The Jews in Great Britain: Being a Series of Six Lectures, Delivered in the Liverpool Collegiate Institution, on the Antiquities of the Jews in England. — John Shaqi
The Jews in Great Britain: Being a Series of Six Lectures, Delivered in the Liverpool Collegiate Institution, on the Antiquities of the Jews in England.Margoliouth, Moses
History
The Jews in Great Britain: Being a Series of Six Lectures, Delivered in the Liverpool Collegiate Institution, on the Antiquities of the Jews in England.
Margoliouth, Moses
Jews -- Great Britain -- History
The Duke of Savoy, formerly viceroy of Valencia, presented Francis
Gozanga, Bishop of Mantua and General of the Franciscans, with a
manuscript which was originally dedicated to Alfonso Duke of Segorbe
and Count of Ampurias, written in an antique Spanish dialect, in which
the ruins of Saguntum are noticed. After many Roman monuments being
described, a sepulchral monument, bearing a Hebrew epitaph, is mentioned
as being of far greater antiquity than the Roman monuments; for the
characters were more ancient than the square alphabet now in use,
_which_ must have been the Samaritan, as those characters were used
by the Hebrews prior to their Babylonish captivity. In consequence of
the stone being much fractured and defaced, the following could only be
decyphered, but which gives us still a somewhat correct idea of its date.
It runs thus:
זהוא קבר אדונירם עבד המלך שלמה
שבא לגבת את־המס ונפטר יום . .¹
of which the following is the Spanish manuscript version:――“De Adoniram
la fossa es esta, que vigne Salomo del Re servent dia, y mori tribut lo
pera rebre....” The following is a literal English translation:――“This
is the grave of Adoniram, the servant of King Solomon, who came to
collect the tribute, and died on the day....”
¹ See Appendix C.
The Bishop of Mantua published a history of the Franciscan order, in
which he mentioned, on the authority of the manuscript alluded to,
the existence of the above-menioned monument. Villalpando, a learned
Jesuit and a shrewd critic, read the book, but not being willing to
put implicit confidence in the bishop’s startling assertion, desired
his brethren, the Jesuits, who lived in Murviedro, a beautiful little
place built from the ruins of Saguntum, to make great search for that
particular stone on the site described; his request was complied with;
an investigation was instituted. The Murviedro natives immediately
pointed out a large stone near the gate of the citadel, which was
commonly called by the natives, “The Stone of Solomon’s Collector.”
There was an almost obliterated Hebrew inscription on the self-same
stone, but not corresponding to the one looked for: which we shall
presently notice. There was, however, a manuscript chronicle preserved
in the town, in which they found the following entry: “At Saguntum, in
the citadel, in the year of our Lord 1480, a little more or less, was
discovered a sepulchre of surprising antiquity. It contained an embalmed
corpse, not of the usual stature, but taller than is common. It had,
and still retains on the front, two lines in the Hebrew language and
characters, the sense of which is――‘The sepulchre of Adoniram, the
servant of King Solomon, who came hither to collect tribute.’ Of this
Adoniram, the servant of Solomon, mention is made in the 5th chapter
[14th verse] of the first book of Kings, and more expressly in the 4th
chapter [6th verse] of that book. The Hebrew letters rendered into Roman
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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