1803.) 
to have confulted Mark only ; fo that the 
date 57 would beft meet the center of gra- 
vity of the more obvious contending pro- 
babilities refpecting the publication of* 
Matthew. The object of religious bio- 
graphy is more fatisfactorily accomplithed 
by Matthew, than by any other Evange- 
lit; he affigns to moral precept a prepon- 
derance over mere anecdote ; and this ju- 
dicious turn he probably owes to his 
more intimate ftudy of the Wifdom.— 
Compare 
Matthew IV. 17. with Wifdom V.23&VI.5 
V. 9, ViN'5 
VIl. 12, — IV.19 
X.26, -——— 18 
——— X11. 32, ——— I. 7—8 
Kil. 43, —— Ill7 
XxXIX,12, o-—— Ill. rg 
ae 28, —-—— IX. ta 
XX. 23, ——— Xa kz 
ear te eee Vie 
XXIV. 6, Vi. 
XXVII.19, If. 18 
40, Il. 16—17 
The author of Hebrews (furely not 
Paul) confults the Wildom, and fill more 
carefully the Ecclefiaficus. The Apoca- 
lypfe and the Epiftle of Jude, are of too 
Jate a date to have any weight in this 
quettion; both are pofterior by a full cen- 
tury to any other writings efteemed canon- 
ical ; the citation of the Wifdom might 
at fo Jate a period be accidéntal, it was 
become a public book. ‘That the cita- 
tion begins with the beginners, and {preads 
with the {pread of Chriftianity, has fuffici- 
ently been fhown. 
The Wildom teaches a Platonic, the 
Ecclefiaticus an Epicurean, fort of doc- 
trine, refpeéting the foul: both are very 
pious and very moral productions. It is 
not an unlikely fuppofition therefore, that 
the author of the Wifdom fhould have 
tranflated the Ecciefiatticus into Greek. 
Tiie. firit prologue to that work is by an 
uncertain author, and cannot confidently 
be relied on 3 the fecond prologue, in-. 
decd, has every. fymptom of génuinenefs _ 
and authenticity s»yet if the words ‘¢ when 
Evergeies’ was. king”? "emi rov *Eusgyerov 
Racvizws be (uppofed a glofs or interpolation; 
and the 38th year from the battle of Ac- 
_ tium, (by which era the Egyptians dated) 
were to be confequently conlidered as the 
. true date of the enterprife of tranflation ; 
there would be no chronological obftacle 
to this fuppofition. The firft quotations 
of the Ecclefiaticus begin with Chriftia- 
nity... Compare Matthew XVIII. 15, 
with Ecclefiafticus KIX. 14, and fo forth. 
Barnabas, Clemens, and Ignatius alfo 
quote it: and Syncelius, after Eufebius, 
Colcana. 
307 
alcribes (p. 276) to one writer, both the 
Greek Ecclefiafticus, and the all-virtuous 
Wildom. <A ftronger argument for their 
common and cotempeorary origin may be 
drawn from the epilogue to the Ecclefiaf- 
ticus. This concluding prayer plainly 
emanates from the tranflater ; it agrees 
remarkably in opinion and in phra‘eology 
with theWifdom, and it contains ajlufions, 
thrilling allufions, to the nearly mortal 
punifhment of ‘the author, in confequence 
of falie accufation. Surely then this 
prayer, like the introduttory part, or two 
firtt chapters of the Wifdom, muft be a 
pothumous addition, and by the lame au- 
guft author. In this cafe we have even the 
evidence of his’ own fuper{cription, for 
a(cribing to him the defervedly hallowed, 
the juftly worfhipped, name of JESUS. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
COLEANA. 
Confifting of SELECTIONS from the curious 
Mss. bequeathed by the late MR. COLE, 
to the BRITISH MUSEUM, and lately 
opened. 
PAROCHIAL REGISTERS. 
HE wile and beneficial regulation of 
Parith-regifters is faid to have been 
firft introduced in 1538, by the direction 
of Lord Thomas Cromwell, then vicar- 
general: betore which time, probably, 
the parochial clergy were not often futh- 
cient penmen to keep fuch regifters, nor 
were there at this period excife-officers who 
could be employed as amanvenfes. ‘The 
great convenience arifing from this ordi- 
nance of Cromwell’s occafioned its being 
enjoined during the reigns of Edward VI. 
Queen Elizabeth, and James I. Since 
which laft pericd, with the exception of 
certain intervals during the great rebel- 
lion and the plague in 1666, they have 
been for the moft part regularly kept. 
FEAST OF ‘FOOLS. 
In France they had formerly an holi=. 
day called the Feaft of Fools. ‘The priefts 
and clerks went mafqued to church, and, 
at their return from thence, went about, 
the ftreets,and mounted on ftages, perform- 
ing the moft ridiculous and impudent buf- 
fooneries. This feitival continued inFrance 
about an hundred and fifty years, fromthe 
twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, 
PHYSICIANS, | 
Trivial as the remark may feem, it is 
yet a curious fact that the earlieit phyfi- 
cians of every nation were the priefts. 
This was the cafe not only among the re- 
moteft inhabitants of Egypt, bot amon 
the Syrians and Hebrews. Avia firft uled 
the affiftaiice of proper phyficians and was 
Rr 2 reproved 
