*

death, all the rest suffering martyrdom ; and some of them say that he wrote this Gospel in Ephesus, at the request of the

ters. There is a tradition that it was first written in Latin, because it was written at Rome; but this is generally thought to be without foundation, and that it was written ministers of the several churches of Asia, in Greek, as was St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the Greek being the more universal language.

in order to combat certain heresies. It seems most probable that he composed it before his banishment into the isle of Patmos, for there he wrote his Revelation, the close of which seems designed for the closing up of the canon of scripture; in which case this Gospel could not have been written after. It is clear that he wrote the last of the four Evangelists, and, comparing his Gospel with theirs, we may observe that he relates what they had omitted, and thus gleans up what they had passed by.

Luke, the name of the third evangelist, is considered by some to be a contraction of Lucilius, and it is said by St. Jerome to have been borne at Antioch. Some think that he was the only one of all the penmen of the Scriptures that was not of the Israelites; that he was a Jewish proselyte, and was converted to Christianity by the ministry of St. Paul at Antioch, and after his coming into Macedonia he was his constant companion. These four Gospels were early and conHe had employed himself in the study and stantly received by the primitive church, and practice of physic, and hence Paul calls him read in Christian assemblies, as appears by Luke, the beloved physician." It is more the writings of Justin Martyr and Irenæus, than probable, however, as is testified both who lived little more than one hundred years by Origen and Epiphanius, that he was one after the origin of Christianity; they deof the seventy disciples, and a follower of clared that neither more nor fewer than four Christ when he was upon earth; and if so, were received by the church. A Harmony he was most likely to be a native Israelite. of these four Evangelists was compiled by Luke most probably wrote his Gospel at Tatian about that time, which he called Rome, a little before he wrote his history of "The Gospel out of the four." In the the "Acts of the Apostles," which is a con- third and fourth centuries there were tinuation of the former, when he was there gospels forged by divers sects, and pubwith Paul, while he was a prisoner, and lished, one under the name of St. Peter, preaching in his own hired house," with another of St. Thomas, another of St. which the history of the Acts concludes. Philip, &c. But they were never owned In this case, it must have been written by the church, nor was any credit given to about twenty-seven years after Christ's de- them, as the learned Dr. Whitby shows. parture, and about the fourth year of the And he gives this good reason why we reign of Nero. Jerome says that St. Luke should adhere to these written records: died when he was eighty-four years of age," because," says he, "whatever the preand that he was never married. Dr. Cave tences of tradition may be, it is not sufficient observes that "his way and manner of writ- to preserve things with any certainty, as ing are accurate and exact, his style polite appears by experience. For whereas Christ and elegant, sublime and lofty, yet perspicu- said and did many memorable things which ous; and that he expresses himself in a vein were not written, tradition has not preserved purer Greek than is to be found in the any one of them to us, but all is lost exother writers of this holy history.' Thus cept what was written; and that, therefore, he relates several things more copiously than is what we must abide by.' the other evangelists, and thus he especially treats those things which relate to the priestly office of Christ.

of

After the Gospel, or history of Jesus Christ, follows the history of what passed after his ascension, and was transacted by The fourth evangelist, John, was one of the apostles. The book, therefore, which the sons of Zebedee, a fisherman of Galilee, contains this history is called "The Acts of the brother of James, one of the twelve the Apostles." It is a history of the rising apostles, and distinguished by the honora- church for about the space of thirty years. ble appellation," that disciple whom Jesus It was written, as has been already observed, loved." The ancients tell us that John by St. Luke the Evangelist, when he was lived the longest of all the apostles, and was with St. Paul at Rome, during his imprisonthe only one of them that died a natural ment there. In the end of the book he

John. As it respects the date of these apostolic epistles, it is very generally agreed that they were written between the years A. D. 54 and 68, excepting those of John written probably between the years 96 and 100.†

mentions particularly his being with Paul othy. 13. The second of Peter. 14. The in his dangerous voyage to Rome, when he epistle of Jude. 15. The three epistles of was carried thither a prisoner; and it is evident that he was with him when, from his prison there, Paul wrote his epistles to the Colossians and Philemon; for in both of these he is named by him. Next to this come the Epistles of St. Paul, which are fourteen in number: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, one to Philemon, and one to the Hebrews. They contain that part of ecclesiastical history which immediately follows after what is related in the Acts. The principal matter contained in them is the establishment or confirmation of the doctrine which Jesus Christ taught his disciples. According as the difficulties which raised disputes among the Christians, or the heresies which sprung up in the church from the first age of it, required, St. Paul in these epistles clears up and proves all matters of faith, and gives excellent rules for morality. His epistles may be considered as a commentary on, or an interpretation of, the four books of the Gospel.*

The chronological succession of the Epistles is as follows: 1. To the Thessalonians. 2. To the Galatians. 3. To the Corinthians. 4. To the Romans. 5. The epistle of James. 6. To the Ephesians. 7. To the Philippians. 8. To the Hebrews. 9. The first epistle of Peter. 10. The first to Timothy. 11. To Titus. 12. The second to Tim

*In respect to the leading design of the apostolical epistles, Dr. Bloomfield remarks: "That though the essential doctrines and precepts of Christianity are to be found in the Gospels, yet a fuller and clearer statement of them was necessary, considering the altered state of things to that which existed during our Saviour's life-time; and especially after the uprise of serious corruptions and dangerous errors, originating partly in misconception, but which required to be checked by a more explicit, and yet equally authoritative revelation. Now this was done by St. Paul and the other writers of the Epistles. Consequently, though they were written for the immediate purpose of refuting heresies, arising from a mixture of Christianity with Judaism or Gentilism, of repressing corruptions, reforming abuses, and composing schisms and differences, yet, in point of fact, they became, and were avowedly, commentaries on the doctrines of Christ, as delivered in the Gospels; and though originally intended for particular Christian societies, yet are adapted to the instruction of Christians in all ages."

It has sometimes occurred to the minds of many well-disposed persons, that it would have been better for Christianity had there never been any other record of its origin and doctrines than the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But, however plain and satisfactory the histories of these evangelists may be, and however little they admit of controversy, it has to be remembered that it required the strong arguments and illustrations brought forward in the epistles, by Paul and others, to combat the sophistry of the Greeks, and the self-sufficient philosophies of other races of man. the chief of the epistle writers, who became a Christian by conversion after Christ had departed from the earth, is the great champion of the faith, and exposes, in strong and dauntless language, the hidden depravities of the human heart; so that where the af fecting discourses and sufferings of the Messiah fail to convert and convince, the reasoning of this great writer is calculated to silence and subdue those who stubbornly resist the benignant influence of the Christian faith.

Paul,

The first division of the Scriptures, as already mentioned, is into the Old and New Testaments. The New belongs to the ChrisPrinciples are involved, which are our surest guides on all points relating to church liberty, especially as to abstaining from things innocent in themselves, if likely to give offence to scrupulous brethren. — A. B.

The apostolic epistles are didactic or catholic. The didactic epistles are those addressed to particular churches; the catholic or general are addressed to the whole church, or to a larger section of it. The writings of Paul, for the most part, belong to the former class. They are analyzed or classified by Lange, as follows: 1. Eschatological epistles, which treat of the last things. 2. Ecclesiastic epistles, which treat of the discipline of the church. 3. Soteriological epistles, which treat of redemption and righteousness by faith. 4. Christological epistles, which treat of the person of Christ. 5. Pastoral epistles. The Epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, and the three of John, and those of Peter and Jude, are classed as catholic epistles. Vid. Dr. Lange's Introduction to the New Testament, p. 27. A. B.

tians, but the Old was received from the Jews; and it is from them, therefore, that we must learn what the number of the books of it originally was, and every thing else relating to this most ancient and interesting production.

The celebrated Jewish writers, Josephus and Philo, reckon two and twenty canonical books in the Old Testament, which is the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet; and to make out this, they join the book of Ruth to that of Judges, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah to the book of his Prophecies. But other Jewish doctors divide the book of Ruth from that of Judges, and, making likewise a separate book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, they reckon four and twenty books in all. In order to accommodate this number to that of the letters of the alphabet, they repeat the letter yod three times, as they say, in honor to the great name of God Jehovah, of which yod is the first letter; and in Chaldee, three yods together were used to express this adorable name; but as the modern Jews thought this savored too much of what Christians call the Trinity, they use only two yods for this purpose. St. Jerome is of opinion that St. John had this division of the Hebrew scriptures in view, when in his Revelation he speaks of the four and twenty elders who paid adoration to the Lamb of God.

Songs, (6) Daniel, (7) Chronicles, (8) Ezra, with Nehemiah, and (9) Esther. The Jews do not put Daniel in the rank of a prophet, although they acknowledge him to have been a man inspired by God, and whose writings are full of the clearest prophecies concerning the time of the Messiah's coming, and what should happen to their nation. Jesus Christ, therefore, gives him the name of a Prophet, and the Jewish doctors are much puzzled to find out a proper reason for their not doing the same. Maimonides, It is, says Daniel wrote was not revealed to him when "because every thing that he was awake and had the use of his reason, but in the night, and in obscure dreams.” But this is a very unsatisfactory account of the matter; and others are of opinion that the name of a Prophet was commonly given to those only who were of a certain college, and whose business it was to write the annals; and that, therefore, their works were ranked among the prophetical books, though they did not contain a single prediction of any thing to come, as the books of Joshua and Judges; while, on the contrary, the works of those who were not of these colleges of the prophets were not ranked phetical books, although they contained true among the proprophecies.

The Latins agree with the Jews as to the number of the Psalms, which is a hundred and fifty; but both they and the Greeks divide them differently from the Hebrews. In the Greek Bible and the Vulgate, or common Latin version, the ninth and tenth, according to the Hebrew, make but one psalm ; and therefore, in order to make up the number of a hundred and fifty, they divide the hundred and forty-seventh into two.

The Jews divide the whole of these books into three classes, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa or Holy Writings, which last division includes more particularly the poetical parts; and some are of opinion that Jesus Christ alludes to this division of the Scriptures, when he says that all things must be fulfilled that were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalmns, concerning This is the general division of the sacred him. For books among the Jews. But they divide the the book of Psalms, they understand all the Pentateuch, in particular, into certain parabooks of the third class. The Law compre- graphs or sections, which they call Parashihends the Pentateuch; that is, Genesis, Ex-uth, and which they subdivide into the Great odus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. and Little. A Great section contains as The prophetical books are eight, viz.: (1) much as is to be read in the synagogue in a Joshua, (2) Judges, with Ruth, (3) Sam- week. There are in all fifty-four of these, uel, (4) Kings, (5) Isaiah, (6) Jeremiah, (7) Ezekiel, and (8) the twelve Lesser Prophets. The first four books of this division are called the Former Prophets, and the last four the Latter Prophets. The Hagiographa, or Holy Writings, are nine, viz.: (1) Job, (2) the Psalms, (3) Proverbs, (4) Ecclesiastes, (5) The Song of

conforming to the number of lessons in a year; for the Jews are obliged to read all the Pentateuch over once every year, finishing it on the feast of tabernacles, and beginning it again on the next sabbath day. In the time of the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes, they also selected fifty-four sections to be read out of the Prophets, which have ever

since constituted the second lessons in the was Hugo de Sancto Caro, who, being from Jewish synagogue-service. The Little sec- a Dominican monk advanced to the dignity tions, which are subdivisions of the Greater, of a cardinal, and the first of that order that are made according to the subjects they treat was so, is commonly called Hugo Cardinalis. of; and these Great and Little sections are again of two sorts, one of which is called Petuchoth, that is, open sections; and the other Sethumoth, that is, close sections. The former commences in the Hebrew Bibles always at the beginning of lines, and are marked with three P's if it be a great section, and with only one if it be a little section; because P is the first letter of the word Petuchoth. Every open section takes its name from its first word; and thus the first section in the whole Bible is called Bereshith, which is the first word of the Book of Genesis in Hebrew. The close sections begin the middle of a line, and are marked with the letter Samech, which is the first letter of the word Sethumoth; if it be a great section it has three Samechs; if a little section, only one. Every great section is also divided again into seven parts, which are read in the synagogue by so many different persons. If any priest be present, he begins, and a Levite reads after him; and in the choice of the rest, regard is had to their dignity and condition. The divisions of the prophetical books already mentioned are read jointly with those of Moses, in the same manner. These latter divisions they call Haphteroth, a term which signifies, in Hebrew, dismissions; because after this reading is over they dismiss the people.

This Cardinal Hugo, who flourished about the year 1240, and died in 1262, had labored much in the study of the Holy Scriptures, and made a comment upon the whole of them. The carrying on of this work gave him the occasion of inventing the first concordance that was made of the Scriptures that is, of the vulgar Latin Bible; for, conceiving that such an index of all the words and phrases in the Bible would be of great use for the attaining of a better understanding of it, he projected a scheme for the making of such an index, and forthwith set a great number of the monks of his order on the collecting of the words under their proper classes in every letter of the alphabet, in order to this design; and, by the help of so many hands, he soon brought it to what he intended. This work was afterward much improved by those who followed him, especially by Arlottus Thuseus, and Conradus Halberstadius, the former a Franciscan and the other a Dominican friar, who both lived about the end of the same century. But the whole intention of the work being for the easier finding of any word or passage in the Scriptures, to make it answer this purpose the cardinal found it necessary, in the first place, to divide the book into sections, and the sections into other divisions, that by The Jews call the division of the Holy these he might the better make the referScriptures into chapters, Perakim, which ences, and the more exactly point out in the signifies fragments; and the division into index where any word or passage might be verses they call Pesukim, a word of nearly found in the text; and these sections are the same signification as the former. These the chapters into which the Bible has ever last are marked out in the Hebrew Bibles since been divided. For, on the publishing by two great points at the end of them, called of this concordance, the usefulness of it behence Soph-Pasuk, that is, the end of the ing immediately discerned, all were desirous verse. But the division of the Scriptures to have it; and, for the sake of the use of into chapters and verses, as we now have it, they all divided their bibles as Hugo had them, is of a much later date. The Psalms, done; for the references in the concordance indeed, were always divided as at present; being made by these chapters and the subdifor St. Paul, in his sermon at Antioch in visions of them, unless their bibles were so Pisidia, quotes the second Psalm. But as divided too, the concordance would be of no to the rest of the Holy Scriptures, the divis- use to them. And thus this division of the ion of them into such chapters as at present, several books of the Bible into chapters had is what the ancients knew nothing of. Some its original, which has ever since been made attribute it to Stephen Langton, who was use of in all places and among all people, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of wherever the Bible itself is used in these King John and his son Henry the Third. western parts of the world; for before this But the true author of this invention, as is there was no division of the books in the shown by Dean Prideaux at great length, vulgar Latin bibles at all.

But the subdivisions of the chapters were not then by verses as now. Hugo's way of subdividing them was by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, placed in the margin at equal distances from one another, according as the chapters were longer or shorter. In long chapters all these seven letters were used, in others fewer, as the length of the chapters required; for the subdivision of the chapters by verses, which is now in all our Bibles, was not introduced into them till some ages after; and then it was from the Jews that the use of it, as we now have it, took its original on the following occasion.

yet did not do so in the division of the chapters by the letters A, B, C, &c., in the margin, but introduced a better usage by employing the division that was made by verse. This division, as already mentioned, was very ancient; but In long was very ancient; but it was till now without any numbers put to the verses. The numbering, therefore, of the verses in the chapters, and the quoting of the passages in every chapter by the verses, were Rabbi Nathan's invention; in every thing else he followed the pattern which Cardinal Hugo had set him. But it is to be observed, that he did not number the verses any otherwise than by affixing the numerical Hebrew letters in the margin at every fifth verse; and this has been the usage of the Jews in all their Hebrew bibles ever since, except that latterly they have also introduced the common figures for numbering the intermediate verses between every fifth. Vatalibius soon after published a Latin Bible according to this pattern, with the chapters divided into verses, and the verses so numbered; and this example has been followed in all other editions that have been since put forth. So that, as the Jews borrowed the division of the books of the Holy Scriptures into chapters from the Christians, in like manner the Christians borrowed that of the chapters into verses from the Jews. But to this day the book of the law, which is read by the Jews in their synagogues every sabbath day, has none of these distinctions, that is, is not divided into verses as the Bible is.

About the year 1430, there lived here among the western Jews a famous rabbi, called by some Rabbi Mordecai Nathan, by others Rabbi Isaac Nathan, and by many by both these names, as if he were first called by one of them, and then, by a change of it, by the other. This rabbi being much conversant with the Christians, and having frequent disputes with their learned men about religion, he thereby came to the knowledge of the great use which they made of the Latin concordance composed by Cardinal Hugo, and the benefit which they had from it, in the ready finding of any place in the Scriptures which they had occasion to consult; which he was so much taken with, that he immediately set about making such a concordance to the Hebrew Bible for the use of the Jews. He began this work in the year 1438, and finished it in 1445, being seven years in composing it; and the first publishing of it happening about the time when printing was invented, it has since undergone several editions from the press. The Buxtorfs, father and son, bestowed much pains on this work, and an edition of it was published by them at Basil in 1632.*

In the composing of this book, Rabbi Nathan finding it necessary to follow the same division of the Scriptures into chapters which Hugo had made in them, it had the like effect as to the Hebrew bibles that Hugo's had as to the Latin, causing the same divisions to be made in all the Hebrew bibles which were afterward either written out or printed for common use; and hence the division into chapters first came into the Hebrew bibles. But Nathan, though he followed Hugo in the division into chapters,

* Taylor's Hebrew concordance has been published since, and extensively used.

The division of the books of Scripture into great and little sections, does, without doubt, contribute much to the clearing up of their contents; and for this reason, as well as because they found it practised in the synagogues, the Christians also divided the books of the New Testament into what the Greeks call pericopes, that is sections, that they might be read in their order. Each of these sections contained, under the same title, all the matters that had any relation to one another, and were solemnly read in the churches by the public readers, after the deacons had admonished the faithful to be attentive to it, crying with a loud voice, “Attendance, Let us attend." The name of titles was given to these sections, because each of them had its own title. Robert Stephens, the famous printer, who died at Geneva in 1559, gets the credit of being the first who made the division of the chapters of