MOTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Thamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah certify us, that the Jews took great pride in their genealogical registers, and under certain circumstances, we occasionally detect the 'name of a woman in eastern pedigrees. Chrysostom appears to have wandered from the point in his observations on this chapter, and we are not aware that any of the fathers have instanced the analogy on which we insist. A strange dispute has been instituted concerning Rahab and Ruth, for which we must <refer the reader to the pages of the Litigants †.

The reduction of this genealogy to fixed numbers, is in the true spirit of oriental, and particularly of biblical compositions, in the latter of which the numbers three, seven with its combinations, and forty are of continual occurrence. St. Matthew establishes three distinct epochs connected with three cycles, composed of fourteen generations: in like manner, the Jews divided the supposed duration of the world into 2000 years before the law (1), 2000 years under the law (), and -2000 years under the Messiah (won T5p "p"), which, according to Usher's chronology, closely corresponds to the real date of Christ's advent.

Celsus, writing against Origen, objected to the truth of Christianity, that Mary, according to the statement of the Jews, was asserted to have been with child by a person called Пávnp. This frivolous objection was extracted from the Talmud, in

who פנדורא the son of הטרא which we discover an account of

was hung on the eve of the passover; and Epiphanius has recorded a legend, that Joseph had a son named Îlamp. From these two statements, it appears by no means improbable, that the enemies of Christianity, desirous of consolidating every separate calumny into one body of objections, as we may argue from the writings of Rabbi Lipman, brought together totally irrelevant traditions to retard the progress of the Christian religion, and stigmatize its Divine Author; that Epiphanius preserved this, as one of the mass, which the inventors of Jewish

A Circassian desirous of allying himself in marriage to another family, to this day presents his pedigree to the head of it, who shows to him in return that of his intended bride (Sir K. Porter, vol. i. p. 148). This is the case with some Bedouin tribes; others even extend their genealogical cares to their horses.

The Jews pretend that Joshua married Rahab, and that eight prophets and priests descended from her: cf. Targum in 1 Chron. iv. 22. Boaz is called "the chief of the college at Bethlehem :" cf. Koheleth viii. 10. Megil Jah xiv. 2. This genealogy slightly varies from the Hebrew: c. g. 'Apàμ instead of and 'Iwala instead of .

Cf Scheidii Præterita Præteritorum apud Meusehenium.

legends fitrnished for the purpose"; and that Celsus, without examining, the authority, on which it depended, and little scrupulous of its want of connection with his argument, urged it by way of obloquy, and without veracity, against the cause which Origen defended.

The supposed discrepancies between the genealogies of St.. Matthew and of St. Luke, have been too frequently harmonized to require any additional remarks *. Photius, in his Bibliotheca, p. 20, mentions Africanus to have formerly written on the subject, the particulars of which discussion will be found in Routh's Reliquiæ Sacræ, (v. ii. p. 117.) they are likewise reconciled in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, (l. i. c. 7.) and Hottinger has written two treatises on the question in the Thesaurus Theologico-Philologicus. He argues that ús évoμíleto viòs 'Iwon should be included in a parenthesis; his interpretation of the verb is not only supported by the Syriac, but by the other versions, especially the Ethiopic, which renders it by the verb of):=:. Yet, the conjecture of those who interpret évoutZETO by being inserted in the public registers of the nation, is more ingenious, although we doubt whether a collation of passages will substantiate the interpretation. The existence of Cainan's name proves St. Luke to have followed the Septuagint: but it is omitted in the Beza manuscript, and it is likewise omitted in the Septuagint, in the recapitulation in the first book of the Chronicles. In St. Luke we retrace Jewish phraseology, where Seth is called ra 'Adau, r e, since the most ancient of the Rabbinical writings style both Adam and Seth

The Prophet Isaiah had predicted that our Saviour's birth should be miraculous, and that his mother should be an may The Jewish cavils on the force of this word are entirely unsup

Cf. Theophyl. p. 327. D., which, if the history be correct, is most satisfactory.

† Γράφει δὲ Αφρικανὸς καὶ πρὸς ̓Αρισείδην, ἐν οἷς ἱκανῶς τὴν νομιζομένην. διαφωνίαν παρὰ Ματθαίῳ καὶ Λεκᾷ, περὶ τῆς τὸ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν γενεαλογίας σύμφωνον ἔδειξεν.

"Uti adnotat Syrus; fuit tamen 78 Hλì, quià ejus ex Mariâ genuinus nepos fuit. Christus neminem in terrâ habuit, quem propriori et potiori jure Patrem cognominaret, quàm Helin: cf. Myller rabb, p. 1033....Matthæus per Solomonem ad Josephum, Lucas per Nathanem (lineam) ad B. V. Mariam ducit....Nathan Solomonis ex utroque Parente frater fuit." Vossius' and Horne suspect seventy-five to have been the number of generations, in the most ancient manuscripts of Irenæus, which will harmonize him with St. Luke.

§ Cf. Cosri, f. 1. c. 95. ii. c. 13. lxxxiv. et passim: lib. Zohar, Siphra, Mechilta, passim. Irenæus, as his works now exist, asserts our Saviour to have been fifty years of age when he commenced his ministry, which is most likely ́ an error in the manuscripts. Bartolocci vol. ii. p. 349: et seqq, proves his birth to have occurred in Danie's seventieth week: cf, Dan.ix, 25, 26..

ported by the genius of the language, as it is evident from other applications of it, such as Gen. xxiv. 43. Exod. ii. 8. as well as from the primitive signification of the root. The cognate term was generally applied by the Syrians to a virgin of marriageable years, or to one betrothed, but not married, and the MS. lexicon of Jauhari supports the criticism, in his exposition of in Arabic, from whence the feminine must be nearly analogous to the Hebrew. Several of the rabbinical writers account by and a synonyms, and the passage cited to the contrary from David Kimchi, has been shown by Pococke to have been vitiated by lacunæ, which older MSS. have supplied, rendering the passage consonant to the opinions of the best scholars among the more ancient Jews *. The Virgin Mary is frequently called by the Mohammedans, which is a phrase only applied to virgins devoted to religion, and averse to matrimony; hence, the scholiast on Hariri explains by. And from the secluded state in which betrothed women were kept in the east, and by the Jews among the rest, it is manifest, if we advert to the primary meaning of the word, that it was used to express those that were not mar- ^ ried, because, after that event, the language furnished them with different names. Most of these objections, indeed, were. excited long after the introduction of Christianity, and can, therefore, possess no validity, in an exposition of the prophecy of Isaiah. The legends current about Fohi, or Buddha, were, doubtless, borrowed from this historical fact, and, therefore, afford a collateral evidence of the manner in which Isaiah's prophecy was understood, as well as of the belief of its completion, which could only have taken place in the way recorded by St. Matthewt. Plutarch (Conj. præc. ad finem) has a singular passage : παίδιον ἐδεμία ποτὲ γυνὴ λέγεται ποιῆσαι δίχα κοι vavías avdpòs. All the spurious Gospels agree as to the miraculous conception; and in Justin Martyr's second apology, (p. 75),

༣

העלמה אינה בתולה אלא עלמה כמו נערה תהיה : The passage is * כדברי התועים ,and the words omitted are בתולה או בעולה

+ Cf. Hieronymum in Jovinianum. c. xxvi. The difficulties imagined to exist in the words of the Greck copies of St. Matthew, have been completely removed by Heinsius in his Exercitationes Sacra, who remarks, that if the passage be rendered back into Hebrew, the futility of the objections will be apparent, and the Greek version of by will be demonstrated to be correct: e. g.

לקח in which ולקח אשתו ולא ידע אותה עד שילדה בנה הבכור

and

exemplify the sense of the Greek: Tapéλaße rñv yvvãtka avrẽ, kai'κ ἐγίνωκεν αὐτὴν, ἕως ἐἔτεκε τον νἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον,

the 21st and 23d verses of the first chapter, and 2d verse of the second chapter, are cited from the canonical Gospel, which establishes the existence of the narrative in the copies that were used by the Church in his time. The fables also circulated on the subject, pre-suppose some historical foundation: thus, Cedrenus (Comp. Hist. p. 186,) mentions, that as soon as her pregnancy became known, both Joseph and herself drank the bitter water, (rò üdwę tñs ¿λéyews) and departed to the mountains. The Proto-Evangelium of James gives a different tradition : ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς, καὶ ἔκρυβεν ἑαυτὴν ἀπὸ τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ· ἦν δὲ ἐτῶν δεκατεσσάρων, ὅτι ταῦτα ἐγένετο τὰ μυστήρια.

Oixsuévn in St. Luke ii. 1, is to be accepted in the same

כל הארץ sense as

The parn, in which our Saviour was deposited, has, by different writers been called οἰκία-σπήλαιον—δοχεῖον—βουστάσιον nahúßn, &c.; for it has been confounded with the xaraλupa, in which it was. Some have supposed the xaráλupa to have been a Caravanserai or Je, such as the Jews denominated DIT (doxelov) others have argued, that it was a private dwelling used for the purpose, in consequence of the taxation. This, however, is unimportant. The parvm itself is the DN or the Old Testament, and has been compared with the rabbinical

of

,אצטבלא but it coincides more readily with the the term ,רפת

which the Jews borrowed from the Latin. The description of the præsepe given by Nonnius will considerably illustrate the nature of the place: "præsepia, non tantùm quibus veterina pabulantur animalia, sed et loca tecta et clausa," and these were separated by partitions from that part of the parvm (as Xenophon assures us) where the animals were fed. It is, in fact, almost, if not quite analogous to the auλn. The Arabs have open courts within their dwelling, where their cattle are kept, to which various names are given, both in Arabic and Persian. The central space has no buildings or covering, as we learn

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yet as other الذي لا بناء به ولا سقف from a scholiast on Hariri

writers mention fences, where not only cattle, but implements of husbandry are kept, in eastern habitations*, we presume there were enclosures with coverings, either round this, or leading from it. The Kámús informs us, that this open place was

الساحة الناحية و فضا between the houses of different families

* The houses in Armenia have fences, which keep the cattle from the part where the family sleeps.

Hariri, in his third consessus, introduces the learned men holding their Majlis in stabulis, which, after Abu Zeid's hypocritical harangue, they quit, being overpowered with compassion, at the description of his adverse fortune: Though this word be identified

. و خلت المرابط ورحم الغابط

by the scholiast with Jel, and mentioned as the place of cattle, we find it also the ordinary resort of men, and from Hariri may conjecture the existence of accommodation in it, and protection from the weather: the is the open space without a covering, but the being that part to which the animals were tied. Some of the Arabic writers have recorded it, as the usual place of learned disputations in Alexandria *, and the Arabic word, has been interpreted by the Persian, which the Berhani Kat

appears to have been covered,

not راهي که از در خانه تا حد صحن خانه است ted explains

merely as the open space itself, but as the whole passage leading to it from the door of the house. The Virgin Mary was not in the narahvua itself, from want of room, (as St. Luke informs us) but in this court, or the adjoining part which the Persian lexicographer asserts to have been, also, called by the same name. We deem it necessary to offer these critical remarks, in consequence of the numerous errors prevalent on the subject t.

The magi are next introduced to our notice, concerning whose nation nothing conclusive can be adduced. The term is of wide import, and connected with the older Sabæan worship, whence Plato defined μαγεία to be Θεών θεραπεία. The classical writers did not confine the payor to Persia, but included under the title every devotee of the Pyreal theology, occasionally, however, restricting it to the priests, in which they were authorized by Persian documents. Origen (in Celsum, l. I. p. 19,) imagined those recorded by St. Matthew to have come from Egypt, and has noticed the very extensive acceptation of the appellative. Αιγυπτίων οἱ σοφοί, ἤ τῶν παρὰ Πέρσαις Μάγων οἱ λόγιοι ἤ τῶν παρ Ινδοις φιλοσοφέντων Βραχμάνες ἤ ΣΑΜΑ

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The Hamasa mentions these open places, also, as used for poctical and oratorical effusions: they were, in fact, minor Ocad❜hs.

The oлapyava, in which our Saviour was wrapped, were the common fasciæ used for enfolding infants, and shrouding the bodies of the dead.