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This is like a Roman historian's using the style of the law of the twelve tables.

In imitation of the political gazettes, literary ones began to be published in France in 1665; for the first journals were, in fact, simply advertisements of the works recently printed in Europe: to this mere announcement of publication was soon added a critical examination or review. Many authors were offended at it, notwithstanding its great moderation. We shall here speak only of those literary gazettes with which the public, who were previously in possession of various journals from every country in Europe in which the sciences were cultivated, were completely overwhelmed. These gazettes appeared at Paris about the year 1723, under many different names, as-" The Parnassian Intelligencer,"-" Observations on New Books," &c. The greater number of them were written for the single purpose of making money; and as money is not to be made by praising authors, these productions consisted generally of satire and abuse. They often contained the most odious personalities, and for a time sold in proportion to the virulence of their malignity; but reason and good taste, which are always sure to prevail at last, consigned them eventually to contempt and oblivion.*

GENEALOGY.

SECTION I.

MANY Volumes have been written by learned divines in order to reconcile St. Matthew with St. Luke on the subject of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The former enumerates+ only twenty-seven generations from David through Solomon, while Luke gives forty-two, and traces the descent through Nathan. The following is the method in which the learned Calmet solves a difficulty relating to Melchizedec. The orientals and the Greeks,

The certain fate of the Blackwoods, Beacons, Bulls, &c. of our own time and country.-T. + Matthew i. + Luke iii. 23.

ever abounding in fable and invention, fabricated a genealogy for him, in which they give us the names of his ancestors. But, adds this judicious Benedictine, as falsehood always betrays itself, some state his genealogy according to one series, and others according to another. There are some who maintain that he descended from a race obscure and degraded, and there are some who are disposed to represent him as illegitimate.

This passage naturally applies to Jesus, of whom, according to the apostle,* Melchizedec was the type or figure. In fact, the gospel of Nicomedest expressly states, that the Jews, in the presence of Pilate, reproached Jesus with being born of fornication; upon which the learned Fabricius remarks, that it does not appear from any clear and credible testimony, that the Jews objected to Jesus Christ during his life, or even to his apostles, that calumny respecting his birth which they so assiduously and virulently circulated afterwards. The Acts of the Apostles, however, inform us that the Jews of Antioch opposed themselves, blaspheming against what Paul spoke to them concerning Jesus; and Origen§ maintains, that the passage in St. John's gospel," We are not born of fornication, we have never been in subjection unto any man," was an indirect reproach thrown out by the Jews against Jesus on the subject of his birth. For, as this father informs us, they pretended that Jesus was originally from a small hamlet of Judea, and his mother nothing more than a poor villager subsisting by her labour, who, having been found guilty of adultery with a soldier of the name of Panther, was turned away by her husband, whose occupation was that of a carpenter; that, after this disgraceful expulsion, she wandered about miserably from one place to another, and was privately delivered of Jesus, who, pressed by the necessity of his circumstances, was compelled to go and hire himself as a servant in Egypt, where he acquired some of those

* Hebrews vii. 3.
+ Article ii.

Acts xiii.

§ Upon St. John, viii. 41.
Against Celsus viii.

secrets which the Egyptians turn to so good an account, and then returned to his own country, in which, full of the miracles he was enabled to perform, he proclaimed himself to be God.

*

According to a very old tradition, the name of Panther, which gave occasion to the mistake of the Jews, was, as we are informed by St..Epiphanius, the surname of Joseph's father, or rather, as is asserted by St. John Damascene,† the proper name of Mary's grandfather.

As to the situation of a servant with which Jesus was reproached, he declares himselft that he came not to be served, but to serve. Zoroaster, according to the Arabians, had in like manner been the servant of Esdras. Epictetus was even born in servitude. Accordingly, St. Cyril of Jerusalem justly observed,§ that it is no disgrace to any man.

On the subject of the miracles, we learn indeed from Pliny, that the Egyptians had the secret of dying with different colours, stuffs which were dipped in the very same furnace, and this is one of the miracles which the gospel of the Infancy || attributes to Jesus. But, according to St. Chrysostom, Jesus performed no miracle before his baptism, and those stated to have been wrought by him before are absolute fabrications. The reason assigned by this father for such an arrangement respecting the miracles is, that the wisdom of God determined againt Christ's performing any miracles in his childhood, lest they should have been regarded as impostures.

Epiphanius in vain alleges,** that to deny the miracles ascribed by some to Jesus during his infancy, would furnish heretics with a specious pretext for saying that he became son of God only in consequence of the effusion of the holy spirit, which descended upon him at his baptism: we are contending here, not against heretics, but against Jews.

* Heresy lxxviii.

+ Book iv. 15. On Faith

Matthew xx. 28.

Sixth Cat. Art. xiv.

Article xxxvii.

Homily xx. On St. John. ** Heresy, li. 20.

Mr. Wagenseil has presented us with a Latin translation of a Jewish work entitled Toldos Jeschu, in which it is related that Jeschu, being at Bethlehem in Judah, the place of his birth, cried out aloud, "Who are the wicked men that pretend I am a bastard, and spring from an impure origin? They are themselves bastards, themselves exceedingly impure! Was I not born of a virgin mother? and I entered through the crown of her head!"

This testimony appeared of such importance to M. Bergier, that learned divine felt no scruple about employing it without quoting his authority. The following are his words, in the twenty-third page of the Certainty of the Proofs of Christianity: "Jesus was born of a virgin by the operation of the holy spirit. Jesus himself frequently assured us of this with his own mouth; and to the same purpose is the recital of the apostles." It is certain that these words are only to be found in the Toldos Jeschu; and the certainty of that proof, among those adduced by M. Bergier, subsists, although St. Matthew+ applies to Jesus the passage of Isaiah: "He shall not dispute, he shall not cry aloud, and no one shall hear his voice in the streets."

In

According to St. Jerome,§ there was in like manner an ancient tradition among the gymnosophists of India, that Buddas, the author of their creed, was born of a virgin, who was delivered of him from her side. the same manner were born Julius Cæsar, Scipio Africanus, Manlius, Edward VI. of England, and others, by means of an operation called by surgeons the Casarean operation, because it consists in abstracting the child from the womb by an incision in the abdomen of the mother. Simon, surnamed the magician, and Manès, pretended likewise both of them to be born of a virgin. This might, however, merely mean, that their mothers were virgins at the time of conceiving them. But in order to be convinced of the uncer

* Page 7.

+ Matthew xii. 19. § Book i. against Jovian.

Isaiah xlii. 2.

Recognitions, book ii. art. xiv.

the

tainty attending the marks and evidences of virginity, it will be perfectly sufficient to read the commentary of M. de Pompignan, the celebrated bishop of Puy en Velai, on the following passage in the book of Proverbs,*"There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man in his youth." In order to give a literal translation of the passage, it would have been necessary, according to this prelate (in the third chapter of the second part of his work entitled Infidelity convinced by the Prophecies, it would have been necessary to say," Viam viri en virgine adolescentula"-The way of a man with a maid.+ The translation of our Vulgate, says he, substitutes another meaning, exact indeed and true, but less conformable to the original text. In short, he corroborates his curious interpretation by the analogy between this verse and the following one: "Such is the life of the adulterous woman, who, after having eaten, wipeth her mouth and saith, I have done no wickedness."

However, this may be, the virginity of Mary was not generally admitted, even at the beginning of the third century. Many have entertained the opinion, and do still, said St. Clement of Alexandria,* that Mary was delivered of a son, without that delivery producing any change in her person; for some say, that a midwife who visited her after the birth, found her to retain all the marks of virginity. It is clear, that St. Clement refers here to the gospel of the birth of Mary, in which the angel Gabriel says to her,t "Without intercourse with man, thou, a virgin, shalt conceive, thou, a virgin, shalt be delivered of a child, thou, a virgin, shalt give suck;" and also to the first gospel of James, in which the midwife exclaims,‡ "What an unheard of wonder! Mary has just brought

• Proverbs xxx. 18.

+ The proper meaning of this word is adolescent, capable of producing, marriageable, fruitful, &c. It is the epithet commonly applied to Ceres.

Strom. Book vii.

Art. ix.

Art. xix.

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