tieth chapter, and described in precisely the same terms, must also be Paganism; and that paganism, at the commencement of the ninth century, was confined to a symbolical abyss by Charlemagne, king of France. In accordance with this interpretation, the following translations and criticisms are submitted to the consideration of the reader. The Greek' of the fourth verse in the twentieth chapter may be literally rendered thus: "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of those that had been bebeaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God; and whoever worshipped not the beast, nor his image, and took not the mark on their forehead or on their hand, and lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." The following is a free translation: "And in the space of the thousand years, I saw thrones, and those who sat on them, to whom judgment was given; and I saw the souls of those that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God; and I saw those who worshipped not the beast, nor his image, and who received not his mark on their foreheads, or on their hands; and I saw those who lived and reigned with Christ." The original Greek of this passage has had a singular fortune under the hands of translators. After the word uxas, souls, there is a participle in the perfect or pluperfect tense which is followed by four verbs, all aorists. The participle is in our common version rendered by a verb in the imperfect tense, which ought to have been in the pluperfect; and of the verbs, the two former have been converted into the pluperfect, and the two latter have been left in the imperfect tense: but still worse than all this, the grammatical construction or government has been completely changed. I will not assert that the translators have done this capriciously, arbitrarily, or at random; but I am disposed to think that if their minds had not been pre-occupied by a Jewish tradition, they would not have rendered the passage in the manner they have. Here seems to me to be a striking proof of the justness and importance of some observations of Dr. Chalmers, on the supreme authority of revelation. "What is the reason," he asks, "why there is so much more unanimity among critics and grammarians about the sense of any ancient author than about the sense of the New Testament? Because the one is made purely a 1 Καὶ εἶδον θρόνους, καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐπ ̓ αὐτοὺς, καὶ κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς· καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν πεπελεκισμένων διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ καὶ διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ οἵτινες οὐ προσεκύνησαν τῷ θηρίῳ οὔτε τῇ εἰκόνι αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἔλαβον τὸ χάραγμα ἐπὶ τὸ μέτωπον καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν χεῖρα αὐτῶν, καὶ ἔζησαν καὶ ἐβασίλευσαν μετὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὰ χίλια ἔτη. Rev. xx. 4. VOL. XXXIX. Cl. JI. NO. LXXVII. G question of criticism; the other has been complicated with the uncertain fancies of a daring and presumptuous theology. Could we only dismiss these fancies, sit down like a school-boy to his task, and look on the study of divinity as a mere work of translation, then we might expect the same unanimity among Christians that we meet with among scholars and literati about the system of Epicurus or philosophy of Aristotle.-Let the principle of what thinkest thou' be exploded, and that of what readest thou' be substituted in its place. Let us take our lesson as the Almighty places it before us, and, instead of being the judge of his conduct, be satisfied with the safer and humbler office of being the interpreter of his language." I The whole series of particulars detailed in the verse under consideration must be viewed as occupying this scene of the apostle's vision: a prospect opens before him which stretches away to a vast but not an immeasurable distance; he looks through a long vista of a thousand years. And after the dragon had been expelled from the figurative heaven, and after he had cast water out of his mouth like a flood, and after he had been confined to the abyss, what did our New Testament prophet see? "I saw thrones," says he, "and those that sat on them;" thrones erected in Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany, where there had been only one throne before; and the occupants invested with sovereignty to order at their pleasure the affairs of the nations which they governed. He also saw the souls of those who had been previously put to death for the cause of Christianity, according to the cruel edicts of pagan emperors. He then saw those who worshipped not the beast, and were suffering under papal persecution, as confessors and martyrs in defence of the pure, unadulterated religion of Jesus: Waldenses and Albigenses in France and Italy; Lollards and Wickliffites in Germany and England; and Hussites in Bohemia. He next saw those who lived and reigned with Christ-the reformers, Luther, Calvin, and Melancthon, with their holy and blessed phalanx of combatants against the forces of the man of sin, who enjoyed the presence and approbation of their Redeemer, who were patronized by him, who were elevated to seats of authority, who were enabled successfully to encounter their adversaries mustered in great numbers and bent on their destruction, and who ultimately triumphed over all the principalities and powers of Rome. I know not whether it is necessary for me to say, that the events predicted by the spirit of prophecy were generally made to pass in review before the eyes of the prophets one after another, and that Evid, and Auth. of the Christ. Rev. p. 241. 244. the scenic representation was finished in a few days or a few hours, or perhaps in a less space; but that those events, when realized in the course of Providence, were destined to be spread over a long period of time; in some instances more than a thousand, and in others more than two thousand years. “I saw, or as it is in the Chaldee,' I was looking "in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea; and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had an eagle's wings: I was looking till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon its feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear; and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I was looking, and lo, another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl: the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I was looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, and behold there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots, and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. I was looking till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit." Now from the manner of expression at the commencement of this paragraph, it would appear that the prophet had this vision in a single night; but the objects and events detailed in the account of the vision, according to almost every interpretation, extend beyond the space of two thousand years. Our common translation, and indeed every translation which I have seen, envelops with obscurity the verse which has occasioned the foregoing observations, by failing to mark distinctly the series or succession of objects presented to the apostle's view as it respects time. And there is another cause of obscurity it is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the meaning which the translators intended to convey relative to the principal objects of the vision, whether their version has a reference to souls or persons, or to both; and if to both, what should be restricted to the one and what to the other. But I foresee a formidable objection to my hypothesis. It will be said that the period of a thousand years, or the millennium, comprises not the whole series of particulars detailed in the passage under review, but should be considered as relating only to the last clause, and specifying the duration of the spiritual or personal reign of Christ on earth. To remove this objection I may observe, that persons or things enumerated in a sentence, and conjoined together, form a plurality: John and William and James are the Christian names of three of my sons; but the term "Christian names" cannot be predicated of John individually, or of William individually, or of James individually; it is only true of them collectively: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, are the four seasons of the year; but the substantive, seasons, cannot be predicated of spring separately, or of summer separately, or of autumn separately, or of winter separately; it is only applicable to them when taken together. The same observation is transferable to time. The apostle Paul states, that "God gave unto the people of Israel judges, about the space of four hundred and fifty years.' Not two or three judges for the whole period, nor two or three at one time followed by others in succession; but those magistrates were raised up one after another, and but one at a time sustained the office of judge. Othniel judged Israel forty years; Tola was judge twenty-two years; Jephtha six years; and Eli forty; and others were supreme magistrates of Israel for different periods. To none of these singly can the space of time mentioned by the apostle be applied, but to the sum of the periods during which they respectively governed, till the time of the prophet Samuel. The same inspired writer says, quoting from the Psalms, "Harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years." Here a series of things both expressed and implied has a space of time assigned for dura, 1 Acts xiii. 20. 2. 2 On this adverb, Dr. Macknight has the following observation:"Where your fathers tempted me. This, which is the Syriac and the Vulgate translation, is more just than our English version,' When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.' For the word 'when' implies, that at the time of the bitter provocation the Israelites had seen God's works forty years: contrary to the history which showeth, that the bitter provocation happened in the beginning of the third year from the Exodus. Whereas the translation in the Vulgate, agreeably to the matter of fact, represents God as saying, by David, that the Israelites tempted God in the wilderness during forty years, notwithstanding all that time they had seen God's miracles."-Apost. Epist. Note on Heb. iii. 9. tion. The Israelites tempted God in the wilderness of sin, when they murmured for bread, and they proved him when he furnished them with manna. They tempted him at Rephidim, afterwards called Massah, where they murmured for water, and said, Is the Lord anong us or not? And they proved him when he made water to issue from the rock in Horeb to remove their thirst. At Sinai they provoked God by making a golden calf, and worshipping the work of their own hands. At another place they tempted him by demanding flesh to eat, and they proved him when he sent quails to gratify their sensual appetites. In these and in a variety of other instances they tempted God, proved him, and saw his works forty years. The supply of manna and of water was indeed uninterruptedly continued, but in the other things there was a succession; and the sum of the series amounts to forty years. The words of the apostle may be arranged and translated in the same manner, as it has been proposed to render the verse which has been subjected to a critical examination : "Harden not hearts as in the provoyour cation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; where, through the space of forty years, your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works." Idle, near Bradford, Dec. 1828. W. V. CORRUPTION OF DEMIURGUS. IN the ancient Scholia on the Thebaid of Statius, which by some are ascribed to Lutatius, or Luctatius Placidus, or, as he is called by others, Placidus Lactantius, there is a passage in which it is asserted that the highest god, of whom Statius speaks in the 4th book, is called Demogorgon. But the lines in Statius where this occurs are as follow: "Scimus enim et quidquid dici, noscique timetis, Et turbare Hecaten, ni te, Thymbræe, vererer : Et triplicis mundi summum, quem scire nefastum est: "Dicit [Statius] Deum Demogorgona summum," says the scholiast. On this, however, Gale in his notes on the fifth section of Iamblichus de Mysteriis, rightly observes, "Cæterum Lactantii illum locum, a multis tentatum, libet hic in melius, ut spero, restituere.— Quis sit iste Demogorgon, vel, ut alii scribunt inepte, Dæmogorgon? Wierus de Præst. Dæmonum inter Magos infames commemorat Dæmogorgona (aliis Damigeronta. Scholiastes Ms.) Adno |