After participating in the darkness of the middle ages, Jewish literature and science revived with great brilliancy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, from the connection of the Jews with the Saracens of Spain, and their acquaintance with the Aristotelian philosophy. Of the learned men who arose about this time, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and David Kimchi, are most celebrated for their grammatical and critical works: Moses Ben Maimon, or Maimonides, for the vigour of his understanding, and his knowledge of the ancient rites and ceremonies of his nation. He gave consistency and systematic form to the Jewish doctrines, and his articles are the standard of Jewish orthodoxy. The age at which these authors lived, however, prevents us from receiving them as original testimonies to any thing which concerns the state of the Jews before the destruction of their polity. The question how far Rabbinical authority can be relied on for Jewish antiquity, resolves itself at last into the credibility of those who wrote in the first five centuries after the Christian era, and especially of the Mishna and the Gemaras. It is now pretty generally admitted, that these works are very delusive guides, in respect to the times of the Old Testament. But it might be thought, that, having been compiled at so short an interval after the destruction of Jerusalem, we might have trusted to them safely for information respecting the times of the preaching of the Gospel, and the immediately preceding period. And it cannot be denied that some advantage is to be derived from them in this way, but much less than might have been expected.[4] It is not necessary to have recourse to works, which, like the _Entdecktes Judenthum_ of Eisenmenger, have been written purposely to expose the Talmuds to contempt; it is sufficient even to consult the professed extracts of what is useful in them, such as the works of Lightfoot (a name not to be mentioned without respect and gratitude) to be convinced how large a proportion is frivolous subtlety or groundless fiction. Indulging themselves in an unbounded license of invention, to solve difficulties, or exaggerate the glories of their nation and religion, they incur the usual penalty of those who violate the truth, and are suspected of falsehood, even when they may be innocent. The rule which Schöttgenius lays down—_eligendum est quod Scripturæ Sacræ magis convenit et quod cæteris paribus aliorum antiquiorum auctoritas sequendum suaserit_—affords no guide in respect to those accounts which Scripture does not confirm, nor yet by its silence necessarily invalidate. Here an author can only follow his own judgment and feeling of probability. The reader must determine for himself, whether, in the Pilgrimage of Helon, only due weight has been given to Rabbinical authority. I have endeavoured to enable him to ascertain, by the references, what rests on this, and what on more solid ground. Footnote 4: