but they became useless at close quarters. Besides, we are expressly told by the Seventy, that Jonathan was armed with sword and spear (goupaía xai dógu, xiii. 22). In the beginning of the account of the combat, he appears having these weapons; at the close of it (xiv. 27, 43), he is found using the end of his spear to lift honey to his mouth. And these were weapons for use in a combat such as he and his armour-bearer had to fight. Or what sense is there even in the account of the Seventy, that his armour-bearer "gave it them behind him,” éπedidou òsicu aurou, if both the Hebrews used "bows, cross-bows, and slings?" But if Jonathan, armed with sword and spear, first struck down the heathen, we can easily conceive the armour-bearer guarding his side, and as the Hebrew reads, "putting to death" the fallen soldiers behind him. But let us look more closely at the weapons, said by the LXX to have been used. Arrows and slings may pass, but not Dean Stanley's idea that they were peculiar to Benjamin. The passage he quotes in support of that view (1 Chron xii. 2) has really no bearing on the point. Certainly, the Benjamites could at one time boast of seven hundred skilful left-handed slingers (Judges xx. 16); but though we are told this, we are not told how many in the other tribes could use the sling quite as skilfully with the right hand. At any rate, the story of David shews that the weapon was not peculiar to Benjamin. But what of the LXX's iv ergoẞóhors? Dean Stanley says, ἐν πετροβόλοις "with cross-bows." But it appears that the ergoßoos was the same as the balista, a large military engine for throwing stones of 56 lbs., or 112 lbs., or 300 lbs. weight, at the siege of a city. The Seventy thus saw no difficulty in each of the heroes carrying one of those ponderous "stone-throwers" on his back up the steep cliff, probably just as Samson bore the gates of Gaza to the hill in front of Hebron. Is it not plain, then, that in this case, as in many others, the Greek translator of these two chapters did not know what he was writing? And that the learned and accomplished Dean has put a show of probability on the narrative, by substituting "cross-bow" for this unwieldy engine? At all points, then, this translation of the LXX, and this assault on the Hebrew, are found to break down. They teach us the necessity of caution in altering the received Hebrew text. It may be faulty here and there, like everything with which man has meddled; while the Greek translation may in some passages be more correct. But let each emendation proposed be tested in fair balances and with just weights. And now, by way of caution against rashness in rejecting the Hebrew text for the unknown manuscripts which the LXX followed, we present the reader with a table of contents of errors, glosses, Dean Stanley on our Lord's Historical Statements. 717 additions, and shortcomings in the Greek translation of 1 Sam. xiii., xiv. (1.) Unintelligible Translations, (2.) Mistranslations, arising apparently- (b) from incompetence, (3.) Ephod substituted for Ark,* 12 11 11 2 (4.) Words added in LXX: Greek, 130, Hebrew, 70 (5.) (7.) 5 (8.) vi בּ (.11) י (.12) ד (.13) 1 1 1 1 An array of blunders and glosses so alarming, in the confined space of twelve hundred Hebrew words, might well have the effect of causing among the spoilers of the Hebrew text the same dismay that the smiting of Jonathan and his armourbearer, within "the half furrow, the yoke of land," caused in the whole camp of the conquerors of Israel. Modern scholarship may as well try to make ropes of sand, as work materials so untrustworthy into a more faithful narrative than we have in the Hebrew Bible. But this school of English critics carries its likings for something new farther than admiration of the Hebrew manuscripts used by the Seventy. Dean Stanley, the most distinguished of their number, has boldly ventured to set aside the authority of our Lord himself on a matter of history. And it is with extreme regret that we feel ourselves constrained to make this averment. The case stands thus: In 1 Sam. xxi. 1, 2, we read, 'Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee? And David said unto Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee: and I have appointed my servants to such * Chap. xiv. 18, "And Saul said unto Ahiah, Bring hither the ark of God; (for the ark of God was at that time with the children of Israel)." The Vatican manuscript of the LXX has, "Bring hither the ephod, for he wore the ephod at that time before Israel." The Alexandrian manuscript has, "Bring hither the ephod, for the ark of God was at that time before Israel." The one has ephod twice in place of ark of God, the other has it only once. and such a place." Two comments on this excuse of David we shall now set down side by side. "Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungered, and they which were with him; how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him?" Our Lord's words, Luke vi. 3, 4. "The statement of his pretended mission is differently given in the Hebrew, and in the LXX. It must be observed that the young men spoken of as his companions were imaginary. He was quite alone." Stanley, Art. David, p. 404, note y. The clashing of sentiment here is so manifest and painful, that we would willingly attribute the latter part of Stanley's note, just as we attribute the first part, to carelessness. But immediately after fastening on David this one meanness more, in addition to others which he did fall into, he quotes our Lord's account of the business, and refers to the passages in the three gospels, which make express mention of those who were with David. Even though the authority of our Lord were not pledged to the fact that there were several followers with the fugitive, careful readers of the story of his flight and exile will find it hard to agree with Stanley that "he was quite alone." And that there is unpardonable blundering in the note quoted above will be evident to any one, who takes the trouble to compare word for word the Hebrew with the Greek account of David's flight. Stanley affirms that they are "differently given." But this is not correct. The Greek translator had before him the same, or almost the same, text which we now have. He has left out an unimportant word here and there; he has added two or three equally unimportant, as he often does; and he has given in Greek letters three Hebrew words, which he could not or would not translate. Dean Stanley's statement, therefore, is not correct. And if he has blundered in this smaller matter, it may be that, in the far greater matter, carelessness and not forethought led him to take up a position which can only be held by maintaining that our Lord himself was mistaken on a matter of history. Following the new light, whatever it be, by which his adventurous barque is guided along the dark ocean of a doubtful criticism, the Dean of Westminster, standing high in public estimation as a scholar, an attractive writer, and a man of sense, actually, in his life of David, quotes from the Koran snatches of desert fiction regarding that great prophet as things worth attending to, and deliberately sets down among "authorities" for the history chaff from Hebrew Talmudists and dreams of Arabian story-tellers. To think of gathering historic gold from that heap of rubbish is as reasonable as to look for a living stream, deep and broad, among the sands of the desert. Following the lead of authority in a path which is inviting only because it is un Tendency of the New School of Criticism. 719 trod, some may deem this way of dressing up the past catholic and fine. But no common-sense historian will regard it as anything else than absurd. It may be what the Americans call making history; it is certainly not writing it. Talmudic and Arabian dreams were only the inventions of excitable minds, dazzled by the kingly and the mental greatness of the great Hebrew ruler; and they are not worthy of a place on the sober page of history. In the man, who sets the word of God in a place of honour apart by itself, this dallying of English critics with traditions and blunders which have no solid foundation, awakens deep indignation at their unworthy mixing up of human fancies with the trustworthy record of God. When an inexperienced youth, fresh from the university, and fired, it may be, by zeal to emulate the labours of scholars so distinguished as Stanley and Selwyn, finds them quoting in the same breath, and, as it would seem, with almost equal honour, Hebrew Scriptures, Greek translations, Rabbinical and Arabian fictions, is the effect not certain to be the same on him as the mingling of New Testament miracles with the fabled wonders of fabulous saints in the sacred books of Rome is known to have on many of her priests? Instead of paying to the book of Gcd the high honour which its trustworthiness and truth demand, he feels his faith in it undermined; he begins to question its sayings; he may even go so far as to deny the correctness of our Lord's own words. This is the unmistakeable tendency of the school of critics taken to task in the preceding pages. And they are clear-sighted enough to see whither their own leanings and writings are rapidly drifting all who share their sentiments. By sap and mine carried on with much show of learning, but not with substance to correspond, the inevitable result of their labours will be to overthrow the faith of some, and to hurry on in this country the conflict between faith and doubt which has long been waged on the continent of Europe. ART. IV.-Bishop Mackenzie and African Missions. Memoir of Bishop Mackenzie. By HARVEY GOODWIN, D.D., Dean of Ely. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co. London: Bell & Daldy. 1864. Three Years in Central Africa; being a History of the Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, and Durham Mission. Prepared by Order of the General Committee. London: Printed for the Mission. 1863. TH THE mission enterprise of the Christian church has slowly ascended to the high places of the land. It has had a sharp, sifting ordeal to undergo, and has risen to the kingdom through much tribulation. There are men living whose memories go back to the period when missions were scornfully handed over to "sanctified cobblers" and religious fanatics; when to venture a good word on their behalf was to hazard a man's credit for soundness of understanding, or damage his social position. The practicability of the work, in the higher circles of English mind, was long doubted, the need of it still more. A false view of the condition of the heathen, and a falser still of the claims of Christianity, had pronounced the attempt to be undesirable, and the hope of its success a delusion. It was feared that missionary zeal would only spoil the child of nature, and by his conversion superinduce the vices of the European on his already plentiful native stock. Even so recent as the days of Reginald Heber, zeal for missions required an apology. "I hope I am not an enthusiast," wrote Heber to his friend Thornton, when deliberating on the offer of the Calcutta bishopric, "but I am, and have long been, most anxious for the cause of Christianity in India. The accomplished scholar, the graceful poet, had to put in a saving clause for the integrity of his understanding, as he gave expression to his missionary zeal. He felt he occupied uncertain ground, where sympathy might fail him, and where for his vindication he needed the plea of the great missionary apostle, "I am not mad, most noble Festus." Oxford and Cambridge had not then dreamt of converting the natives of Zambesi. England was still debating the question of the possibility of the conversion of a Hindu, while in India there were thousands of Europeans who had decided that if it were possible it was neither politic nor desirable. We have now passed into an era when the possibility of Hindu conversion has ceased to be questioned. A native church of India, with its tens of thousands of converts, is an accomplished fact; and in that native church the advocate of missions can point to a martyr-roll, who, worthy of a primitive age, sealed, during the sanguinary season of the Mutiny, their testimony with their blood. Other fields have in like manner borne their fruits in results so marked as to have altered the moral aspect of heathen society, and the entire social conditions of heathen life. The very cannibal has been humanised, and, through the wondrous change wrought by missions, translated into an apostle of the faith, into a messenger of the gospel, to his still savage and cannibal countrymen. If missions have still their assailants, they are attacked on new ground. The returns of the enterprise have recently been proclaimed to be disproportioned to the expenditure, the product thrown off to the extent of the machinery set in motion. The enterprise has been pronounced wanting in fruit, at least |