1805.] 
‘the fcope, to Inquire concerning the cor- 
rectnefs, of the hypothefis. 
~ ‘The objeétor feems to have read with 
care Calmet’s Differtations on the Bible} 
and thence to take his point of view.— 
Nor will afguments be defpifed by the 
philofopher, which ‘convinced a Gibbon 
(¢:. xxi. vol.il. ato. p. 229). 
Benediétine and the hiftorian are fur dat- 
ing the Wifdom above a century before 
the Chriftian era. -Suppofe the reafoning 
folid, what refults ?>—That ‘the fecond 
chapter of the Wifdom, containing (ver. 
13—z21) a clearer allufion to the cruci- 
fixion of Chrift than any other beok of the 
Jewith Scriptures,mutt be received as pro- 
phetic, confequently asinfpired, and con- | 
fequently as entitled to become canonical; 
~ and that thofe churches which exclude this 
book from their canon, have apoftatized 
fron revealed truth and renounced divine 
do&rine. Will the'objector abide by this 
inference? No: fooner than do ‘it he 
will moult all his borrowed difplay of 
peacock’s plumage. 
The objector’s fucceffive arguments of 
detail, in fast, unite Ee this :-that the 
Wifdom and the Ecc Icfafticus, being 
ufually coupled tagethier in the notices 
and citations of peblefia fRical antiquity, 
muft have had a cotemporary origin 3 and 
this coevality is confirmed by the identity 
of character, both as to. fentiment and 
ftyle, which pervades the Wifdom:: and 
the untranflated portions of the Ecclefiaf- 
ticus, of which a {mall part only can 
have been compofed, or, compiled. in .He- 
brew by the grandfather of the tranflater. 
er ne an imitation of Solomon, by 
which the Wifdom mutt RS meant, 15 die 
re€tly afcribed to. the trapflator of the Ec- 
clefiafticus in the firt prologue. Now tie 
Ecclehaiticus can be proved. long anterior 
to the Chriftian zra. :Itis attrib uted, in 
atiuftworthy preface,'to the thirty eighth 
year of Ptolemy Evergetes; which date 
is corroborated by the ft: ‘onger internal 
 ewadence of the goth chapter—the intalla- 
tion ef Simon, fon of Onies, as High- 
prieft, being apparently. defcribed by an 
eye-witnefs... There were two Simons, 
fons of Onias, theone of whom flsurifhed 
under Ptolemy Philade!phes, and the other 
under Ptolemy Philopater. The latett, 
therefore, lived. full two hundred_ years. 
before Chrift. - Suppofe. this fitiieth chap- 
ter, which has nolymptom cf being trant- 
Jated from the Hebrew, to have been, re- 
verthelefs, the work of the grandfather, 
which is an indulgent fuppofitionhis: 
_grandfon even mutt fill have flourithed 
230 or 340 years before. the Chriftian eva, 
Both the — 
Further. Eivcidations of Who wrote the Wifdom ?' $3 
This is a decifive chronological obfacle ta 
thie opinion in difcufion. 
In thisreftatement, though the cbjector - 
may complain of the abridgment, he wiil . 
not of the enfeeblement, or {mothering, of 
his argument. Weare agreed that the 
Eeclefiatticus and! the Wiluom come from 
one band: it is ufelefs to tranfcribe the 
parallel paflaces that indicate it. To fe- 
parate the fate of the two books is not the 
moft fatisfastory method of obviating the 
difficulty. Make this tingle imple emen. 
dation : 
For Simon, fon of Duras (Redlefaticus, 
c.L. v.31), read Simon, fom of Boethus; 
Not one mutty ee hese of the moft 
recently interpolated: which Bendtfen. 
could difcover, not one Bible in the whole 
Pruffian colle&tien is tated to fupply this. 
new reading. No father of the church-+ 
no heretic in a dilemma—ever before 
found it expedient “to propofe this capri. 
cious alteration of Onias into Boetbus.— 
Sound the words—look at them—copy 
them ; no fcribe, however deaf, dim, oz 
flupid, can poflibly have ideken the lets 
ters for one another in Greek, in Eftrans 
ghelo, orin Latin. Under what pretext; 
then, is this new mark of date to be 
fmugeled in? 
There were, as the objeQor truly -ob- 
ferves, two Simons; fons of Oniasy who . 
became High-priefts at Jerufalem. Both 
were diftinguifhed, conf{picuous, not te 
fay celebrated) men: in the Ecclefattieal 
Annals of the Jews, Jolephus, in) the 
twelfth bcok of his Antiquities, mentions 
the firft Onias, whofe fon was called Simow 
the Ju, and was father to the» fecond 
Onias, who again named, his fon Simon. 
Al! four attained the High- priefthood:—- 
Of courf2 the name Simon, ton of Onias, 
muft have been very familiar to the latter 
of the feventy (if there were feventy) ine 
terpreters, to the ftudents in the {chools of 
Alexancria, to the popular preachers of 
Jer ufalem, to the various: clafles of reii.! 
gious pamphle'eers, to the genealogilts, 
and to the Temple-feribes. Son of Onias 
“mult have been an epithet | fo habitually 
aflociated among them all with the name; 
of the High-prieft Simon, that it would. 
almolt inevitably trip from the tongue of 
adiftater, or flip from the pen of a eopy--- 
ilt, where the text had only Simon.i Aud 
what renders this ‘very probable aceident 
inthe prefent inflance nearly a certainty, 
is, thac the Simen ‘of the Biel aiid day: 
(ce. L. v. 4.) fortified the temple. 
Now Jolephus relates, that, wider the 
firlt prictthocd of Simon, fonof Beethusy: 
Herod built a palace, or barracky-in the 
upper 
