JOST, ISAAC MARCUS, the ornament of modern Jews, the first Israelite who, since the days of Josephus, wrote the history of God's ancient people, was born in Bernhurg, Feb. 22, 1793, of very poor Jewish parents. At the tender age of five, he, being the only brother of eleven sisters, had to become the guide of his blind father, a duty which he performed for five years with the utmost filial affection ; and when his father died in 1803, Jost came to Wolfenbiittel, where his grandfather lived, and where he was received into Samson's Institute. Here he spent four years 08°3-1807) studying Hebrew and the Talmud under great deprivations and sufferings. A new epoch, how ever, commenced in the studies of Jost when this institution was cntrusted to the management of Ehrenberg, towards the end of ISo7. It was then that Jost, at the age of thirteen, was for the first time properly instructed in German, which was his mother tong,ue, and that his unquenchable de sire to learn other languages was kindled. Favoured with the friendship of a fellow-inmate alike poor and thirsting for knowledge, and that no less a youth than Leopold Zunz, Jost and his friend eagerly prosecute(' their studies during the winter of i8o8-1809 labouring to acquire as much of Latin and Greek as would fit them for entering the Gymnasium. Whole nights,' Ile touchingly re cords, have we laboured by the tapers which we made ourselves from the wax that ran down the big wax candles in the synagogue. By hard study we succeeded in bringing it so .far in the course of the six months terminating with April IS09, that we, Zunz in Wolfenbilttel, and I in Brunswick, were put in the senior class in the Gymnasium.' Jost re mained in the Gymnasium at Brunswick till 1S13, acquiring a wonderful knowledge of Latin and Greek, as well as of some modern languages, dur ing these four years, and then went to the Uni versity at Gottingen, where Ile most diligently devoted himself in 1814-1816 to the study of his tory, philology, philosophy, and theology. In 1816, at the age of twenty-three, he undertoolc the inanagement of a civil and commercial school at Berlin, which consisted of both Jewish and Chris tian youths, and to which he continued to devote his energies till IS33, though all the Christian students were ordered, by a ministerial decree, to leave it in 1819. It was here, during his seventeen years attending to the school, that he published— (I) his gigantic historical work, entitled, Gest-kit-hie tier Israelitett seit der Zeit der Maccabaer kis auf unsere rage, 9 vols., Berlin 182o-IS2S ; (2) Allse meine Geschichte des Israelitischen Volkes, etc., 2 vols., Berlin i831 -1832, being an abridgment, with corrections of the former work ; and (3) rIVIV il)t.',”? "ID, the Mishna, with the Hebrew text and vowel points, accompanied by a German trans lation, a rabbinic commentary and German anno tations, 6 vols., Berlin 1832-1834. His literary
fame, as well as the great ability he displayed in the management of the school at Berlin, made the directors of the Jewish High School at Frankfort on-the-Maine offer to him the office of head master, which he accepted in 1835, and held to the end of his life. Whilst discharging his schol astic duties Jost vigorously prosecuted his literary researches, and started in 1S39, (4) Israel/a:eke Annalen, a weekly journal for Jewish history, literature, etc., of which appeared three volumes, Frankfort-on-the-Maine 1839-1S41. It is not too much to say that, in this journal, to which some of the greatest Jewish literati contributed, the stit. dent of Biblical exegesis, Hebrew grammar, or of Jewish antiquities and history, will find materials which he will rarely meet with elsewhere, as may be seen from the frequent references to it in this CyciopEdia. The same year in which this journal was discontinued, Jost, in conjunction with Creize nach, started (5) a Hebrew periodical, of which appeared two volumes, entitled, j14, Ephemerides hebraIcre s. collectth dissertationttm maxime Ikeda gicantm, variorumpe hebraicorum seriptorunt, ad ordinem mensium lunarium disposita, Frankfort on-the-Maine 1841-1S42. This, like the former • journal, is a very important contribution to Bibli cal and Jewish literature, and will always be read with great pleasure by the lover of the sacred language, owing to the beautiful Hebrew style in which it is written. All this time, however, Jost was labouring at his grand history of the Jews, of which he published (6), in 1846-1847, three more parts, under the title Neuere Geschichte der Israel iten, etc., being a continuation, and forining a tenth volume, of bis great historical work ; and in IS57-1859 he embodied all his historical and criti cal researches, in which Ile was engaged the whole of his life, in (7) the Geschicktedes 7udenthums tend seiner Secten, published in three volumes by the Institut wit- POra'eruns der Israelitischen Literatur, in Leipzig. This work is a cycloptedia of Jew ish history and b'iblical literature, containing the ripest scholarship of the igth century. It would be impossible to catalogue the numberless articles ,,vhich Jost contributed to various periodicals, all bearing more or less upon the history of the Jews, and upon Scriptural subjects ; some of them are frequently referred to in this Cyclopam'ia. After enriching the world for upwards of forilly years from his abundant stores of sacred literature, this noble descendant of Abraham died November 20, 'Soo, in his sixty-seventh year.—C. D. G.