piled a Commentary esteemed for its historical, literal, and philosophical explanations: his Exposition of the Pentateuch is that which is the most generally valued. He died at Perpignan, A. D. 1370.

R. SAADIAS, Ssurnamed Gaon, or the Excellent, was a native of Al Fiumi, in Egypt, where he was born about A. D. 892. He became Rector of the Academy of Sora, and General Superintendent of the Babylonian schools in 927, and discharged his important trust with considerable honour and success. He was the author of a "literal and faithful" ARABIC translation of the OLD TESTAMENT, or certain portions of it, besides writing Commentaries on Job, Daniel, and the Song of Solomon, and composing several Grammatical and other works. He died A. D. 942.

R. ISAAC ABARBANEL or ABRAVANEL, was a Portuguese Jew, born at Lisbon, A. D. 1437. His father, who was a person of considerable rank, gave him the most liberal Jewish education, and such were his talents and improvement, that he was occasionally consulted by Alphonsus V. of Portugal. But on the decease of that sovereign, persecution raged with such violence against the Jews, that Abarbanel was obliged to fly into Italy, and from thence to various other places; and, after a life of chéquered fortune, he died at Venice, A.D. 1508, aged 71. His writings, which are voluminous, including his Commentary, are held in considerable estimation both by his own nation, and by Christians. From his rank and birth, he is sometimes called Don Isaac Abarbanel.

Separate editions have been published of the principal Commentaries of the preceding authors: and most of them will be found accompanying the Great Bibles published by D. Bomberg and J. Buxtorf.

5. THE MASORA.

THE Masora is a system of criticism invented by Jewish theologians to preserve the true reading of the sacred text. The Hebrew doctors assert, that when God gave the Law to Moses, on Mount Sinai, he taught him, first, its true reading, and, secondly, its true interpretation; the former of which is the subject of the Masora ; the latter of the Mishna and Gemara. "This system is one of the most artificial, particular, and extensive comments ever written on the Word of God; for there is not one word in the Bible that is not the subject of a particular gloss, through its influence: Their vowel-points alone add whole conjugations to the language. The Masorites or Mazoretes, as the inventors and perfecters of this system are called, were the first who distinguished the books and sections of the books of Scripture into verses. They numbered not only the chapters and sections, but the verses, words, and letters of the text, and marked the middle verse of each; the amount of these enumerations they placed at the end of each book respectively, either in numeral letters, or some symbolical word formed out of them. They have also marked whatever irregularities occur in any of the letters of the Hebrew text, such as the different size of the letters, their various positions and inversions, &c. endeavouring to find out reasons for these irregularities, and pointing out the mysteries which they supposed to be in them; they are also regarded as the authors of the Keri and Ketib, or marginal corrections of the text in the Hebrew Bibles.

The Masora, or collection of critical notes upon the text of the Hebrew Bibles, was at first written in separate rolls, but afterwards was abridged in order to place it in the margin. This abridgment was called the little Masora, (Masora parva,) or the great Masora, (Masora magna,)

according as it was more limited or copious; and the omitted parts which were added at the end of the text, were denominated the final Masora, (Masora finalis.) The compilation of these Masoretic criticisms, is supposed to have been commenced about the time of the Maccabees, and to have been continued to about the year of Christ, 1030. The first printed edition of the Masora, was in Bomberg's Great Hebrew Bible, printed at Venice, in 1526, in 2 vols. folio, and again in 1549, under the direction of R. Jacob Ben Chaim, a learned Jew, of Tunis. A Latin translation of his celebrated preface may be seen in Dr. Kennicott's Second Dissertation, pp. 229-244. The Jews call the Masora, the Fence or Hedge of the Law, from its being a means of preserving it from corruption and alteration.

6. THE CABALA.

THE Cabala is a mystical mode of expounding the Law, called by the Jews, the soul of the soul of the Law, many of them preferring it to the Scriptures, or Mishna, which they term the soul of the Law. It was delivered to Moses, say the Hebrew doctors, by the Divine Author of the Law, who not only favoured him with the Oral Explanation of the Law or Mishna, but also added a mystical interpretation of it, to be transmitted, like the Mishna, by tradition, to posterity. The Mishna, say they, explains the manner in which the rites and ceremonies of the Law are to be performed; but the Cabala teaches the mysteries couched under those rites and ceremonies, and hidden in the words and letters of the Scriptures. They divide this mystical science into thirteen different species; and by various transpositions, abbreviations, permutations, combinations, and separations of words, and from the figures and numerical powers of letters, imagine the Law sufficient to instruct the Cabalistic adept, in every art and science.

The principal interpretations and commentaries of the Cabalists, are contained in the book ZOHAR, said to have been written by Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochai, who died about A. D. 120; but it is probably of a much later date. An edition of it was printed at Mantua, 1558, 4to. and another at Cremona, 1559, folio. Those English readers who wish for further information relative to the Cabala, may consult Basnage's History of the Jews, B. iii. c. x—xxviii. pp. 184-256. London, 1708, folio,-and Gaffarel's Unheard-of Curiosities, passim, 8vo. both of them translated from the French.*

• See Surenhusii Mischna, in Præfat.-Waltoni Prolegomena.-Basnage's History of the Jews.-Buxtorfii Bibliotheca Rabbinica.-Relandi Analecta Rabbinica.-Levi's Ceremonies of the Jews.-Kennicott's Dissertations on the State of the Printed Hebrew Text.-Lewis's Hebrew Antiquities.Prideaux's Connexion of the History of the Old and New Testament.— Clarke's Succession of Sacred Literature.-Horne's Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures, &c. &c.

DISSERTATION II.

ON THE

ZABIAN IDOLATRY:

OR,

ANCIENT WORSHIP OF THE STARS.

ZABIANISM; or, as it has been variously denominated

Zabaism, Sabaanism, or Sabaism, consisted in the worship of the Sun and Moon, and of the other planetary bodies, and was the most ancient and most widely spread of any of the forms of Pagan idolatry. From the period of its origination, it appears to have been associated with superstitious rites and ceremonies of a symbolic or incantatory nature, and not unfrequently of the most obscene and revolting character, varying according to the circumstances and habits of the people by whom they were practised. By the Jews, these idolaters were designated, from the nations in their vicinity, and their superstitious practices condemned, as "the ways of the Amorites." In subsequent ages when other modes of idolatry prevailed almost universally, this more early practice was denominated ZABIANISM, most probably from the Hebrew word y (tzaba, a host,) the sun, and moon, and stars being usually called the Host of Heaven.*

Pocockii Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 139.