the environs; the chalky hills around Nazareth being covered with low shrubs and bushes.1 What these were in comparison with the stately trees which adorned other places, such was Nazareth in comparison with stately cities.

This name, thus applied to the place on account of its small size, was at the same time an omen of its subsequent character. The feeble twig never grew up into a tree. In the Old Testament Nazareth is never mentioned, perhaps because it may have been first founded after the exile. Josephus also does not notice it. It was not like most other cities in Palestine, ennobled by recollections from the olden time. Indeed, there rested on it a special disgrace, in addition to the general contempt in which the whole of Galilee stood; just as almost every land has its place or city to which some peculiar reproach attaches, often from accidental circumstances. This is clear, not only from the question of Nathaniel, John 1: 47, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" but also from the fact, that from the earliest times onward the Jews have supposed they were heaping the foulest insult upon Christ, when they called him the Nazarene;' while the general reproach which lay on the whole of Galilee was afterwards removed by the circumstance, that the most celebrated of the Jewish academies, that of Tiberias, was situated in it.

Let us now inquire, how far the residence of Christ at Nazareth served for the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies. It is every where the declaration of the prophets, that the Messiah, springing from the sunken and decayed family of David, should at first appear without external rank or dignity. The ground-type for all other passages of the like kind, is found in Is. 11: 1, "There shall come forth a rod from the fallen stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit;" which Quenstedt has well illustrated thus:2 "When now the stem of Jesse, which from humble beginnings grew up in David to the splendour of regal majesty, shall be deprived not only of the regal dignity and external splendour which it received in David, but shall be again reduced to the private condition in which it was before the time of David, and so become like a trunk denuded of its leaves and branches, with nothing remaining but 1 Comp. Burckhardt's Travels.

2 Thesaur. Theol. Philol. I. p. 1015. Comp. the author's Christol. I. ii. p. 137 sq.

its roots, nevertheless, from that trunk so hewn down and apparently dry, there shall arise a royal branch, and from those roots shall spring up a shoot, on which shall rest the Spirit of the Lord."-In entire accordance with this, it is said in Is. 53: 2, "He grew up before the Lord as a sprout, as a shoot out of a dry soil." To the in c. 11: 1, corresponds here the pai; to then, the ; to the trunk hewn down, the dry soil; except that by this last, the lowliness of the servant of God is designated generally, while his descent from the now decayed and sunken family of David is not made specially prominent, although of course it is necessarily included in the general idea. The same idea is carried out further in Ez. 17: 22-24. Here, as the descendant of the sunken family of David, the Messiah appears as a small and tender twig, which, plucked by the Lord from the top of a lofty cedar, and planted on a high mountain, grows up into a stately tree, under which all fowls shall dwell. In Jeremiah and Zechariah, in allusion to the figure employed by Isaiah of a trunk hewn down, the Messiah is called the Branch of David, or simply the Branch.2 It is surely only necessary here to place together prophecy on the one side and history on the other, in order to render palpable the exact accomplishment of the former to the latter. Not at Jerusalem, where was the seat of his royal ancestors and the throne of his house, did the Messiah fix his abode; but in the most despised city of the most despised province did the providence of God assign his dwelling, after the prophecies had been fulfilled by his birth at Bethlehem. The name of this despised city, significant of its lowliness, was the same by which Isaiah had signified the original lowliness of the Messiah himself.

We have hitherto considered the prophecies and their accomplishment independently of the citation in Matthew. We subjoin here a few remarks upon the latter.

1. The more general form of quotation, to indiv dia rav лoодητov, in the plural, seems not to have been employed here without ground; although Jerome infers too much from it when he says: "Did he bring forward a definite example from the Scriptures, he would not say, 'What was spoken by the prophets,'

1 Comp. Christol. I. ii. p. 324 sq. and in Bibl. Repos. II. p. 344. 2 Comp. the author's Comm. on Zech. 3: 8. 6: 12. Christol. Vol. II.

but simply, 'What was spoken by the prophet;' but now, by using the plural, the prophets, he shows that he did not quote from Scripture the words, but the sense." It is true that Matthew had particularly in view a single passage, viz. Is. 11: 1, which, together with the general announcement of the lowliness of the Messiah, contains also a special designation of it, in the name and omen of the place where he dwelt. This is apparent from the fact, that otherwise the quotation, ὅτι Ναζωραίος κλη nora, could receive no explanation; since it would be violent in the highest degree to assume, that the term "Nazarene❞ here signifies a humble, despised person in general. But he chose the more general form of citation, in order to denote at the same time the collateral accomplishment, in the residence of Christ at Nazareth, of those prophecies which coincide with that of Isaiah in the chief point, viz. the announcement of the low condition of Christ. But such a collateral reference shows, that this in the mind of Matthew was really the chief thing; and that the coincidence of the name of the city with the name which Christ bore in Isaiah, appears to him only as a remarkable external illustration of the exact connexion of prophecy and its fulfilment; just indeed as he regards every thing in the life of Christ, as brought about by the special guidance of the divine. providence.

2. The phrase ore xàn&ńoerai is then likewise to be explained from the circumstance, that Matthew does not limit himself to the single passage in Is. 11: 1, but includes also a reference to the other passages of a similar character. The expression itself, öz xanonostaι, is derived from one of these, viz. Żech. 6: 12, "Behold the man whose name is the Branch." It is therefore not necessary to explain this expression merely from the custom of the later Jews, who attribute to the Messiah that as a name, which serves in the Old Testament to mark some quality or feature of his character,-following in this the custom of the prophets themselves, who often thus employ some quality of the Messiah in the place of a proper name. This hypothesis is untenable, because it would be difficult to produce another instance, where the evangelists, in a quotation announced as literal, have intermingled any thing de propriis, relating to proper

names.

1 Comp. Gersdorf, Beitr. zur Sprachcharakteristik, I. p. 136.

ART. I. ON THE CATECHETICAL SCHOOL, OR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT.

By R. Emerson, Prof. of Ecclesiastical History, in the Theol. Sem. Andover.

[PART SECOND.]

On the Doctrines taught in the Alexandrian School. Having traced an outline of the external history of the sacred school at Alexandria, we come now to inquire respecting the doctrines which were taught there. The sources remaining for such an investigation, are the recorded opinions of many of its teachers, and some of its distinguished pupils. This species of evidence is ample, on many important points, with respect to some of the most interesting periods of the school. The true value of such evidence, can at once be estimated; for whatever any teacher published to the world in his writings, we may readily conclude he taught in his more private instructions to his pupils. And what these pupils preached, and taught, we may presume, though with much less confidence indeed, that they imbibed at the school. This latter source, as being less certain, will be but rarely resorted to.

I must also here remark, that my limits necessarily confine me to a bare selection, in some cases, from the materials so amply VOL. IV. No. 14.

25

furnished, and already, in a great measure, collected or referred to, by such men as Guerike, Martini, Schrökh, Münscher, etc.

My design is, to give a connected view of the sentiments of these teachers on each topic in succession, embraced in this account. In some cases, as already remarked, they have left no works that have come down to us; and in others, they have expressed nothing on certain topics. In both of these cases their names will be passed without notice.

I. INSPIRATION, AUTHENTICITY, AND USE OF THE SCRIPTUREs.

On this subject, the Alexandrian teachers generally express themselves with clearness, and appear to have held to the doctrine of a genuine inspiration from God.

Athenagoras represents Moses and the prophets as speaking in ecstasy, carried beyond themselves and their own thoughts by the impulse of the Divine Spirit, and uttering whatever he wrought in them. The Spirit employed them as organs of enunciation, in like manner as the musician uses a flute."

This father, like most of those at the same school, was disposed to make much use of human reason and philosophy; but still he regarded the authority of scripture in a much higher sense. Like the rest of the Alexandrians, he held the philosophy of Plato in great admiration; but he would not rely upon it as proof where destitute of scripture authority.

Clement speaks decisively in favor of plenary inspiration, and seems even to favor the idea of the verbal inspiration of the scriptures. His fault, in fact, is that of believing too much, rather than too little, on the subject of divine communications; for he goes so far as to suppose, that previous to the coming of Christ in the flesh, he had not only made manifestations to the Hebrew prophets, but also, in some sense, to wise men among the heathen: "It is he (Christ) that gives wisdom to the Greeks by inferior angels; for angels were distributed throughout the nations, by an ancient and divine command.” Still Christ made himself known more clearly in the Law and the Prophets, than in the writings of heathen sages and poets; nor would he attribute the same authority to these as to the scriptures. He also assigned a divine origin to the Septuagint.3

1 Athen. Apol. c. 8.

3 See his Cohort. 1.5. 6.

2 Strom. VII. 2.

Strom. VI. 5. Paed. I. 11. II, 10. 12. III.

12. I. 22.