2"'" S. VI. 140., Sept. 4. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



183 



The following name of a former owner is in- 

 scribed ill the volume : " Chris' Jeaffreson, e dono 

 Jos. Oldham, March 12»^ 1792." 



At the same time that I obtained this volume, 

 I became also the purchaser of two little vellum- 

 bound books, then doing duty as the supporters of 

 a dilapidated stuffed bird ; but which in any case or 

 condition (and their present condition is one of 

 merciless mutilation) one would not have looked 

 for in the, too often, uncongenial quarters of a 

 public-house parlour. The running title of one, 

 which as yet I have been unable to identify, is 

 The Holy Pilgrim ; the other is Perkins's Trea- 

 tise of a Reformed Catholike. W. D. Macrat. 



ON EPICnEISM. 



" What a damn'd Epicurean rascal is this." — Shah- 

 tpeare. 



Epicurean, as a term of reproach, is of older 

 date than is generally supposed. Rabbi Jehukak 

 Hallevy, a learned philosopher, grammarian, and 

 poet, profoundly skilled in all the learning of his 

 age, a Spaniard by birth, an investigating travel- 

 ler, and celebrated for his numerous works, prin- 

 cipally in Hebrew and Arabic, who flourished in 

 the early part of the twelfth century, calls the 

 Sadducees "epicureans (D1"11p''SN, aipikwios) and 

 minims." Epicurean, he says, means infidel, a 

 word of reproach applied by the Rabbis to those 

 who deny the truths of revealed religion. Also to 

 those Jews who reject the doctrines of the Rabbis, 

 as declared in the Talmud (TV. Sankedrin, p. 97.) 

 In answer to the Query, "Who is .an Epicurean?" 

 he replies, " He who despises the Sages and their 

 doctrines." 



The Jewish doctors do not derive the oppro- 

 brious term epicurean from the name of Epicurus, 

 the philosopher of Gargetus, but from the Ara- 

 msean "ipsn (epicur), free, licentious. This dialect 

 of the Hebrew language was the common one of the 

 Jewish people in and long before the time of Christ. 

 Dr. Andrew renders "|Dn (epih) " contrary," 

 " perverse," " turned," and Hutter " vertit," " in- 

 vertit," " evertit," "sub vertit," "eversio." But the 

 root has a yet more ancient origin ; for in Exodus 

 xiv. 5., wliere it says " the heart of Pharaoh was 

 turned against the people," the Hebrew word "|Qn 

 (epik) bears the same meaning as in our autho- 

 rised version. The great Jewish historian thus 

 Stigmatises the Egyptian tyrant as epicurean, in- 

 fidel, unbeliever. 



The antiquity of the Aram-aic tongue (the lan- 

 guage of Aram) Syriac or Chaldaic language is 

 proved in Genesis xxxi. 47., when Laban the 

 Syrian, in giving in his own tongue the name of 

 the momorial heap of the covenant between him 

 an<l Jacob. The historian says, " and Laban 

 cnWcd hun^l'Ciy^jegar-sahadutha), and Jacob 



called it nypj (galeed)," both meaning the heap, 

 one using the Syrian and the other the Hebrew 

 tongue, which is often designated in the Old Tes- 

 tament the " Jews' language." 



So, also, Isaiah xxxvi. 11. : " Then said Eliakim, 

 and Shebna, and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I 

 pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian lan- 

 guage, for we understand it : and speak not to 

 us in the Jews' language " (that is, the Hebrew) 

 " in the ears of the people that are on the wall." 

 The same is mentioned by Ezra, Amos, and other 

 Old Testament writers. 



The word po (min), pi. minim, signifies in 

 rabbinical Hebrew infidel, miscreant. Rabbi 

 Elias Levita, a learned native of Germany, who 

 lived in the sixteenth century, and occupied much 

 of his time in teaching Hebrew to cardinals, 

 bishops, and other hierarchs of the Romish church, 

 and is highly praised by Father Simon in his 

 Hist. Crit. de V. Test., says, in his book Tishhy, 

 under the word " Min " : — " From the books of 

 the Greeks we learn that there lived a man named 

 Mani " (Qy. Manes or Manichseus ?) " who de- 

 nied all religion : those who followed his doctrines 

 are called after him Minim." According to the 

 Josephoth (tr. Abana Sarah, p. 20.), Min denotes 

 an apostate Jew who worships idols. It is ap- 

 plied only to Jews, as the same book declares 

 (tr. Chidin, p. 13.), " among the Gentiles there 

 are no Minim," that is, apostate Jews. 



According to Moses bar Maimon (Moses the 

 son of Maimon), better known by his Greek pa- 

 tronymic Maimonides * (Hilchoth Thesoohah re- 

 sponses), the word Min is derived from Manes, a 

 Persian philosopher who lived in the fifth cen- 

 tury and taught the doctrines of two antagonistic 

 principles, Evil and Good. From him arose the 

 notorious sect of the Manichees, whose name it 

 bore. Maimonides, however, does not class the 

 Sadducees with the Minim, but calls them 0'|^SD 

 (hapherim) renegades. 



The fat swine of Epicurus' sty, with whom 

 and at whom and his dainty friend Catius the 

 kitchener, Horace discusses the mensal tablets of 

 the Gormandizer's Almanac, are wrong in calling 

 themselves disciples of the abstemious Gargetian, 

 who in his " trim gardens took delight." 



An epicurean, therefore, if Horace's description 

 be true, is not a follower of Epicurus, is not one 

 given up to voluptuous pleasure, a sensualist, more 

 addicted to mensal than mental converse : on the 

 contrary, the founder of this celebrated sect and 

 his disciples were deservedly praised by Cicero, 

 Quintilian, and other competent authorities, as a 



* This illustrious teacher is known to the Jews by the 

 anagram Ram/iam (Kabbi Moses Ben JIainion), and they 

 assert of liim that HC^OD Clp nh n'C'O "]]}) HCOD ((«<?"- 

 moshch vc.-ad mnshek la ijum lui-iiiosheh) from Aloses (tlie 

 legislator) to Moses (the teacher), there has ariseo none 

 like Moses. 



