Μωϋσέως καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν προφητῶν, —where the construction of the genitives is the same, and where the preposition is repeated, as it is not in Acts iii. 24; in this case there can be no doubt that the use made of Moses is identical in kind with the use made of all the prophets.

And if we regard the phrase as an inexact one, in which two constructions are mingled: (1.) "All the prophets, from Samuel on, as many as spoke," and (2.) "All the prophets, Samuel and the following, as many as spoke,"-still it is plain that (in 2) Samuel is included under the prophets who spoke, and the fact that such a mingling of the two constructions was possible, shows that Peter, or whoever is responsible for the precise form of the utterance as we have it, did not discriminate between "Samuel" and "the prophets," or between "Samuel" and "those who followed," in their respective functions.

It must be further observed out tháiŋoar does not, on the most natural interpretation, limit the návtes dè oi npoçîtat, (so that, e. g., Samuel might not be included), but rather emphasizes vs. For škálŋav must be taken in a general sense, to denote the utterance of prophecy, or perhaps, more exactly, of predictive prophecy. The meaning then is: "All the prophets-as many as exercised their prophetic functions in (predictive) utterance-told of these days." If we attempt to limit the meaning of a to Messianic prediction, then a tautology results; and no one will maintain that day can be used in mere contrast with prophets who wrote, or prophets who were silent. Those, then, who "told of these days" are the same persons who "spoke," and these are the same with "all the prophets," including "Samuel and those who followed." Doubtless the statement of the verse, thus understood, is hyperbolical, because there were some persons, e. g., Elijah, Elisha, Nahum, and many besides, who were prophets, and who "spoke," but who did not, so far as we are aware, "tell of these days." But this does not warrant us in supposing that the one prophet whose name is expressly mentioned, is to be classed among those who are thus, in the use of hyperbole, ignored.

But if Samuel uttered no Messianic prophecy, and is yet included among those who did utter such prophecies, there is no reasonable explanation of this, except that he is so included because the book which goes by his name contains such a prophecy, and we should understand the reference to Samuel to be at bottom a reference to the words of Nathan, 2 Sam. vii. 12-16,-the one great Messianic proph

name.

ecy of the book. Now, just as little as Peter, on this interpretation, would intend to say that Samuel was the original speaker of the words which Nathan actually spoke, would he necessarily imply, or be understood to imply, that Samuel wrote the book which bears his For the object of using the name of Samuel would be to identify the prophecy. And whatever cause, independent of his actual authorship of it, might lead to the connection of Samuel's name with this book, that cause, or the resulting habit of so connecting book and name, would suffice to explain Peter's use of the name to designate the book. If, e. g., it were commonly called "Book of Samuel," or "Samuel," because Samuel was a prominent figure in it, then Peter would not imply that Samuel wrote it, when he used this name for it. As a matter of fact, intelligent Bible-students, who now use the name do not mean by it "the book which Samuel wrote," but simply "the book which goes by Samuel's name." It is as a mere title that the term is employed, as in the case of "the Books of Kings" and other anonymous writings of the Old TestaThere cannot, therefore, be even a fair presumption in favor of the view that if Peter here refers, as he probably does, to the "Book of Samuel," under the name of "Samuel," he thereby implies that Samuel wrote the book to which he refers.

ment.

JEREMIAH.

Matt. ii. 17 and xxvii. 9. The introductory formula is the same in each case : Τότε ἐπληρώθη τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ἰερεμίου του προφήτου λέγοντος. It is true that there are some variant readings to Matt. xxvii. 9, but these, it is well known, are of insignificant authority. (See Westcott and Hort, Notes on Select Readings, p. 18.)

We are all familiar with the efforts of commentators to reconcile this undoubted reading with the equally indubitable fact that in the prophecies attributed to Jeremiah, in the Old Testament, no such passage occurs, the citation is manifestly from Zech. xi. 12, 13. Such efforts are the attempts to show, e. g., that Zechariah is simply repeating and enlarging prophecies of Jeremiah (xviii., xix.), (Hengstenberg); that Matthew cites from some lost writing of Jeremiah (so from Origen, various Comm.); or an orally transmitted prophecy uttered by Jeremiah (Calovius); or that Jeremiah headed the collection of prophets, and the whole collection was therefore called by his name (Lightfoot and others); or that a mistake in writing occurred when the Gospel was first issued (Morrison). The recognition of the baseless character of all these attempts leads Turpie to the thoroughly consistent (if not original) view," that Jeremiah really

did write that portion of Zechariah's book whence the quotation is made," (i. e. chap. ix.-xi.). Now this involves, not only the dismembership of the book of Zechariah, but also one of two other things: either there was a genuine and trustworthy tradition connecting these prophecies with Jeremiah's name, a tradition which has strangely vanished from all other testimony which we possess, and appears only in this incidental mention in Matthew, -in which case it is impossible to understand why these prophecies were not from an early time attributed to Jeremiah, and united with his other prophecies; or the true authorship was expressly revealed to Matthew, and to him alone, in which case there would be an apparently purposeless and useless breaking through of the general principle already noticed, namely, that questions of authorship were not prominent concerns of revelation;-purposeless and useless, unless it can be shown to be of great consequence to the bearing of the prophecy on the case to which it is applied, that it should have been from Jeremiah and no other. The hypothesis is thus not to be entertained unless we are prepared to deny the rights of exegetical science and the efficacy of exegetical methods in interpreting the Scriptures. And yet this appears to be the most nearly tenable view of all those that have been mentioned. For if the words τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ιερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου Ayotos are of sufficient importance to occasion any difficulty, they must be taken in their real meaning, i. e., "that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying" ("who said" or "when he said"). The views of Hengstenberg and Lightfoot do not satisfy these words; the view of Morrison would destroy all confidence in the New Testament text; and the views of Origen and Calovius are even less likely to be right than that which Turpie maintains, since it is easier to suppose that Jeremiah wrote Zech. ix.-xi. than to suppose that words which occur with such an approximate accuracy in Zech. xi. 12, 13 occurred also, and originally, in some otherwise unknown written or spoken utterance of Jeremiah. But the only reason for adopting either of these views is the supposed necessity of giving a literal force and binding authority to the words Tù lèv ôià Ιερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος. Before we decide that this supposed necessity is a sufficient reason for resorting to such frail explanations, it is well to remind ourselves that the case before us does not stand quite alone in the New Testament. Whether the reference to Isaiah, in Mark i. 2, is at all similar, need not now be decided; that passage will be considered in another connection. But there is a nearly parallel instance in the Epistle of Jude. Jude 14, 15, we read:

"And to these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, [Gr. ἐν ἁγίαις μυριάσιν αὐτοῦ], to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." The introductory formula of quotation is here: Ἐπροφήτευσεν δὲ καὶ τοῦτοῖς ἑβδομος ἀπὸ ̓Αδάμ Ey Ayov, in which, although the divine origin of the prophecy is not brought out as it is in τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ἰερεμίου, the human authorship is even more distinctly asserted. The demand to either accept or explain away the statement as to Jeremiah involves, à fortiori, the same demand as to Enoch. But in the latter case none of the explanations attempted in the former case can by any means apply. One of the alternatives would here be still more violent. We should have to say that either Enoch, seventh from Adam, did actually utter this prophecy which Jude records, or Jude's book is not authoritative, and ought to go out of the canon. Now the canonicity of Jude is firmly established, so that interpreters have been pressed toward the first alternative. But in fact we find the passage which Jude cites in the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch I. 9. We append three translations of that original passage:

De Sacy. (Cf. Magasin Encyclopédique, VI., i. 382), cited in Huther's Comm. on Jude, 4th Germ. ed., 1877, Eng. trans., 1881: "Et venit cum myriadibus sanctorum, ut faciat judicium super eos, et perdat impios et litigat cum omnibus carnalibus pro omnibus quae fecerunt et operati sunt contra eum peccatores et impii.”

Dillmann.-(Das Buch Henoch, 1853): "Und siehe er kommt mit Myriaden von Heiligen, um Gericht über sie zu halten, und wird die Gottlosen vermichten und rechten mit allem Fleisch über Alles, was die Sünder und die Gottlosen gagen ihn gethan und begangen. haben.".

Schodde.-(Book of Enoch, 1882): "And behold he comes with myriads of the holy to pass judgment upon them, and will destroy the impious, and will call to account all flesh for everything the sinners and the impious have done and committed against him."

Now, if these words, which are thus referred to a period antedating the Christian era by only a little, are cited by Jude, as they are, under the name of Enoch, and if the alternative forced upon us is, either to consider them an actual utterance of Enoch, the ancient patriarch, or to look upon Jude as an untruthful-and hence uncanonical-book, probably no sober scholar would hesitate to decide

in favor of the latter. But if we are not willing to accept this alternative, then we must be willing to take the position that the formula of quotation in Jude 14 does not oblige us to consider the patriarch Enoch the actual author of the words there quoted. But then neither does the formula of quotation in Matt. xxvii. 9 oblige us to consider the prophet Jeremiah the actual author of the words there quoted.*

true.

Some may perhaps claim that while Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch, and gives it a certain authority, he yet writes in the full consciousness of the pseudonymic character of its title, and that his hearers are aware of this also, so that he is not mistaken in the matter, and they are not misled. To this it might be replied: (1.) Such a thing is indeed not inconceivable, and as one among several possibilities it might be allowed to stand; but as the only ground upon which a defence of Jude could be based, it is insufficient. There is no evidence in favor of it except the supposed necessity of having it And little as we can believe that the Book of Enoch contained prophecies 3,000 years older than itself, just as little can we affirm that men in the first Christian century, even if they knew of the comparatively recent origin of the book, were sure that it did not contain such prophecies. If Jude himself thought this might be the case, then his words express this opinion; if his readers thought so, then his words would confirm them in their belief. In the absence of testimony on this point, we cannot make the possibility of their greater enlightenment into the corner-stone of our own faith. (2.) The straightforwardness and the precise shape of the citation-formula are opposed to the view that the book cited was believed to be pseudepigraphical with no genuine contents. (3.) It is difficult to see on what ground Jude could regard the book as authoritative, and therefore fit to be cited, if he held it to be a pseudepigraph, of which no part was genuine, since it certainly was not regarded as one of the sacred, canonical books. (4.) That he did so, or even may have done so, ought least of all to be claimed by those who are strenuous

*The composition and date of the Book of Enoch present questions too complicated, and requiring too elaborate discussion, for an examination here. It is sufficient for our purposes to say that the book seems to be a Jewish work, put together from several distinct documents of the second and first centuries B. C., with some Christian interpolations, The absence of any allusion to the menacing armies of Rome indicates that the latest portions cannot be put far down in the first century A. D.