6.  The deep reverence of the Jews for their sacred books manifests itself in their numerous rules for the guidance of copyists in the transcription of the rolls designed for use in the synagogue service.  They extend to every minute particular—­the quality of the ink and the parchment (which latter must always be prepared by a Jew from the skin of a clean animal, and fastened by strings made from the skins of clean animals); the number, length, and breadth of the columns; the number of lines in each column, and the number of words in each line.  No word must be written till the copyist has first inspected it in the example before him, and pronounced it aloud; before writing the name of God he must wash his pen; all redundance or defect of letters must be carefully avoided:  prose must not be written as verse, or verse as prose; and when the copy has been completed, it must be examined for approval or rejection within thirty days.  Superstitious, and even ridiculous, as these rules are, we have in them a satisfactory assurance of the fidelity with which the sacred text has been perpetuated.  Though their date may be posterior to the age of the Talmudists (between 200 and 500 after Christ), the spirit of reverence for the divine word which they manifest goes far back beyond this age.  We see it, free from these later superstitious observances, in the transactions recorded in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, when Ezra opened the book of the law in the sight of all the people, “and when he opened it, all the people stood up.”  The early history of the sacred text is confessedly involved in great obscurity; but in the profound reverence with which the Jews have ever regarded it since the captivity, we have satisfactory proof that it has come down to us, in all essential particulars, as Ezra left it.  Of the primitive text before the days of Ezra and his associates we have but a few brief notices in the historical books.  But in the fidelity and skill of Ezra, who was “a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given,” as well as in the intelligence and deep earnestness of the men associated with him, we have a reasonable ground of assurance that the sacred books which have come down to us through their hands contain, in all essential particulars, the primitive text in a pure and uncorrupt form.

7.  As to the age of Hebrew manuscripts, it is to be noticed that not many have come down to us from an earlier century than the twelfth.  In this respect there is a striking difference between them and the Greek and Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, a few of which are as old as the fourth and fifth centuries, and quite a number anterior to the tenth.  The oldest known Hebrew manuscript, on the contrary, is a Pentateuch roll on leather, now at Odessa, which, if the subscription stating that it was corrected in the year 580 can be relied on, belongs to the sixth century.  One of De Rossi’s manuscripts is supposed to belong