I walked, crowned as I was with roses, and dripping with unguents and staggering in my gait (p. 201). 66 The mighty force of the speech of Paul slowly penetrates his mind, and clears the fumes of debauch from before his soul, till the great words "I am persuaded that neither death nor life" (Rom. viii. 38, 39) thunder at his heart, and the brightness of the Lord Jesus bursts in a flood upon his spirit. While the personal narrative in these Memoirs' is most skilfully woven, and the resources of a rich scholarship are brought with a light and graceful hand to illustrate the life and surroundings of the young Gentile in many varied scenes, there is no doubt that the most important interest of the book centres in its philosophical and critical discussions. These become very real and living in the minds and mouths of Onesimus and his friends. With some boldness of anachronism, Epictetus, Maximus of Tyre, Elius Aristides, Celsus, and even Justin Martyr and Irenæus, are made to contribute to the conversations and correspondence in which Onesimus takes part-only Epictetus, however, proprio nomine. But the editor pleads that in germ the thoughts of these men already floated in the air in A.D. 60, and that the mind of the inquirer would have to reckon with them long before they found overt and formal expression. The reader will probably be impressed with the profundity of the scepticism which affected the world of thought in that momentous age, compared to the shallowness of the shoals in which the modern doubter flounders. No pole-star shone over that ocean; and hovever hard it be for the mariner to pilot his boat to-day, few drift so helplessly on the chartless waves as poor Onesimus. But much more than the philosophical, the critical disquisitions of the volume will attract attention and stimulate reflection. As the geologist exploring the tufa-beds of Derbyshire may behold rocks in the making, so our editor has conceived the bold idea of placing us at the spot where we can see the oral Tradition of the first generation of disciples swelling and radiating and crystallising towards the elaborated form of the completed Synoptics. To do this with full effect it has, indeed, been necessary to endow Onesimus with all the shrewdness of the contributor of the article, " Gospels," to the new edition of the "Ercyclopædia Britannica ;" and we should find it almost as hard to persuade ourselves that Onesimus really foresaw the maturer shape of the Tradition, and predicted "the end from the beginning," as that Isaiah or Micah actually prophesied the manner or the place of the birth of the Messiah. But we must not quarrel with the accomplished resuscitator of the Colossian bondsman for this. We can conceive no method of presenting the problem of Synoptic criticism more likely to convince the reader that the Gospel narratives have indeed gathered together, cohered, and grown after strict laws of mental evolution, than that so skilfully elaborated in the Third Book of these ingenious Memoirs. We have Onesimus, for example, listening to a discourse in which Hebrew prophecy is freely applied to the circumstances of the death of Christ, 66 and immediately bringing the speaker, a man of some discretion," to book, and on questioning him whether all the details of the prophecy have corresponding details in the then recorded Tradition, wringing from him the answer, "It is not, indeed, so handed down in our Tradition; but it may have been so." But "an honest and illiterate leather-cutter," whom Onesimus puts through the same catechism, boldly declares that it was so, not that he remembers anything of the sort in the Tradition, but "because it must needs be that all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets should be fufilled in Christus." And Onesimus shrewdly surmises that, not the "discreet" speakers, but the "illiterate leather-cutter" and his kin will prove the progenitors of the Tradition held by the succeeding generation (p. 85). Before the martyrdom of Onesimus, the Synoptics are fully formed, even to the prodigies of Matthew I., II. But when Onesimus would remove the after-growth from the Tradition received of the first disciples, and disabuse the minds of the people, Philochristus, from far-off Britain, then, it seems, as now, the native soil of the Broad Church theory, writes to him : But,' sayest thou, they err in certain traditions But which is better, that they "Be thou content. concerning the Lord.' should love the Lord and be in some error, or that they should be free from error and void of love? Better to have wheat with tares than no tares and no wheat. Let both stand till the harvest; and in the day of winnowing of the Master, a separation shall be made " (p. 285). R. A. A. A DR. DAVIDSON'S INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.'* VETERAN writer like Dr. Davidson does not wait for his reputa tion upon the verdict of critics less competent than himself. More than thirty years have elapsed since the appearance of his Introduction to the New Testament, and his qualities as a Biblical scholar have long been familiar to those who are interested in the studies which he has chosen as his own. During that considerable period he has not been content to rest passively in the results which he so carefully elaborated and defended in earlier days, but has kept his mind open to fresh investigations, and gradually changed his point of view, so that arguments on which he formerly relied are no longer able to convince him, and difficulties in the way of the traditional belief, which he once regarded as inconclusive, present themselves now with a magnitude and force which he is unable to resist. In process of time his opinions became so largely * An Introduction [to the Study of the New Testament, Critical, Exegetical, and Theological. By SAMUEL DAVIDSON, D.D., of the University of Halle, and LL.D. Second Edition, Revised and Improved. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1882. modified, that it was undesirable to bring out a second edition of his original work; and accordingly, in 1868, he published a new treatise, entitled An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, Critical, Exegetical, and Theological, in which he sought to supply an acknowledged want by providing the English reader with a compendium suited to the existing state of knowledge. Of this work a second edition, “revised and improved," has just appeared, containing important modifications of some of the judgments previously expressed, and exhibiting the ripest fruit of the author's scholarship and thought. One could wish that the process of change had been brought before the reader, and that when Dr. Davidson discards as 66 traditionalism" an opinion maintained in the earlier edition he had marked the alteration, and distinctly explained why reasons, which at a comparatively recent date appeared insufficient, are now able to command his assent. This would add to the interest of the volumes, and afford a useful training to the critical faculty of the student; and if the frank acknowledgment of change left on the minds of the injudicious the impression of a vacillating judgment, or an uncertain critical method, the more discerning would appreciate the vigour of thought which even in advancing years refuses to stiffen into unalterable moulds, and the candour which abandons a position that, long defended, seems at last to be untenable. We cannot in a short notice discuss any of the difficult questions raised by an Introduction; but it may be interesting to point out some of the more important differences of view which distinguish the two editions. The arrangement of the books in what is conceived to be their chronological order facilitates comparison, and serious variations are immediately apparent. In the first edition 2nd Thessalonians is placed at the head of the list, and Dr. Davidson holds strongly to its Pauline authorship, assigning it to about 52 A.D. He now introduces it after the Epistle of James; and though he still allows it a comparatively early date, about 69 A.D., he does not bring it within the Apostle's lifetime. He does not, however, absolutely reject its Pauline origin, but thinks "it may be called authentic, with modifications," the latter having been made in it by a Pauline Christian, ii. 1—12 especially being an addition. Carrying our eye down the list we are next struck by the disappearance of Colossians from its position between Philemon and Philippians. In 1868 Dr Davidson, though not unconscious of difficulties, still believed that the preponderance of internal evidence favoured the genuineness of the epistle, and that it was written at Rome in 62 A.D. We must suppose that the arguments of Baur, though dismissed as inconclusive, silently persisted in asserting their force, for our author now bestows upon this question a completely fresh treatment, and argues strongly against the authenticity of the letter. He relies especially on the developed Christology and the evidence afforded by the epistle of an active, if still incipient, Gnosticism, and arrives at the conclusion that the work proceeded from a Pauline Christian living in Asia Minor, probably about 120 A.D. Ephesians, which is so obviously related to Colossians, had been already rejected from the list of Paul's genuine epistles, but still allowed a place upon the borders of the Apostolic age. In the first edition its author is supposed to be an inhabitant of Rome and a stranger to the Church at Ephesus, and the year 75 is fixed upon as the nearest approach to its real date. The arguments which induced Baur to bring it down to the Gnostic period are reviewed, and declared to be unsatisfactory. In the second edition all this is changed. We now learn, as though no competent and unprejudiced scholar had ever been of a different opinion, that "it is easy to see that it originated in the Gnostic period;" its composition is transferred from Rome to Asia Minor, and its date is fixed between 130 and 140 A.D. In the treatment of the Pastoral Epistles, Titus now comes between 2nd and 1st Timothy, instead of being regarded as the earliest of the three; but they are all assigned to about the same date as before, between 115 and 125 A.D. If we pass to the Catholic Epistles, we find that that of James is placed a year or two later, and therefore after, instead of before, Revelation; but Dr. Davidson's view of it is substantially unaltered. His opinion of 1st Peter has undergone a more serious change, though even in the first edition its Apostolic origin is denied. A comparatively early date, between 75 and 80 A.D., is there accorded to it; and the opinion of Schwegler and Baur that it referred to the calamities in Trajan's reign is rejected because the trials alluded to "are too general to admit of restriction to one period in particular." This opinion is now accepted, and the epistle, believed to have been written by a Roman Christian, perhaps in 113 A.D., is placed in the list between the Gospels of Luke and Mark. Jude, which was formerly regarded as an authentic production of the Lord's brother, and referred to the year 80, is now set aside as supposititious, because "the description of the men who had crept in among the readers suits antinomian Gnostics only." It is supposed to be "not much later than A.D. 140." In regard to the historical books, we need only observe that the old chronological order is retained,-Matthew, Luke, Mark, Acts, and John; and that, notwithstanding recent investigations, Mark is still represented as dependent on Matthew and Luke. From this brief survey it is apparent that the work has been revised in both its form and its substance. Alterations are numerous, and many parts have been rewritten. The revision, however, sometimes betrays marks of haste. Thus we are told that a quotation in 1st Timothy is taken from Luke, and then follows the strange inference, "Hence Luke's gospel, which preceded the present epistle, was not written till the second century."* What is obviously intended is that the Epistle cannot be earlier than the second century, because it is subsequent to a Gospel which belongs to that century. The argument is correctly given in the first edition. On the next page it is stated, on the authority of Holtzmann, that the number of words occurring in the Pastoral Epistles, and nowhere else in the New Testament, is 171, and yet the words unknown * II. p. 58. to Paul's authentic Epistles are set down as only 133. Holtzmann's statement is perhaps misleading; but his lists show that the 133 ought to be added to the 171. In the first edition the numbers are not given, but instead there is a useful list of the words themselves, which is now omitted. A few lines further on the curious remark is retained that εὐσέβεια is a post-apostolic production." It is meant, presumably that it is not found in undisputed Apostolical writings. That this circumstance is accidental may perhaps be inferred from the use of aσéßeia and ảσeßýs in Romans. It is amusing to find Dr. Davidson expressing a devout faith in the book of Tobit. He says, "if it was believed that angels appeared in the form of men, as we know they did from the book of Tobit."* Doubtless his real meaning would require the substitution of "it was" for" they did." The Epistle of Polycarp receives unequal treatment. As a testimony to 1st Thessalonians, and on many other occasions, it is cited as though it were genuine t; but when we come to 2nd Thessalonians we are informed that the Epistle is not authentic, ‡ and the same statement is repeated elsewhere. § When we seek for further information, we learn in one passage that Ritschl has shown that its date is between 160 and 170 A.D., after Polycarp's death, and in another that Ritschl " supposes interpolation in various places," and that its date is between 147 and 167. These casual instances may show that the work would bear a little revision; but allowance must be made for the very condensed form in which the necessary matter has to be imparted, and for the inevitable occurrence of slight oversights in volumes replete with such a multiplicity of detail. We may not be able to acquiesce in all Dr. Davidson's judgments; but his work will be indispensable to the student who wishes to know the present state of the criticism of the New Testament and has not yet acquired facility in the use of German, and the more advanced scholar will weigh the author's conclusions with the care and respect which are due to the conscientious devotion of so many years to such important and difficult investigations. JAMES DRUMMOND. THE MR. BURGESS'S NOTES ON THE HEBREW PSALMS.** HE writer of these volumes has carefully limited the scope of his work. He does not offer a treatise on the Psalm-book, regarded as a whole, and hence he takes no heed of the problems concerning the origin of its collections, or the circumstances and date of its completion. Nor does he attempt any full account of the separate poems, and he * I. p. 256. + I. pp. 9, 41, 85, 117, 157, &c. I. p. 337. § II. p. 207: see also II. p. 166. || II. p. 36. ¶ II. p. 328-9. **Notes, chiefly Critical and Philological, on the Hebrew Psalms. By WILLIAM ROSCOE BURGESS, M.A. Vol. I., 1879; Vol. II., 1881. London: Williams and Norgate. |