as the Greeks did from the Phoenicians: but when we confider the words themselves, which are there, Ευπολεμος δε φησι τον Μωσην πρωτον Σοφον γενεσθαι, και γραμματα παραδέναι τοις Ιεδαίοις πρώτον, &c. We may obferve that the word Tapadevat means no more than to express the transmitting, or rather the transferring of an art, which had been previously known to others, nor can we argue from thence that Eupolemus was of opinion that Mofes was the inventor of letters.

Sir Ifaac Newton fays, "When the Edomites fled from David, with their young king Hadad, into Egypt, it is probable that they carried thither alfo the use of letters: for letters were then in ufe among the pofterity of Abraham in Arabia Petræa, and upon the borders of the Red Sea, the law being written there by Mofes in a book, and in tables of stone long before: for Mofes marrying the daughter of the priest of Midian, and dwelling with him forty years, learned them among the Midianites; and Job, who lived among their neighbours the Edomites, mentions the writing down of words in his days."-Chronology, page 209.

Montfaucon gives us this teftimony (which is inadmiffible) from Cofmos, a learned Egyptian, who, in the year of our Lord, five hundred

and

and thirty-five, had travelled through the eastern countries: "Cum fcriptam a deo legem accepiffent Ifraelito, ibi primum literas edidicerunt ceu quieto quodam literario ludo ufus deus, ipfos totis quadraginta annis exarandis literis exerceri fivit quamobrem in deferto Sinai, inque omnibus manfionibus, videre eft lapides omnes ex montibus delapfos literis hæbraicis infcriptos, ut ego qui ifthac iter habui, teftificor; quas infcriptiones Judæi quidam, qui ipfas legerant, narrabant nobis ita habere.Profectio talis.-Ex tribu tali-Menfe tali.

"When the Ifraelites had first received the written law from God, they alfo acquired the knowledge of letters; and God permitted them to be exercised in the defart, in cultivating that knowledge as in a retired fchool : wherefore, in all their various resting places, I teftify from my own obfervation, that all the ftones which had fallen from the mountains, were infcribed with Hebrew letters, which infe iptions as they have been interpreted to us, by certain Jews who had read them, were as follows:- fuch a March-fuch a Tribe-fuch a Month."

There is fomething, I fay, in this account, which carries an air of improbability with it. From

;

From the learned character given of Cofmos, we might well suppose him incapable of resting fatisfied with the information he might expect from prejudiced Jews, when he himfelf was capable of copying these inscriptions, which would have evidently shewn what the form of these ancient letters were. But the relation of this matter would make us believe, that the infcriptions mentioned were in the form of the prefent Hebrew letters which circumstance alone is fufficient authority to difcredit the whole. For it is not difficult to prove, that the prefent Hebrew letters are not the fame which Mofes firft made ufe of, but very different. It is faid that Ezra changed the old Hebrew character, which was the fame of the Phoenician, for the Chaldean; and this has been the opinion. of most learned men, fays the author of the Connections, on good grounds: "For there are many old Jewifh fhekels ftill in being, and others of the fame fort are frequently dug up in Judæa, with this infcription, in Samaritan letters-Jerufalem Kedofha—that is, Jerufalem the holy : which infcription fhews that they could not be the coins of the Ifraelites of the Ten Tribes, nor of the Samaritans who after fucceeded them in their

land;

land; for neither of them would have put the name of Jerufalem upon their coin, or ever have called it the Holy City. Thefe pieces, therefore, muft have been the coin of thofe of the two tribes before the captivity, and this proves the Samaritan character to have been that, which was then in use among them and it cannot be faid that thefe fhe-` kels have been counterfeited by modern hands; for Rabbi Mofes Ben Nachman tells us of feveral which he met with in his time, that had this infcription on them in Samaritan letters, who lived about five hundred years ago, and therefore it must follow, that the prefent Hebrew character was introduced among the Jews after the Babylonish captivity. And the general teftimony of the ancients is, that it was Ezra that first put the holy fcriptures into it, on the review that he made of them on his coming to Jerufalem.

The Jews who maintain the prefent Hebrew character to be genuine and primæval, and the very fame which Mofes used in writing the law, confidentially affirm, (but without any fufficient authority) that amongst their predeceffors, before the time of Ezra, from the most ancient time, there exifted two

modes

modes of writing, the one facred and not commonly known, wherein the Pentateuch and other religious books were penned; the other vulgar, and ufed on all common occafions, and in the daily transactions of life, which was the Samaritan, the very fame which the Cuthæans were made acquainted with by means of the copy of the law which they received when they built their temple on mount Gerazim. But let us hear the words of Buxtorf the Son: Aiunt illi (Hebræi) duplicem Judæos olim habuiffe fcripturam, Sacram & profanam; vel externam vel internam, vel publicam vel communem, & privatim yel fingularem prout appellare libuerit. Illa, fuiffe fcriptas a deo Tabulas Legis, librum item illum Legis a Mofe, qui in Arca, vel ad latus arcæ, fuit reconditus & repofitus ; & hanc fcripturam fuiffe eam ipfam que hodieque eft in ufu & Affyriaca appellatur. Hac, fcripta fuiffe reliqua exemplaria Legis, quæ privati quilibet fibi in fuum & fuorum ufum fcribebant tum etiam in communi ufu in negotiis civilibus quibuflibet, commerciis, contractibus monetis, &c fuiffe adhibitam, & hanc appellant feripturam Hebræam, transfluvialem, quam volunt eandem effe quæ hodie Samaritana vocatur. Illa fcriptura, di

cunt