with subscribing to the accurate and enlightened conclusion of Quintilian, who illustrates the statue of Jupiter by its moral impression: "Cujus pulchritudo adjecisse aliquid etiam receptæ religioni videtur; adeo majestas operis deum æquavit.'

"Was that all? Had he no theory, of a more elevated ascent, in contemplation? Yes; I swear by the genius of Phidias himself, he had another purpose worthy of him, which he has left it to the statue to denounce. THE DEITY I REPRESENT, FILLS HIS OWN TEMPLE, AND LEAVES NO ROOM FOR ANY OTHER GOD."-Extract from Sir Philip Francis' Letter Missive to Lord Holland.

I consulted my intelligent and esteemed friend, the Rev. T. S. Hughes, B.D., on the subject, and he favored me with the following observations in his reply:

"With respect to the work in toto, it appears to me very like the effort of a man who did not write Junius, but wished it to be thought he did. It is clever, and has many pointed passages, but not the raciness of Junius's style. With regard to that part, to which you have particularly drawn my attention, I should say that the remarks of Sir Philip are in general very just and true. Those concerning the gold and ivory statues agree in the main with the great and splendid work of Quatre-Mere de Quincy on the Chryselephantine Statuary. With regard to the Hecatompedon (p. 64.) he is right-it was the old temple burnt and destroyed by the Persians, and a vast many of the stones which composed it, especially those of the pillars, are at this day to be seen, (according to the conjectures of able antiquaries,) worked up in the walls of the Acropolis. As for Stuart, though a fine architect, he was not a very accurate scholar. Sir Philip is wrong, when he says that only the statues of Jupiter were ever represented in a sitting posture: take the following instance of the contrary from Pausanias, (Corinth. 217.) Τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα τῆς Ηρας ἐπὶ θρόνου κάθηται μεγέθει μέγα, χρυσοῦ μὲν καὶ ἐλέφαντος, Πολυκλείτου δὲ ἔργον. His remark in capitals at the bottom of p. 72. seems to me a very happy one. In the words of Sir Philip, vive et vale."-Appendicula. II.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

In a work which the writer of this article has lately published, he has attempted to prove that in the Revelation of St. John the symbolical personage designated the Dragon, the old serpent called the Devil and Satan, is paganism. It is stated, as a canon for the interpretation of Scripture prophecy, "that every symbol should be considered as having the same import whereever it occurs:" and as commentators have generally been of opinion that Christianity conflicting with Paganism is indicated in the twelfth chapter of the Revelation by the war in heaven between Michael and his angels, and the Dragon and his angels; it is contended that the Dragon introduced again in the twen

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 beheaded 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 bas 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.

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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."

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.

2

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

I

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.