On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
rtie reaj % nd gran <| design of this festival . The truth is ,, he has expresse 4 himself h ^ re with a conciseness rather unusual to tuna : under the words , * this event / ' he comprehends every thing specially relating t © that great deliverance pf the Hebrews from their oppressors ; the circumstances which took place directly before , and those by which it was accompanied and 5 with scarcely any delay , succeeded .
We are of opinion that our author shews himself indiscriminately partial to ttie writings of the Rabbins : we particularly see his deference to their precarious authority , in the ease with which he admits the existence of
strangers or proselytes of the gate ; * the thing is at least uncertain . —Lardjier has considered it , very accurately , in his Remarks on ff ^ arcPs Dissertations ^ and his estim ate of the an tiquarian knowledge and historical ft * tlelity of the Rabbins ^ deserves to be transcribed :
** Rabbinical and Tlialmudical writers tnay be of use . But they are not Infallible . Indeed , I had [ would ] rather learn Jewish antiquities from the Scriptures , and such other Jewish writers as lived before our Saviour ' s coming , or were contemporary with Christ and his apostles , than from later Jewish authors /'
Should it be asked , What is the leading object proposed to himself by the writer of Melon ' s Pilgrimage in the composition of his work ? the answer must be , * ' Its object is to present a view of tlie political condition , the sacred usages and domestic
manners , and tSie opinions of the Jews in the century preceding the Christian era . " In many parts of his undertaking the author so assiduously introduces a fanciful and mystical theology , that we might almost have been
tempted to regard the introduction of It as the end for which he framed and lias related the story . Upon a careful study of his volumes , we are satisfied of this being a subordinate and in some . degree an incidental purpose . Since action and reaction are the
yairic , it is not improbable that the extravagancies of the Antisupernatunilists of Germany have driven some of their countrymen into other regions ot visionary divinity ,, In common with
* VoL I . 72 , if . 330 . t Works , ( 1788 , ) Vol . XL
Untitled Article
several professors and teachers of religion ,, both at home and abroad " Strauss perceives in much of the Ian ! guag < e of the Old Testament , and in many of the institutions there recorded , a deep and hidden meaning . No
such meaning , we Eire satisfied , was affixed to either by our Lord and his Apostles ; those best interpreters off the volume of the law and of that off the gospel . There are current doctrines , to which the Scriptures of the " new and better covenant" afford no
sanction : and the sacred books of the Jews will in vain be ransacked and tortured for tenets , which are th < e growth of other climates and of far later ages .
In concluding our account of this performance of Strauss ' s , we feel onr « selves required to declare , that it has greatly interested us , and made a most pleasing impression upon our mindso At the same time , we cannot be
inseusible to its faults ,, It has the appearance of having been drawn up hastily , and of being submitted rather i in maturely to the public eye . The absence of notesj and of nearly all references whatever , is a glaring defect : to most of Strauss ' s countrymen it must be a serious Inconvenience .
We see another proof of the writer ' s not having allowed himself time for the careful execution and revision of his work , in his ambitious luxuriance of painting . He rarely stops at the just point of effect , but adds some misplaced epithet or image ., which an exacter judgment would have
condemned , and a purer taste repressed-Often he offends against simplicity , loses sight of the « ' modest grace ' of Nature ^ and gives to Ornament the primary and not the second rank . If he knows what to describe , still be
does not know what to onuit ; though * ' this skill in leaving out is 3 in all things , a great part of knowledge and wisdom , " * We speak of Strauss as he appears in his own volumes , aiul not in those of the English
translation . His excellencies , as a writer , ouU weigh considerably his imperfection a . To distinguished intellectual , and to appropriate literary endowments , to his eminent power of seizing tin' » t-
* Sir Joeliuu fllt ' -yiiolds ' ti Discourses , Noo XL
Untitled Article
296 $ emewP *><^ IIeloB $ PUgrimagz to Jerusalem *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1826, page 296, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2548/page/44/
-