deσmbrηy, God, is clear in Luke 2. 29: "Now let thy servant depart, O Lord (margin, "Master"), according to thy word in peace;" also Acts 4. 24, "And they, when they heard it, lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, O Lord (margin, "Master"), thou that didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is." It cannot be denied, however, that the word "Master" is also applied to Christ as in 2 Pet. 2. 1, "Denying even the Master that bought them." In view of the fact that the word rendered "Master" is applied both to God and Christ we may justly accept the ordinary canon of the Greek grammar in which the absence of the article before "Lord" in the second part of the sentence will justify the rendering that this passage refers to one person, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ. The comment of Adam Clarke is: "The passage, I believe, belongs solely to Jesus Christ, and may be read thus: Denying the only Sovereign Ruler, even our Lord Jesus Christ." On this passage a modern commentator, Plummer, has called attention to the threefold designations in these verses. In verse 1 the writer describes himself as Jude, servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James. He also gives a threefold designation of his readers, as "called," "beloved," "preserved." He further calls attention to another triplet, in verse 2, which probably looks back to the one just preceding, "called by great mercy, preserved in peace and beloved in love." He further notes in verse 4 the threefold description of the men "thus written down for judgment." "Ungodly they perverted God's grace, they denied Christ." These suggestions are somewhat fanciful, but it is certainly a striking characteristic of style that the number three should be so apparent in so short a paragraph in this epistle.

The verses which we have thus far considered may well constitute the introduction to the main letter; and they show us the care with which the writer opens his subject and indicate the importance of the communication which he is thus making to the saints.

Verse 5. "Now I desire to put you in remembrance," that is, to remind you afresh. The tense is aorist, indicating the immediacy and singleness of the act. He would remind them of that with which they are familiar and of which he purposes to give them an illustration. He assumes that they have already known matters of importance and in the following clause he says, "though ye know all things once for all." The Greek word (åre; once for all) may be construed with "putting you in remembrance" or "know all things." The revisers applied it to the latter but it seems better to apply it to the former, and to say, "put you in remembrance once for all." It has been supposed by some that the phrase "know all things" referred to the Old Testament history, and assumed their familiarity with it. He begins by reminding them of an historical fact in the history of God's people. "That the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not." It is a statement that privileges once possessed and deliverances once achieved do not prevent judgment if men fall from their steadfastness. More than one instance of the backslidings of God's ancient people

is recorded in the Old Testament. In Numbers 14. 22, 23, is written: "Because all those men that have seen my glory, and signs which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that despised me see it." We have a similar statement in Ps. 106. 24-26: "Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word, but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not to the voice of Jehovah, therefore he sware unto them that he would overthrow them in the wilderness." The New Testament also represents their unbelief and disobedience as examples of warning. We find an illustration in 1 Cor. 10. 9-11: "Neither let us make trial of the Lord, as some of them made trial and perished by the serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer. Now these things happened unto them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come." A similar use of their history is found in Hebrews 3. 17-19, "And with whom was he displeased forty years? was it not with them that sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient? And we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief." This passage is fruitful in suggestiveness to us as it was in the time of Jude. In the words "desire to put you in remembrance" we may note a resemblance to the phraseology of the other writers. The same word droμμvý okwiv “to bring to remembrance" is used once by Luke, twice by John, twice by Paul, and once by Peter. It has reference to something they have known-namely the history of their ancestors-and which Jude would not allow them to forget. He reminds them of the historic events which they were inclined to forget. This passage indicates that his hearers were in part Jews, else they would not be asked to remember this. The Jews from childhood were trained in the letter of the Old Testament scriptures. The most cursory study of the New Testament writers who were brought up in Judaism will convince one of this. They do not need to be informed. They only need to remember, and he purposes to reform them by urging them to remember the punishments that followed those who had disobeyed God and which would surely follow them. We too are in danger of letting the examples of those Biblical historical events slip from our memories or letting their influence over us pass away. It is the business of the minister to refresh the memory of his congregation with things they know well. Any one who notes with care the periodical press, and especially the daily press, will observe that they refer to incidents which took place even a short time ago, and when something happens that is related to it they rehearse the whole story anew. This tendency to forgetfulness is so common that we may well accept this teaching as a type of the need of our time.

This passage also is a reminder of the truth of those great historic events to which reference is made. Jude wrote of them with the knowledge that they were historic events and with confidence that the people

would recognize them as such and would be influenced by them. So many references are made to them in the way of appeal that we cannot but be convinced that they were written deep in the hearts of the people and they needed only to have their memories refreshed in order that illustrations drawn from them should make the proper impression.

Verse 6. A further example of warning. From the example of Israel he turns to "angels which kept not their own principality." dyyeλous TE τους μὴ τηρήσαντας τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀρχήν. Their own principality may be rendered their original state. A description of that state is now impossible, perhaps we could not comprehend it if it had been revealed to us. It may refer to the dignity of their position as the highest beings among the creation of God, or to their characteristics, the excellence and grandeur of their character and the beneficence of their work. That they did not keep it was a sin, and the declaration shows that they were endowed originally with free will.

"But left their proper habitation.” olêηtýpív. The habitation, whatever it was, was fitting to their nature and position. It is by many thought to be heaven. Whatever it be, it is that place which they occupied in the economy of God. Some have thought that they aspired for a place for which God had not intended them and their ambitions were their fall. In seeking the higher they lost that which they originally possessed and in which they might have remained happy.

"He hath kept." God has kept them for the judgment of the great day, the final judgment which will take place when the history of men and angels shall be summed up. It will be a great day when God shall summon all to meet the awards of their character and deeds. These angels had rejected the divine order and had willfully apostatized from God and he kept them in everlasting bonds under darkness. The passage answering to this is in 2 Peter 2. 4: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." The meaning is obscure and we may not venture to expound more definitely. Alford's remark on this passage is well worth quoting: "The iró in both cases is to be accounted for by the darkness being considered as brooding over them and they under it. There is apparently a difference which we cannot explain between the description of the rebel angels here and in 2 Peter, and that in the rest of the New Testament, where the devil and his angels are said to be powers of the air, and to go about tempting men. But perhaps we are wrong in absolutely identifying the evil spirits mentioned here with those spoken of in 2 Peter."

ARCHEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL RESEARCH

LAWS OF ANCIENT BABYLONIA

THAT the civilization of the Euphrates and Tigris Valleys had reached a high stage of development in the third mellennium before our era is no longer doubted by students of ancient history. The discoveries of the past twenty-five years have been such as to allow us to speak with comparative certainty of the customs, manners and laws of the ancient Babylonians. Thousands upon thousands of tablets of all sorts have been dug up and deciphered. The number already published and made public is small compared with the unread inscriptions in our several museums. Of the contract tablets with which we are familiar none are more interesting and instructive than those dating back to the age of Hammurabi and his immediate predecessors and successors. The code bearing the name of this great ruler, produced about 2250 B. C., has been the admiration of the learned world, for though coming from grey antiquity it is so complete as to force the conclusion that ages of culture and civilization had already elapsed. The discovery of such a code was no surprise, for inscriptions and contracts bearing Hammurabi's name had been discovered in large numbers at several places. These showed clearly that he lived at a time which had left barbarism far in the rear. When, however, de Morgan dug up at Susa the stele with nearly three hundred laws carved upon it, we had satisfactory proof of the glorious reign of the great Hammurabi. In order that our readers may the more fully appreciate the civilization of that busy age we can do no better than reproduce a number of these most ancient documents, which compare favorably in language and contents with the deeds, leases and contracts of our own time. Prof. Bruno Meissner, of the University of Berlin, a man well versed in Assyriology, has published a very complete list of these ancient contracts in a recent issue of "Der Alte Orient" [7 Jahrgang, Heft I.], We shall here reproduce from his German translation a few specimens.

As in most Semitic countries so also in Babylonia public business was transacted in the presence of witnesses, either at the gate of the city or at the entrance of the principal temple. No contract was valid unless duly signed by at least two witnesses. Public business and religious ceremony were inseparable. How could it have been otherwise under a government which had so much of the theocratic in its nature? God was supposed to speak directly through his priests and the king. The latter, though not a priest, was often the head of the priestly class, for the temples were generally under his direct patronage. "The influence of the priests upon the people was exerted from many sides, for not only were they God's representatives, whose services were required for any act of worship or intercession, but they also regulated and controlled all departments of public life." Jastrow, speaking of this point, says:

"The theory of the divine right of kings was rigidly adhered to in Babylonia and Assyria. The king was the vicar of the deity upon earth, his representative, who enjoyed divine favor and who was admitted into the confidence of the gods. In earlier days priestly functions were indissolubly associated with kingship." The oldest kings of Assyria called themselves "the priests of Ashur." But let us proceed to the documents, many of these are of the nature of deeds, leases, etc., Take for instance the following:

Gimillu, the son of Ibi-ilu, has bought the parcel of land with the house upon it from Sinatu, Et-el-pi-marduk and Gimil-marduk, the owners of said property, and has paid one-third mina four and a half shekels for the same. This property, having the house of Ilu-Kashu in the rear, faces the street; on one side of it is the house of Munnawirri and on the other that of Avurrru. Never let there be any litigation concerning this sale. Sworn by Marduk and Hammurabi the King.

This very ancient deed was drawn up about the same time that Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah from the children of Heth. A comparison, therefore, with Gen. 23:16ff as to language and form will be eminently proper:

And Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the border thereof round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.

Is it too much to expect that some lucky archæologist may yet, some day, dig up the very deed or contract tablet given Abraham by the children of Heth for Machpelah? There can be no reasonable doubt that it was written like other clay tablets of that age.

In addition to the signatures of the witnesses, there are tablets having the names of the judges in whose court the contract was executed. The following is one of that class:

The case of Belisinnu, Nabsamu and Sutatu, the daughter of Izidare versus Kuiatu and Sumurach, sons of Azaliah, involving the sale of a field, a house, a male and a female slave, and a palm-garden, adjoining the field of Bizi-zana and the templelands of Shamash. The judges in the temple of Shamash dismissed the case without appeal. Done at the temple of Shamash. Sworn by Shamash, Ai, Marduk and Zabu. Occasionally we find records of chattels sold. Here is one relating to a steer disposed of at an excessively high figure:

Ina-bibbi-nishit, a priestess, the daughter of Pirchi-ibishu, has bought a threeyear-old steer from Sinidinna, the son of Sheru-bani, and has paid one half mina, being the full value, for the same.

Houses and lands were let and sublet for stated periods, the former usually for one year, the latter seldom, if ever, for less than three years. To judge from the ridiculously low rents, houses could have been nothing more than mere huts of the simplest construction, for the average annual rent paid was one shekel. Indeed in some cases it was only one third of