are written in separate rolls by themselves,—and are written, according to minute and very rigorous rules, in the square, Chaldee writing characters." They are in the ancient form of rolls, either of leather or parchment, and are written without vowels and accents, but with the extraordinary points, and the unusual consonants, that is, the lesser and greater, the suspended and inverted letters. They are transcribed from an authentic copy, with the most careful corrections, and with the utmost precision of caligraphy.

They represent one and the same text with great uniformity, and afford the critic but few variants, though without furnishing him with satisfactory proof that they represent the original text. It can be maintained that the Pentateuch was thus accurately copied in ancient times, though the rules for copying it originated at a later period. These rolled manuscripts are very rare among the Christians, because, as Carpzov says, the Jews are unwilling to sell them, and carefully conceal all old and defaced manuscripts of the synagogue, lest the holy word should be defiled.'

Tract. Sopherim. Compare Judæorum codicis sacri rite scribendi leges ad rite æstimandos codd. MSS. antiquos perutiles e libro talmudico

70

on in Lat. conversas et annotationibus explicatas eruditis examinandas tradit J. G. L. Adler; Hamb. 1779, 8vo. R. Alphes, Hilc. Sepher Thora. Maimonides, Jad Chasaca, pt. i. lib. 2. Hilc. Sepher Thora, tract. iii. ch. 7, sqq., Lat. Vers. in J. H. van Bashuysen, Observatt.; Frcf. 1708, 4to. Shickard, Jus reg. Heb. ch. 2, p. 89, sqq., ed. Carpzov.

[However, Eichhorn thinks the Law was not separated from the other biblical books, in the synagogue, at the time of Christ and the apostles, and adds, what no one can doubt, that errors had crept into the text before it began to be transcribed with such care, and even since. §346. Kennicott found some valuable readings in these rolls. Diss. Gen. No. 229.]

Carpzov, Crit. sac. p. 373, sqq. But see Tychsen, Tent. p. 138, sqq., who takes a different view,

§ 110.

B. Private Manuscripts in the Chaldee Square Letter. Description of them.

They are written upon parchment, common or cotton paper," in the folio, quarto, octavo, or duodecimo form.' They are written in black ink; the text and the points, however, are often of different colors; the initial letters or words are frequently written in gold, or with ornamental colors. They are divided into columns, and the poetical passages, for the greater part, into verses; a separation is carefully made between the margin and the lines of the text, though the number of lines does not always remain the same throughout the manuscript. The initial letters are often fantastically adorned and wreathed about with passages from the Masora.d

Sometimes they contain merely the Hebrew text, but most frequently some version is added-the Chaldee paraphrase, which is most common, or the Arabic, or other versions which are rare. Sometimes the version is written in separate columns; sometimes versewise

• Cod. 11, 22, 35. Some are written on common paper, but they are quite modern.

Such a form is mentioned in Baba Bathra, fol. 13, col. 2. Cod. 194 Kennicott, and 611 Berlin, are in 12mo.

[Kennicott, No. 1, 19, 36, 37, 50, 89, 328. Wolf, Bib. Heb. vol. iv. p. 93, sqq.]

[The Jewish transcriber, says Eichhorn, § 347, sqq., was usually careful to preserve the space between the lines; but sometimes errors in the text are corrected there. In a few MSS. there is a Latin version between the lines of the text. Almost every MS., in some places, is adorned with caricatures of men and animals, which are sometimes mere sketches, but at others are formed by writing the Masora, prayers, or other matters, in these shapes, with small letters and pale ink. These figures often relate to the subject treated of in the text.]

between the lines of the text, and, rarely, in the margin, in letters of a smaller size.

The greater Masora, or, sometimes, a rabbinical commentary, occupies the upper and lower margin; prayers, psalms, &c., are also found there. The outer margin is for corrections, scholia, and various readings; for the enumeration of the Haphtara and Parascha; for the commentaries of the rabbins, &c. The inward margin is devoted to the lesser Masora.

The different books are separated by blank spaces, except the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The Parascha and Haphtara are, for the most part, carefully noted.

In reference to the order of the Prophets, the German manuscripts follow the Talmud, and the Spanish the Masora; so that Isaiah stands before Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The former insert the books of the Hagiographa in the following order, namely: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiasticus, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Chronicles. The Masora has a different order, namely: Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiasticus, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra."

§ 111.

The Writing Character used in the Manuscripts.

With a few unimportant exceptions, the Chaldee square letter is used in all the manuscripts. But there is no original diplomatic character by which their antiquity can be ascertained."

• Eichhorn, § 347-349, 358-362.

On the Alphabet. Jesuitarum, in Montfaucon, ad Hexap. Origenis, vol. i.

The Jews themselves allow of a distinction in the character used in their manuscripts. There is,

I. The TAM character," written with sharp corners, and perpendicular coronamenta, which is common among the German and Polish Jews; and,

b

II. The WELSH character, more modern than the other, without rounded corners and coronamenta, which is chiefly used by the Spanish and Oriental Jews.

Modern critics enumerate three kinds of writing characters, namely:

I. The Spanish, in which the letters are regular, four-cornered, and strongly delineated.

II. The German, in which the letters are less erect, smaller, and more crowded together.

III. The French and Italian, which is between the two others."

p. 22, see Diplomatische Lehrgebaude, vol. ii. tab. 8, col. 1, and the ancient Hebrew alphabet in Treschow, Tent. Descript. Codd. Vindob. V. T.; Havn. 1773, 8vo. Eichhorn, § 351. [Horne, 1. c., thinks it probable the letters used in MSS. have varied at different times. Kennicott, Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 149, sqq., makes the character one test of the age of the codex. But it is not easy to prove this position. The Basilidean gems - sometimes appealed to as proofs - cannot be proved to be Hebrew letters, (see Matter, Hist. crit. du Gnosticisme, vol. iii. Planches,) and the celebrated Hebrew Alphabet in Montfaucon, l. c., is taken from a MS. written by a Greek caligraphist, who altered the letters to suit his own caprice. The Hebrew characters of a monk, taken from Rabanus Maurus, De Inventione Linguarum, are strangely disfigured. See Kopp, Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit. Eichhorn, §351. Gesenius, Heb. Sprache, p. 177, sq. Hupfeld, Ausfuhrliche Heb. Grammatik, (Cassel, 1841,) pt. i. p. 32, sqq.]

a. Probably so called from Tam, a kinsman of Raschi. See Wolf, 1. c. vol. i. p. 620. Tychsen, Tent. p. 263; and yet he says, p. 347, it is, probably, from a . Compare Tr. Shabb. in § 89, above. 3. See the tables in Tychsen, l. c., and Bellermann, De Usu Palæograph. Heb.

over the letters ,זיינין or תגין The coronamenta

, occur in the Talmud, Menach, fol. 29, col. 2. Gesenius suspects traces of them in a Phoenician inscription. See Hupfeld, against this opinion, in Theol. Stud. und Krit. for 1830, vol. ii. p. 32.

d [The Spanish Hebrew character is pretty closely imitated in the beau

§ 112.

Subscriptions and other Marks of the Antiquity of Manuscripts.

The subscriptions of the writer or owner, containing the date of the transcription, are the means of determining the antiquity of manuscripts. But these have often been erased, or even falsified, or they are inaccurate, unimportant, and untrue. Frequently, on account of the dismembered state of the manuscript, they are wanting altogether." [Very few manuscripts have subscriptions containing the date of the copy. Kennicott thinks that, among all the manuscripts collated for him, there were but a hundred with such subscriptions. Besides, it is often difficult to find the subscription; sometimes it is in the Masora, or some other by-place, or in a picture, where no one looks for it. It is not always of any use when found. Sometimes there is an error in the date; the era is omitted, while the year is given;

tiful typography of the Antwerp Polyglot, and in Stephens's editions; the German in Munster's Bible.] Kennicott, Diss. Gen. p. 340. See the Plates in Bruns's edition, and Præf. p. ix. Bruns, in Ammon's Neue Theol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 755. Simon, Hist. crit. du V. T. p. 121. On the peculiarities of the single letters, see Eichhorn, §352. Michaelis, Or. Bib. vol. i. p. 246.

or

There are some peculiarities of punctuation worthy of notice; e. g. 777, [where Hirek stands under a movable yod as a help,], also mun, pay, qan, -3, 13; a frequent use of Raphe, &c., of letters used to fill the chasms in the lines. [Sometimes a part of a letter is put in to fill up the line; thus, in Cod. 5 of Kennicott, a third of the is omitted, making it appear as an. So we find the two first letters of Eichhorn, §357, and the authorities there cited.]

a

appear as 7.

Schnurrer, De Codd. Heb. Manuscriptorum Ætate difficulter determinan

da, diss. p. 2, sqq. Eichhorn, § 363. On the inaccuracy of the subscription to the Berlin MS., No. 611, apud Kennicott, see Schnurrer, p. 7, sqq. Wolf, 1. c. vol. i. p. 166, ii. p. 305, sqq. Jablonski, Præf. ad Bib. Heb. § 36, 37.