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of a reconciliation, have fairly entered the lists, and [ taken the side which they thought most tenable.

Those who maintain the authority of the Hebrew text, as the standard and rule of reckoning the years of the patriarchs, oppose their adversaries in this manner.

Those who espouse the cause of the Greek version, draw up their arguments in this rank and order. They They tell us that the Hebrew text is the original, in tell us, that the alteration in the Septuagint computation which the Spirit of God indicted the Scriptures of the must have been purposely made; because, where letters Old Testament, and being, consequently, authentic, is must necessarily have been added, and where sometimes better to be trusted than any translation made by men both parts of a verse, and sometimes two verses together | liable to error, as the Seventy interpreters were; and are altered, and so altered, as still to keep them con- that the Jews, to whom were committed these oracles sistent with one another; this, whenever done, must be of God, used the greatest diligence to preserve them done designedly, and for no other reason that they can pure and entire, insomuch, that in the course of so many imagine, but rarely a detection of errors in the Hebrew years (as Josephus testifies in his time) no person durst copies. add, take away, or misplace any thing therein.

They tell us, that, though they have no positive proof of such errors in the present Hebrew copies, yet they have good grounds to suspect there are such, because that, before the time of Antiochus, the Jews, while in peace, were so very careless about their sacred writings, that they suffered several variations to creep into their copies; that when Antiochus fell upon them, he seized and burnt all the copies he could come at, so that none, but such as were in private hands, escaped his fury; that, as soon as that calamity was over, those copies which were left, in private hands, the Jews got together, in order to transcribe others from them; and that, from these transcriptions, came all the copies now in use. Now suppose, say they, that these private copies which escaped the fury of Antiochus, but were made in an age confessedly inaccurate, had any of them dropped some numerical letters, this might occasion the present Hebrew text's falling short in its computations: and, to confirm this,

1

They tell us, that Josephus, who expressly declares, that he wrote his history from the sacred pages, in his account of the lives of the antediluvian patriarchs, agrees with the Septuagint; and that the Greek historians before Josephus, such as Demetrius Phalerius, Philo the elder, Eupolemus, &c., very accurate writers, and highly commended by Clemens Alexandrinus, and Eusebius, in their calculation, differ very much from the common Hebrew: so that not only Josephus, but these elder historians likewise must have either seen, or been informed of certain Hebrew copies which agreed with the Septuagint, and differed from what have descended to us. In short,

They tell us, that the whole Christian church, Eastern and Western, and all the celebrated writers of the church, are on their side; that all the ancient manuscripts have exactly the same computations with the common Septuagint, except here and there a variation or two, not worth regarding; and therefore they conclude, that, as there is a manifest disagreement between the Greek and Hebrew copies in this respect, the mistake should rather be charged upon the Hebrew, than the Septuagint; because, as the Hebrew is thought by some to fall short, and the Septuagint to exceed, in its account of the lives of the patriarchs, it is obvious to conceive, that a fault of this kind may be incurred by way of omission rather than addition.

1 Against Appion.

3

Patriarchs.

Antiquities, b. 1. c. 3.

6

5

They tell us, that no reason can be assigned, why the Hebrew text should be corrupted, but many very probable ones, why the Septuagint might; since, either to exalt the antiquity of their own nation, or to conform to the dynasties of the Egyptians, the Jewish interpreters at Alexandria might falsify their chronology; since, in this very point, there are so many different readings in the Septuagint, and so many errors and mistranslations in it, that the learned Dr Lightfoot (to whom, as yet, no sufficient reply has been made) has proved it a very corrupt and imperfect version.

They tell us that the Hebrew computations are supported by a perfect concurrence and agreement of all Hebrew copies now in being; that there have been no various readings in these places, since the Talmuds were composed; that, even in our Saviour's time, this was the current way of calculation, since the paraphrase of Onkelos (which is on all hands agreed to be about that age) is the same exactly with the Hebrew in this matter; that St Jerome and St Austin (who were the best skilled in the Hebrew tongue of any fathers in their age) followed it in their writings, and the vulgar Latin, which has been in use in the church above 100 years, entirely agrees with it.

They tell us, that Demetrius, the real historian, (for Phalerius was none,) lived not before the reign of Ptolemy Philopater, the grandson of Philadelphus, near seventy years after the Septuagint translation was made: that Philo was contemporary with our Saviour, wrote almost 300 years after the said translation, and, living constantly at Alexandria, might very well be supposed to copy from it; that Josephus, though a Jew, and perfectly skilled in the Hebrew language, in many instances, (which learned men have pointed out,)

Against Appion, b. 1.

See his Works, vol. 2. p. 932. edit. Utrecht, 1699. sertation upon the Chronicles of Josephus, pp. 19—21. See Care's History; Litt. p. 2. in Joseph; and Well's Dis

of Alexandria, to which the library belonged, where the original a Demetrius Phalerius was the first president of the college manuscripts of the Septuagint were reposited. He was a great scholar as well as an able statesman and politician; but I doubt Bishop Walton is mistaken, when (in his ninth Preface to the whose works might prove the Septuagint computation to be more Polyglot Bible) he quotes him as one of those Greek historians probable than the Hebrew. The Phalerian Demetrius lived a busy, active life, was a great officer of state, both at home and abroad, and I do not find that ever he wrote any history. It was Demetrius the historian therefore, that the Bishop should have

Shuckford's Connection; and Heidegger's History of the quoted; but he, living in the time that I mentioned, does not

make much to this purpose.-Shuckford's Connection, b. 1.

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adheres to the Greek in opposition to the Hebrew; and It might be some entertainment to the reader, could that the fathers of the first ages of the church, though we but give him any tolerable view of the religion, they were very good men, had no great extent of learning; understood the Greek tongue better than the Hebrew; and for that reason gave the preference to the Septuagint computation.

In this manner do the advocates for the Hebrew text defend its authority: and, since it is confessed, there has been a transmutation somewhere, if that transmutation was designedly and on purpose done, (as the adverse party agrees,) it is indifferent whether it was done by way of addition or subtraction: only as it is evident, that the Greeks did compute by numerical letters, whereas it is much questioned, that the Hebrews ever did, the mistake or falsification rather seems to lie on the side of the Greek translators, the very form of whose letters was more susceptible of it.

This is a true state of the controversy, wherein the arguments for the Hebrew computation do certainly preponderate; though the names, the venerable names, on the contrary side, have hitherto been more numerous. ¿

Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs.

The names for the Septuagint computation, which the learned Heidegger, in his History of the Patriarchs, (as he takes them from Baronius,) has reckoned up, are such as these: Theophi he, bishop of Antioch, St. Cyprian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Hippolytus, Origen, Lactantius, Epiphanius, Philastrius, Orosius, Cyril, the two Anastasii, Nicephorus, and Suada; to whom he might add several more, as Heidegger suggests, while those among the ancients who contended for the Hebrew calculation, were only St Austin and St Jerome, but men of great skill and proficiency in the Hebrew language.-On the Age of the Patriarchs, Essay 10.

6 Such may have been the case 100 years ago: "but it certainly is not so now. Dr Hales has proved, with the force of demonstration, that there was originally no difference between the Hebrew genealogies and those of the Greek version; that the computation of Josephus was, in his own time, conformable to both; and consequently that the chronology either of the original Hebrew, or of the Greek version of the Scriptures, as well as of the writings of Josephus, has been since adulterated. That the wilful adulteration took place in the Hebrew rather than in the Greek copies, is rendered highly probable by the reasons which follow. According to Dr Hales, who has bestowed much pains on the question, the Masorites, who published the edition of the Hebrew Bible which is now in use, deducted a century from the age at which each of the patriarchs-Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, and Enoch-had their respective sons whose genealogy is decided by Moses. Their motive for this conduct he states from Ephrem Syrus, who lived about the period at which the change was made, and of whom the learned Cave says (Hist. Lit.)—"From his earliest years he exercised himself in monastic philosophy, and with all his energy so perfected himself in the studies of the more learned sciences, that with ease he could understand the most difficult theorems." Such a man was not likely to write at random of a fact, of which he had the best possible opportunity of ascertaining either the truth or the falsehood. That Ephrem had such an opportunity is unquestionable; for he died A. D. 378; and the corruption of the Hebrew chronology, though it began as early as A. D. 130, appears not to have made any considerable progress for two centuries, Eusebius having found, in the Hebrew copies which he consuited, different accounts of the same times, some following the lenger, and others the shorter computations. Now Ephrem affirms, that the Jews "subtracted 600 years from the generations of Adam, Seth, &c., in order that their own books might that convict them concerning the coming of Christ: he having been predicted to appear for the deliverance of mankind after 6500 years.

The reader will look in vain for this prediction in the books of the Old Testament; but the Cabbalists found in the first chapter

of the book of Genesis, that the world would last 6000 years, because the letter Aleph, which stands for 1000, occurs six times in the first verse; because God was six days about the creation; and because with him a thousand years are but as one day!' after this, they taught that there was to be "a seventh day, or a millenary sabbath of rest." Now it being certainly foretold that the Messiah should be sent in the last times, it appears that the Rabbis inferred his advent to be about the middle of the sixth millenary, or the 5500th year of the world; and to find a pretence for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, it occurred to them to world might be known, by subtracting a century from Adam's alter the generations of the patriarchs, by which the age of the age until the birth of Seth, and adding the same to the residue of his life, and doing the same thing with respect to the generation of many others of Adam's descendants down to Abraham. By this device their computation showed that Jesus Christ was manifested near the middle of the fifth, instead of the sixth, millenary of the world, which according to them was to last 7000 years; and they said, We are still in the middle of the time, and the time appointed for the Messiah's advent is not yet come.

Those Rabbis, however, were obliged to leave the ages at which Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech had their several sons, as they found them. "Had these been curtailed, like the rest, and the century taken from each added to the subsequent life of the patriarch as is done in other cases, Jared would have survived the deluge 66 years; Methuselah 200 years; and Lamech 95 years. Not daring, therefore, to shorten the lives of these three patriarchs, the Jews were forced to let the original amounts of their generations remain unaltered."

"The tradition of the Jews respecting the age of the world was found also in the Sybilline Oracles; in Hesiod; in the writings of Darius Hystaspes, the old king of the Medes, derived probably from the Magi; and in Hermes Trismegistus, and was adopted by the early Christian fathers. Its prevalence therefore throughout the Pagan, Jewish, and Christian world, whether wellfounded, or otherwise, was a sufficient reason for the Jews to invalidate it, by shortening their chronology." This probability is heightened by the testimony of Justin Martyr and Irenæus, who were both eminent Christian writers of the second century, the former a Samaritan by birth, and well skilled in the Hebrew tongue, as well as in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Now, in his celebrated conference with Trypho the Jew, Justin expressly charges the Rabbis with having expunged many passages out of the Septuagint version; whilst Irenæus affirms of the same Rabbis, that if they had known the use that was to be made of their Scriptures, they would not have hesitated to burn these Scriptures? The Septuagint version was indeed their abhorrence, because it was generally referred to by the Christian writers; and, in order to bring it as much as possible into disrepute, they instituted, in the beginning of the second century, a solemn fast on the 8th of Tebeth (December) to curse the memory of its having been made! Had it been in their power, there cannot be a doubt, but that, with these dispositions, they would have destroyed that version entirely; but this was not in their power, whilst it was easy to alter the chronology of the Hebrew text, so as to make it suit their own purposes.

"In the course of the Jewish war," says Dr Hales, "until the final destruction of Jerusalem, and expulsion of the Jews from Judea in the reign of Adrian, vast numbers of the Hebrew copies must have been lost or destroyed, besides those that were taken away by the conquerors among other spoils; and the few, that were left, were confined in a great measure to the Jews themselves, as the Hebrew language was not generally understood like the Greek. Whereas, of the Greek copies, even if all, that were possessed by the Hellenistic Jews, not only in Palestine, but throughout the world, had been destroyed, which was far from being the case, yet the copies of the Septuagint, in the possession of the Christians everywhere, rendered any material adulteration of the Greek text, at least in so important a case as that of the genealogies, well nigh impossible." The Jews did however all that they could to deprive the Christians of the arguments with which it furnished them in proof of Jesus of Nazareth being the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. They set up three other Greek versions in opposition to the Septuagint,

A. M. 1536. A. C. 2468; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2136. A. C. 3275. GEN. CH. 5. AND 6. TO VER. 13.

The law of sacrifices (which confessedly at this time obtained) was partly natural, and partly divine. sacrifices were tokens of thankfulness and acknowledgments, that the fruits of the earth, and all other creatures, for the use and benefit of man were derived from God; they were a service dictated by natural reason, and so were natural acts of worship: abut, as they carried with them the notion of expiation and atonement for the souls of mankind especially as they referred to the Messias, and signified the future sacrifice of Christ, they were certainly instituted by God, and the practice of them was founded upon a divine command.

It is not to be doubted, but that Adam instructed his children to worship and adore God, to commemorate his goodness, and deprecate his displeasure; nor can we suppose, but that they, in their respective families, put his instructions in execution; and yet we find, that in

a This seems inconceivable, though it is an opinion that has been held by men of the highest eminence in the church, as well for learning as for piety. Whilst men possessed no notion of property, what could lead them to offer gifts to God? And though they must have been all conscious of guilt, is it possible that they could hope to propitiate the Creator by taking away the life of his, not their, guiltless creatures. For complete proof of the Divine institution of all kinds of sacrifice, the reader may have recourse to Magee's Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice.—Gleig's Edit.

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the days of Enos, (besides all private devotion) a public form of worship was set up; that the people had the rites of their religion, which God had appointed, fixed, and established; and that, very probably, as Cain built cities for his descendants to live in, so Enos might build temples, and places of divine worship, for his to

resort to. "

The distinction of clean and unclean animals was another divine injunction under this dispensation. God refers Noah to it, as a thing well known, when he commands him to put into the ark seven pairs of clean, and two of unclean creatures: and though, in respect of man's food, this distinction was not before the law of Moses, yet some beasts were accounted fit and others unfit for sacrifices from the beginning. The former were esteemed clean, and the latter unclean: and it seems safer to make a positive law of God the foundation of this distinction, than to imagine that men, in such matters as these, were left to their own discretion.

The prohibition of marrying with infidels or idolaters, was another article of this dispensation, as appears from God's angry resentment when the children of Seth entered into wedlock with the wicked posterity of Cain. And, to mention no more, under this period were given those six 'great precepts of Adam' (as they are generally called) whereof the Jewish doctors make such boast; and of these the 1. was of strange worship, or idolatry; the 2. of cursing the most holy name, or blasphemy; the 3. of uncovering the nakedness, or unlawful copulation; the 4. of bloodshed, or homicide; the 5. of theft and rapine; and the 6. of judgment, or the administration of justice in the public courts of judicature. So that, from the very first, God did not leave himself without a witness' (as the apostle terms it) but, in one degree or other, made frequent manifestations of his will to mankind.

That government of one kind or other, is essential to the well-being of mankind, seems to be a position founded in the nature of things, the relation wherein

1 Gen. vii. 2.

men, at first, stood towards one another, and the several qualifications in them, which, in a short time, could not but appear. The first form of government, without all controversy, was patriarchal; but this form was soon laid aside, when men of superior parts came to distinguish themselves; when the head of any family either outpowered or outwitted his neighbour, and so brought him to give up his dominion, either by compulsion or resignation. Government, however; at this time, seems to have been placed in fewer hands, than it is now: not that the number of people was less, but their communities were larger, and their kingdoms more extensive, than since the flood; insomuch, that it may well be questioned, whether, after the union of the two great families of Seth and Cain, there was any distinction of civil societies, or diversity of regal governments at all. It seems more likely, that all mankind then made but one great nation, living in a kind of anarchy, and divided into several disorderly associations; which, as it was almost the natural consequence of their having, in all probability, but one language; so it was a circumstance which greatly contributed to that general corruption which otherwise perhaps could not so universally have prevailed. And for this reason we may suppose, that no sooner was the posterity of Noah sufficiently increased, but a plurality of tongues was miraculously introduced, in order to divide them into distinct societies, and thereby prevent any such total depravation for the future.

The enterprising genius of man began to exert itself very early in music, brass-work, iron-work, and every science, useful and entertaining, and the undertakers were not limited by a short life. They had time enough before them to carry things to perfection: but whatever their skill, learning, or industry performed, all remains and monuments of it have long since perished.

*Josephus indeed gives us this account of Seth's great knowledge in astronomy, and how industrious he was to have it conveyed to the new world. Seth, and his descendants;" says he, were persons of happy tem pers, and lived in peace, employing themselves in the study of astronomy, and in other searches after useful knowledge; but, being informed by Adam, that the world should be twice destroyed, first by water, and afterwards by fire, they made two pillars, the one of stone, and the other of brick, and inscribed their knowledge upon them, supposing that the one or other of them might remain for the use of posterity." "But how strangely improbable is it, that they, who foreknew that the destruction of the world should be by a flood, should busy themselves to write astronomical observations on pillars, for the benefit of those who should live after it? Could they think, that their pillars would have some peculiar exemption, above other structures, from the violence

2 Patrick's Commentary. These conjectures are without all foundation. The pious family of Seth undoubtedly worshipped God in public as well as in private, from the very beginning; though it was not till the days of Enos that they began to "call themselves by the name of the Lord," or to assume the denomination of "the sons of God," to distinguish themselves from the profane race of Cain. See Hales's Analysis, &c., vol. ii. p. 34.; Bishop Gleig's Edit. The commandments given to the sons of Noah are the same with these. They are an abridgment of the whole law of nature; but have one positive precept annexed to them; and are generally placed in this order. 1. "Thou shalt serve no other gods, but the Maker only of heaven and earth. 2. Thou shalt remember to serve the true God, the Lord of the world, by sanctifying his name in the midst of thee. 3. Thou shalt not shed the blood of man created after the image of God. 4. Thou shalt not defile thy body, that thou mayest be fruitful and multiply, and, with a blessing replenish the earth. 5. Thou shalt be content with that which thine is, and what thou wouldst not have done to thyself, that thou shalt not do to another. 6. Thou 3 Universal History, b. 1. c. 2. 4 Antiquities, b. 1. c. 2. shalt do right judgment to every one, without respect to persons. Stillingfleet's Sacred Origins, b. 1. c. 2. 7. Thou shalt not eat the flesh in the blood, nor any thing that "Without government, neither family, nor nation, nor mankind, hath life, with the life thereof." This is the heptalogue of Noah, nor the world, nor the universe, could last." Seneca asserts er the seven words, which, as the Jews tell us, were delivered that, "it (government) is the chain by which the state is held to his sons, and were constantly observed by all the uncircum-together, it is the vital breath which these numerous thousands eised worshippers of the true God.-Bibliotheca Biblica, Occa onal Annotations, 15. vol. 1.

eTo this purpose Cicero (On Laws, b. 3. c. 1.) tells us, that

5

of citizens inhale, who would, of their own accord, immediately sink into nothing but an inert mass and easy prey, were that spirit of order withdrawn."

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under his name: but besides that this piece is now gene rally given up for spurious, there is no need for us to suppose, that St Jude ever quoted any passage out of this, or any other book of Enoch.

3 Enoch was a prophet, we are told, and as such was

and outrage of the waters? If they believed that the flood would prove universal, for whose instruction did they write their observations? If they did not, to what end did they write them at all, since the persons who survived, might communicate their inventions to whom they pleased? The plain truth is, 'Josephus, who fre-invested with authority, 'to cry aloud, and spare not, quently quotes heathen authors, and Manetho in particular, to this story of Seth's pillars from the pillars of Hermes mentioned in that historian: for, as the Jews had an ancient tradition concerning Seth's pillars, Josephus, in reading Manetho, might possibly think his account misapplied, and thereupon imagine, that he should probably hit on the truth, if he put the account of the one and the tradition of the other together; and this very likely might occasion his mistake.

2 The eastern people have preserved several traditions of very little certainty concerning Enoch. They believe, that he received from God the gift of wisdom and knowledge to an eminent degree, and that God sent him thirty volumes from heaven, filled with all the secrets of the most mysterious science. St Jude, it is certain, seems to cite a passage from a prophecy of his; nor can it be denied, but that in the first ages of Christianity, a there was a book, well known to the Jews, that went

Shuckford's Connection, b. 1.

Calmet's Dictionary on the word Enoch.

a Joseph Scaliger, in his annotations upon Eusebius's Chronicon, has given us some considerable fragments of it, which Heidegger in his History of the Patriarchs, has translated into Latin, which the curious, if they think proper, may consult : but the whole seems to be nothing but a fabulous collection of some Jew or other, most unworthy the holy patriarch. Tertullian, however, has defended it with great warmth, and laments much, that all the world is not as zealous as himself, in the maintenance of its authenticity. He pretends, that it had been saved by Noah in the ark, from thence transmitted down to the church, and that the Jews, in his days, rejected it, only because they thought it was favourable to Christianity.-Miller's History of the Church; and Saurin's Dissertations. The great objections against this book are, that neither Philo, nor Josephus, (those diligent searchers into antiquity,) make any mention of it; and that it contains such fabulous stories as are monstrous and absurd. But to this some have answered, that such a book there certainly was, notwithstanding the silence of these Jewish antiquaries: and that after the apostle's time, it might be corrupted, and many things added to it by succeeding heretics, who might take occasion from the antiquity thereof, and from the passage of Michael's contending with the devil about the body of Moses, to interpolate many fables and inventions of their own.-Raleigh's History of the World. That there is still extant a very ancient book called The Prophecies of Enoch is a fact which will admit of no controversy; but it is not from that work, but from another Jewish book called The Assumption of Moses, which, though now lost, was extant in the time of Origen, that the passage about Michael's contention with the devil appears to have been quoted by the apostle St Jude. Of The Prophecies of Enoch Mr Bruce gives us the following account:

"Amongst the articles I consigned to the library at Paris, was a very beautiful and magnificent copy of The Prophecies of Enoch in large quarto; another is amongst the books of Scripture, which I brought home, standing immediately before the book of Job, which is its proper place in the Abyssinian Canon; and a third copy I have presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The more ancient history of that book is well known." The church at first looked upon it as apocryphal, and it was never admitted into any ancient canon of Scripture that I have seen or heard of.

"We may observe that Jude's appealing to the apocryphal books did by no means import, that either he believed, or warranted, the truth of them." No man ever supposed that St Paul warranted the truth of all that Aratus the poet had written, or

to reprove the wicked, and denounce God's judgments against them; and as he was a good man, it was easy for St Jude to imagine, that he would not sit still, and see the impieties of the people grow so very exorbitant, without endeavouring to repress them, by setting before them the terrors of the Lord.' He could not discharge the office of a good man, and a prophet, without forewarning them of the Lord's coming, with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that were ungodly among them: and because this was his office and duty, the apostle infers, (as by the Spirit of God he might certainly know,) that he did so, though he might not make that inference from any passage in his prophecy; because it is a known observation, that many things are alluded to in the New Testament, which were never perhaps in any book at all.

Of all the strange matters that occur in this period of time, there is nothing which looks so like a prodigy as the longevity of those men who at first inhabited the earth; nor is any event so apt to affect us with wonder,

4 Jude 14, 15.

'our

8 Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs. even that he believed that we are the offspring of God in the very sense in which that poet probably taught that we are: but he appealed to him as sufficient authority among the Athenians in support of his own doctrine, that all men have sprung from one origin. It was an argument ad hominem, such as Saviour himself often makes use of. You, says he to the Jews, deny certain facts, which must be from prejudice, because you have them allowed in your own books, and believe them there. And a very strong and fair way of arguing it is; but this is by no means any allowance that these books are true. In the same manner you, says St Jude, do not believe the coming of Christ and a latter judgment; yet your ancient Enoch, who, you suppose, was the seventh from Adam, tells you this plainly, and in so many words long ago. And indeed the quotation is word for word the same, in the second chapter of the book. All that is material to say farther concerning the book of Enoch is, that it is a Gnostic book, containing the age of the Emims, Anakims, and Egregores, (descendants of the sons of God, when they fell in love with the daughters of men), who were giants." The editor of Bruce's Travels says, I know not on what sufficient authority, that, "the book in question was originally written in Greek by some Alexandrian Jew;" but I suspect that he confounds with The Prophecies of Enoch, The Assumption of Moses, of which fragments may be found perhaps in different authors, and which was certainly written in Greek. The question, however, is of no importance; for it appears from the summary of its contents given by the editor, that The Prophecies of Enoch, received into the Sacred Canon by the Abyssinian church, are indeed, what he calls them-an absurd and tedious work.-Bruce's Travels, vol. 2. p. 412. ed. 3.; Bishop Gleig's Edit.

There are many instances in the New Testament of facts alluded to, which we do not find in any ancient books. Thus the contest between Michael and the devil is mentioned, as if the Jews had, some where or other, a full account of it. The names of the Egyptians, Jannes, and Jambres, are set down, though they are nowhere found in Moses' history. St Paul tells us, that Moses exceedingly quaked and feared on Mount Sinai; but we do not find it so recorded anywhere in the Old Testament. In all these cases, the apostles and holy writers hinted at things, commonly received as true, by tradition, among the Jews, without transcribing them from any real book.—Shuckford's Connec tion, b. 1.