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historian from the treatise , wither tfejiufne or supposititious , attributed to Aristobulus , * Jewish philosopher or the peripatetic school , said to iiave flourished under the Ptolemiea . "—Pp , 41—4 § . It is evident , from Mr . Conybeare's own statements , that these books afford no traces of that kind of secondary interpretation of the Jewish history and law which , he contends , was familiar to the ancient Israelites , though
imperfectly practised by them , namely , their typical and prophetical reference to the Messiah ; but , we think , we may go further , and say that the passages referred to are not even examples of secondary interpretation at all , as they attribute no more than one meaning to the words . When the author of the Book of Wisdom says , " that God made not death , neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living : for he created all things , that they might have their being ; and the generations of the world wera
healthful ; " he seems to mean nothing more than that the world was originally calculated for the immortality of man , till his own disobedience brought death into it ; and this , surely , is much more like a literal than an allegorical interpretation of the fall . The amplification of the plagues of Egypt displays the usual tendency of the apoeryphal writers to exaggerate and feign , but we can see in it no marks of mystical exposition . The passage of this book , ( xviii . 24 , ) in which the author , speaking of Aaron ' s
staying the plague , ascribes virtue to his garments and insignia , (*? far m the long garment was the wbole world , and in the four rows of stones the gtory of the fathers graven , and thy majesty was the diadem upon his head , ' ) is a curious instance of that propensity of the Jews to seek for a recondite and fanciful reason for their own usages and rites , of which other examples may be seen in Josephus . That the pectoral of the high-priest represented the glory of the fathers , and the diadem , the majesty of Jehovah , wajs perfectly
true ; that the colours of his garments represented the elements , Ijis girdle the ocean , and his turban the heavens , ( Jos . Ant . III . C . vii , ) is rather a fanciful theory respecting the motive of the legislator in prescribing this dress , d * an a ' mystical interpretation of his words , which are taken only in one > and that their obvious , sense . Indeed , throughout his observations , Mr . Conybeare makes no distinction between the emblematic or cemviemwative import of a oeremony or usage , and the double meaning of words , applying
to both the terms secondary , spiritual , mystical , allegorical , &c . Thus we are told , that an allegorical explanation i * given in the epistle of Elea ^ r < o the clean and unclean animals of the Mosaic law . Now , though Easebius , in introducing the extract in question , ( Pr . Ev . VIII . 0 , ) < does use the word uKKyyopstrftui ' , this only shews , what we had occasion to observe in epea ^ ng of a passage in the epistle to the Galatiaias , ( iv . 24 , ) that the ancients uftm the verb very differently from ourselves . The commands and prohibitions
are taken in a literal sense , but are supposed to convey some moral instruction , derived from the habits of the animals in question . Thus the birds and beasts fillowied for food are chiefly ^ rnnivorous and fa ^ bworoag , while those forbidden are carnivorous , a distinction designed to teach we , ibat -violence and bloodshed are unlawful . Ruminating animals are olean ^ to shew us Che iroportatice of meditation ; those with a divided hoof Ate so ,
to shew us the importance of discrimination , & € . All this is absurd £ « $ fewcifdi it is ( cue , and may be called a spiritual or ttty-etieal ^ explanation of < he Mosaic precept ; but it is no secondary or atiegofiori interpretation - $ f the words . The extracts iWm Aristobulus are yet further from affording any example pf alfegoric *! ertplaftajjon , fo $ kt kw&iH fS ^ eage ( IJvs . * V . Ev . VIII . 9 , 10 ) he is supposed to be explaining to the ti ** g > Rtoienay ,
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Review . ^ The Bampirn an $ Hul&ea v . Lectures . \\\
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 111, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/39/
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