222 



ventioii, viz. " that some are omitted," doubtless not havins 

 suggested itself to his understanding, nor perhaps suiting the 

 unphilosophic genius of his age: but a consideration of the 

 persons who must have been deceived ia order to give colour 

 to the charge of interpolation, will the more easily expose 

 its absurdity. Is it to be supposed that St. Jerome, to 

 whom we are indebted for the Latin translation of Eusebius, 

 which is to us the original, and who had collated and com- 

 pared such a vast variety of exemplars of the Hebrew, and 

 the versions, in order to compile the vulgate edition of the 

 Scriptures, which for so many ages was the only copy known 

 to the western world — who has remarked so many various read- 

 ings, more particularly in the numerical passages of the sacred 

 records — who has examined and discused so many questions 

 on the Hebrew antiquities, in works it should seem particu- 

 larly adapted to this purpose — (his epistles, prefaces, and 

 Quaest. Hebraicae*) — whose learning was so vast, research so 

 unbounded, and opportunities of informing himself so nume- 

 rous 



• The author of this work is certainly donbtful, ami the learned Benedictines do not 

 scruple to deny, that it was written by St. Jerome; but it has been found among his 

 writings, from a very early age, and the argument which they produce ajjainst its au- 

 thority, though worthy the zeal of the editors, will not be admitted as conclusive by the 

 cold judgment of the critic; for although it does not manifest the extensive erudition 

 of his other works, and particularly of his commentary on Genesis, yet it may have 

 been one of his first exercises in sacred criticism; and perhaps the commentary on 

 Genesis, was only an enlarged and corrected edition of his earlier and more unfinished 

 essays. 



