ported on high legs, with wings like a bat. One of these strange animals, whose appearance would be frightful, was about the size of a thrush; but from fragments we find that there existed a much larger species.

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth... fowl." These fowls which the waters brought forth on the fifth day are clearly different from those which the Lord God formed out of the ground on the sixth day; and it seems only in accordance with analogy that webfooted fowls should precede land birds, as the amphibious monsters preceded land animals. Geology, however, makes no mention yet of birds, though it presents to our notice the frightful Pterodactyls. ""Tis a pretty observation of Eustathius (Hex. p. 23), that as fish and fowl were the product of the same element, so there is a remarkable. resemblance or affinity between them in their manner and organs of motion, the flying and the wings of fowls answering to the swimming and fins of fishes."-Bibliotheca Biblica on Gen. i. 20.

Keysoe Vicarage, Beds.

W. B. WINNING.

(To be continued.)

'AGE OF THE LXX.

SIR, The interesting question of the age in which the Septuagint Version originated, receives light, I think, from a passage in Eusebius, which is not affected by the arguments of Hody. This historian of the church is drawing the character of a distinguished Christian, Anatolius, the president of the Aristotelian school of philosophy at Alexandria; the qualities drawn by Eusebius must have rendered Anatolius eminently adapted to fill that station, and also to execute the work which he undertook, of establishing canons (founded on historical and astronomical calculations) for regulating the time of observing the feast of Easter.

From this work, "De Canonibus Paschalibus," a long quotation is contained in the 32nd chapter of the 7th book of the "Ecclesiastical History." The Jewish authorities which Anatolius refers to are those of Josephus and Philo, and to the still more ancient one of Aristobulus, who was, says Anatolius, one of the LXX who interpreted the sacred writings of the Hebrews to Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father, ¿v rois ἑβδομήκοντα,τοῖς τὰς ἱερὰς καὶ θείας Εβραίων ἑρμηνεύσασι γραφάς Πτολομαίῳ τῷ Φιλαδέλφῳ καὶ τῷ τούτου πατρί. It was, therefore, the opinion of Anatolius that the Septuagint Version was executed during the two years in which Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father reigned jointly at Alexandria, which were the 286th and 287th before the Christian era. A more unexceptionable witness of such a fact could not be produced

Cuvier makes no mention of birds; but in the English strata, besides the monstrous Sauri, Mr. Conybeare says that teeth, palates, and vertebræ of fishes of several varieties occur, as also leg and thigh bones apparently belonging to birds.Outlines, &c. p. 208. It well deserves the attention of geologists to examine more closely whether these are the bones of water-fowl.

than Anatolius, who, from the nature of his studies, which were both mathematical and rhetorical, (ἅ τε ἀριθμητικῆς, καὶ γεωμετρίας, ἀστρονομίας τε καὶ τῆς ἄλλης διαλεκτικῆς, ἔτι τε φυσικῆς θεωρίας, ῥητορικῶν τε αὖ μαθημάτων ἐληλακὼς εἰς ἄκρον·) was not likely to form his opinion without sufficient evidence, and whose information, from the researches he was led into, would be most extensive.

If the expression from 'Anatolius, that Aristobulus was one of the LXX who interpreted, &c., seem to give countenance to the exploded theory of the 70 interpreters, the present received opinion (that the version was the work of private individuals, and not originally undertaken under the auspices of any of the kings of Egypt,) is perfectly consistent with the supposition of 70 persons having been appointed from Jerusalem to examine and to stamp with authority the version which the Hellenist Jews had provided themselves with at Alexandria. Our own authorized version affords such an analogy,-originally executed by private individuals, and authorized after a final revision under the auspices of James the First, to whom it is presented by those engaged in the revision, who are styled interpreters, or "the translators of the Bible."

J. H. B.*

THE OBLATION OF MELCHISEDECK AND HIS HISTORY.

66

SIR,-The question agitated in your journal concerning Melchisedeck, the priest of God, namely, whether he consecrated and administered to Abraham the elements of the Christian eucharist, and, in that sense, had a priesthood likened unto Christ's, and abiding in His church for ever, or whether he merely offered food and drink to the weary man before he bestowed on him his benediction, may, I think, be more clearly solved by aid of the text John, viii. 56, " Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it." I am aware of nothing whatever in the life of Abraham to which these words will apply, except his eucharistic and bloodless communion with the king of Salem, or Peace. It cannot be explained of the meditated sacrifice of Isaac for abundance of reason:-1st, He did not rejoice in the commandment to offer up his son; and 2ndly, (assuming that he knew and understood the similitude thereby intended,) if he did but see types and shadows of it, he saw no more of Christ's day than all the fathers and prophets saw. In beholding such, he saw his own days, and was not carried forward to the more complete stage of the Divine counsels. But this circumstance perfectly explains and justifies the words of the Lord. What others perceived in figures darkly, or, if clearly, foresaw as remotely future, Abraham beheld in present existence, and actually participated in, ages before either Jew or Gentile was enabled so to do.

It would add to the favour which "J. H. B." confers by writing, if he would give a translation of passages quoted. He can hardly imagine the horror felt in these learned days, when people know everything, or say they do, of a few words of Greek or Latin. It is quite unpleasant to many readers to be undeceived in this way as to their own universal knowledge.-ED.

I conceive that this argument goes to evince that which is otherwise probable.

It may be observed, that from the earliest times sacrifice was adapted to the future change in its character, and comprehended in its entirety that residue which was to abide for ever. The daily sacrifice consisted of one lamb, one-tenth part of flour, and one-tenth part of wine for the drink-offering, (Exod. xxix. 40.) The similar rites of the Gentiles included the sacrifice or offering of the slain victim, the immolation or oblation of a consecrated wafer, and the libation or oblation of wine.

Melchisedeck's "descent was not counted" from Levi or any other privileged family, and therefore no sacerdotal records inscribed his parentage, or the commencement or end of his ministry. The style of the sacred writers was, in their writings, left to themselves. Their habitual mode of diction was that which they used in them. Some used a language to which education and learning had contributed more than to that of others; and while most of them had learnt from childhood the illiterate but pleasing discourse of nature, in one of them the light of God, conveyed in human phraseology, had to pierce its way through such an habitual style and taste in writing as would be formed and acquired at a Gamaliel's feet. This feature in Melchisedeck's priesthood is set forth in Heb. vii. 3, in phrases that, perhaps, no other apostle would have selected, and which are most opportunely explained in ver. 6. Notwithstanding the explanation, it proved a stumbling-block. The followers of Theodottis Byzantinus, called psilanthropists, used to offer their oblations to Melchisedeck, whom they styled their Introducer or Hierophant, the Great Power, the Son of God, and the son of Hercules and Astarte; and the place of his abode was one of their ineffable secrets.-(Epiphan. Hæres, 55.) Certain modern illuminati held that Melchisedeck was the eternal wisdom and demiurgic power of God, and that it was by receiving his body and soul that the Son of God became ruler of all things.(Postel Clavis Absconditorum, c. 7.)

The history of those ages being lost, his real circumstances can only be approached by indirect inference. "The Canaanite was then in the land," (Gen. xii. 6; xiii. 7.) But although the Canaanites were then arrived, their power could not have been at its height, nor their borders extended from Sidon,unto Gaza. For at that time there were in Palestine other nations, and those strong enough to contend with Elam, Babylonia, and other powers of the east; viz., the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horites, and Amalekites. And of the first-named so great was then the puissance, that the most redoubted enemy the Israelites met with was only a relique of their reliques, "only Og, the king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the Rephaim," (Deut. iii. 11.) At the same time, and in some sort of alliance with these powers, flourished the famous Pentapolis of Sodom. No people of the blood of Canaan, excepting the Amorite, is specified, by name, as having been then in the land. The almost total excision of the Rephaim and their allies by the eastern powers, and the burning of the Pentapolis, gave the grand impulse to Canaanitish ascendancy. We

have, therefore, no need to imagine that the Jebusite was reigning in Salem when Abraham went in pursuit of Chedorlaomer; nor can we suppose that the man of whom Abraham, "without all contradiction the less, was blessed of the better," came of the seed of the accursed, of the servant of servants unto his brethren. Jebusi was an aftername. But Salem, interpreted "peace," or "Jerusalem," interpreted "the vision," or "beholding of peace," was a name bestowed upon the seat of his royal priesthood (in which place the Lord said, "I will give peace,") by him who, together with Abraham, amidst bloody wars and barbarous idolatries, beheld the peace of the Lord and his day, and rejoiced.

The names of both king and city, being in a Semitic dialect, was not likely to proceed from the lineage of Cham. As it was declared to Noah that Jehovah should dwell in the tents of Shem, and as the covenant with Abraham was a farther limitation of that with Shem, it will not be credited that the priest of the Most High God, by whom Abraham was blessed and made to see the Lord's day, was of any other seed. But between Abraham and Shem there had intervened another limitation of the promise; viz., unto Cheber, Heber, or Eber, whose name, and not Abraham's, the people of God always bore, and were called, after him, the Hebrews. That he was a grandsire of Heber became a peculiar mark and confirmation of Shem's divine vocation,-"Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Heber, unto him also were born children." Now, wherefore was this distinction made? Abraham, David, the Lord himself, and all Israel were not more the descendants of Heber than they were the descendants of Arphaxad, or Peleg, or Rehu, or Nachor. The only imaginable solu tion is, that Heber was an eminent saint of God, who was called by him out of the darkness of that wide spreading apostacy which formed what we now call paganism, and with whom the old covenant was renewed in a solemn and memorable manner. A portion of his family (called, therefore, the sister of the Jewish family), was settled in the parts of Palestine between Jerusalem and the ancient vale of Siddim, now covered with water, at the time when Abraham and Lot came into the land; and Lot fixed his sojourn among them. That these people cherished a recollection of the promises made and renewed to their fathers, Shem and Heber, sufficiently appears in the name of Shem Eber, chief of the city of Tseboim. But their remembrance of them was superstitious, ambitious, and corrupt, rather than religious, like the feeling with which the Jews regarded their prophecies at the Christian epoch. For the calling of Abraham to the inheritance of Shem, through Heber, synchronized with the judgment of God which obliterated the defiled and apostate cities from the face of the earth. Our first conclusion seems to me to be, that Melchisedeck, a patriarch of the Pentapolis of Sodom, had withdrawn himself from those scenes of wickedness and impending ruin, together with all the remnant of

They were descended from Joktan, Heber's younger son, and not from Peleg, his elder, inasmuch as Ezekiel has termed Samaria the elder, and Sodom the younger, sister of Jerusalem, (Ezek. xvi. 46; see British Magazine, vol. iii. p. 663.)

the faithful, founded a petty* kingdom at Salem, and planted his sanctuary there or upon Sion, where he still kept alive the faith of the fathers. Such an emigration helps to account for there not remaining ten righteous in all Sodom. Melchisedeck met Abraham at the very same time and place that the king of Sodom met him; and Abraham, who rejected the liberal offers of the latter, partook of the bread and wine produced by the former.

But the small and righteous community over which he presided did not survive Melchisedeck; and it was so entirely destroyed by the mixed breed of Hittite and Amorite Canaanites, called Jebusites, that no part of the structures or of the population of Jerusalem, as conquered by the Israelites 400 years afterwards, could be referred to that origin. Thus much may be collected from Ezekiel's words"Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan, thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite," (chap. xvi. 3.) H.

MR. KNOX.

SIR,-I think the observations of your correspondent, T. D. A., on Fidelis's letter, are very just as far as they go; and I do most cordially agree with him, that Mr. Knox's questions are not to be dismissed by any measure of logical acuteness, nor by reference to any modern theological compilations.

Mr. Knox appeals to the writings of the Fathers; and it is from these only that he must be confuted, notwithstanding Mr. Milner's poor opinion of their accuracy as divines. As, however, antiquity and truth itself will not gain much attention, unless they be shewn to agree with some modern standard of orthodoxy, perhaps the best way to recommend these excellent volumes will be to shew, from approved writers, that at least they contain nothing very extravagant on the doctrine of justification. First, what is Mr. Knox's view? Fidelis makes him to state that "God's justifying a sinner means making him just, by implanting a root of righteousness in his heart." Now, this is hardly a fair exposition of Mr. Knox's meaning, who always sup-poses the reputative idea to be included in the term justification. În vol i., 278, he says, "I have largely allowed that Akatow means our being made just or righteous in the opinion of others, as well as being made actually so in ourselves. I have also meant fully to grant, that St. Paul often gives a prominence to the former sense, when he ascribes the agency of God; and, indeed, I doubt not but in this case it is always included. But what I am impressed with is, that our being reckoned righteous, coram Deo, always and essentially implies a substance of Aukatoavvy previously implanted in us; and that our reputative justification is the strict and inseparable result of this previous

Since Adonizebek detained seventy kings in captivity, it is manifest that the ruler of every town, if not almost every village, enjoyed that title, as was the case in Greece at that remote period when Hesiod wrote his "Works and Days"