tinction is that, in this last use of the term, it is never found in the plural. When the plural is used, the context always shows that it is human beings, and not fallen angels, that are spoken of. It occurs in the plural only thrice, and only in Paul's Epistles. Γυναικας, says he', ώσαυτως σεμνας, μη διαβολος, Even so must their wives be grave, not sländerers. In scriptural use the word may be either masculine or feminine. Again, speaking of the bad men who would appear in the last times, he says, amongst other things, that they will be agopyoi, aσñoνdoi, diaασπονδοι, Boλo, in the common translation, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers. Once more 3, Πρεσβύτιδας ὡσαύτως εν καταςηματι ἱεροπρεπεις, μη SiaBoλ85. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers. Another criterion, whereby the application of this word to the prince of darkness may be discovered, is its being attended with the article. The term almost invariably is ó daßo20s. I say almost, because διάβολος. there are a few exceptions. § 3. Ir may not be amiss, ere we proceed, to specify the exceptions, that we may discover whether there be any thing in the construction that supplies the place of the article, or at least makes that it may be more easily dispensed with. Paul, addressing himself to Elymas the sorcerer, who endeavoured to turn away the proconsul Sergius Paulus 3 Tit. ii. 3. 11 Tim. iii. 11. 22 Tim. iii. 3. from the faith, says, O full of all subtilty, thou child of the devil, vie diaßo28. There can be no doubt that the Apostle here means the evil spirit, agreeably to the idiom of Scripture, where a good man is called a child of God, and a bad man a child of the devil. Ye are of your father the devil, said our Lord to the Pharisees. As to the example from the Acts, all I can say is, that in an address of this form, where a vocative is immediately followed by the genitive of the word construed with it, the connection is conceived to be so close as to render the omission of the article more natural than in other cases. This holds especially when, as in the present instance, the address must have been accompanied with some emotion and vehemence in the speaker. I know not whether ὁ αντιδικος ύμων διαBoλos", your adversary the devil, ought to be considered as an example. There being here two appellatives, the article prefixed to the first, may be regarded as common, though I own it is more usual, in such cases, for the greater emphasis, to repeat it. In the word oς εςι διαβολος και σατανας ', who s the devil and satan; as the sole view is to mention the names whereby the malignant spirit is distinguished, we can hardly call this instance an exception. Now these are all the examples, I can find in which the word, though used indefinitely, or without the article, evidently denotes our spiritual and ancient 4 Acts, xiii. 10. 5 John, viii. 44. 7 Rev. xx. 2. enemy. The examples in which it occurs in this sense, with the article, it were tedious to enumerate. 4. THERE is only one place, beside those above mentioned, where the word is found without the article, and, as it is intended to express a human character, though a very bad one, ought not, I think, to have been rendered devil. The words are, Jesus answered, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? εξ υμων εις διαβολος εςι. My reasons for not translating it devil in this place are; first, the word is strictly and originally an appellative, denoting a certain bad quality, and though commonly applied to one particular being, yet naturally applicable to any kind of being susceptible of mo. ral character; secondly, as the term in its appropriation to the arch-rebel, always denotes one individual, the term a devil is not agreeable to Scripture style, insomuch that I am inclined to think, that if our Lord's intention had been to use, by an antonomasia, the distinguishing name of the evil spirit, in order to express more strongly the sameness of character in both, he would have said o daßo2os, one of you is the devil, this being the only way whereby that evil spirit is discriminated. The words avtiδικος adversary, πειραζων tempter with the article, are also used by way of eminence, though not so frequently, to express the same malignant being; yet, when either of these occurs without the article, applied to a man as an adversary or a tempter, we 8 John vi. 70. do not suppose any allusion to the devil. The case would be different, if one were denominated o TELρalov, o avridixos, the tempter, the adversary. There is not any epithet (for diaßo2os is no more than an epithet) by which the same spirit is oftener distinguished, than by that of o nоvnрos, the evil one. Now, when a man is called simply rovnρos, without the article, no more is understood to be implied than that he is a bad man. But if the expression were o лоvnρоs, unless used to distinguish a bad from a good man of the same name, we should consider it as equivalent to the devil, or the evil one. Even in metaphorical appellations, if a man were denominated a dragon or a serpent, we should go no farther for the import of the metaphor, than to the nature of the animal so called: but if he were termed the dragon or the old serpent, this would immediately suggest to us, that it was the intention of the speaker to represent the character as the same with that of the seducer of our first parents. The unlearned English reader will object, Where is the impropriety in speaking of a devil? Is any thing more common in the New Testament? How often is there mention of persons possessed with a devil? We hear too of numbers of them. Out of Mary Magdalene went seven; and out of the furious man who made the sepulchres his residence, a legion. The Greek student needs not be informed that, in none of those places, is the term diaßo205, but δαιμων or δαιμονιον. Nor can any thing be clearer from Scripture than that, though the demons are innumerable, there is but one devil in the universe. Besides, if we must suppose that this word, when applied to human creatures, bears, at the same time, an allusion to the evil spirit; there is the same reason for rendering it devils, in the three passages lately quoted from Paul: for, wherever the indefinite use is proper in the singular, there can be no impropriety in the use of the plural. Both equally suppose that there may be many of the sort. Now, it is plain that those passages would lose greatly, by such an alteration. Instead of pointing, according to the manifest scope of the place, to a particular bad quality to be avoided, or, a vice whereby certain dangerous persons would be distinguished, it could only serve as a vague expression of what is bad in general, and so would convey little or no in struction. § 5. THE only plea I know, in favour of the common translation of the passage is, that, by the help of the trope antonomasia (for devil in our language has much the force of a proper name), the expression has more strength and animation, than a mere appellative could give it. But that the expression is more animated, is so far from being an argument in its favour, that it is, in my judgment, the contrary. It savours more of the human spirit than of the divine, more of the translator than of the author. We are inclinable to put that expression into an author's mouth, which we should, on such an occasion, have chosen ourselves. When affected with anger or resentment, we always desert the proper |