142 



tile ; and, besides, it supposes what was not the fact, that none of the 

 Christians were conversant in the Hebrew tongue. Indeed the 

 division of the words is best accounted for by an observation, which 

 Morinus elsewhere makes, that it necessarily took its rise in the con- 

 straint which the circular form of the medal put upon the en- 

 graver. 



The observation of Morinus, that the final apocope in the abbre- 

 viation of Hebrew words is of modem invention, is scarcely founded 

 in fact. The Hebrew scholar may be easily satisfied upon this 

 point, by consulting the Lexicons and the writers upon this subject. 

 We had occasion to notice the several meanings, which the single 

 Aleph conveys. 



But to retura, we must narrow the testimony before us to that of 

 Wagenseil, as I have before remarked. 



In the first instance, then, it is a complete non sequitur, that, be- 

 cause a certain Count went to the convent of St. Abraham, to pur- 

 chase relics, that he came home laden with forged coins of this pa- 

 triarch. The original annals say no such thing, nor does Wagen- 

 seil inform us, that any such were in his time existing in the Abbey 

 of St. Gallus. I confess, however, that although this matter is by 

 no means proved, it is very far from being improbable. Admitting it, 

 then, it by no means follows, as a logical deduction, that Pa- 

 lestine, at that time, gave birth to spurious medals of our Saviour. 

 Observe also his contradictions : the forgery is committed by Chris- 

 tians SKILLED in the Hebrevv tongue ; but when, to carry the import- 

 ant point of reading " homo" for " lux", a Mem must be conjured 

 up, it was, forsooth, omitted by the carelessness common in tra^i- 



