He who

safely be added, with similar success. can believe that all the reveries of the rabbies were intended as moral and theological apologues, will find little difficulty in persuading himself that there is a plenitude of mystical instruction in the mythology of the Heathens.*

Some learned men, while they have acknowledged themselves incompetent to develop the

* All the poetic beauties of Homer and Hesiod were insufficient to protect them from the censures of some of the philosophers for their fables respecting their gods. Pythagoras is represented by his biographer, as having a vision of these poets in the infernal regions, suffering condign vengeance for those impieties. Xenophanes reprobated them both, in elegiac, iambic, and heroic verses. Plato is known to have declared the reading of Homer unfit to be tolerated in any well-governed state. Cicero involved the speculations of some philosophers and the fables of the poets in a charge of almost equal absurdity. Laert. Diog, Lib. 8. Vit. Pythag. Lib. 9. Vil. Xenoph. Of these verses of Xenophanes two fragments have been preserved, by their citation in a work of Sextus Empiricus adv. Mathem. p. 57, 341. Vid. Egid. Menag. in Diog. Laert. L. 9.-Plato de Repub.-Cicero de Natura Deor. Lib. 1.-All these lived before the Christian era. It was reserved for their successors, who witnessed and resisted the promulgation of Christianity, to invent an apology for the poets, which had escaped the sagacity of their admirers for a thousand years. Determined to adhere to the system of polytheism, and to support the orthodoxy of Homer, yet ashamed of

'Gods changeful, partial, passionate, unjust;
'Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust;'

(Pope.)

Numenius, Porphyry, and other heathen philosophers, who lived in the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era, contended that what had been deemed absurd fictions were instructive allegories, and that Homer's machinery was full of dignity and elegance, and pregnant with the sublimest truths and like some apologists for the Talmud, these advocates of heathen mythology, endeavoured to make their expositions pass for the genuine theology of the author. Porphyr. de Antro Nymph. Essay prefixed to Pope's Homer, sect. ii.

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moral and theological wisdom which they suppose to be concealed in numerous passages of the Talmud, have deemed it an unanswerable argument in favour of some figurative and parabolical sense being the true and original meaning of those passages, to allege that the writers could never have been so foolish and absurd as to expect others to believe, or to intend themselves, what their language literally expresses. But this argument is scarcely to be distinguished from what logicians call petitio principii, a gratuitous assumption of the point at issue. If the folly and absurdity of any statements, narrative or didactic, understood in the sense which the language of their authors naturally conveys, were admitted as a sufficient reason for concluding those authors to have meant something much wiser and better than what they have said; it would equally serve to explain all the absurdities and follies that were ever broached in the world.

away

As the traditions stated in this chapter are horribly profane; so there are multitudes in the Talmud, of which some cannot but disgust by their filthiness, and others must excite detestation by their obscenity. I shall not offend the chaste reader by any specimens of the latter; neither shall I refer to the places where they may be found. Of the former, I will venture to produce one sample in a note below, the filthiness being partly concealed under the veil of a dead language.*-If

* ' Dixit R. Akiba: Ingressus sum aliquando post R. Josuam in sedis secretæ locum, et tria ab eo didici: Didici primo, quod non versus orientem et occidentem, sed versus septentrionem et austrum

there be any Edipus, jealous for the honour of the Talmud, and disposed to try his skill in allegories, I would recommend his beginning with this delicate anecdote; which if he can succeed in spiritualising or moralising, he need not be afraid of meeting with any enigma too complicated or abstruse for his penetration to decypher.

'nos convertere debeamus.

Didici secundo, quod non in pedes ' erectum, sed jam considentem se retegere liceat. Didici tertio, quod podex non dextera, sed sinistra manu abstergendus sit. Ad hæc objecit ibi Ben Hasai: Usque adeo vero perfricuisti frontem erga magistrum tuum, ut cacantem observares. Respondit ille: 'Legis hæc arcana sunt, ad quæ discenda id necessario mihi agendum 'sit.' EN VERO EGREGIAM DOCTRINAM MORALEM! Talmud Massech. Berach. f. 62. col. 1. apud Brucker. Hist. Crit. Philosophiæ, tom. ii. p. 836.

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CHAPTER IX.

Traditions concerning Angels :—When created:-Their different Natures,― Durations,— Classes,-Orders,— Magnitudes and Statures,-Residences.-Seventy Angels set over seventy Nations.—A presiding Angel over every Thing, animate and inanimate.-Guardian Angels,-one for every Man:- Their Functions.— Various Accounts of a Personage called Metatron. Traditions concerning Demons :-When created: - In what Condition:-Their different Natures:-Classes:Some the Offspring of Others; and some, of Human Beings.- Account of Lilith.-Sammael and others, Angels of Death.-Demons troublesome,―mischievous, -learned in the Law,-accustomed to frequent the Syngogues.

THE rabbinical writings abound with traditions concerning angels. Of the time of their creation different accounts are given by different rabbies ; who have endeavoured, in their usual manner, to support their respective statements by the citation of texts of scripture, which they wish their readers to accept as decisive proofs of what they have taken upon themselves to affirm. To the question, When were angels created?' Rabbi Jochanan answered: The angels were created on the second day; this is what is written: "Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who 'maketh the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon 'the wings of the wind; who maketh his angels spirits." Psal. civ. 3, 4.' Rabbi Chanina said: The angels were created on the fifth day; this is

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'what is found written; And fowl that may fly ' above the earth;" and "with twain he did fly." 'Gen. i. 20. Isa. vi. 2.' Rabbi Luliani maintains the orthodoxy of both these statements: They, 'who follow the opinion of R. Chanina, and those 'who adhere to that of R. Jochanan, all agree that 'the angels were not created on the first day, that 'it might not be said,-Michael spread out the 'firmament in the south, Gabriel in the north, and 'the holy and blessed God in the middle;-but— "I am the Lord that maketh all things, that 'stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth 'abroad the earth by myself." Isa. xliv. 24.'*— Rabbi Bechai harmonizes them: There are some angels who continue for ever, namely, those who were created on the second day: but others perish, 'according to the explanation of our rabbies of 'blessed memory, who say, that the holy and 'blessed God created daily a multitude of angels, 'who sing an anthem to his praise and glory, and 'then perish; and they are those who were created ' on the fifth day.'—Another rabbi contradicts them all: Before the creation of the world, the blessed 'God created the shape of the holy angels, who were the beginning of all created beings, and 'were derived from the glance of his glory.'† The description of Daniel,-"A fiery stream "issued, and came forth before him: thousand "thousands ministered unto him,"I-is supposed

* Bereshith Rabba, p. 3. c. 2. apud Bartoloc. Bib. Rab. tom. i. p. 262.

+ Bechai in Leg. f. 14. c. 1. Jalkut Chadash, Num. 11. cited in Stehelin, vol. ii. p. 72. Ch. vii. 10.