FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.
The Gospel in the Law. A Critical Examination of the Citations from the Old Testament in the New. By Charles Taylor. Cambridge and London: Bell & Daldy. 1869. The relative positions of the Mosaic law and the new law may be studied from a great many points of view. That chosen by Mr. Taylor, in the volume before us, adds additional interest to his very remarkable work.
The selection and study of citations from the Old Testament found in the New give rise to many questions which, properly elucidated, throw much light on the connection which exists between Judaism and Christianity. Mr. Taylor does not so much occupy himself with that question as with the manner in which the Bible is connected with the Testament. Not that he undertakes to demonstrate that the germ of the new law may be found in the Old; for that no one denies, and the title he has selected shows the object of his work, "the Gospel in the law." Not every thing in the work is new; but the previously accumulated erudition of the subject is admirably résuméd, and several chapters are marked by originality—the thirteenth, for instance, on Jewish and Christian morality.
Varieties of Irish History. From Ancient and Modern Sources and Original Documents. By James J. Gaskin, Dublin. A handsome volume, illustrated with four chromo-lithographs, and an excellent map of the environs of Dublin. The work appears to be made up of a series of lectures delivered at Dalkey, a well-known charming suburb of Dublin, and of articles published at various times in the Irish newspapers concerning the history of the principal environs of Dublin—Howth, Kingston, Dalkey, Bray, and Killing. The beautiful bay of Dublin and its picturesque shores, of course, come in for their share of notice, and as the author gives himself the amplest verge, he manages, in his numberless digressions, to throw into his pages a reflex of the intellectual history of Dublin during the last century.
One of the most remarkable and eventful missionary fields of the Catholic Church was, unquestionably, Japan. There are few more admirable pages in its history than those which recount the constancy and faith of its first martyrs under one of the most bloody persecutions the world ever saw. M. Léon Pages has just published a work giving the history of Catholicity in Japan from 1598 to 1651: Histoire de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon, depuis 1598 jusqu'à 1651, comprenant les faits relatifs aux deux cent cinq martyrs beatifiés le 7 Juillet 1867, par Léon Pages. This volume, published separately, will form the third volume of a large work in four octavo volumes, to be entitled, L'Empire du Japon, ses origines, son église chrétienne, ses relations avec l'Europe.
The so-called Truce of God of the middle ages, under which a suspension of arms and hostilities was so often obtained, has too frequently been so imperfectly understood and treated by historians and writers as to be confounded by them with the Peace of God—two things essentially different in origin and in application. In 1857, a work on the subject was published at Paris by M. Ernest Semichon, who by his judicious research threw an entirely new light on this question. M. Semichon has just presented the literary world with a new edition of the work of 1857, largely augmented in fresh matter and in historical documents, in which he clearly establishes the distinction between these two institutions, and fixes the origin of the Peace of God at about A.D. 988, and that of the Truce of God at 1027. He follows their development step by step through the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, examining them from the judicial and political stand-points, until the period when Louis le Gros took hold of the movement. After this period, the "Truce of God" becomes the Quarantaine le Roi. In treating his subject, M. Semichon presents most interesting views of the great institutions of the middle ages, its associations and customs, and also of the chevaliers, the arts, and the Crusades. His work is entitled La Paix et la Trève de Dieu.
Until within a few years there were known to be in existence but three Biblical manuscripts of high antiquity. These were, First, the celebrated Vatican manuscript; second, that of London, called the Alexandrine; third, that of Paris, known under the designation of the Palimpsest of Ephrem the Syrian. The first dates from the fourth century, the other two from the fifth. None of them are complete, however. In that of Paris the greater part of the New Testament is wanting. That of London is deficient in nearly the whole of the first gospel, two chapters of the fourth, and the greater part of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. From the Vatican manuscript, the oldest of all, are missing four epistles, the last chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. M. Constantine Tischendorf, a distinguished Russian scholar, known in the scientific world for his superior Hellenic and paleographic acquirements, has the glory of having given to the Christian world, by his discoveries, numerous sacred manuscripts of the highest antiquity, and, above all, the famous Codex Sinaiticus, which has over the three MSS. we have enumerated the great advantage of being complete. It dates from the same epoch with that of the Vatican. M. Tischendorf has told the story of its discovery, and of the long and difficult negotiations required for its acquisition, in a work just published, Terre Sainte, an octavo volume of 307 pages. The volume also contains an interesting account of his oriental travel in company with the Duke Constantine, and his visit to Smyrna, Patmos, and Constantinople. A fac-simile edition of the new Codex is in preparation in Russia, and a German translation of that portion of it which contains the New Testament will shortly be made.
A noteworthy work is Le Juif, le Judaisme, et Judaisation des peuples chrétiens, par M. le Chevalier Gougeuot des Mousseaux. Paris, 8vo, 568 pp. The career of Judaism is here historically traced from the early ages of the church, when it spread through Egypt, Alexandria, and Rome the Gnostic theories of Simon the Magician, down to the present day. The author presents successively all the traditions upon which the belief of the modern Jew is founded. Their Bible is the Talmud, a tissue of absurdities and immoralities. There exists a gulf between the ancient law of Moses and the Talmudic reveries so great, indeed, that the Jew can hardly call his law a religious law without flying in the face of the history and the faith of his fathers. Following these researches comes a keen analysis of the Pharisaical spirit. Concerning the synagogue, the Sanhedrim, the Talmudic rites, and system of education, the work gives the fullest details, with copious extracts from writers all favorable to Judaism, such as Prideaux, Basnage, and Salvador. The result of the author's revelations is to show that the Jewish belief of to-day is absolutely different from that of which Moses was the legislator. Modern Jews are divided into three classes—orthodox, reformers, and free-thinkers. The reformers are the Protestants of the Mosaic law. Nowadays, for the majority of Jews, the coming of the Messiah is no longer understood in its ordinary acceptation. For them the "desired of nations" is merely an abstraction. The author dwells at some length on the spreading influence of Judaism in worldly matters, and sounds a note of alarm that gives his work something of a pessimist tone.