ARTICLE VII.

RECENT FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS,

CHIEFLY IN BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE.

Mr. Tischendorf, who three years ago published the New Testament part of Ephraem's Rescript, or Codex C., has now added the fragments of the Greek Septuagint which are found in this manuscript. It is probably the oldest relic of the kind which Christian antiquity has transmitted to us. The restoration of this work to a legible state by means of a chemical application, is one of the most signal triumphs of modern art, and constitutes an event which has excited the most lively interest among Biblical students. The expense of the entire work is about twenty dollars. The reprint of the New Testament portion we have had an opportunity to examine. It contains several preliminary dissertations in Latin, which give great additional value to the publication. The seventh section on the previous collations of the Codex is accompanied by an appendix on the original reading in 1 Tim. 3, 16, which will be read with interest on account of its exegetical and theological bearings. The question involved in that passage, it will be recollected, is whether Christ is there directly called God, or whether another proposed reading of the original text is the true one, which, if admitted, would take away the testimony of this manuscript to such an application of the term in this particular instance. The most serious objection, by universal consent, to regarding 90s as the genuine reading, has been the supposed absence of the distinguishing sign between Theta and Omicron in the middle of the former letter. Contrary now to what has hitherto been considered as the fact in this discussion, Mr. Tischendorf testifies that he could trace distinctly the medial line which belongs to Theta; and he expresses his surprise that it should have escaped so universally the notice of preceding critics. Appeal will undoubtedly be made in future to this discovery; and the controversy, instead of proceeding by the agreement of both parties on the supposition that the Codex presents Omicron and not Theta, must hereafter reverse this position and assign the pre-occupation of the ground to the advocates of the Trinitarian reading. Griesbach urged against those who assumed that the

line which converts Omicron into Theta was once there, but had disappeared, that he had an equal right to assert that it was not there because it never existed; and no one will deny certainly that he was entitled to make this reply. But his own argument now stands arrayed against himself. The line is found to exist; and, by parity of reasoning, it must be assumed to be there because it was an original part of the letter, until reasons are adduced which will establish the contrary. The introduction of this new fact into the question was unexpected. It changes at least the prima facie aspect of the subject, and brings up points for investigation hitherto foreign to the inquiry. This transfer of the onus probandi remains the same obviously, whether we admit or reject the editor's conjecture that this line may have been inserted by a later hand. On a question of this kind, whether a single dot or stroke of the pen in a given instance was made by one person or another, any judgment which may be expressed must be a matter of mere individual opinion, and could not be urged upon others as demanding assent.

Dr. Hagenbach, Professor of Theology in Basel, has re-wrought, and published in an extended form, his Encyklopädie und Methodologie der theologischen Wissenschaften. There is no very satisfactory treatise on this subject; but this is not inferior, certainly, to any which has yet been produced. We preferred it, on the whole, to that of Pelt, even before the present revision and enlargement. Planck's Einleitung in die theologischen Wissenschaften will always be valuable, but extending only to the close of the last century, it is historically deficient. Harless's Encyklopädie we have found to be unimportant in every respect. The similar work of Rosenkrantz, which appears almost simultaneously in a new edition, is tinctured too deeply with his undisguised Hegelian partialities. Hagenbach belongs rather to the school of theologians formed by Schleiermacher.

Hengstenberg has advanced in his Commentar über die Psalmen to the first part of the fourth volume. It is probable that another part will enable him to bring the work to a close. This was advertised to appear the present month.

Dr. Scholtz, a Catholic Professor in the University at Bonn, so well known for his labors in behalf of the New Testament text, has undertaken an Introduction to the writings of the Old and New Testaments. Two portions have appeared. The second of them contains the special Introduction to the books of the Old Testament. The same scholar has written a recent dissertation in Latin on the Characteristics (de virtutibus et vitiis) of the different families of the New Testament Codices.

VOL. XI.-NO. XLI.

12*

Prof. Dietrich, of Marburg, gives an extensive review of Drechsler's new Commentary on Isaiah, in a late number of Reuter's Allgemeines Repertorium für die theologische Literatur. As only half of the work has as yet been laid before the public, judgment should be suspended till it has made further progress. The work lays claim to a predominant practical character, though critical inquiries are not neglected. The Messianic portions of the prophet have received special attention. The views of the writer here are represented as, in the main, coincident with those of Hengstenberg; the translation is true to the original, and the philology sufficiently minute and rigid.

Dr. Theremin, one of the court preachers at Berlin, has enriched our homiletic and rhetorical literature by a new production entitled, Demosthenes und Massillon; a contribution as the author denominates it to the History of Eloquence. His popular work Abendstunden has just been issued in a third edition.

Superintendent Meyer, of Hannover, has found his Kritisch exegetischer Commentar über das Neue Testament so favorably received that he has just commenced a new edition. The successive volumes of this work have exhibited, from the first, a marked progress in the development of the author's ability. The first part of this second edition, which is confined to Matthew, we received six months ago; and from the use which we have made of it, have been led to form a high opinion of its merits. The author is still chargeable with no inconsiderable looseness of theological opinion, though there is some moderation of tone in this respect. If the remainder of the work should be executed in the style of this first number, the Commentary of Meyer will take precedence of that of de Wette, which it resembles most nearly in its general characteristics.

H. Ewald, the orientalist, has added a second volume to his Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis Christus. A third is expected to follow. This work, viewed simply as a historical effort, is considered as adding nothing to the credit of the writer. The critics pronounce him deficient in the talents requisite for such composition, aside entirely from the question whether particular opinions advanced by him are true or false.

M. Baumgarten has appeared with a new defence of the Genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles, Aechtheit der Pastoralbriefe, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den neusten Angriff von Herrn Dr. Bauer.

The excitement occasioned by Strauss's book, which agitated so deeply the German theological public for some ten years, is rapidly passing away. It has given birth, however, to works of Christian learning and scholarship, which possess an intrinsic importance of their own, and must continue to be of permanent interest for genera

tions to come. Such a work is Dr. Neander's Das Leben Jesu Christi in seinem geschichtlichen Zusammenhange und seiner Entwickelung, which after having been for a long time out of print, he has at length found leisure to revise and issue in a fourth edition.

Dr. Andreas Wagner, who has made the natural sciences a subject of special study, is employing the fruits of this learning for the illustration of the Bible. A recent work of his, entitled " History of the Primitive World, with special reference to the Diversities of the Human Race and the Mosaic account of the Creation," is commended in Dr. Hengstenberg's Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung as an important publi

cation.

Dr. Tholuck, in his Literarischer Anzeiger speaks of Oehler's Prolegomena zur Theologie des Alten Testaments as an able effort. Something more extended and systematic is anticipated soon from the same source. The author was formerly Repetent in the Theological Seminary at Tübingen, but is now a Professor in the gymnasium at Schönthal.

A volume from the hand of Professor Schaller, of the University of Halle, Vorlesungen über Schleiermacher, has received the very uniform approbation of the critical journals, as an interesting, just and philosophical exhibition of the influence of this extraordinary man upon the theological opinions of Germany. There is scarcely any one department of Biblical or theological studies, to which his activity was not extended and in which the authority of his name is not still revered. His views lie scattered through numerous writings; and, as he wrote no single work which presents a comprehensive survey of his system, it must be a sufficiently difficult task to explore so wide a field, and collect from it the materials requisite for a correct view of his philosophical principles. This publication claims the merit of putting the reader in possession of such a view, without subjecting him to the labor of making an investigation for this purpose, for which few would have at their disposal either the time or the means.

Mr. Kiepert, who has won so extensive and deserved a reputation for his skill in the projection of maps, has devised one to illustrate Dr. Neander's History of the Planting of the early Christian churches. From the nature of the case, it is equally well adapted to the study of the Acts of the Apostles, and is sufficient also for that of the ecclesiastical history of the first Christian centuries. This chart possesses, therefore, the twofold recommendation of having the authority of Dr. Neander for the correctness of the historical and statistical information

which it embodies, and of being sketched, at the same time, by so practised a hand as that of Mr. Kiepert. A very useful map, but necessarily on a limited scale, has always been attached to the original German work, executed by J. T. Grimm.

The Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament in the rationalistic interest, is still in progress. A recent addition has been made to the series in a Commentary on Judges and Ruth, by Ernest Bertheau, member of the Theological Faculty at Göttingen. To this series belong the commentaries of Hitzig on the Minor Prophets, Hirtzel on Job, Knobel on Isaiah, and others. The promised work of Tuch on Joshua is still delayed.

The Neue Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, for August 1845, contains a series of elaborate articles, by Bornemann, on Dr. Winer's new edition of his Grammar of the New Testament Idiom. The general tone of them, as might be expected, is strongly commendatory. The magnus saeclorum ordo in regard to the philology of the New Testament will be dated hereafter from the publication of Winer's grammatical labors. There was formerly a time when every scholar who occupied himself with Grecian literature regarded it as a matter of duty and honor to apply the results of his study to the New Testament, so as to contribute something to its illustration and criticism. The merits in this way of Bentley, Markland, Dorville, Valkenaer, Wesseling, Ernesti, and others, are sufficiently well known, without speaking of those who belonged to an earlier period. John F. Fischer in Leipsic, towards the close of the preceding century, seems to have been nearly the last philologian who combined thus classical and sacred studies. They were then unfortunately separated from each other. A school of Grecists followed, who felt no interest for sacred learning; and the cultivators of sacred learning, on the contrary, looked upon the progress which was taking place in classical philology as scarcely worthy of their attention. Hence the commentaries of Koppe, Pott, Heinrichs, Kuinöl and others, not only left unappropriated the results of that more rigid grammatical study which Hermann and his school had introduced, but continued to treat the language of the New Testament on the old, arbitrary principle which enabled the exeget to bring any views into the Bible or out of it, which he might choose to adopt or reject. The exegetical writings of such a critic as Kuinöl are not indeed without their value still, but this is not philological. On a question of language, he is no longer a respectable authority. It was reserved for Dr. Winer to restore the connection thus broken off, and to make the study of the classical Greek authors tributary again to the