The sisters were probably of humble condition, and the brother, being by a grievous disease entirely prevented from maintaining himself, was a pauper, which would perhaps be a better word than beggar, and was permitted by the usages of his country to seek some assuagement of his necessities from the wealthy, especially those to whom he was known, as the Lazarus of Abraham was to the family of Dives, instead of throwing the entire burthen of his maintenance upon his poor relations. It was taught in the dark ages, that all the penalties for sin committed, or compensations for "good things received" and abused in selfish sensuality, to which a man was exposed in the interval between his death and the last judgment of quick and dead, as this Jew was during the life-time of his surviving brethren, were commutable. People were made to believe that the prayers of the clergy would produce that effect in proportion to the frequency of their repetition. An enormous source of simoniacal gain was thus opened to the clergy, to their own corruption, and that of all classes. The severity employed towards Dives, and others in the like case, came to be termed purgation, a heterodox phrase, founded upon the pagan views of the soul and its immortality, and the juggling operations by which men were to be extricated from this real punishment, or imaginary refiner's fire, were called Missæ, a phrase of disputed etymology, but which I believe to derive itself from their supposed power to set the soul free, mittere. When the mind of man obtained that liberation which his soul had so long bargained for in vain, and became violently indisposed to all the favourite arguments of the Romish doctors, an anxiety showed itself to get rid of the Scripture anecdotes, and make parables of them all, and most especially of that one, of which the historical nature is doubly assured. It was ill done. It is always ill to sport with divine truth for any motive; and, above all, to break down and blend the laws of distinction between a truth, an allegory, and a lie. 1 H. REMARKS ON THE SEPTUAGINT. SIR,-The origin of the Septuagint is enveloped in mystery and loaded with fable, but enough is known to give it a particular claim to our regard. Amidst the unceasing changes in kingdoms and their dialects, the chosen nation, to whom were committed the oracles of God, were scattered from their inheritance, and the language of inspiration became a dead letter. Hence arose the necessity of a translation, which was accomplished by different hands, at different periods of the third century, B.C., according to the exigencies of the Jewish church in Egypt. I shall not here remark on the directing hand of Providence that led to the adoption of the Greek, which was soon to become a universal language, and afford a ready means of publishing the Gospel to all the world; it is rather my object to draw attention to the style in which was executed this first transfusion of the word of God. As VOL. III.-Jan. 1833. H it was the work of the same remarkable people, to whom the divine oracles were originally given, it may well command respect at our hands; and it is a higher principle than curiosity that would lead us to a full consideration of the manner in which they secured to themselves the benefits of their most distinguished privilege: farther, it is a question of particular interest at the present time, when men are engaged in translating the Bible into all languages and are calling for improvements of it in our own. The method, then, on which these first translators decided, was a literal and even a servile translation. Now this decision, although at first view it may appear like the true growth of superstition, will rather be found, on farther consideration, to be the genuine fruit of wisdom. By it they paid due deference to God in rendering his word as simply as they could, and quite free from any colouring which it is in the power of a translator to give to a work according to his own views. By it they also gained the applause of men, as this manner (for I do not here speak of the degree) has received the sanction of the soundest judgments; thus the unstudied bareness of the Vulgate, for fidelity and simplicity, has ever been preferred by learned men to the classical periods of Castalio; and, without controversy, the simple dignity of our authorised version retains more of the spirit and form of the original than the modernized and polished productions of recent translators; in their performances, although particular passages may be less obscure, yet if a dozen verses together be read in any part, their great inferiority will manifestly appear. The English nation is particularly favoured in this respect; for whilst our idiom so far agrees with that of the Hebrew as to allow of a literal translation without any violation of its own laws, it so far differs as to impress on such a work an air of antiquity and simplicity, very far removed from the familiarity of modern phrase. Unfortunately, in this age of change and novelty, everything simple and venerable has sadly fallen into disrepute; however great, therefore, may be the opening for improvement, however loud the call for amendment, let not the Bible at least be tampered with; and whenever a revision of it shall be taken in hand, great benefit will be found to arise from such obsolete notions as a regard to precedent and a love of antiquity. It was by means of literal translation that the art of Hebrew composition was first brought to light, and shone forth in all the beauties of its outward form, in its symmetry of arrangement and correspondence of parts; and I have no doubt that the same means will be greatly effectual towards bringing into bold relief the hidden meaning of its inward power, when the dim shadowings of prophecy shall be embodied in realities, and the apparently unconnected parts of Scripture shall fall unconstrained into their places, leaving at fault both the simplicity of the simple and the cunning of the wise by the goodliness and completeness of its whole. Seeing that it was reserved for these latter The nature of Hebrew poetry and its laws of parallelism were discovered even so lately as by Bishop Lowth, 1753, and quite recently (1820) were applied, for the first time, by Bishop Jebb, to the New Testament. times to lift the veil that concealed even the bodily features of the Hebrew muse, we should be careful to transmit them unimpaired, and must be content to leave to another age the full comprehension of the spirit that stirs within her. The critical uses of the Septuagint are twofold; to emend the text of the Old, and to illustrate the style of the New Testament. As it is the most ancient version of the Jewish Scriptures, it is very valuable in shewing the state of the Hebrew text in that remote period; and we are greatly indebted to it for extricating us out of many difficulties by having preserved a different reading. Its application to the New Testament is different in kind, but fully equal in value. A close comparison of the Greek Testament phrases with similar ones in the Septuagint, and a critical translation of both, from the Hebrew, will often afford a better sense than a direct translation from the New Testament. As the authors of our Christian Scriptures expressed* Hebrew phrases and idioms in Greek words, we are certainly more likely by this process to arrive at the very mind that was in the Apostles. The utility of this method will more evidently appear from this additional consideration, that the Septuagint very soon came into general repute among the Jews; even to the Rabbis it was a principal source of knowledge, but was the only one open to the great body of the nation. When King James "had once out of deep judgment apprehended how convenient it was that there should be one more exact translation of the holy Scriptures into the English tongue," he laid it in charge on our venerable translators to retain the ecclesiastical and appropriated words; and it was such a plan as this that the writers of the New Testament followed, although they pursued it to a much greater extent. The Greek of the Septuagint had long been the only language of the synagogue, and it was always employed in religious subjects; they therefore not only retained the appropriated words, but confined themselves altogether to that singular style which had originated at Alexandria, in a literal translation from the Hebrew. Thus the Septuagint is not only valuable as an ancient version in correcting the Jewish Scriptures, but still more so as a glossary, or collection of scholia, to explain the phraseology of our own. I shall now give an example of the latter method for the sake of illustrating a difficult passage in the New Testament. Matt. xv.—(3) "But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandent of God by your tradition? (4) For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and he that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. (5) But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; (6) And honour not his father or his mother, he In Matt. vii. 21—oỷ mãç eiσeλevσɛraι is a Hebraism, and equivalent to Nemo prorsus intrabit-Not one of those that say unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the the Kingdom of Heaven. The two lines in v. 21 set forth two opposite characters, which are more fully described in verses 24 and 26. This connexion would be more observable by reducing the whole passage into its parallelisms. shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." In the first place, let him die the death is the Septuagint translation of i, he shall surely die-Ex. xxi. 17, Gen. ii. 17. But the whole difficulty of the passage lies in the word and in the beginning of the sixth verse. Now in conditional sentences where the second member depends on the first, the Hebrews said "If so and so and so and so" where we should say then or omit the particle altogether, thus-"If it be a son and ye shall kill him, but if it he a daughter and she shall live."-Ex. i. 16. In this peculiarity the Hebrew original is often literally followed by the Septuagint version, which, in its turn, is sometimes imitated in the Greek Testament.-For example, Gen. xxviii. 20—ἐὰν ᾖ μετ' ἐμοῦ (if God will be with me) καὶ ἔσται (then [and] shall the Lord be my God; and 1 Sam. xii. 15—εàv μù åкovoNTε (if ye will not obey) kai ora (then [and] shall the hand of the Lord be against you.) It is the same idiom that obtains in this place of St. Matt.—ἐὰν εἴπῃ (if a man say) καὶ οὐ μὴ τιμήσῃ (then [and] he shall not honour. Thus, as the* Greek idiom will not allow that kai should here be translated and, so the usage of the Septuagint teaches us that its true meaning is then. The arrangement by parallelisms confirms this rendering, and indeed throws a clear light upon the whole passage. "And he answered and said unto them: "Why do yourselves also break the commandment of God through your tradition? For God commanded: Saying, Honour thy father and thy mother, And he that revileth father or mother shall surely die; Whereas ye say: If one delare to father or mother, An offering be thy due relief, Truly ye have done away the commandment of God through your tradition."+ By the vile proceeding here exposed, a man did not bind himself to make any offering to God; he was only no longer free to honour by maintenance his needy parents. It was as if he should say, "May If kai were conjunctive so as to connect the two verbs if a man say and if he honour not, the additional negative où would necessarily be omitted as in Mat. xxi. 21.—ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν καὶ μὴ διακριθῆτε (if ye have faith and if ye doubt not.) + Bishop Jebb, in his Sacred Literature, first applied the principle of parallelisms to the explanation of this passage, but he has not produced the happy effect so conspicuous in his other examples. He translates and arranges it in this manner :"And why do ye transgress the commandment of God, by your tradition? For God commanded, saying: Honour thy father and thy mother; And he who revileth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say: Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, be that a gift, by which thou mightest have been relieved from me; Must also not honour his father or his mother: Thus have ye nullified the commandment of God by your tradition." mischief befal me, if ever I help you in the least." Although reviling of every kind was denounced with certain death in God's law, yet this form of it was countenanced by the tradition of the Pharisees, in hopes of casual profit to the temple; for as often as the man should afterwards attempt to assist his parents, he incurred the infamy of a broken vow, and the whole of such relief was forfeited to the treasury. Such an exersise, in the Septuagint, as I have exemplified above, will amply repay all the time bestowed upon it; and the inducement to engage in it would be greatly increased, if some one of our many able men should publish the book of Genesis in Greek, or rather selections from it, with notes pointing out the derivation of the Septuagint expressions from the Hebrew, and the formation of the Greek Testament phraseology from the Septuagint. A moderate attention to such a little work would afford a more thorough and rational knowledge of the Greek Testament, than could be derived from a most perfect acquaintance with the classics; indeed, the accomplished classical scholar can no more expect than the plain English scholar to know the real origin and nature of the Greek Testament language without some pains bestowed in the manner here mentioned. It cannot be unseasonable to draw attention to this point at a time when our Bishops are declaring their intention to raise the standard of qualification for orders. In his printed charge, the Bishop of London requires composition in Latin from all candidates, and the Bishop of Salisbury some acquaintance with the early Christian Fathers, &c. &c. The general advance in knowledge may require, and the number of applicants may allow the heads of the church to be more select in the admission of its ministers; but no single requirement would more effectually secure in our clergy the literary qualifications suitable to their profession than that under consideration. Lastly the Septuagint affords a ready help towards a Hebrew translation of the Greek Testament. The comparison of phrases before mentioned is admirably adapted for this purpose, and the extensive recurrence of parallelisms in the New Testament, as pointed out by Bishop Jebb, will necessarily, if judiciously attended to, lead future translators into the genuine manner of Hebrew composition. These are helps which prudent men will eagerly lay hold of, so to acquit themselves that their work may most effectually gain the respect of the Jews and command their attention; and soundness of judgment will much more be shewn in an anxious care to provide one more exact translation against the appointed time of their national restoration, than in a premature zeal for the dubious conversion of a handful, by any means whatever, to minister to present religious excitement. The Christian Scriptures still come before them with suspieion, and the more complete shall be their Hebrew dress, the more true to the original they are likely to prove, and they will certainly gain a more ready access to their favour and understanding, when the God of their fathers shall again become conspicuously their God and they his people. The number of quotations, applications, and allu |