term anthropokleptais, but the legal reduction of a man to slavery was quite a different matter. St. Paul's animadversion comprehended the idea of slavery and stealing,-what? a freeman, or a slave? Had it been a freeman that occupied the objective case, it is presumable that his language would have had some analogy to that used in the Septuagint, Deut. xxiv. 7.

This word, or some form of it, is of most frequent occurrence in the Greek authors. We need quote but a few passages to show their use of the term, whether it included the idea of a freeman, or only that of a slave. Thucydides, Leipsic edition, 1829:

Οἱ δ' Αθηναῖοι οὔτε τἆλλα ὑπήκουον, οὔτε τὸ ψήφισμα και γρουν, ἐπικαλοῦντες ἐπ' ἐργασίαν Μεγαρεύσι τῆς γῆς τῆς ἱερᾶς, καὶ τῆς ἀορίστου, καὶ ἀνδραπόδων ὑποδοχὴν τῶν ἀφισταμέ

νων.

"But the Athenians listened to none of these demands, nor would revoke the decree, but reproached the Megarians for tilling land that was sacred, land not marked out for culture, and for giving shelter to runaway slaves."

Vol. ii. p. 138. Αἱ δέ νῆες περίεπλευσαν, τα ἀνδράποδα ἀγοῦσαι.

"But the vessels came back along the coast, on board of which were the slaves."

Idem. Καὶ τὰ ἀνδράποδα ἀπεδόσαν.

"And here they offered the slaves for sale."

P. 118. ̓Ανδράποδα Ὑκκαρικά—“Hyccarian slaves.”

Ρ. 201. Καὶ ἀνδράποδων πλέον ἢ δύο μυριάδες ηὐτομολη

κέσαν.

"And more than twenty thousand slaves had deserted."

Ρ. 314. Καὶ σκεύη μὲν καὶ ἀνδράποδα ἁρπαγὴν ποιησάμενος, τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους πάλιν κατοικίσας, ἐπ ̓ ̓́Αβυδον ἦλθε.

"He gave up all the effects and slaves to pillage, and after establishing such as were free people in their old habitations, he went against Abydos."

The instances of the use of this word are so frequent that we know not whether more of them should not be given; but may we not presume that those who read the language have some knowledge of the matter? and we therefore ask them to relieve us from that burden. We think it no hazard to maintain the fact that ἀνδραποδίζω, its cognates and derivatives, both nouns and adiec

tives, are never used in the Greek language unassociated with the idea of slavery. If so, then it follows that the idea stealing, as it existed in the mind of St. Paul, was not associated with the idea "man," ” but " slave,” and that he used the term ἀνδραποδισταῖς, andrapodistais, to express the idea "slave-stealers."

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LESSON XII.

BUT as the verb avdρaлodilo, andrapodizo, and its conjugates, are sometimes used to express the action of subjecting to slavery, it is asked, how are we to know whether Paul did not mean such subjugation? It was surely in the compass of the Greek language for Paul so to have used the proper mood and tense of this verb, with other suitable words, and effectually forbid the subjecting of others to slavery. But is it probable he could have consistently done so? Such forbidding would have been forbidding what the law prescribed. It would have been a rebellious teaching against the laws of the land, as well as against the laws delivered to Moses for the civil government of the Israelites. "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, thou shalt proclaim peace unto it; and it shall be, if it make answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that are found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee," (7172) va abaduka, be slaves to thee-and they shall be slaves to thee.) "But if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take to thyself." Deut. xx. 10-14.

Such, substantially, was the law of all nations at the very time. Paul wrote to Timothy. The verb proposed the making of a slave in a legal manner, reducing to the condition alluded to by the prophet. "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive restored?" Isa. xlix. 24. The verb andrapodizo expressed a lawful act. If individuals, without law, had seized upon the others with the view to make them slaves, such act would have been called by a different name. It would not have been a name formed

from dvρ and оvs, (aner and рous,) unaccompanied by explanations. We have an example before us in Deut. xxiv. 7: "If any man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, then that thief shall die." Here the individual stolen was not a slave, either by the laws of God or man: and hence we find that the Septuagint uses no word to signify slave. The passage reads

thus:

Ἐὰν δὲ ἁλῷ ἀνθρωπος κλέπτων ψυχὴν ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν αὐτοῦ τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ καταδυναστεύσας αὐτὸν ἀποδῶται, ἀποθανεῖται ὁ κλέπτης ἐκεῖνος.

And had St. Paul merely in his mind the idea man-stealing, unconnected with slavery, he would have used analogous language. In the passage in Timothy, he might well have used the term ȧvSρúñоxλεлtais, anthropokleptais, which would have expressed the same thing, an unlawful act, an act forbidden in the passage just quoted, the act of stealing a freeman, with an intention of making him a slave, contrary to law; and Paul would have probably added this offence, if the Ephesians had been guilty of the crime. But Paul did not use a word even conjugated from ȧvdрaлodilo, andrapodizo, but a cognate substantive, used almost technically to mean those who stole slaves, not freemen.

The word used by Paul is translated into Latin, in the Vulgate, by the word plagiariis, which also means those who stole slaves. It is formed from plagiger, one born to be whipped, (the Romans were cruel to their slaves,) and areo, to be parched up, to be thirsty, and hence plagiarius, from the notion that he who stole slaves coveted the slave with such intensity that he thirsted for the slave, and appropriated him to himself as a thirsty man does water. It originally was a mere cant word. But it expressed the contempt the Romans entertained for the act of slave-stealing. Hence has come our word plagiary; only used now to mean the act of appropriating the literary property of another, but still retaining, to some extent, the expression of contempt. The learned men who translated the New Testament into Latin well knew that Paul told Timothy that the law was made against those who stole slaves: and so we find it, Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not even covet thy neighbour's slave. (See Exod. xx. 15, 17; also Deut. v. 19, 20.) Had Paul used the word andrapodizo, or some form of it, and had he really intended

to have told Timothy that he or others should no longer, under any circumstances, subject others to slavery, or under the Christian dispensation he should not; that Christianity forbid it; yet he could not have been so shallow as to have added the sentiment that it was against the law, for such addition, such part of his instruction, Timothy would have at once known to be not true; and we trust but few will entertain a position so full of gross consequences. This discourse to Timothy was founded upon the fact that "some had swerved" from the end of the law, and turned to vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm,-probably teaching doctrines that led essentially to the crimes here exposed. Paul's object, in part, was to expose their ignorance and wickedness, to sustain the supremacy of the law, and by his counsel to warn him against a shipwreck of faith, as in the case of Hymeneus and Alexander.

Can it be supposed that under such circumstances he would have undertaken to have repealed a law, or to have asserted that the law prohibited what it sustained? In such case, he would have done the very act himself for which he condemned Hymeneus and Alexander, and have proved himself one of the lawless and disobedient, for whom the law was made.

There is another consideration, which to our mind is of moment in the review of this subject. The religion of Jesus Christ never undertook to meddle with the civil institutions of the law. Its object was to make its devotees happy under and resigned to its adjudications, whatever they may have been, by reason of the greater considerations of a hereafter; nor do we recollect an instance where either Christ or his apostles even suggested any repeal. His kingdom was not of this world, and therefore his followers could not act in reference to the things of this world. Peter in his zeal smote off the ear of the slave of the high-priest, but Christ immediately rebuked the act and restored the injury done. Had Paul intended to have suggested that the subjecting to slavery, as that subject then existed and ever had from the time of Moses, was no longer to be countenanced, then, it seems to us, he would have travelled beyond the mission of an apostle, the precepts of his Master, and out of his kingdom into the problematical questions of civil government.

Paul, in the passage before us, enumerates a class of the breaches of the law which came within the view of Timothy, which breaches

of the law he pronounces to be "contrary to sound doctrine," and "to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust," having previously notified him "that the law was good if a man use it lawfully." Now, one of the plain and wellknown laws on the subject of slavery was, "Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around about you; of them shall you buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and their families that are with you, which they beget in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bond-men for ever."

Under such a state of facts can any thing be conceived more inconsistent, than that Paul should, under such circumstances, design to slip in a word repealing in fact this law, and directly producing all the other ill effects which he so pointedly complained of in others. Whoever can believe such a thing, surely, whatever he may pretend, can have no respect for the character of Paul, nor for his religion.

But the character of Paul remains consistent, his religion unblemished and spotless, and the preaching of Jesus Christ in relation to the matter vindicated and supported, by giving to the word andrapodistais, as here used by Paul, its plain, legitimate, and usual meaning, slave-stealers, persons who steal, or entice away from the possession of their masters, individuals who according to the law are slaves.

LESSON XIII.

THE inquiry naturally occurs, how happened it that St. Paul found it necessary to instruct and inform Timothy that the law forbid the stealing or enticing away other men's slaves. By an examination of his writings and letters to the Gentile churches, the fact is plainly proven that there had grown up among them some new doctrines, which his office as apostle made it his duty to reprehend. What these doctrines were we are enabled in some measure to discover, by examining the 7th of the 1st Corinthians, which com