ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. 335: 



Tetter than the Hebrews. There is a Sa- 

 maritan copy of the Pentateuch, which differs, 

 indeed, but litle from that of the Jews in Heb- 

 but is wrote in different characters, that 

 are commonly called Samaritan, and which 

 Origen, St, Jerom, and many othtr writers, as 

 well ancient as modern, iuppofe to be the firil 

 letters of the Hebrews. There are alfo medals- 

 chat are called Samaritan j they have Hebrew 

 infcriptions, in characters different from thofc 

 of our Hebrew bible, and which are called 

 fquare Hebrew. For a further account of the 

 Samaritan language, confult M. Simon in his 

 cuftoms and ceremonies of the Jews, Eduardi 

 Bernhar^li Lexicon bamaritanum, F. Kircher, 

 M. Buxtorff, M. dc Spanheim, F. Morin, M. 

 Walron, and a great number of other writers. 



I X. The Ralbir.ic, or the Hebrew of the Rab- 

 bins, is the language of which they have made 

 ufc in their works. The body of it is compoied 

 of 1 1 c brew and Chaldaic, with divers alterations 

 in the words of thofe two languages, whole fig- 

 .:ions they have much extended. They 

 have likcwiie borrowed greatly from the Ara- 

 bic. '1 he roll is compoied of words taken for 

 the moil >m the Greek, with fome from 



the Latin, and others from various modern lan- 

 guap- iy that of the country in which 



rabbin lived. For we fhouki remember 

 . that after the return from the 



>oke fcarcc any pure llebrt 



