A treatise of religion & learning and of religious and learned men consisting of six books, the two first treating of religion & learning, the four last of religious or learned men in an alphabetical order ... / by Edward Leigh ...

Of the Chaldee Language.

* 1.1During the seventy years Captivity of the Jews in Babylon, there was a mixture of the Hebrew and Chaldee Language, as is evident by the writings of the Prophet Daniel, composed of both, as Jerom hath well observed in his Preface upon that Prophet, as also by the writings of Ezra, and more evidently in the Chaldee Paraphrases.

The Syriack and Chaldee are as it were but dialects of the Hebrew (differing not much more then Northern and Western speech from plain English) and though they be nearly allied to the Hebrew, yet they are nearer one to the other, insomuch that some reckon them both one.

Those Christians are a terrour to the Jews who are indifferently skilled in the Thargum and the Rabbins, for they know that many pillars of Judaism are most vehemently shaken, yea overthrown in them. The more the pity that these most profitable studies are so neglected in those places where the Jews most resort.

Many Christians in Syria use this Language in Grammaticis & sacris about the mountain Libanus.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Hac lingua in Aegypto, & Aethiopia eru∣ditiores u••un∣tur, ut à multis accepi Hebrai∣cae confinis est, nec multo magis quàm Dorica à Grae∣ca communi dissert. Ang. Roch. Appendix Bib. Vatic. De Dialectis. Haec lingua unâ cum Chaldaeorum & Assyriorum Monarchia, liberalium artium cultu, legumque ac ju••ium tractatione exculta, longe lateque pomaeria sua protulit. Prae caeteris linguis, sanctae maximè affinis est Chaldaica, inquit Elias Levita. Nam praecipua diversitas in terminatione, mutatione, litterarum & punctorum articulorumque variatione consistit. Interdum tamen quaedam apud Chaldaeos vocabula occurrunt, quae ab Hebraeis non frequentantur, vel planè non usurpantur. In hac lingua Daniel & Esdras magnam partem conscripti sunt. Hujus linguae vocabula nonnulla reperias in Jobo, Proverbiis, Jeremia, & alibi. Waseri Comment. ad Mithridatem Gesueri. Chaldaea sunt in lege seu Mose Gen. 31.47. duae voces: in Prophetis Jer. 10.11. versus integer in Hagiograph Ez••aea c. 4.7. usque 6.19. & 7.12. usque 27. v. Daniele 24. usque 8.1. Unde illud, ne sit lingua Aramaea levis in oculis tuis, quoniam invenimus in lege, & in Prophetis, & in scriptis sanctis seu hagiographis, quod ille sanctus benedictus ipse (Deus) tribuit ei honorem. Wal. Epist. Walae•• Gomarus.