Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

PUBLISHED BY G.LANE & L. SCOTT 200 MULBERRY ST. NEW YORK.

THE

METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1850.

ART. I.—PLUTARCH: HIS LIFE, CHARACTER, AND TIMES.

Plutarch on the Delay of the Deity in the Punishment of the Wicked. With Notes by H. B. HACKETT, Professor of Biblical Literature in Newton Theological Institution. Andover: Published by Allen, Morrill, & Wardwell. New-York: Mark H. Newman. 1844.

PROFESSOR HACKETT has done good service at once to classical and theological learning, by this beautiful edition of one of the best treatises of the great Grecian moralist. The editor was formerly professor of the Greek and Latin languages in Brown University. He is now professor of Biblical literature in the Theological Institution at Newton. In the work before us he has treasured up choice and ripe fruits from his studies in both these departments. Every page breathes the spirit of the scholar, while, at the same time, it is fragrant with a purer incense than was ever offered to the gods of Helicon or Olympus. We love to see the bards and sages of Pagan antiquity thus ministering at the altar of Jehovah, and human wisdom returning to do homage at its source, even as the streams all flow back to the ocean,

"Whence all the rivers, all the seas have birth,

And every fountain, every well on earth."

It is the glory of some of the ripest scholars both of the Old and the New World, that they have consecrated their classical learning to the illustration of the Bible and the honour of religion. They could not devote it to a more sacred cause, nor could they bring a more appropriate offering. The New Testament was written in Greek; and they only who are masters of the original language, possess the key by which they can open to view all its hidden beauties, and bring forth for use all its concealed treasures. Christianity had its origin when the Greek language was almost universally spoken,FOURTH SERIES, VOL. II.-1

when the Roman Empire was almost co-extensive with the known world. Its history and literature are thus indissolubly interwoven with the literature and history of Greece and Rome. The stream flows indeed fast by our homes and firesides. It waters our fields and gardens. It gladdens the cities of our God. We and our children bathe in its sacred waters, and drink from it life, health, love, and all sweet charities. But the fountain lies in a distant land; and, if we would keep the stream pure, if we would not, ere we are aware, find it poisoned, and drink from it pollution and death, we must have men who are able to trace it to its source and guard the fountain,— men who are acquainted with the geography and history of the country, familiar with its language, manners, and customs, and in all respects, so far as possible, on an equal footing with the native inhabitants,―men in whom profound learning and believing piety reign in such harmony and perfection, that they can reproduce in themselves, and help to reproduce in others, not only the outward circumstances, but the inward spirit of those holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Too often, indeed, the one or the other of these equally essential elements is sadly deficient in those who have attempted to combine classical with Biblical literature. The spirit of patient research and accurate observation on the one hand, or that of pious reverence and holy love for the mysteries of religion on the other, has been defective, if not wholly wanting. But we think Professor Hackett remarkably free from this charge. Alike familiar with the Bible and the classics, he has an eye to see the beauties of both, and a heart to feel their power. He lavishes no extravagant panegyrics on either. Still less does he look upon either with frigid indifference. He never puts down the one, that he may put up the other. Neither does he overlook their distinctive features, confound their characteristic elements, and place them on the same common level. He indulges in no far-fetched analogies, no overstrained contrasts, but holds the balance with an even hand, and calmly points out the real resemblances and the real differences, whether in language, doctrine, or spirit,-at an equal remove from the frigid rationalist, who sits in judgment on the word of God as if it were the reasonings or the conjectures of man, and from the bigoted theologian, who regards all the beauty and excellence conceded to Pagan literature and philosophy as so much detracted from the glory of the Christian revelation.

The Notes were designed particularly for the use of theological students. And they are admirably adapted to this end. The sentiments and the language of the author are constantly viewed from the stand-point of the Bible, and are thus made to shed light on its

idioms, its constructions, and its doctrines. Nor could a better writer have been selected for this purpose than Plutarch, or a more suitable treatise than the De Sera Numinis Vindicta. The author belongs to the same century, and wrote in the same dialect, (Hebraisms excepted,) in which all the books of the New Testament were written. His Greek, like that of the New Testament, has lost the purity, ease, and elegance of Plato and the earlier classics; while, on the other hand, his ethics and philosophy have gained a degree of moral excellence and elevation which can scarcely be found in any other Pagan author. The subject also-Providence, or the Moral Government of God, as connected with the Punishment of the Wicked-is kindred to the subject matter of the Scriptures, and lies at the very foundations of natural as well as revealed religion. It is treated in the main with such soundness of doctrine, such cogency of argument, and such completeness of illustration, that, as Professor Hackett justly remarks, even Christian writers who have attempted to defend the same truth within the same limits of natural religion, have scarcely been able to do anything better than to re-affirm his positions, and perhaps amplify and illustrate somewhat his arguments. At the same time, the author falls into such occasional errors, and, even when his doctrines are true and his arguments sound, proceeds with so much hesitation and uncertainty, as to furnish a striking contrast to the unerring truth and unhesitating, authoritative revelations of the sacred oracles. Surely it cannot but be a matter of deep interest and profound instruction for the theological student, while studying these oracles in their original tongue, to read in the same language a treatise, written in the same age, on a kindred subject, by a moralist whose vast learning and singular devoutness fitted him, perhaps above all others, to be a favourable exponent of the utmost success to which the heathen ever attained in vindicating the ways of God to men. We could wish that not only theological students, but theologians, were more accustomed to study the Scriptures in the original, and to study them in the light of such classic authors as Plato and Xenophon, Plutarch and Epictetus, Cicero and Seneca. While they thus learned to be more charitable in some respects towards the ancients, they would also attain to a far better understanding and higher appreciation of those sacred books, which they justly revere as the only unerring rule of faith and practice.

But, though peculiarly adapted to the theological seminary, we should not do justice to our own convictions, did we not add that this edition of Plutarch is also well suited to college use. The references to the sacred writers are not tiresome to any thoughtful

« AnteriorContinua »