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 to the eighth century, and there are a few of the ninth and tenth, and several of the eleventh. Bishop Walton supposes that after the Masoretic text was fully settled, the Jewish rulers condemned, as profane and illegitimate, all the older manuscripts not conformed to this: whence, after a few ages, the rejected copies mostly perished. The existing Hebrew manuscripts give the Masoretic text with but little variation from each other. Earnest effort has been made to find a reliable ante-Masoretic text, but to no purpose. The search in China has thus far been fruitless. When Dr. Buchanan in 1806 brought from India a synagogue-roll which he found among the Jews of Malabar, high expectations were raised. But it is now conceded to be a Masoretic roll, probably of European origin. Respecting the manuscripts of the _Samaritan_ Pentateuch, see below, No. 9. (A synagogue-roll has recently been discovered in the Crimea of the date answering to A.D. 489. See Alexander's Kitto, vol. 3, pp. 1172-5.)