Article VI. Of Targums, or Chaldee and Persian Paraphrases.

ALthough Works of this kind are not entirely useless, since they are an evident Proof of the great Copiousness of Scripture, yet there are many superfluous, not to say shocking, things in them. Such are the Rabbinical Fables, and many Superstitions which are to be found there in great number. We are not therefore to be suprized that the Jews 8. c. 2. set so great a value on them; since here they meet with all their extravagant Fancies, which keep them most effectually at a Distance from the true Religion. For this Reason M. Simon, in his Critical Remarks on the Old Testament, Book 2. ch. 18. examines whether it were fit to print them? As there is a necessity for our speaking of them, we shall begin with giving the most accurate Idea of them that we possibly can; and after this shall mention those who are the Authors of them, and the different Editions of them, that have been published. Lastly, we shall say something of the Translations of them, and of those who were concerned in them.

As to the Idea we are to form of them, the Targums may be said to be Translations, or rather Paraphrases, in the Chaldee Tongue. Four Authors of these Paraphrases we know; Onkelos, Jonathan the Son of Uziel, the Jerusalem Paraphrast, and Joseph the Blind. We have spoken more particularly of them in the Body of our Dictionary. See the Articles Targum, or Onkelos, &c. These Paraphrases are thought to be very ancient; and next to the sacred Books, the Jews have nothing more ancient and authentick. Some will have it, that those of Onkelos and Jonathan at least, were in Being before Christ. But it is plain that they are more modern, tho’ we cannot shew exactly the Year, wherein they were written.¹ These Paraphrases are very useful, not only in discovering the true Meaning of the Text, which they sometimes explain very happily, but in fixing the Application of such Passages to the Messiah, as the later Jews would interpret in another Sense. That of Onkelos is the best and shortest; the others are longer, and abound more with Fables and vain Traditions of the Jews.

Onkelos wrote only on the Pentateuch.

Jonathan has explained the Pentateuch, and all the Prophets, both Great and Small. But it is questioned, and that with good reason, whether the Paraphrase on the Pentateuch, which goes under his Name, be his, or not. The Targum of Jerusalem is upon the Pentateuch only.

The Paraphrase of Joseph, called the Blind, is upon the Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Esther, Ruth, and Lamentations.

Lastly, a Paraphrase was published some Years ago upon the Chronicles, which till then had not appeared, and the Author of it is unknown.

The Chaldee Paraphrase of Onkelos was printed several times with the Hebrew Text of the Pentateuch, before the Year 1517, when Cardinal Ximenes’s Polyglot was finished: And since this, and the other Polyglots were published, which came after it, it has been often printed, as well as the other Paraphrases, in separate Volumes. We shall not here give any more particular Account of all these Editions, but shall take notice of such only as have been published in the several Polyglots, and explain the Differences of them.

In the Complutensian Polyglot, or that of Ximenes, there are not all the Paraphrases which we have at present; some of them at that time being unknown; but Onkelos’s only, and that too maimed and corrected in some Places.

Bomberg’s Rabbinical Bible, printed in 1518, and reprinted several times since, contains Onkelos’s and the Jerusalem Paraphrase upon the Pentateuch; that of Jonathan the Son of Uziel on the Prophets; and that of Joseph the Blind upon the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Ruth, and Esther.

The Antwerp Polyglot of Philip II. includes the same Paraphrases as the foregoing one, excepting that of Jonathan upon the Pentateuch. It is observed, that these Paraphrases are curtailed, and that some Alterations are made in this Edition, as well as in the Complutensian, and in the Rabbinical Bible of Venice; for which reason the Jews do not esteem them.

Hutter’s Polyglot contains only Onkelos’s Targum on the Pentateuch.

Buxtorf’s Rabbinical Bible, printed at Basil in 1618, is more correct than the preceeding ones. As to the Impression of the Chaldee Paraphrases, Buxtorf has followed the Editions of Venice, wherein they are more entire than in those of Antwerp; but it is pretended, that something is still wanting in them. Vide Valer. de Flavigny, Epist. 1. p. 22.

In the Polyglot of Paris, the preceding Editions of Venice, Antwerp, and Basil, are copied, wherein the Text of the Chaldee Paraphrases is maimed and interpolated: But the Antwerp Edition is principally followed, wherein these Paraphrases are very imperfect.

Lastly, the English Polyglot, or Walton’s, printed at London in 1657, has kept close to the Edition of the Chaldee Paraphrases put out by Buxtorf, at Basil in 1618. Wherein, says Walton, Buxtorf, upon the Credit of some Manuscripts, restored the Defalcations of the former Editions. Walton says, that in his Edition he has added three Paraphrases of the Pentateuch, which were not in the other Polyglots: viz. that of Jerusalem, with Chevalier’s Latin Version; that attributed to Jonathan, with the same Chevalier’s Version; and the Persian Paraphrase of James Tawasius, with a Latin Translation of it by Hyde. The two first were before printed in the Rabbinical Bibles; but were not translated. It cannot therefore be denied but that the best Editions of the Targums are those of Buxtorf’s Rabbinical Bible, and the London Polyglot.

The Paraphrase of the two Books of Chronicles, which continued unknown till the Year 1680, was fortunately discovered by Matthias Frederick Beckius, in the Library of Erford, and published in two Volumes 4to. at Augsburg in 1680, 1683.

We are now to speak of those who have translated these Paraphrases. Alphonsus of Zamora, Paul Fagius, Bernardinus Baldi, Andreas de Leon, published the Translation of Onkelos’s Paraphrase. Zamora’s is in all the Polyglots, and in all the Latin Bibles printed from 1609 to 1616, and in particular at Antwerp, in the Year 1535, in 8vo. Fagius’s was put out with Annotations, at Strasburg, 1546, in fol. Baldi’s was made in 1594, according to Janus Erythræus, in his Pinacotheca Part 1. p. 6. Lastly, the fourth, by Andreas de Leon, was composed in 1628, and is in the Barberine Library at Rome, as M. Simon mentions in his Antiquities of the Eastern Church, p. 131.

M. Huet, de claris Interpretibus, sect. 20. p. 117. is of opinion that these Versions are not accurate, and should be entirely new moulded, notwithstanding that Arias Montanus has corrected them in many Places. The Reader may see Fagius’s Thoughts of his own, in his Preface, which we find in the Great Criticks of London, Tom. 1. p. 19. of the first Edition.

The spurious Jonathan’s Paraphrase on Part of the Pentateuch was translated, as we have hinted, by Anthony Chevalier, whose Version is in the Polyglot of England, and by Francis Taylor, who printed his Translation at London, 1649, in 4to. Walton, in his Prolegomena 12, sect. 20. says of this, that it abounded with Faults; for which Reason he was obliged to make another. And Selden, in his first Tome de Synedriis Hebræorum, says of the former, that it had been communicated to him by Emerick Casaubon.

That of the true Jonathan upon the Prophets, was translated by Alphonsus de Zamora, and revised by Arias Montanus, corrected by Walton in his Polyglot. John Mercier translated the Small Prophets, and his Version was printed at Paris in 1559, in 4to.

Zamora and Montanus have likewise translated the Paraphrase of Joseph the Blind, Blind, upon the Psalms, and other Books. Edmund Castle, Andreas de Leon, and Adrian Chil, corrected this Version. Scialac translated his Paraphrase on Job: His Version was printed at Rome in 1618, in 8vo. John Terentius has likewise published one, with Notes, at Franeker, 1663, in 4to. and Erasmus Oswald Schreekenfusch another on the Canticles and Ecclesiastes, at Basil, 1553 in 8vo. Julius Bartolocci, with Scholia, is in Manuscript in the Vatican Library at Rome, as he declares in his Bibliotheca Rabbinica, tom 3. p. 792. John Mercier’s upon Ruth was printed at Paris, 1564, in 4to. Montanus’s upon Esther is in his Polyglot; and Francis Taylor’s was printed at London, 1655, in 4to. Samuel Clark upon the Chronicles, two Vols. in 4to. Frederick Beck, with Annotations, at Augsburg, 1680, 1682, two Vols. in 4to.

Bartolocci, in the first Tome of his Bibliotheca Rabbinica, p. 406. has a learned Dissertation relating to the Original of the Chaldee Paraphrase on the Pentateuch; wherein he pretends to shew, that Onkelos is not the first Author of it, because the Chaldee Tongue was in use among the Jews long before he came into the World. Any one may judge whether his Reasons are very convincing. It may be likewise necessary to see what we have to say of Lucas Brugensis’s Treatise on the Chaldee Paraphrases, in Art. 2. of the New Testament.

You have here an Epitome of their Lives who were the Authors of these Paraphrases, and of those who were the Translators of them.

Onkelos is quite a different Person from Aquila, notwithstanding Crovæus and others have confounded them. He was one of the most celebrated Rabbins; but we do not well know at what time he lived. If we believe Abenezra, he is very happy in discovering mystical Meanings, even in those Places where the literal Sense is very sensible and natural.

Jonathan, originally a Jew, was the Son of Uziel; he is the Person from whom we have the Paraphrase on the Prophets; for as to him that has given us the Paraphrase of the Pentateuch in part, he is more modern, and consequently very different from the other, as M. Simon remarks by the Difference of Style: And he wonders that this Observation had escaped the learned M. Huet, as well as other Criticks. See his Disquisitions, c. 3. p. 101.

We have said what is sufficient of Joseph the Blind in the Dictionary of the Bible, Tome 1. See Joseph.

We have already spoken of Alphonsus de Zamora, in the Article of Polyglots.

Paul Fagius, otherwise called Buchlin, a German, born at Saverne in 1504, studied at Strasburg, where he learned the Hebrew Tongue under Capito, and taught it himself in this great City. He became afterwards Lutheran Minister at Jena. He was invited into England by Cranmer, in the Reign of Edward VI. and having turned Calvinist, died in 1550, at 45 Years of Age. Melchior Adam published his Life, among those of other German Divines; and Fabricius, in the History of his Library, Tome. 1. p. 11, 12. Pope Blount has collected all the Encomiums that have been made of him, in his Censure of several Authors, p. 645. M. Dupin has a Catalogue of his Works in his Tables, tom. 4. p. 1454. and in his Bibliotheque of Hereticks, tom. 1. p. 99.

No one among the earliest Protestants understood the Hebrew Language more perfectly. He was likewise a good Critick, and made use of the Rabbins very much à propos, says M. Simon: But he who touches Pitch, says the Scripture, shall be dawbed by it; which is what happened to him: For relying too much on the Rabbins, he hits upon some Etymologies that are very ridiculous. M. Huet, notwithstanding, calls him an accurate Interpreter, that studied rather the true Meaning of Scripture, than any Shew of Elegancy, de claris Interpretibus, p. 143.

Baldus, or Baldi, was of Urbino, where he was born in the Year 1553. He learned Greek and Latin under very learned Masters. He went to Pisa and Padua; returned to Urbino, and applied himself to the Mathematicks: But having taken Holy Orders, and being chosen Abbot of Guastalla, he addicted himself entirely to the Study of the Holy Scriptures. He died in 1617, not in 1597, as F. le Long says; for he was still a Writer in 1603; and Mark Anthony Virgilius made his Funeral Sermon in 1617, which consequently was the Year of his Death. Bayle speaks of him in his Critical Dictionary, tom. 1. p. 446 of the first Edition, and 467 of the second.

He had a Mind capable of all sorts of Studies, as may be judged by the different Works published by him. He was so hard a Student, that he read while he was at Meals; during which he read over St. Austin’s Piece de civitate Dei, three times. While he enjoyed Health, it was his Custom to get up at Midnight to study. Lastly, his Death was as devout as his Life.

Andreas de Leon was of Zamora, and a Canon-Regular. He died in 1640. He was often guilty of Solecisms and Hebraisms in what he wrote. We have one of his Letters to M. le Jay, concerning the Polyglot, in the Oriental Antiquities.

Cevalerius, otherwise Chevalier, was a Norman, in the Neighbourhood of Vire, a Calvinist, and Professor of the Hebrew Tongue at Geneva. He died in 1572.

Tayler, or Taylor, was an Englishman, and had the care of a Church near London about 1650. He has added Marginal Notes to his Version, and composed other Works, whereof M. Dupin has given a Catalogue in his Tables, tom. 4. p. 1290.

Adrian Chil was a Fleming of Maldeghem, and a Parish Priest about the Year 1533. He understood Greek and Latin. Sanderus, and Valerius Andreas, speak of him in their Bibliotheque of Flanders.

John Terentius was also a Fleming, but a Calvinist, who taught Hebrew at Franekar in 1663.

Erasmus Oswald Schreckenfusch was a German Lutheran, Professor of Mathematicks and Hebrew at Tubingen about 1553. He died in 1579, being 68 Years old; for he was born in the Year 1511. Melchior Adam speaks of him, in his Lives of the German Philosophers; and Vossius, de Mathematicis; Teissier, in his Elogia, tom. 3. p. 163. He excelled in the Knowledge of Mathematicks, and understood the sacred Language very well, which he learned of Sebastian Munster. M. Dupin has given the Catalogue of his Works in his Tables, tom. 4. p. 401. M. Baillet, in his Jugemens des Savans. The others, whom we do not speak of here, will be mentioned elsewhere.