precision and point at his disposal. In fact, this sign only reminds us that this work of the highest artistic perfection already stands at the verge of a declining literature. In later portions, when they touch on several thoughts, this want of internal precision and compactness, this protracted, laboured character of the diction, is more and more visible ; as is shown, among others, in the later interpolated augmentations of this book, xxxii.—xxxvii., xl. 15-xli. 26. In its genuine portions, we can just detect a commencement of this dissolution; but even this commencement is not to be disregarded, since the other characteristics of the age of this book harmonise with it for this book belongs to about the beginning of the seventh century.

Epic Poetry.

While these three species of poetry developed themselves, epic poetry always remained a long way behind them, and only appeared when it was too late, in feeble efforts. In order to obtain a nearer view of the possibility of this, we can only refer to the very similar example of Arabic literature.

The separate materials out of which epic poetry may develop itself, according to page 86, existed among the Arabians, as well as they did among the Hebrews, and do, in every other nation of higher culture. The ancient Arabians, before Muhammed, possessed an abundance of legends about the achievements of individual heroes and of whole tribes, and their number was only increased by the early times of Islam. Moreover, from time immemorial, the Arab loved to be entertained-in time of peace, on festival occasions, in his camp at night-by stories about sublime or wonderful things; and Islam, which certainly did not favour the other arts of the Muses, encouraged this fondness for beautiful narratives and songs so much the more exclusively: ancient Arabic literature shows in what high consideration the Râvîsi. e., the reciters of ancient poems and histories-were held. There was likewise no deficiency of sublime thoughts about such achievements of their ancestors; nor can it be denied that both the heathen and Muhammedan Arabians possessed a kind of mythology. Nevertheless, no whole-which is all we are concerned about-was formed out of these scattered materials and foundations for epic poetry; nay, even the great panegyrical poems on Muhammed, the old one by Ca'ab, and the later one by Bussiri, cannot lay aside the lyrical garb: no Arabian hero, how great soever he was, found his Valmiki or his Homer at the right juncture. The overpowering influence, which was briefly touched on in p. 86, must, therefore, have predominated here. It is not until later, under utterly different circumstances, that the epic

element

element is more active in Islam. On the one hand, the nobler and more artistic epos arises among the Persians, as if the Indogermanic spirit burst the fetters with which it had been bound, only that mythology cannot move freely even there, under Islam. On the other, a kind of lower epos makes a way for itself into the numerous books of tales and romances, with which the modern Muhammedan world is inundated. Stirring memories of a great olden time are already there in a mass, and stimulate the susceptible to exhibit them in such works of art, and the composition of larger works has become more usual; but there is a growing deficiency of genuine epic art in this time of the general decline of literature, and thus that mass of mongrel books arises, which contain prose intermixed with verse, but which are neither history nor poetry; such as the Thousand and One Nights, Antar, Bibars, Hatim Tai, &c. In the modern East, these undeveloped and suppressed rudiments of epic poetry are recited by public singers and story-tellers, as by rhapsodists; which is, at least, an evident proof that the roots and first shoots of epic poetry do exist even in Islam. The case is similar with epic poetry among the Hebrews. After genuine Hebrew composition had long faded away, and gnomic poetry was the only one which still preserved some vigour, the possibility of a pure epic poetry was furthered by the increasing influence of the religion of Zoroaster, as is shown by the book of Job. After that time, we actually find an abundance of epic subjects treated with greater or less art, and preserved for us partly in the Apocrypha, partly in the Pseudepigrapha. To this class belong the book of Tobit, which is, perhaps, the most beautiful of the kind; in a less degree the book of Judith, which, as a hybrid species between fiction and narrative, rather corresponds to what we call a romance; the book of the life and death of Moses, to which allusion is made in the Epistle of Jude, and others of that sort. Many epic conceptions also remained merely indicated and scattered. But these later times were too feeble and perplexed to be able to work out such epic materials with genuine art, and to create an epos which could emulate the height of ancient Hebrew composition; and thus, whatever effort was afterwards made in this formerly unattempted kind of art, was weak and imperfect, and hardly serves as an indication of the shape which a genuine Hebrew epos might have taken, had it only been attempted at a period when poetic composition was in greater vigour. The epopees and dramas which Egyptian Jews attempted, entirely after Greek models, do not in any way fall within the scope of this history.

See the excellent description in Lane, vol. ii. 114 sqq., and the other authorities, cited at page 103. The style of recital easily assumes a dramatic cast.

ON

ON THE

RESURRECTION OF THE SAINTS

WHO AROSE WITH JESUS

By DOM. AUGUSTIN CALMET.

CHRIST.a

Translated from the French by the Rev. ALEXANDER J. D. D'ORSEY, High School, Glasgow.

ST. MATTHEW relates that Jesus Christ having given up the ghost upon the cross, the earth did quake and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the grave after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.' As if the Saviour had wished to show by these tokens of his power, that he had just conquered death, and had restored life to those who were, in a certain sense, buried in sin. The opening of those tombs, and the return of those departed ones to life, were also proofs and pledges of our future resurrection, says Jerome.b

As this subject is peculiarly interesting, affording scope for several curious investigations, we shall treat of it here somewhat at length, and shall discuss the following questions:-Who those were who arose? Where they arose ? In what form, and with what body they appeared? If they died again, or if they ascended to heaven with Jesus Christ, there to live for ever happy in soul and body? We may speculate on this subject with the more freedom and safety, as the various opinions which divide the Fathers as well as modern writers on it, do not affect the fundamental articles of religion, every one acknowledging the truth of the Evangelist's narrative; and therefore the difficulties only turn

a [The present article is a translation of one of the numerous Dissertations dispersed through the nine folio volumes of Calmet's great Commentaire Littéral sur la Bible. These Dissertations are ou some of the most important, interesting, and curious subjects of Biblical inquiry, and they so far exhaust the subjects of which they treat, that it is often surprising to see how little more recent inquiry has added to the information which they contain. Many later writers have, indeed, been greatly indebted to these Dissertations; and it is correctly stated by Glaire, in his recent Introduction à l'Ecriture Sainte, that the reputation acquired by Jahn, in Biblical Archæology, is almost entirely derived from his studies in Calmet's Dissertations. As few readers possess the large and expensive work in which these Dissertations are found, it is our intention to have some of the best of them translated for insertion in this Journal. A sentence here and there occurs to remind the reader that the author was a Roman Catholic; but upon the whole, the writings of Calmet and his Dissertations in particular-are singularly free from the peculiarities of Romish theology.-EDITOR.]

b Monumenta aperta sunt in signum futuræ resurrectionis (Hier. ad Hedib. Ep. 52).

on

on the circumstances, the manner and the consequences of the miracle.

6

We cannot without some rashness speak in precise terms as to the number or condition of those who then left their graves. The holy Evangelist simply tells us that many bodies of the saints which slept arose.' All then did not arise; and if it is true, as some commentators have asserted, that the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks, and the opening of the graves only took place in and near Jerusalem, it will necessarily follow that the resurrection was restricted to those saints who had been interred in the neighbourhood of that city, and to whom the Son of God wished to manifest this favour. If it is maintained that the sepulchres of the saints were opened all over the world, or at least throughout Palestine, this vast extent of country will leave us in still greater uncertainty, as to the number and state of those who rose from their tombs on this occasion.

There are some who believe that it was the oldest of the patriarchs who then appeared, it being probable enough that Jesus Christ caused the effects of his death and of his advent to be felt first by those who had waited for him longest; so Adam, Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, and the other ancients would be the most highly favoured, and arise before the others. But as there is much to countenance the belief that the patriarchs before the deluge, and those who preceded Abraham, lived and were buried out of Palestine; there is sufficient difficulty in making them rise with Jesus Christ on the hypothesis that the graves were only opened in Judea, or even in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Add to this, that it seems those rather should have risen who were known to the Jews then living, and were more of their own day, in preference to the ancient patriarchs, of whom their notions were confused by the misty light of antiquity.

In short, it appears natural that the prophets having been the principal witnesses who predicted the coming, the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ; and having, for the most part, sealed their testimony with their blood, should also, by a peculiar prerogative, take part with others in the fruits of his death and resurrection; so that Moses, David, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, whose writings we possess, should have been preferred to many, who, though inspired by the spirit of prophecy, have nevertheless left us no monuments of their predictions. Some believe that Job and Jonas, and the three young men delivered from the furnace at Babylon, being the principal

types

types of the Saviour's resurrection; Isaiah, as the evangelical prophet; Melchisedec, as prefiguring Christ's priesthood; and Daniel, as pointing out more precisely the years of his coming, were then privileged to rise in preference to others.

St. Epiphanius would wish that the preference should be given to those who were nearest the times of Jesus Christ, and whose countenances could still be recognized by such as lived at that period, and had borne testimony to Jesus Christ since his advent; as Zacharias the father of John the Baptist, the aged Simeon, St. John the Baptist, and the good thief. Lerinse does not believe that any female was resuscitated, because it was fitting that the Holy Virgin should be the first person of her sex to arise, even as Jesus Christ was the first-born of the dead. As if Jesus Christ, in this character of first-born of the dead, had not procured for women, as well as for men, the privilege of the resurrection. Others, on the contrary, will have it that Eve was resuscitated amongst the first on this occasion, as the common mother of all mankind. But let us leave these conjectures, and without determining anything on a matter which is undecided, let us confine ourselves to the terms of the Evangelist, who tells us that many bodies of the saints arose.'

There are two different opinions as to the time of the resurrection of the saints of whom we speak. Some believe that they arose immediately after the death of the Saviour, and as soon as their graves were opened by the earthquake, which took place when he gave up the ghost while others maintain that they did not rise from their tombs till after the resurrection of our Saviour; so that, in accordance with St. Paul, Jesus Christ is really the first-born from the dead. Both of these opinions are supported by the text of St. Matthew. The first is founded upon the statement, that Jesus Christ having expired, the earth did quake, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints arose ;' where it is obvious that no interval is placed between the death of the Saviour and the resurrection of the saints. Those who defend the other opinion, direct attention to the fact that St. Matthew, having related the resurrection of the saints, immediately adds, and after his resurrection they appeared unto many; insinuating thereby, that they had only arisen after him or with him, and that he narrates the opening of their tombs and their resurrection by

• Vide Pined. in Job xix. 25. e Lerin. in Act. ii. 29.

8 F. Luc. Brug. in Mat. xxvii.

a Epiphan. in Anchorato, c. 102, p. 103. f Coloss. i. 18.

Chrysost. Theophylact. in Matt. xxvii., Theodoret, Grotius, Lightfoot, &c. Origen in Matt. xxvii., Raban. Maur., Radbert, Bede, Corn. à Lapide-alii

plures.

anticipation;