and if so, saith he, it is pity somebody did not do here as St. Jerome did in a similar difficulty relating to "Zacharias, the son of Barachias," who is said to have been "slain between the temple and the altar;" namely, consult the Hebrew copy of St. Matthew's Gospel before it was lost*. Indeed St. Jerome saith, with respect to the present difficulty, that a Nazarene Jew showed him a book, accounted an apocryphal book of the prophet Jeremiah, where this passage is expressed verbatim†.

The learned Joseph Mede conceives, that these words, as well as several passages which now stand in the book of Zechariah, were originally spoken by Jeremiah, but have been misplaced through the unskilfulness of the persons who collected their prophecies.

However, Dr. Lightfoot, by testimonies from the rabbies, shows us, that Jeremiah did anciently stand first in the book of the prophets. And hence he came to be mentioned before all the rest in the following passage of St. Matthew, "Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets," chap. xvi, 14. Accordingly, as the whole hagiographa is called the Psalms, from the Psalms being the first book, so the whole volume of the prophets is for the same reason called Jeremiah §.

There is yet another, and perhaps more probable, conjecture of Bishop Hall, who imagines, that Zechariah having been written contractedly, Zpia was by some transcriber mistaken for Ιρι8.

Others after all suppose, that the name of the prophet is an erroneous marginal addition, now crept into the text, since the Syriac version only saith, "It was spoken by the prophet," without mentioning his name.

I shall conclude the whole with an account of the most considerable editions of the Bible. I mean those which may be called pompous editions; for the plain, or the mere editions of the Hebrew text, are too numerous for our attempting a de

* See Dr. Wall's Critical Notes on the New Testament, on Matt. xxiii, 35. + See Dr. Wall on Matt. xxvii, 9, 10.

↑ Mede's Works, book iv, epist. xxxi, p. 786, London, 1677.

§ Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraic. on Matt. xxvii, 9.

tail of them. By the pompous editions, otherwise called Opera Biblica, I intend those, which contain not only the sacred text, but likewise some commentaries, or versions, joined with it, and they are chiefly these four, the Biblia Complutensia, Biblia Regia, Biblia Parisiensia, and Biblia Polyglotta. The Biblia Complutensia, so called from Complutum in Spain, where the work was printed, is contained in one volume folio. It was published under the care of Cardinal Ximenes, anno 1514, containing the Old Testament in Hebrew, the vulgar Latin; the Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, and the Septuagint version, with the Latin translation of both; also the New Testament in Greek and Latin.

The Biblia Regia, so called from Philip II of Spain, at whose charge the work was executed, contains eight volumes, printed at Antwerp, anno dom. 1571, with a better letter and paper than the former. Arias Montanus had the greatest share in this work, which contains several things more than the Complutensian, namely, the Chaldee paraphrase on all the Old Testament, with a Latin version of it; the interlineary version of the New Testament; and also the New Testament in Syriac, expressed both in Hebrew and Syriac characters.

The Biblia Parisiensia, in ten volumes, was printed at Paris, anno dom. 1645, at the charge of a private man, Michael de Jay, and therefore it is also called Jay's Bible. It was done under the direction and care of Dr. Gabriel Sionita, professor of the Oriental languages at Paris, of Johannes Morinus, and Abraham Ecchellensis.

It exceeds the Biblia Regia both in paper and in print; it hath, besides all which that contains, the Pentateuch in Samaritan, all the Old Testament in Syriac, and both Testaments in Arabic.

The Anglicanum opus Biblicum, called the Polyglot, was printed chiefly under the care of Dr. Bryan Walton, in six volumes, at London, 1657. This contains several things which Jay's Bible hath not. It has Arias Montanus's interlineary version, the Septuagint from the Vatican and Alexandrian copies, which are supposed to be the best; the old Vulgate Latin translation of the Septuagint, which alone, he

tells you, is that which the Latin church used four hundred years after the apostles. It has the Persic Pentateuch in the Persic character; the Psalms, Canticles, and New Testament in the Ethiopic; the Jerusalem Targum, the Chaldee Paraphrase of Jonathan*, &c.

Dr. Edmund Castell, Arabic professor at Cambridge, published a Lexicon for the use of Walton's Polyglot, in two volumes folio, which generally goes with it, making in all eight volumes.

* See the Preface to the London Polyglot.