Arthur Ernest Cowley

“ The philological study of Hebrew among the Jews is described below, under Hebrew Literature, of which it formed an integral part. Among Christian scholars there was no independent school of Hebraists before the revival of learning. In the Greek and Latin Church the few fathers who, like Origen and Jerome, knew something of the language, were wholly dependent on their Jewish teachers, and their chief value for us is as depositaries of Jewish tradition. ”

“ In religion, since they recognize no sacred book but the Pentateuch, they agree with the Jews in such doctrines and observances only as are enjoined in the law of Moses. They do not therefore observe the feast of Purim, nor the fast of the 9th of Ab, nor any of the later rabbinical extensions or modifications of the law. ”

“ As in other literatures, these popular elements form the foundation on which greater works are gradually built, and it is one function of literary criticism to show the way in which the component parts were welded into a uniform whole. The traditional view that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch in its present form, would make this the earliest monument of Hebrew literature. ”

“ The doctrine that there is a material, as well as a formal, element in all created beings was explicitly adopted from Avicebron by Duns Scotus (as against the view of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas) , and perhaps his exaltation of the will above the intellect is due to the same influence. Avicebron develops his philosophical system throughout quite independently of his religious views—a practice wholly foreign to Jewish teachers, and one which could not be acceptable to them. ”

“ There is also a second Targum on Esther. There is none on Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah.
We must now return to the 2nd century. During the period which followed the later canonical books, not only was translation, and therefore exegesis, cultivated, but even more the amplification of the Law. According to Jewish teaching Halakhah. (e.g. Abhoth i. 1) Moses received on Mount Sinai not only the written Law as set down in the Pentateuch, but also the Oral Law, which he communicated personally to the 70 elders and through them by a “chain of tradition” to succeeding ages. ”

“ Numerous works on all kinds of subjects are produced in various countries, periodicals flourish, and Hebrew is the vehicle of correspondence between Jews in all parts of the world. Naturally its quality varies with the ability and education of the writer. ”

“ In the East, Tanḥūm ben Joseph of Jerusalem was the author of commentaries (not to be confounded with the Midrash Tanḥūmā) on many books of the Bible, and of an extensive lexicon (Kitāb al-Murshid) to the Mishnah, all in Arabic.
With the 13th century Hebrew literature may be said to have reached the limit of its development. Later writers to a large extent used over again the materials of their predecessors, while secular works tend to be influenced by the surrounding civilization, or even are composed in the vernacular languages. ”

“ Its distinctive doctrines are: (1) that all created beings, spiritual or corporeal, are composed of matter and form, the various species of matter being but varieties of the universal matter, and similarly all forms being contained in one universal form; (2) that between the primal One and the intellect (the νοῦς of Plotinus) there is interposed the divine Will, which is itself divine and above the distinction of form and matter, but is the cause of their union in the being next to itself, the intellect, in which Avicebron holds that the distinction does exist. ”

“ The Samaritan language properly so called is a dialect of Palestinian Aramaic, of which the best examples are found in the literature of the 4th century A.D. An archaic alphabet, derived from the old Hebrew, was retained, and is still used by them for writing Aramaic. Hebrew and sometimes even Arabic. ”

“ It is as a poet that he has been known to the Jews to the present day, and admired for the youthful freshness and beauty of his work, in which he may be compared to the romantic school in France and England in the early 19th century. Besides his lyrical and satirical poems, he contributed many of the finest compositions to the liturgy (some of them with the acrostic “Shelomoh ha-qaṭōn”) , which are widely different from the artificial manner of the earlier payyeṭanim. ”

“ In the 12th and 13th centuries literature maintained a high level in Spain. Abraham bar Ḥiyya, known to Christian scholars as Abraham Judaeus (d. about 1136) , was a mathematician, astronomer and philosopher much studied in the middle ages. Moses ben Ezra, of Granada (d. about 1140) , wrote in Arabic a philosophical work based on Greek and Arabic as well as Jewish authorities, known by the name of the Hebrew translation as ʽArūgath ha-bosem, and the Kitāb al-Maḥaḍarah, of great value for literary history. He is even better known as a poet, for his Dīwān and the ʽAnaq, and as a hymn-writer. ”

“ For a time Christian scholars still leaned mainly on the Rabbis. But a more independent spirit soon arose, of which le Mercier in the 16th, and Drusius early in the 17th century, may be taken as representatives. In the 17th century too the cognate languages were studied by J. Selden, E. Castell (Heptaglott lexicon) and E. Pococke (Arabic) in England, Ludovicus de Dieu in Holland, S. Bochart in France, J. Ludolf (Ethiopic) and J. H. Hottinger (Syriac) in Germany, with advantage to the Hebrew grammar and lexicon. ”

“ With the Talmud, the anonymous period of Hebrew literature may be considered to end. Henceforward important works are produced not by schools but by particular teachers, who, however, no doubt often represent the opinions of a school. There are two branches of work which partake Masorah. of both characters, the Masorah and the Liturgy. The name Masorah (Massorah) is usually derived from masar, to hand on, and explained as “tradition.” According to others [5] it is the word found in Ezek. xx. 37, meaning a “fetter.” Its object was to fix the biblical text unalterably. ”

“ To a considerable extent his efforts to make Jerusalem the sanctuary of Samaria as well as of Judah must have been successful, for in Jer. xli. 5 we find fourscore men from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria making a pilgrimage to “ the house of Jehovah, ” after the catastrophe of Zedekiah. It is therefore not surprising that the people of this district came to Zerubbabel and Jeshua after the restoration, claiming to be of the same religion with the Jews and asking to be associated in the rebuilding of the Temple. ”

“ Meanwhile the literary activity of the Jews in Spain had its effect on those of France. The fact that many of the most important works were written in Arabic, the vernacular of the Spanish Jews under the Moors, which was not understood in France, gave rise to a number of translations into Hebrew, chiefly by the family of Ibn Tibbōn (or Tabbōn) . The first of them, Judah ibn Tibbōn, translated works of Baḥya ibn Paqūdah, Judah ha-levi, Seadiah, Abū’lwalīd and Ibn Gabirol, besides writing works of his own. He was a native of Granada, but migrated to Lunel, where he probably died about 1190. ”

“ In order to avoid the uncertainty arising from the lack of vowels to distinguish forms consisting of the same consonants (for the vowel-points were not yet invented) , the aramaising use of the reflexive conjugations (Hithpaʽel, Nithpaʽel) for the internal passives (Puʽal, Hophʽal) became common; particles were used to express the genitive and other relations, and in general there was an endeavour to avoid the obscurities of a purely consonantal writing. ”

“ God is one, and in speaking of Him all anthropomorphic expressions are to be avoided: creation was effected by his worcll divine appearances in the Pentateuch are to be explained as vicarious, by means of angels (so as early as the 4th century A.D.) ; (b) Moses is the only prophet: all who have since claimed to be so are deceivers; (c) the Law, which was created with the world, is the only divine revelation; (d) Mt Gerizim is the house of God, the only centre of worship ”

“ Shomerim) which is explained to mean “ Keepers, ” sc. of the Law, but they usually style themselves “ Israel ” or “ Children of Israel.” They claim to be descendants of the ten tribes, and to possess the orthodox religion of Moses, accepting the Pentateuch and transmitting it in a Hebrew text which for the most part has only slight variations from that of the Jews. But they regard the Jewish temple and priesthood as schismatical, and declare that the true sanctuary chosen by God is not Zion but Mount Gerizim, over against Shechem (St John iv. 20) . ”

“ HEBREW LITERATURE. Properly speaking, “Hebrew Literature” denotes all works written in the Hebrew language. In catalogues and bibliographies, however, the expression is now generally used, conveniently if incorrectly, as synonymous with Jewish literature, including all works written by Jews in Hebrew characters, whether the language be Aramaic, Arabic or even some vernacular not related to Hebrew. ”

“ While the schools of Babylonia were flourishing as the religious head of Judaism, the West, and especially Spain under Moorish rule, was becoming the home of Jewish scholarship. On the breaking up of the schools many of the fugitives fled Medieval scholarship. ”

“ The real meaning of the word ʽibhrī must ultimately be sought in the root ʽabhar, to pass across, to go beyond, from which is derived the noun ʽebher, meaning the “farther bank” of a river. The usual explanation of the term is that of Jewish tradition that ʽibhrī means the man “from the other side,” i.e. ”

“ The poorer sort must have remained on the land, and among them the worship of Jehovah went on as before at the old shrines of N. Israel, but probably corrupted by the religious rites of the new settlers. ”

“ The communities of Fez, Kairawan and N. Africa were in close relation with those of Spain, and as early as the beginning of the 9th century Judah ben Quraish of Tahort had composed his Risālah (letter) to the Jews of Fez on grammatical subjects from a comparative point of view, and a dictionary now lost. His work was used in the 10th century by Menahem ben Sarūq, of Cordova, in his Mahbereth (dictionary) . Menahem’s system of bi-literal and uni-literal roots was violently attacked by Dūnash ibn Labrāṭ, and as violently defended by the author’s pupils. ”