significant of the political circumstances and the religious hopes of the nation.

For criticism and fragments of other Old Testa ment Pseudepigrapha, comp. Fabricius,

Codex Pseudepigraphus Vet. Test., 2 vols. (ed. 2, 1722). The Psalter of Sol., IV. Esdr.

(or, as he puts it, IV. and V. Esd.), the Apocal of Baruch, and the Assumption of Mos.,

have been edited by Fritzsche (Lips. 1871) ; other Jewish (Hebrew) O. T. Pseudepigraphs

- though of a later date - in Jellinek's beth haMidrash (6 vols.), passim . A critical review

of the literature of the subject would here be out of place.

(Ad. vol. i. p. 42, note 4.) In comparing the allegorical Canons of Philo with those of

Jewish traditionalism, we think first of all of the seven exegetical canons which are

ascribed to Hillel. These bear chiefly the character of logical deductions, and as such

were largely applied in the Halakhah. These seven canons were next expanded by R.

Ishmael (in the first century) into thirteen, by the analysis of one of them (the 5th) into

six, and the addition of this sound exegetical rule, that where two verses seem to be

contradictory, their conciliation must be sought in a third passage. The real rules for the

Haggadah - if such there were - were the thirty-two canons of R. José the Galilean (in the

second century). It is here that we meet so much that is kindred in form to the allegorical

canons of Philo.1 Only they are not rationalising, and far more brilliant in their

application. Most taking results - at least to a certain class of minds - might be reached by

finding in each consonant of a word the initial letter of another (Notariqon). Thus, the

word MiSBeaCH (altar) was resolved into these four words, beginning respectively with

M, S, B, CH: Forgiveness, Merit, Blessing, Life. Then there was Gematria, by which

every letter in a word was resolved into its arithmetical equivalent. Thus, the two words

Gog and Magog = 70, which was the supposed number of all the heathen nations. Again,

in Athbash the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were transposed (the first for the last of the

alphabet, and so on), so that SHeSHaKH(Jer. xxv. 26; li. 41) became Ba BeL, while in

Albam, the twenty-two Hebrew letters were divided into two rows, which might be

exchanged (L for A, M for B, &c.).