The singing of the Miserere seems to be particularly appropriated, among Catholics, to regulate both the duration of religious flagellations, and the time to which they are to be performed, as we may conclude from the above passage of our Author; and also from a passage of M. de Voltaire in his Candide, in which he says, that, when Candide was flagellated at Lisbon, by order of the Inquisition, he was all the while entertained with a Miserere en faux bourdon; which is a kind of Church Music.
[10] The expressions of the Vulgate are, fui flagellatus, I have been whipped. The Vulgate of the Old Testament is a very ancient Latin version of it from the Hebrew, corrected afterwards by St. Jerom, which is followed in all Catholic Countries.
[11] The Talmud is the Tradition, or unwritten law of the Jews, the Law of Moses being their written Law. This Tradition has, in process of time, been set down in writing; and two different Collections have been made of it: the one, in the Jerusalem School, about three hundred years after Jesus Christ, which is called the Jerusalem Talmud; the other, in the Babylonian School, five hundred years after Jesus Christ, and is called, the Babylon Talmud. The latter is that which is usually read among the Jews; and when they simply say, the Talmud, they mean the Babylon Talmud.
[12] Buxtorf, the Author from whom the above facts are drawn, is mentioned with great praise in the Scaligerana, which is a Collection, or mixture, of Notes, partly French, partly Latin, found in the papers of J. Scaliger, and printed after his death. Buxtorf is called, in one of these Notes, the only Man learned in the Hebrew language; and Scaliger adds, that it is surprising how the Jews can love him, though he has handled them so severely; which shews that he has been impartial in his accounts. Mirum quomodo Buxtorsius à Judæis ametur, in illâ tamen Synagogâ Judaicâ illos valdè perstringit.
[13] It is to be supposed, that the Jew Priests had been well freed for the above benign interpretations they gave of the law of Moses.
CHAP. III.
Voluntary flagellations were unknown to the first Christians. An explanation is given of the passage of St. Paul: I chastise my body, and keep it under subjection[14].
FLAGELLATIONS are mentioned so often as eleven times by the Holy Writers of the New Testament.