self was also the chief foundation of support and hope to his church, and his incarnation and atonement the fundamental truth on which that hope and support must rest. All that I understand to be implied in the text, as addressed to Peter, is, that he would make him the beginning of the enlargement of his church under the new commission he gave the apostles in setting up the kingdom of heaven, for which purpose he gave him the keys, to open it both to the Jews and to the Gentiles. It is not, then, a post of authority over his compeers which he assigns him, but a post of toil, opposition and persecution. He did not crown him a Pope, but gave him many souls as his crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord. And though it appears evident from the subsequent history of events, that Peter was a prominent man among the apostles as a teacher and minister, yet it is evident also that they were all, when the church was likened to an edifice, viewed as constituting the foundation, with Christ at the chief place of the corner. The reason for this is found in the fact that they were the little company with Christ at their head, from which the church in its new form or under its new dispensation arose. And by their ministry it grew up into a stately temple of the Lord, as though it were a living building growing out of a living basement. This figure seems to have been in the mind of Peter when he wrote, 1 Pet. 2: 4, 5: "To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house." And Paul says, Eph. 2: 20-22: "And (ye) are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." Here is plainly the figure of an edifice growing out of its foundation, which is composed of prophets and apostles, with Jesus. Christ in the most prominent place, as the chief corner stone. This is not the foundation of the believer's hope and confidence, laid by the apostles in the preaching of the gospel, which

Paul says he laid at Corinth, (1 Cor. 3: 10, 11) because Christ does not here constitute the whole foundation, but is only the chief corner stone in it, and the apostles and prophets the greatest part. It is, therefore, the foundation composed of the apostles and prophets; a genitive of the subject and not of the agent. And this idea corresponds with the vision of the New Jerusalem described by the apostle John, Rev. 21: 10, etc.," And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."

The foregoing exposition does not afford any ground for the extravagant claims of the Papacy, or give any authority to Peter over the other Apostles, or constitute him the head of a succession in the government of the church. All the prominence it gives him is, in the more abundant labors of the ministry in the first preaching of the gospel to the Jews and Gentiles, and in gathering the church under the new dispen sation. He was never treated as a superior by the other apostles, but always as an equal, as is evident from Acts, 11th and 15th chapters, and Gal. 2: 7-14. And that he himself thought of no superiority is evident from his own Epistles: 1 Epist. 5: 1-4; 2 Epist. 3: 1 and 2 and 15 and 16. The apostles did not contend for the lordship, but to excel in edifying the church; they strove not who should first put on the tiara and sit at ease on the crimson velvet, but to be in labors more abundant, approving themselves as the ministers of God in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, and fastings. 2 Cor. 6: 4, 5, etc.

On the remainder of the verse I must be very brief. The phrase лúla adov, in the opinion of good critics, means, both in classic authors and in the sacred Scriptures, the entrance to the region of the dead, or the unseen world of spirits. In Homer, Il. 23: 69–75, the spirit of Patroclus reproaches Achilles for neglecting his funeral rites and honors, without which he could not find admittance to hades, but was compelled to wander about the entrance, excluded from the passing throng of ghosts. With tears he beseeches his friend to help him:

θάπτε με όττι τάχιστα, πύλας αίδιο περήσω, line 71. So also in LXX., Is. 38: 10; Wisd. Sol. 16: 13; 3 Macc. 5: 51. A parallel expression, núlα davárov (), is found in Job 38; 17, Ps. 9: 13, and Ps. 107: 18. This then is but a figurative mode of speaking of that invisible region of death, where he reigns over all that fall under his power. But this tyrant will not destroy the church; it will be perpetuated through every generation of this world, and finally raised to glory, when Christ shall destroy the last enemy, death. 1 Cor. 15: 22-28.

But the devil is said to have the power of death, Heb. 2: 14. And some suppose that the gates of hades imply his power and policy with all his agents, leagued against the church. The common phrase, the powers of darkness, is supposed to convey the idea of the foul spirits of the invisible world; and the gates of it, their place of counsel and concourse, where their hosts are mustered. And it is not in the writer's power to prove that this is not the design of the expression the gates of hades,' in the text.

One thing, however, is plain that Christ designs to assure us of the safety of his church against all, even the most powerful, of her foes. And that neither death nor he that has the power of death shall ever destroy it.

ARTICLE III.

SKETCHES IN GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.

By Prof. WM. S. TYLER, Amherst College, Mass.

THESE sketches are not designed for scholars by profession. Such readers will find in them neither novel theories, nor original discoveries, nor profound researches. They will meet with little that can interest or instruct them. He who has heard the nightingale herself, will not care to listen to the best

imitations of her song. He who has been wont to gaze on the originals of the great masters in painting, will feel little curiosity to see the most faithful copies or the most graphic descriptions. And one who is familiar with the Dialogues of Plato or the Treatises of Aristotle, will expect but a poor reward for reading our imperfect analyses and accompanying remarks.

The writer does not aspire in these communications to tread the higher walks of criticism, or to earn the reputation of original investigation and profound scholarship. His aim is humbler and more Socratic. He would rather be a disciple of Socrates, than of any or all the other ancient philosophers. He would rather be an American and aid those who are instructing the American people, than be a German and dazzle the learned world. His hope is to be useful to that most numerous class of the readers of the Repository, who have (or think they have) too little time and too many pressing duties in the practical professions and active pursuits of life, to prosecute classical studies beyond the limited range of their College course. It will be his effort to bring such readers into the presence of Plato and Aristotle for a little season; to let them hear those master spirits, who have ruled so large a portion of mankind for so many centuries, utter their own sentiments in their own order and manner; in short, to give them as many as possible of the thoughts and words of Plato and Aristotle, and to take from them as few as possible of their valuable hours and moments. In so doing, he will hope to furnish them all with some useful hints, some important truths, some beautiful sayings, and perhaps to allure some of them back to the studies of their youth, or on to deeper fountains and loftier heights of classical erudition. In that case, he will at least have led his readers to that great attainment, which was set down by one of the seven sages as one of the three things that are difficult, viz., to spend leisure well.

We begin with the

WORKS OF PLATO.

We have already given our views in general of Plato as a writer. They accord in the main with the following high commendation by Taylor, allowance being made for the extravagance of that admirer of Plato, especially where he speaks of the demonstrative force of the Platonic Dialogues: "Such is the unparalleled excellence of Plato's composition, that notwithstanding all the artifice of the style, almost every word has a peculiar signification and contains some latent philosophical truth; so that at the same time it gives elegance to the structure and becomes necessary to the full meaning of the sentence with which it is connected. Plato possessed the happy art of uniting the blossoms of elocution with the utmost gravity of sentiment, the precision of demonstration with the marvellous of mystic fables, the venerable and simple dignity of scientific dialectic with the enchanting graces of poetical imagery; and in short, he every where mingles rhetorical ornament with the most astonishing profundity of conception.".

We have thirty-five dialogues generally ascribed to Plato, and thirteen epistles. They were originally collected by Hermodorus, one of his pupils. Besides the thirty-five, eight other dialogues have come down to us, which modern critics unanimously reject as spurious. German criticism, which is too often but another name for skepticism, has been laboring hard of late to disprove the genuineness of many others. . But they do not agree among themselves; and their arguments rest chiefly on diversities of style and those other internal differences, to which they are ever inclined to attach undue importance. We cannot pay implicit deference to the arguments or the men that have annihilated the very existence of the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and snatched one half of his prophetic inspirations from 'rapt Isaiah's' hallowed lips. No two poems ever ascribed to Homer, differ from each other in style more than Cowper's Iliad and Cowper's Task. And neither of these disputed dialogues is so unlike the

THIRD SERIES, VOL. I. NO. III.

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