word IXOYZ was cut upon the Sarcophagi, or sepulchral urns, to distinguish the sepulchres of the Christians from those of the Pagans, especially in the public cemetries, where their tombs where not sufficiently marked by any other distinction. On these occasions, the Greek letter N was usually placed after the word, as the abbreviation of Nura, he conquered, to shew that it was intended as the symbol of Jesus Christ, who had led captivity captive,'' abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel."" P. 106.

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To this we can add, that the meniscus formed by the intersection of two circumferences of equal circles, containing each 120°, and known to the old geometers under the title of Piscis, or Vesica piscis, in allusion to its shape, became also from its name a popular emblem; and when it was discovered that whilst the included figure is the equilateral triangle, the circumscribing parallelogram is capable of perpetual trisec

tion into parts similar to the whole, and equal to each other, these properties combined with its name made it quite a sacred figure. The holy water vessels in the porch of that most ancient church S. Paolo fuori delle mure, near Rome, are of this figure. Abbatial seals were almost universally of the same; and the cathedral doors are frequently surmounted by a rude representation of the virgin and child enclosed in such a frame. It is the opinion of a learned and ingenious antiquary, that the Saxon churches were built in the proportions of the above consecrated parallelogram; and that in churches which have been formed by adding to some old Saxon building, that portion which is Saxon, may be defined and measured off from the additions, by attending to the necessarily proportionate length of such a parallelogram.

We shall conclude our notice of Dr. Townley, by subjoining some interesting passages, from his Essay on the prohibitory and expurgatory indexes of the Romish Church.

"This establishment of the Inquisition soon induced systematical endeavours to suppress and destroy all writings deemed heretical, or calculated to promote what the papal hierarchy called heresy; among which were frequently classed vernacular and other versions of the Holy Scriptures! The inquisitorial council of Tholouse, held under the auspices of this tribunal, in 1229, prohibited the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue; and as this was the first canon publicly forbidding the Word of God; it is here presented to the reader :—

We also forbid the laity to possess any of the books of the Old or New Testament; except, perhaps, some one out of devotion wishes to have the Psalter or Breviary, for the Divine offices, or the Hours of the Blessed Virgin. But we strictly forbid them having any of these translated into the vulgar tongue.'

"The year following (1230) Pope Gregory IX. ordered the writings of the Jews, and especially the Talmudical volumes, to be committed to the flames; in which he was imitated in 1244, by Innocent IV., who prohibited all Jewish books, and ordered them to be destroyed, and in particular specified the Talmuds of Jerusalem and Babylon, assigning as his reasons that they contained not only the most horrid blasphemies against Jesus Christ, but also many precepts and decisions contrary to the laws of nations.

"In 1359, Bartholomew Janovesio having predicted the coming of Antichrist, he was arrested by order of the Inquisitor of Arragon, and all his writings ordered to be delivered up and burnt: and in 1434, Henry of Arragon, marquis of Villena, being suspected of necromancy on account of his learning and acquirements, John II. king of Castile, commanded his books to be sought for after his decease and burnt. This injunction was, however, but partially executed, as part of the library escaped the general destruction. Towards the close of the same century Thomas de Torquemada, first Inquisitor General of Spain, displayed the most furious zeal against heretical writings and