became mildness and benevolence. Invisibly or in assumed forms the spirit of the man of God turns the hearts of disobedient children to their parents; of unfeeling parents towards their children; and guides the conversation of all who seek true wisdom to her abodes, and unites their souls in love and harmony. 'Harbinger of good, he aids the righteous in the hour of danger, and is ever present to solace and strengthen those who pray. His office is to proclaim to mankind the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.' That eminent writer and truly original thinker, Sir Thomas Browne, in his treatise on Vulgar Errors, in reference to the species of literature to which this article applies, says that An apologue of Æsop is [to many] beyond a syllogism, and proverbs more powerful than demonstrations.' Apologues, fables, and parables are indeed among the most ancient, most agreeable, and most effective modes of instruction. The fable of the Belly and Members, and its effect upon a Roman mob, is well known to every reader of Shakspeare and of the Roman history. That apologue, and its aptitude to the occasion, was, in that instance, beyond all the syllogisms that the wise and politic consul could have produced. In this case Menenius Agrippa found Æsop more powerful than Aristotle. In like manner did the learned Rabbis in the middle ages, who flourished in Spain, in Africa, and in Asia, communicate knowledge and instruction to their disciples, giving them pleasing apologues, entertaining allegories, and heart-stirring poetry, mostly founded on Holy Writ, and sometimes heightened by apophthegms of wisdom, authoritative sayings, or maxims, compressed into brevity without obscurity, preferring proverbs to demonstrations, which, with all the logic of the schools, they left to the disputants and traditionists, seeking principally to deliver wise counsels in a pleasing manner, and, in the language of the wisest of their teachers, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. To understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings.' 6 e That the Israelites of the present day have not lost all their feeling for poetry, or of the taste necessary for its cultivation, is proved by the sacred ode or hymn that was performed after the service of the consecration of the Great Synagogue in Duke's Place, Aldgate, on the 24th of the month Elul, A.M. 5595 (18th September, A.D. 1835); also a translation, in ten-syllable iambics, d Prov. i. 4 and 6. See the Hebrew original and the English paraphrase in the Hebrew Review, vol. ii. p. 394. f Ib., vol. ii. p. 43. of of an episode on the Passage of the Red Sea, from an epic poem 'Their path is clear. The lowest inmost depth Arose; and when the rising sun had seen The briny flood with nought but sea-weed crown'd, The herbs and shrubs that clothed the new-form'd path. Which still defy the gnawing-tooth of Time.' Other passages and other poets might be cited, which the limits of this dissertation will not admit. Let the truly Biblical Hebraic compositions, written for the English Synagogues, for the service of their congregations on appointed public days of thanksgiving, prayer, fasting, and humiliation, by the learned Chief Rabbi, Dr. Adler, be remembered by all who have read them. EF CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE TRUE MEANING OF THE WORD Παρασκευή. Chronologische Synopse der vier Evangelien. Ein Beitrag zur Apologie der Evangelien und evangelischen Geschichte vom Standpunkt der Voraussetsungslosigkeit. Von KARL WIESELER, Licentiat und Privatdocent [now Professor] in Göttingen. Hamburg, Perthes, 1843. 8vo. § 1. WHOEVER will cast a discerning glance at the literature which, since the early times of Christianity, the important problem of harmonizing the Gospels has called into existence, must find that, however greatly individual opinions vary upon various points, they all agree in opposing the so-called synoptical narratives, as a unity, to that of St. John; thus reflecting a kind of dualism within the Sacred Volume itself. Whether this dualism, asserted or supposed, admitted or denied, but as yet never satisfactorily disproved, be real or merely apparent, is the momentous and all-absorbing question, on the ultimate and positive solution of which the future history of our religion must necessarily in a great measure depend. In Germany the conviction that such a dualism does, and undeniably does, exist, has of late years gained rapid ground: not only among those whom we are, perhaps, somewhat too apt to call infidels, but also among men alike distinguished for their genuine piety and their eminent learning. §2. The most important work of an orthodox tendency which the modern press of Germany has produced on this subject, is the volume, whose title (A Chronological Synopsis of the Four Gospels') we have placed at the head of this article. Its author, Professor Wieseler, is generally looked upon as a successful champion of the Faith. The more sincere is, therefore, our regret that we cannot bestow on his work as high a praise as we could have wished to do. Its merits, certainly, are considerable, and there are facts adduced and views developed in it which to many may appear both new and striking; yet in reviewing the Synopsis as a whole, we can hardly pronounce it to be much more than a valuable, though at the same time somewhat superficial, compilation, the original matter mixed up in it forming a series of those wild and untenable hypotheses, to which the German savants, notwithstanding their usually profound and solid acquirements, are so peculiarly given; and which never fail to injure the good good cause, which they are intended to support, in the exact proportion of their extravagance, and the amount of learning and ingenuity wasted upon them. That § 3. It is not, however, our intention to lay before our readers a general criticism of Professor Wieseler's work. We prefer selecting from among the numerous questions on which it treats a single subject, and, making his views on this subject the basis of our own remarks, to investigate it as thoroughly as the compass of an article and the limited extent of our powers will permit us. we should have chosen for such a purpose the simple expression Tagaonεun may, at first sight, excite some surprise; but it will be seen from the sequel that the correct translation of this term vitally affects-of all the apparent contradictions in our Gospels from which the theory of a dualism has sprung, the most important, because the most positive one-the asserted contradiction between St. John and the synoptical writers as to the day on which our Blessed Lord partook of his last supper with his disciples. Our measured space will not permit us to allude here to the various hypotheses by which it has been attempted to meet and explain this generally acknowledged difficulty; but we may venture to state that, without an exception, their united effect thus far has been but further to embarrass the already in itself embarrassing question. § 4. The New-Testament term aрaσneun is in our version of the Bible rendered sometimes the day of preparation,' sometimes simply the preparation.' Luther has invariably translated it Rüsttag. The Vulgate has 'parasceve' for it. 'It admits of no doubt,' Professor Wieseler writes, page 336, 'but that παρασκευή, without the adjunctive words τοῦ σαββάτου, was by the Jews, when expressing themselves in the Greek language, used as a common term for our Friday: e. g., St. Luke, xxiii. 54; St. Mark, xv. 42; St. Matthew, xxvii. 62; St. John, xix. 31, 42; and Josephus, Antiq., xvi. 6, 2 (even in an imperial decree). Compare also, in reference to St. Mark, xv. 42, the passage Judith, viii. 6, important as to the names and the character of the Jewish feasts. The ecclesiastical writers, likewise, express our Friday usually by aρаσкενý.' The latter fact does not apply to the question at issue (see § 12); and as the learned Professor, when stating that apzonεUŃ without the adjunctive words to saßßárov, signifies the sixth day of the week, thereby acknowledges that the term (which, in connection with those words, nowhere occurs) admits at least of a different explanation, he must have derived his reasons for the opinion he has adopted from the Scriptural and other passages to which he refers. Let us examine these passages. § 5. The imperial decree of Augustus, mentioned by Josephus, Antiq., 6 Antiq., xvi. 6, 2, releases the Jews from the duty of appearing in the public courts of justice on Sabbath days (which included not only the Sabbath proper, but also the Jewish high-feasts of sabbatical rank, comp. § 26) and τῇ πρὸ ταύτης παρασκευῇ ἀπὸ ὥρας ἐνάτης. But it is evident that παρασκευή does not, in this place, stand for either Friday' or the day of preparation;' firstly, on account of its construction with pò rauτns, the highfeasts of the Jews at that period falling, as it might happen, on any of the week-days (Mishna, Pesach, vii. 10; Menach, x. 3; Chagiga, ii. 4, etc.); and secondly, because, contrary to the unequivocal mode of expression in use among the Romans, the words anò pas évárns would leave it uncertain whether the ninth (Jewish) hour of the night (about three o'clock in the morning) or of the day (about three o'clock in the afternoon) be meant. Undoubtedly the words of our text must be rendered 'neither on sabbath-days, nor during the preceding preparation-time, after the ninth hour;' for no other translation would impart to them a concise meaning (comp. § 25). 6 6 6 § 6. A still clearer proof against Professor Wieseler's interpretation is furnished us by St. Luke, xxiii. 54.b Whether we adopt the common reading of this passage, nai μéga žv παρασκευή, or the decidedly better reading καὶ ἡμέρα ἦν παραOxεUS, and translate and the day was Friday;' or, and it was the day of Friday; or, and it was the day of the preparationday,' who would charge St. Luke with expressions like these for and it was the day of the preparation [time],' i. e. the day on which the preparation-time fell? The English version, and that day was the preparation,' is evidently erroneous; whilst both the German und es war Rüsttag,' and the Latin 'et dies erat parasceves,' are, in this instance, as evidently correct; but, it must be well observed, correct only because in our text the word μépa is expressly combined with Tapaσxɛvn: a combination sufficient in itself to prove that the latter term, in the times of the Apostles, distinctly excluded the meaning of day,' whether embodied in the expression Friday' or 'preparation-day.' 6 § 7. St. Mark, xv. 42, is the next passage quoted by Professor Wieseler. He says, p. 344, in reference to it, 'Here also the day of our Lord's crucifixion is called napaonɛun (Friday), which term is explained by the generally intelligible words T προσάββατον. He would consequently translate, and now as a μοι. 6 Καίσαρ Σεβαστός, ἀρχιερεὺς, δημαρχικῆς ἐξουσίας λέγει. ἔδοξέ τοὺς Ἰουδαίους χρῆσθαι τοῖς ἰδίοις θεσμοῖς. . ἐγγύας τε μὴ ὁμολογεῖν αὐτοὺς ἐν σάββασιν, ἢ τῇ πρὸ ταύτης παρασκευῇ ἀπὸ ὥρας ἐνάτης. · Καὶ ἡμέρα ἦν παρασκευῆς, καὶ σάββατον ἐπέφωσκε. · Καὶ ἡδη ὀψίας γενομένης, ἐπεὶ ἦν παρασκευὴ (ὅ ἐστι [προσάββατον] πρὸς σάββατον), ἦλθεν Ἰωσὴφ, κ. τ. λ. the |