My living at a distance from the press hath deprived me of the opportunity of correcting the errours of it; but this defect hath been supplied by my very worthy friend Mr. Brampton Gurdon, who hath been pleased to take on him the trouble of correcting the last revise of every sheet; and I know no one more able to correct the errours, not only of the printer, but also of the author, wherever I may have been mistaken in any particular contained in this book, he being a person eminently knowing in all those parts of literature, that are treated of through the whole of it, and otherwise of that worth and learning, as may justly recommend him to every man's esteem. I shall be glad if this Second Part of my history may be as acceptable to the public as the former hath been. I must confess it hath been written under greater disadvantages, by reason of the decays which have since grown upon me. It hath always been the comfort, as well as the care of my life, to make myself as serviceable as I could, in all the stations which I have been called to. With this view it hath been, that I have entered on the writing of any of those works that I have offered to the public; and I hope I have by all of them in some measure served my generation. But being now broken by age, and the calamitous distemper mentioned in the preface to the former part of this history, I find myself superannuated for any other undertaking, and therefore must, I fear, spend the remainder of my days in an useless state of life, which to me will be the greatest burden of it. But, since it is from the hand of God, I will comport myself with all patience to submit hereto, till my great change shall come, and God shall be pleased to call me out of this life into a better. For which I wait with a thorough hope and trust in his great and infinite mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory, honour, and praise, for ever and ever, HUMPHREY PRIDEAUX. NORWICH, Jan. 1, 1717-18. THE Old and New Testaments CONNECTED, &c. BOOK I. a An. 291, Ptolemy Soter 14. ELEAZAR, the brother of Simon the Just, succeeded him in the high priesthood at Jerusalem, and there executed this office fifteen years. But whereas Simon the Just had been also president of the sanhedrim, or national council of the Jews, he was in this last charge succeeded by Antigonus of Socho, to which he was recommended by his great learning. For he was an eminent scribe in the law of God, and a great teacher of righteousness among the people. And he being the first of the Tannaim or Mishnical doctors, from his school all those had their original who were afterwards called by that name. And these were all the doctors of the Jewish law from the death of Simon the Just to the time that Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh composed the Mishna, which was about the middle of the second century after Christ, as hath been before observed, In the gospels, they are sometimes called scribes, sometimes lawyers, and sometimes those that sat in Moses' seat. For those different appellations all denote the same profession of men, that is, those who having been brought up in the knowledge of the law of God, and the tradition of the elders concerning it, taught it in the schools and synagogues of the Jews, and judged according to it in their sanhedrims. For a Joseph. Antiq. lib. 12, c. 2. Chronicon Alexand. Eusebii Chronicon. b Chronicon Alexandrinum. c Juchasin, Shalsheleth Haccabbalah, and Zemach David. R. A. Levita in Historica Cabbala. |