1866.] » Proceedings of ilie Asiatic Society. 211 



Amen," or " God of truth" has as close a resemblance to " Om the 

 God" or " God Om" of the Sanskrit as possible. 



" Mr. Beames emphatically declares that Amen c never had, nor has, 

 and probably never will have, any mystic meaning.' The fact, however, 

 that the Rabbis did derive the word from the initials of Adonai 

 Melech Neeman, and did assign to it the meaning Dominus Rex Jidelis, 

 is sufficient evidence to shew that it once had been used in a 

 mystic sense. The use of it bodily in all translations of the Bible is 

 another proof that more is assigned to it than could be expressed by a 

 translated term. 



" It has been said that the translators of the Bible left a few Hebrew 

 words, such as Hosannah, Hallelujah, untranslated in the Greek, and 

 amen was one of them. But that would not sufficiently account for 

 its presence in translations in the modern languages of Europe, and in 

 Bengali, Uriah, Hindi, and a host of other foreign languages. If the 

 wordmeant simply " yes," or " be it so" and no mysterious or uncommon 

 theological importance was attached to it, it would be strange to suppose 

 that none of the many hundred dialects into which the Bible has been 

 translated could find an equivalent for it. No word could be more 

 universal than that which implies " yes," and if it were sought, it 

 would be found most easily in every language on the face of the 

 earth. It is worthy of note also that amen, when used adverbially 

 for "verily," or as an adjective, is always translated, and that 

 only when used after prayers and imprecations it is allowed to stand 

 in its original form. Nor is a reason wanting for this diversity. The 

 Greek and Latin Churches admit that they observed more energy in 

 the word than they could find in any other, and St. Jerome says, 

 1 that at Rome, when the people answered Amen, the sound of their 

 voices was like a clap of thunder.' In similitudine ccelestis tonitrui 

 Amen reboot. The Cabbalists too, ' according to their usual manner 

 of finding a hidden meaning in words which they call notaricon, out 

 of the letters of amen found the whole phrase Adonai Melech Neeman. 

 (Rees's Cyclopaedia, s. v. Amen.) No doubt the word existed long 

 before the Cabbala and the Cabbalists, but as I allude to them to 

 shew that it was at one time used in a mystic sense, and not in 

 support of anything as to its etymology, the whole of the argument 

 contained under the 4th head of Mr. Beames's paper is thrown away. 



