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THE NEW TESTAMENT.

BY

JOHN DAVID MICHAELIS,

LATE PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN, &c.

TRANSLATED FROM THE

Fourth Edition of the German,

AND

CONSIDERABLY AUGMENTED WITH NOTES,

AND

A DISSERTATION

ON THE

ORIGIN & COMPOSITION OF THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS.

BY

HERBERT MARSH, D.D. F.R.A.S.

LORD BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.

VOL. I.

THE FOURTH EDITION.

LONDON;

PRINTED FOR F. C. & J. RIVINGTON,

62, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD,

AND 3, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL.

Printed by R. Gilbert, St. John's-Square, Londona

BODLEIAT

17.6.1907

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OF THE TITLE USUALLY GIVEN TO THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW COVENANT.

HE Collection of Writings compofed after the afcenfion of Chrift and acknowledged by his followers to be divine is known in general by the name of xan diabnxn. This title, though neither given by divine command, nor applied to these writings by the apoftles, was adopted in a very early age', though the precife time of its introduction is uncertain, it being juftified by feyeral paffages in fcripture, and warranted by the authority of St. Paul in particular, who calls the facred books before the time of Chrift παλαια διαθηκη. Even long before that period either the whole of the Old Teftament, or the five books of Mofes were entitled βιβλιο, διαθήκης, or Book of the Covenant".

As the word diabnxn admits of a twofold interpretation, we may tranflate this title either The New Covenant or

a Matth. xxvi. 28, Gal. iii. 17. Heb. viii. 8. ix. 15–90. b 2 Cor. iii. 14.

• 1 Macc. i. 57.

the

A

the New Teftament. The former tranflation must be adopted, if respect be had to the texts of fcripture, from which the name is borrowed, fince thofe paffages evidently convey the idea of a covenant; and befides, a Being incapable of death can neither have made an old, nor make a new teftament. It is likewise probable that the earliest Greek disciples, who made ufe of this expreffion, had no other notion in view than that of Covenant. We on the contrary are accustomed to give this facred collection the name of Teftament; and fince it would be not only improper, but even abfurd to speak of the Teftament of God, we commonly understand the Teftament of Chrift, an explanation which removes but half the difficulty, fince the new only, and not the old had Chrift for its teftator.

The name of New Teftament is derived from the Latin Verfion, in which dianen, even in those paffages where contract or covenant is clearly the fubject of dif courfe, is tranflated Teftamentum. But this must be regarded rather as an harsh Grecism than as an error3 in the Latin Tranflator, who rendering a word, that admits in the original of the double sense of Will and Contract, ufed Teftamentum in the fame extent of meaning, confidering teftor to convey the idea of a bond. Whoever reads the ninth Chapter of Genefis in the vulgate, will be convinced that the tranflator understood by Testamentum fimply a covenant. Ecce ego excito teftamentum meum vobis, (fays God to thofe who were faved from the Deluge). Hoc fignum teftamenti mei, quod ego ponam inter me et vos et omnem animam vivam, et erit fignum teftamenti æterni inter me et inter terram *. Et memor ero teftamenti mei quod eft inter me et inter vos et omnem animam vivam. This teftamentum which God declares he will remember, is a covenant, never to destroy again the earth by a general deluge.

à See my Expofition of the Epistle to the Hebrews2.

The

• The word inter from its reciprocal fenfe evidently fhews that testamentum here fignifies a covenant.

CHAP. I. Title to the writings of the New Covenant.

3

The facred writers themselves have no general name for the whole collection', which neither was nor could be made as long as the Apostles lived, it being uncertain what productions might ftill proceed from their hands; and the Gospel of St. John was undoubtedly written at a very late period, and still later, as many suppose, the book of revelation. The Apoftles feldom quote either from their own writings, or from thofe of the other Apoftles, fince they were at that time too recent to be generally known in all the churches: but in thofe cafes in which quotations are used they exprefs themselves, “I wrote to you in an epiftlef," or "As our beloved brother Paul alfo according to the wifdom given unto him hath written unto you," &c. In these and fimilar inftances they refer only to such epiftles as had been written to the fame community to which they were writing themselves*: to the epiftles of St. Paul alone are fuch references to be found, and, what is a fingular circumftance, to thofe rules which are loft".

The expreffion likewife wara ygaon, which is ufed by St. Paul in his fecond epiftle to Timothy, can hardly fignify his own writings and those of the other Apoftles, fince according to the tenor of the whole paffage it conveys the fame meaning with ga yeaupata ufed in the preceding fentence, fcriptures which Timothy had learnt from a child, and which could mean therefore the writings of the Old Teftament alone, not those of the Apoftles and Evangelifts.

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The above remarks, though unimportant in them felves, afford however an opportunity of making a general obfervation which we shall find of confiderable weight in the fequel, That the Apoftles who fo frequently quote the writings of the Old Teftament rarely quote those of the new. They were at that time too recent, and too little known to the Chriftians in general to form a fubject of quotation, fince otherwife St. Paul would hardly have omitted, in writing his firft epiftle to the Corinthians, to quote in the fifteenth chapter the Gospel of St. Matthew,

whofe

f 1 Cor. v. 9.

z 2 Pet. iii. 15.

Ch. iii. 16.

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