but think it necessary for me to describe the actions of this prophet, so far as I have found them recorded in the Hebrew books." "I have given this account as I found it written."+"This prophet predicted many other things besides these concerning Nineveh, which I do not think it necessary to repeat; and I here omit them, that I may not appear troublesome to my readers." + "Let no one blame me for writing down every thing of this nature, as I find it written in our ancient books; for I have plainly declared, at the beginning of this history, to those who may think me faulty in this respect, or who may complain of my management, and told them, that I intended to do nothing more than translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language."§ "For my own part, I have related these things just as I found them and read them: but, if any one feels disposed to think otherwise respecting them, he is at liberty to enjoy his own opinions without incurring any blame from me." These are evidently the remarks of one who is fully convinced of the divine origin and authority of the prophetical writings, but who is not eager to obtrude his opinions concerning them upon the attention of his readers, lest he should weary their patience, or diminish the interest which they might otherwise feel in the perusal of his narrative. The work in which they occur is strictly historical; and, though many of the events which the author has to relate, in giving a connected view of the Jewish history, assume a miraculous character in the hands of the sacred writers, it is one of Josephus's main objects to explain them as much as possible upon natural principles. It is only when he has occasion to mention the name of a prophet, or to describe an event of which the Bible contains some recorded and striking prediction, or to refer to an historical fact contained in the writings of a prophet, that he ventures to make an express allusion to the sacred oracles; and the casual notices of this kind which are scattered up and down in his Jewish Antiquities, while they answer every purpose contemplated by him in the publication of that celebrated work, afford at the same time so many indirect proofs of the high estimation in which the writings of the Jewish prophets were held by himself and the rest of his countrymen at the close of the first century. By the rest of his countrymen, however, the reader must be apprized, are meant, in this place, the Jews of Palestine only, and not the whole body of Jews dispersed throughout the world; although there are good and valid reasons for supposing that the sacred books used by the Hellenistic Jews were precisely the same as those which were acknowledged as sacred by their brethren in Judæa. For the canon in use among those Jews who spoke the Greek language, and the principal seat of whom was at Alexandria in Egypt, we must have recourse to the writings of Philo, whose references to the books of the prophets are of the same incidental character as those which we find in the works of Josephus, and whose testimony to the divine origin and authority of those books must therefore be estimated by the same rule, and valued according to the weight rather than the number of the passages from which it is collected. When Philo has occasion to speak collectively of those books to which he attributes a divine origin, he calls them by various names, such as the "The Sacred Writings," ," "The Sacred Books," "The Sacred Word," or, as they are styled in 2 Pet. i. 19, (рody Adyov,) "The Word of Prophecy." In his account of the Therapeuta, contained in his Treatise "On a Contemplative Life," he divides the Jewish Scriptures into three classes,—the *Antiq. Lib. ix. C. x. § 2. § Lib. x. C. x. § 6. + Ibid. Lib. x. C. viii. Eusebii Hist. Eccles. Lib. ii. C. xvii. first containing "the Law;" the second, "the Divine Oracles of the Prophets;" and the third, "Hymns and other books by which knowledge and piety are promoted and perfected." But of the books which compose each of these divisions he has given no list; although the second division undoubtedly contained the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and that of the twelve minor prophets. To these, repeated allusions are made by him in different parts of his writings. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Zechariah are quoted, as containing oracles and prophecies, and the sacred characters sustained by their authors are set forth in terms of high panegyric.* But it does not appear to have fallen in the way of Philo to make any direct reference to the books of Ezekiel and Daniel; though there is no reason whatever to doubt, as we shall see under the fifth head of our inquiry, that these books formed parts of the canon of the Alexandrine Jews. It is sufficient just now to have shewn that Philo and Josephus both adopted the same threefold division of the books of the Old Testament, as the authors of the Jewish Talmud, and the early Christian Fathers did after them; that the second head of this threefold division contained the writings of certain prophets; and that no reasonable doubt can exist, in the mind of the most sceptical, as to the literal identity of these writings with the books which now exist under the names of the Jewish prophets, abating for those accidental variations which are inseparable from the act of frequent transcription. W. (To be continued.) JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE OF TEN WEEKS AMONGST THE WALDENSES, OCT. TO DEC. 1826, by G. KENRICK. In a wild romantic situation at the foot of the Cottian Alps, in Piedmont, under the government of the Catholic Kings of Sardinia, exist at this day a small body of men who profess to have received Christianity from the hands of the apostles themselves, and to have preserved it uncorrupted from father to son to the present time, without ever having submitted to the usurpations, or imbibed any of the errors, of the Church of Rome, or having needed to take any part in that REFORMATION which agitated Europe from one end to the other. There is no record existing of the first planting of Christianity in the valleys of Piedmont, but there are abundant testimonies to its having been firmly rooted and in a flourishing state early in the fourth century all over Italy, which included the whole country on the other side of the Alps. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, A. D. 376, declares that the injunction of celibacy on the clergy (which was one of the earliest innovations of the Church of Rome) was not received or obeyed in the remote mountainous places under his jurisdiction; by which he must, in all probability, have intended the most distant part of the adjacent country of Piedmont, at the Western extremity of which are the remote and mountainous glens and vales which conferred on the inhabitants the appropriate name of Valdesi or Vallenses. It appears highly probable that the disciples of Christ, driven from the South of Italy by the persecutions of Nero and succeeding emperors, would take refuge among the rocks and caverns of the North, and there is no place in Italy, or perhaps in Europe, so peculiarly calculated by nature for affording them a safe and undisturbed asylum. The early writers of the Romish com Eichhorn, Einleit. ins A. T. § 30. munion who have directly attacked the doctrine of the Waldenses, do not bring the charges of novelty and innovation against them, but make it a subject of bitter complaint and a reason for exterminating them, that "there have always been heretics in the valleys." Reynerus, the Inquisitor, A. D. 1250, complains of them that "they are the most pernicious because the most ancient of all heretics, some representing them as the followers of Leon in the time of Constantine, and others representing them as having taken their rise in the days of the apostles themselves." Claude de Seyssel, Catholic Bishop of Turin, in the year 1500, professes himself unacquainted with their origin, but observes, "there must be some cogent reasons for the existence of this sect of Waldenses for so many centuries." M. Aur. Rorenco was directed by the Propaganda at Turin to inquire into the origin of this sect, in his "Historical Memoirs," published in 1645, and in his "Narrative," published in 1632; and he declares, in the latter, that “nothing certain could be known respecting the first entrance of heresy into the valleys;" and in the former, that "the heresy of the eighth century continued there the whole of the ninth and tenth." By the heresy which prevailed in the valleys in the eighth century, Rorenco intends, no doubt, the opposition made to the introduction of image-worship by the Christians of the North of Italy at that period, who sent for Claude, then in Spain, and well known for his zeal against the corruptions of the Church, to be their Archbishop at Turin, A. D. 826. Of his diocese, the valleys formed a part. The Monk Belvidere sent by the Pope into the valleys in 1630, writes of them, "hanno sempre e da ogni tempo avuto heretici"—" they have from all times and always had heretics." But whatever obscurity may hang over the earlier history of this people previously to the year 1100, from that period they are fortunately their own historians in the manuscript compositions of their pastors, or Barbes as they were called, deposited in the University library of Geneva and that of Cambridge, by Sir Thomas Morland, Ambassador at Turin, from the Protector Oliver, in 1655. They are written in that Patois of the Italian which is still, with some alterations, the language of the common people, and display great talent in combating the doctrines of the Romish Church, and great piety in enforcing the grand moral precepts of Christianity. Amongst them are a Catechism dated 1120, a Confession of Faith of the same period, and the Noble Lesson, one of the most curious monuments which any age presents. It is a poem of considerable length, (intended, probably, to be sung or chaunted in their assemblies,) in which, four hundred years before the Reformation, the great principles for which the Reformers wrote and laboured and bled are embodied, and the doctrines of auricular confession, indulgences, absolution and image-worship are exposed. The authenticity of this singular production has never been called in question, and the date is embodied in the poem itself, in which it is said, "there are now a thousand one hundred years complete, since it was written that we are in the last times." The name of the people for whose use it was composed is contained in the following sentence: "If there be found any man who will love God and fear Jesus Christ, who will not speak evil, nor blaspheme, nor lie, nor commit adultery, nor kill, nor steal, nor revenge himself of his enemies, Illi dison quel es Vaudes e degne de murir,"-" they say he is a Waldensian, and worthy of death." It has been supposed by many persons that Peter Valdo of Lyons, who began to propagate the doctrines of reform in the year 1175, was the founder of the sect of Waldenses. But the pas sage just quoted, together with the absence of all proof that Valdo ever visited or made disciples in the valleys, and the testimonies of their early opponents to the high antiquity and unknown origin of this sect, are sufficient to shew that this supposition is unfounded. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the advocates of reform multiplied in France and Piedmont beyond all calculation, and, flying from persecution, extended their doctrines into every part of Europe, under various names, chiefly taken from those of their most celebrated preachers, Petrobruysians, Arnaudists, Eperonites, Lollards, from Peter Lollard, a celebrated Waldensian Barbe, who preached in England, and Vallons or Walloons in Holland, a corruption of the term Vallenses or Waldenses. But the name by which they were most generally known was that of Waldenses, in French Vaudois, Vaud in old French signifying valley, the name of the sect or religion being taken from the place in which the doctrine flourished or originated, just as Moravian is employed to denote a follower of the doctrines first taught in Moravia. The little church of Christians in the valleys may be considered as the mother of the other Protestant churches. Their Barbes travelled all over Europe to preach and confirm their disciples, and kept a sort of college for the education of ministers in a grotto or in the open air, whither the youth resorted to them for instruction from the most distant places previously to the Reformation. The sufferings of this people on account of their religion have, indeed, shewn that they were regarded as the most formidable, as they were the oldest, enemies which a corrupted church had to encounter. The tortures inflicted upon them are too shocking to be related, and too horrible to be believed, were they not authenticated beyond the possibility of doubt. Eleven persecutions are enumerated by their historians as having been endured by them previously to the year 1686, when they were for a time completely exterminated from their country. But under the command of the celebrated Arnaud they returned again three years after, and, animated by the love of their native land and the religion they had exercised in it, performed prodigies of valour, and, in defiance of the combined armies of the Pope and the Duke of Savoy, re-entered and kept possession of their ancient abodes. All modern travellers who have visited them agree in representing their pastors as the most laborious and self-denying, and their hearers as the most religious, simple-hearted and amiable people in Europe. Vide Leger's Histoire des Vaudois, 1669; Brez's ditto, 1794; Gilly's Narrative, 1824. Such were the people whom I determined on visiting, partly from my state of health, which rendered relaxation necessary, and partly from curiosity to ascertain the two following points: 1, Does the real character of the modern Waldenses correspond with that of their virtuous and constant ancestors? And 2, On what religious principles and views is such distinguished excellence founded? Solely with a view to the amusement of a few intimate friends, I noted down every thing remarkable I heard or saw. It having since been suggested that my journal might interest others besides my particular friends, I now transcribe it for insertion in the Monthly Repository, should it be deemed of sufficient interest. Venice, March, 1827. (To be continued.) CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." I SAW a dark and mournful sight: Young, lovely, and belov'd, there lay, The lover's hope, the parent's stay ;- I saw a gentle form draw nigh To soothe that anguish vast and deep; Well had she read the mandate high, And learnt to "weep with them that weep," Of kind compassion all her own. I heard a strife of many woes, I heard a harrowing tale of care; 66 The charge, to weep with them that weep." I could not choose but love the zeal Joys such as oft to earth belong; And ONE was there-and she was kind I saw her smoothing o'er the way And bid the grateful thought expand; Rom. xii. |