therefore (fays Calmet) call this work Completion, Perfection, because they confider it as an explanation of the whole law, to which there can be no farther additions made, and after which nothing more can be defired."* The Mifna and the Gemara, joined together, compofe the TALMUD, (that is, doctrinale,) the grand code of Jewish traditional divinity. Of thefe Talmuds there are two; that of Jerufalem, so called from being compiled in that city, and the other, that of Babylon, because the production of the Babylonian school. The former confifts of the Mifna of the Rabbi Judah and the Gemara of Johanan; the latter of the fame Mifna, but united with the Gemara, or completion of Rabbi Asa, who flourifhed at Babylon about a century after Rabbi Johanan. The former Talmud is more concife and obfcure in its style than the latter, which is, therefore, more in request among the Jews, whose partiality to it may poffibly be increased by the numerous legends and romantic tales with which it abounds. Now, in what fuperior esteem, even to the facred volumes themselves, thefe Talmuds are holden by the Jews is evident from the following adage

See Calmet's great Historical, Critical, and Etymological, Dictionary, under the article Gemara, vol. i. p. 598.

adage recorded by Calmet, who fays, they compare "the Bible to water, the Mifna to wine, and the Gemara to bypocras." Hypocras (or Hippocras, as it fhould rather be written, fince the word is derived from its fuppofed inventor Hippocrates) is a kind of medicated wine, ufed in foreign countries, and enriched with the most fragrant aromatics and the strongeft fpices. This proverbial faying is amply illustrative of their real opinions on the score of these traditions, and decifively corroborative of the propriety of my former remarks. However high in the opinion of the Jews the two Talmuds of Jerufalem and Babylon may rank; and however strong may be the proof, thus exhibited, that they have trans ferred to the oral law a great part of that veneration which their ancestors entertained for the written law; yet there are other productions of Hebrew piety and erudition deferving ftill more distinguished notice, and far more venerable in point of antiquity than these. From the Talmuds, involved as they are in a veil of fable and fuperftition, though, doubtlefs, with fome fublime theological and moral truths intermixed, no substantial evidence can poffibly be adduced of their early opinions on the grand point of theology under difcuffion; E

or,

or, if any should appear, it must be principally in the Mifna of Judah. The real fentiments of the more ancient Jews are only to be found in those two celebrated paraphrases on the Hebrew text, called the Targums, the more ancient one bearing the name of JONATHAN, and that lefs ancient, but not materially fo, the name of ONKELOS. The Targum compofed by Jonathan is a diffufe commentary on the greater and less prophets; and was written, according to Calmet, about thirty years before the time of our Saviour. The Targum of Onkelos is entirely upon the Pentateuch, or five books of Mofes, and, both in its ftyle and mode of explication, is more concise than the former. They are both written in tolerably pure Chaldee, although that of Onkelos is reckoned more pure and is in most esteem among the learned. That of Jonathan, however, is moft in rèqueft among the Jews in general; and is ftrongly fufpected to have had additions made to it by the Jewish doctors, who lived many centuries after Christ. These Targumim, therefore, but more particularly the former, must be our only fure guide in investigating the unadulterated fense of the 'Old Testament, and in exploring the genuine fentiments of the Jews.

The

The learned critic and Hebraist, Dr. Wotton, has remarked that it is but fair to let the Jewish doctors explain their own Scriptures, and to receive their comments as the truest expofitions of them, when there is no reason to suspect any latent ill intention or improper bias fwaying the judgement of the commentator.* Undoubtedly a diligent attention to the vaft treasure of Hebrew traditional knowledge, which the Misna of Judah contains, has been of infinite fervice to Chriftian divines in explaining many difficult paffages of the New Testament, and, in particular, thofe parts of our Lord's difcourfes and St. Paul's Epiftles which are fo directly allufive to their ancient customs and traditions. Whatever objections, therefore, may be brought against more recent expofitors, nothing of this kind can be urged against the paraphrases either of Jonathan or Onkelos; and if, as was before hinted, the text of Jonathan has been corrupted, we may depend upon it that nothing favourable to the doctrine of the Trinity has been added to it; and, if any arguments can be found there to fupport that doctrine, they ought,

E 2

* See the preface to Dr. Wotton's Difcourfes on the Tradition of the Jews, vol. i. p. 8, edit. oct. Lond. 1728.

ought, on that very account, to carry with them a double weight of evidence.

For my own part, I own that I have ever confidered the two firft verfes of the Old Teftament as containing very strong, if not decifive, evidence in fupport of the truth of this doctrine. ELOHIM, a noun fubftantive of the plural number, by which the Creator is expreffed, appears as evidently to point towards a plurality of perfons in the divine nature as the verb in the fingular, with which it is joined, does to the unity of that nature. In principio creavit Deus. With ftrict attention to grammatical propriety, the paffage fhould be rendered, In principio creavit Dii; but our belief in the unity of God forbids us thus to translate the word ELOHIM. Since, therefore, Elohim is plural, and no plural can confift of less than two in number, and fince Creation can alone be the work of DEITY, we are to understand by this term, fo particularly used in this place, God the Father, and the eternal LoGoS, or Word of God, that Locos, whom St. John, fupplying us with an excellent comment upon this paffage, fays, was in the beginning with God, and who alfo was God.

As the Father and the Son are fo expressly pointed out in the firft verfe of this chapter;

fo