κατεκόπησαν οὗτοι | εἰς τοὺς γάμους· “ Truly, they were just killed in time for the marriage-feast:" of which verse Mr. H. says, “vereor ne vocula aliqua exciderit, ut is xaipòv apa wús.” If the above arguments are just, the Attic form apa was derived from the two particlespa, and always has the force of an interrogation, an asseveration, or an exclamation; and is independent of any preceding proposition. "Apa, however, has an illative meaning, and is dependent on some previous proposition.' Allied to which is its sense of ws oixev, “naturally, as may be expected," &c. and it really seems to have an etymological affinity with pw, in the sense of fitness or adaptation. But we conceive that it has no connexion either in sense or derivation with apa; though the similarity of letters (but not to the Greeks of sound) has produced a confusion.2 Now it has been remarked by a writer who has made the language of the ancient poets his particular study, that in Homer ye is always an emphatic particle, and is never used after conjunctions, particles, &c.; such as dé, μév, pa, &c.3 Accordingly, pá ys does not once occur in Homer:4 nor, indeed, is γε used after apa by Thucydides or the tragedians (as far as we are aware); the earliest instances being found in Aristophanes. We will set down those which occur in Küster's edition. Nub. 465. Av. 1221. ἆρά γε τοῦτ ̓, ἆρ ̓ ἐγώ ποτ ̓ ἐπόψομαι ; ἆρά γ ̓ οἶσθα τοῦθ ̓, ὅτι δικαιότατ ̓ ἂν ληφθεῖσα πασῶν ̓Ιρίδων 1 Aristot. Rhet. II. 23. 8. ἄλλος ἐξ ὁρισμοῦ· οἷον “τί τὸ δαιμόνιόν ἐστιν; ἄρα θεὸς ἢ θεοῦ ἔργον.” καίτοι ὅστις οἴεται θεοῦ ἔργον εἶναι, τοῦτον ἀνάγκη οἴεσθαι καὶ θεοὺς εἶναι. Read ἆρα θεὸς ἢ θεοῦ ἔργον ; Another difference between the particles apa and ăpa is, that whereas the former was originally and properly used at the beginning of a sentence, the latter never was: a difference which is well exemplified in the following passage: Aristot. de Interpret. p. 68, 9. Sylb. ἆρά γε Σωκράτης σοφός ; οὔ. Σωκράτης ἄρα οὐ σοφός. 2"H yap, instead of pa or apa, is constantly used as an interrogative in Plato (Lex. Tim. in v. et Ruhnk.); but kept its archaic form in the Attic dialect, probably because the particles would not so readily coalesce, and therefore, not being in such familiar use, did not undergo any change in the mouths of the Athenians. Compare Schol. Plat. Phædr. p. 262. συνδεσμὸς ἀπορηματικὸς ἀντὶ τοῦ ἆρα τὸ ἦ, ὡς τὸ Η μοῦνοι φιλέουσ ̓ ἀλόχους μερόπων ἀνθρώπων Ατρείδαι ; • Knight Proleg. Homer. § 149. 4 Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 3. καί ῥά τ ̓ ἀναΐσσουσιν. “ Legebatur καί ῥά γ ̓ ἀναΐσgovor, quod nihili est." Hermann ad loc. The last editor reads kal yap ἀναΐσσουσιν. Plut. 546. ἆρά γε πολλῶν ἀγαθῶν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἀποφαίνω σ' αἴτιον οὖσαν ; Nub. 804. ἆρ ̓ αἰσθάνει Dindorf. Vesp. 484. ἆρά γ ̓, ὦ πρὸς τῶν θεῶν, ὑμεῖς ἀπαλλαχθεῖτέ μου; ap av Dindorf. In Xenophon, also, the same collocation of particles sometimes occurs; e. g. Mem. Socrat. 1. 5. 4. apá yε οὐ χρὴ πάντα ἄνδρα, &c. ; Ib. 111. 8. 3. ἆρά γε, ἔφη, ἐρωτᾷς με εἴ τι οἶδα πυρετοῦ ἀγαθόν ; 111. 2. 2. &c. In turning over the pages of Plato we do not perceive any instance of this usage, although there is so much interrogation; with the exception of the following passage, which is from a doubtful dialogue; Alcib. 11. p. 138 A. 'Aλxißiády, aga ye πρὸς τὸν θεὸν προσευξόμενος πορεύει ; In Aristotle this interrogative use of åpά ye is very common, as we remarked in our last number, and collected several instances, to which we beg to refer the reader, note to 111. 2. 17. p. 279.' We are not, however, aware of any passage in which apa is followed by ye, either of an ancient or modern writer, except Aristot. Eth. Nic. v. 2. 3. ἔστιν ἄρα γέ τις ἄλλη ἀδικία, where ye should probably be expunged. Compare v. 3. 11. σтaι apa ws ó opos, &c.2 G. C. L. On the Difference in the Chronology of the Samaritan and Greek Versions and the Hebrew Text of the Scriptures. THE difference which exists between the chronology of the Samaritan and Greek versions of the Scripture and the Hebrew text, and the discrepancies which at every page are found in the reckoning of this latter are of too striking a nature not to have been noticed by every attentive reader of the Bible. With 'The two references there given should be to 1. 6. 12. (where see Zell) and 1. 10. 2. 2 Particulam ye solenni vitio a librariis additam bis delevi. Elmsl. ad Eur. Her. 204. Tim. Lex. Photius, žπov, čpaye. Read žπov, apá ye. But Tov rather means surely, and is not interrogative. (See Elmsley ad Eur. Med. 1275; and, on the other hand, Hermann ad Med. 14.) In conclusion we may remark, that the accurate Dr. Elmsley, in his preface to the Edipus Tyrannus, p. viii. says, that råpa is compounded of Toι åpa: it is evidently compounded of τοι ἄρα. out speaking of the Samaritan version, which is evidently wrong, the difference between the Hebrew text and the Greek translation, according to Dr. Russell, amounts to 1437 years; according to Riccioli, to 1630; and according to the Alphonsine Tables, 2996 from Adam to Christ. The late discoveries made in the reading of hieroglyphics, and the many monuments which have been brought to light from Karnac, Louqsor, Abydos, Thebes, Memphis, and indeed from the whole of Egypt and Nubia, merely because they contradict the chronology of the Hebrew text, have been looked on with an unjust contempt by those who have never paid any attention to the subject. The object therefore, of the present article, is to show that the authenticity of these monuments is undeniable; that they do not contradict, nor are they contradicted by the Mosaic account, according to the Septuagint version, however they may differ from the chronology of the Hebrew text. The whole is derived from one of the lectures which the MARQUIS SPINETO read lately in Cambridge and in London on the interesting discoveries recently made in hieroglyphics, in which he endeavored to reconcile the Biblical chronology with the Egyptian monuments and the Egyptian historian Manetho. As every reader of the Bible must be well acquainted with the discrepancies that almost at every page are to be met with in the English translation of Scripture, which follows the reckoning of the Hebrew text, we do not think it necessary to enumerate any of them; although the Marquis, for the sake of establishing his point, might have been compelled to notice some. We shall therefore, follow our lecturer from the moment in which he turns his attention to the birth of Abraham: a point highly interesting for him to establish, inasmuch as this patriarch visited Egypt at a time when that country had already acquired a great degree of civilization and power: by establish ing the date of his appearance at the court of the Pharaoh then reigning, every objection will be removed that can be urged against the antiquity of Egypt. Now, according to the Hebrew text, the birth of Abraham happened in the year 292 after the flood, and 162 years after Nimrod. Taking his station on these data, our lecturer shows that as Nimrod was the son of Cush, "the mighty hunter," who began to be "a mighty one in the earth," the date of his birth, which is stated at 130 years after the flood, must be wrong. Gen. x. 8, 9. Between Noah and Nimrod, says the Marquis, we know there were only three generations. Noah begat Ham, Ham begat Cush, and Cush begat Nimrod: according to the sacred pages, ; in the first generation we have seven male individuals in the family of Japheth, four in that of Ham, five in that of Shem in all sixteen males. Before a wife can be given to each of these, we must suppose an equal number of daughters born in the respective families of these three brothers. Now let us suppose that these sixteen married couples were as fruitful as their parents, and that consequently each produced five sons and five daughters; the result will be 16 × 10-160 at the birth of Cush. These 160 individuals make eighty married couples; and on the same principle, allowing to each ten children, we shall have 80 × 10 800, as the number of children produced. To these, adding their fathers and mothers, their grandfathers and their grandmothers, and even their great grand-parents Noah and his wife, we have 1000 individuals in the whole. For the whole account will run thus: Noab, with his wife, his three sons and their wives 8 Children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, amongst whom Cush 32 800-1000 This is much too small a number to produce the usurpation of Nimrod, the building of Babel, the dispersion of mankind. For in the computation just made, more than one half were infants and young children, and therefore unable to assist in the mighty work of the building of Babel, and the foundation of the empire of Babylon. In this computation eighty males have been allowed to the second generation after Noab, when in fact the Scripture reckons only thirty-six. For in Genesis x. and xi. we have seven males recorded in the family of Japheth, twenty-four in that of Ham, and five in that of Shem thirty-six. On these considerations it certainly appears that the chronology of the Hebrew text is much too short, and that the reckoning of the Septuagint, which places the birth of Nimrod in the year 334 after the flood, that is 204 years later, is more reasonable, as the period of 334 years is long enough to allow a sufficient increase of mankind, and forty or fifty years after, to found empires and to separate under different leaders. If then the date of the birth of Nimrod, as it is stated in the Hebrew text, is wrong, it follows that the date of the birth of Abraham must be equally so. For, according to that reckoning, this patriarch visited Egypt 292 years after the flood, and he was then sixty-six years old. Gen. xii. 4. We must therefore have recourse to the Septuagint, and there we find the birth of Abraham to have happened in the year 1070 after the flood. This account of the Septuagint is confirmed also by profane history, by Syncellus, Alexander Polyhistor, Africanus, and the celebrated Moses Choronensis, who in his Armenian history has preserved a valuable fragment from Abydenus, an industrious compiler of Chaldean records. And indeed all these writers appear to have copied from more ancient authors the events which they have recorded, the date of which is now lost in the darkness of a very remote antiquity. All these historians agree in mentioning the names of eighteen different kings who succeeded Nimrod at Babylon; and from their accounts it seems quite an established fact, that Abraham was a contemporary with Ninus, and that between Nimrod and Ninus three successive dynasties held the throne of that empire for the space of 657 years; when Ninus having conquered Arbelus, the fourth descendant of Belus, founded the Assyrian empire, strictly so called. He was a descendant of Ashur, the first founder of that monarchy," who," according to the Mosaic account, went forth from the land of Babel and built Nineveh, and other cities." If therefore, to the 364 years, when Nimrod built Babylon, the whole duration of that monarchy previous to Ninus be added, the sum will be 364 +657=1021 for the date of the birth of Ninus; and as this conqueror was a contemporary of Abraham, it follows that the computation of the Septuagint, which places the birth of that patriarch in the year 1070 after the flood, is nearer to the mark. Again, when Abraham visited Egypt, that country had already attained a very high degree of civilisation and power; but the natural state of Egypt, exposed to violent inundations and drought, was such as to require an immensity of labour to cut the numberless canals which were to carry the superabundant waters into the vast reservoirs, from which at proper times they were again to be distributed over the land. The performance of such works, the building of cities such as those which are exhibited by their gigantic ruins, require a numerous population, and a length of time; in short, the assistance of ages. This length of time may be easily conceived from perusing the 23d chapter of Genesis; where an account is given of the purchase of the field of Machpelah made by Abraham to bury his wife, for which he paid "four hundred shekels of silver current money. But coined money presupposes the digging of the mines, the art of melting and working metals; in which even modern experience, assisted by the vast power of machinery we possess, requires an immensity of labour, and a great length of time. Although it would be impossible in so short an article to follow the ingenious lecturer in all the reasonings by which he |