Another aspect of the book which makes it so valuable for the history of culture among the Jews is the number of languages which Nathan uses. What an array it is! Kohut enumerates (besides Hebrew and Aramaic) Latin, Greek, Arabic, Slavonic dialects, Persian, and Italian and allied speeches. Nathan cannot have known all these languages well. He certainly had little Latin and less Greek, but he repeated what he had heard from others or read in their books. It is remarkable, indeed, how well the sense of Greek words was transmitted by Jewish writers who were ignorant of Greek. They often are not even aware that the words are Greek at all; they suggest the most impossible Semitic _derivations_; but they very rarely give the meanings incorrectly. This applies less to the Italian than to the German Jewish scholars. I mean that the former had, on the whole, a more intimate acquaintance with the classical idioms. In the case of Nathan’s _Aruk_ the languages cited do imply a wide and varied culture. Most interesting is Nathan’s free use of Italian. Just as we learn from the glosses in Rashi’s commentaries that the Jews of northern France spoke French, so we gather from Nathan’s dictionary that the Jews of Rome must have used Italian as the medium of ordinary intercourse. Nathan’s _Aruk_, while, as we have seen, it was a link between the past and his present, was also part of the chain binding his present to the future. Nathan records the tradition as he received it, but he also points forward. Take one of his remarks, which is quoted by Güdemann. There is much in the Talmud on the subject of magic, and Nathan duly explains the terms employed. But he says: “All these statements about magic and amulets, I know neither their meaning nor their origin.” Does the reader appreciate the extraordinary significance of the statement? Nathan, the bearer of tradition, yet sees that the newer order of things also has its claims. Tradition does not consist in the denial of science. And so, though a Gaon like Hai had a pretty considerable belief in demonology, Nathan cautiously expresses his scepticism. Even more emphatically, a little later, Ibn Ezra frankly asserted that he had no belief in demons. It may be questioned whether this enfranchisement from demonological conceptions could be matched in non-Jewish thought of so early a date. The _Aruk_ assuredly points forwards as well as backwards. And all this we derive from a dictionary! The _Aruk_ obviously belongs to culture as well as to philology--if the two things really can be separated. The study of words is often the study of civilization. Max Müller maintained that if you could only tell the real history of words you would thereby be telling the real history of men. He carried the idea absurdly far; but Nathan’s _Aruk_ is a striking instance of at least the partial truth of the great Sanskrit scholar’s contention. THE SORROWS OF TATNU