of words used many ages ago in a distant land, than is felt in regard to words which are now spoken by us daily.

Having endeavoured to show that it is not by looking to the radical sense of a word that we can certainly learn its meaning; and that it is not by ascertaining the meaning which words have borne in the works of heathen writers, that we can determine what is their meaning in the New Testament, we shall now proceed to what we think appropriate and conclusive evidence. Before adducing this, it may be proper, for the sake of those who are not familiar with the subject, briefly to notice the various sources of interpretation, the several means to be employed in seeking for the signification of a word of unknown or doubtful meaning. Without some general acquaintance with this subject, the worth of particular arguments cannot be rightly estimated.

When we meet with any word whose signification is unknown, we have to observe whatever is connected with it, from which a just inference may be deduced. 1. Other words of known signification are combined with it: they are called the context; and from them something may generally be learned. For example: if a preposition, which commonly is joined to the instrument by which any effect is produced, is combined with the unknown word, then we may infer that the something which it denotes has this character; and so on for other kinds of words. 2. By the associated word we may clearly perceive what is the subject of which the writer treats, and to which the meaning of the word belongs. If he be a man of sense, we know that the word must mean something suitable to that subject. 3. If the propositions to be proved or illustrated be known, then we may infer that the unknown word has a meaning that would render it conducive to those ends. In reasoning from what is called the scope of a passage, from the subject, and from the context, it is necessary to regard the author's manner of thinking and writing rather than our own or that of other persons. 4. If any translation of the passage we are examining has been given by those who had other means of knowing the sense of the word than we possess, we must look to this testimony, and estimate it according to the judgment and opportunity of the translator. All this evidence applies directly to the word as used in any passage the sense of which we desire to ascertain, and directly to it only.

It is seldom that the examination of one passage, in which the word to be investigated stands, will afford conclusive evidence of its meaning even there. It may serve to show that it has not a certain supposed meaning, but be insufficient to exhibit its true import. If the context throw no light on the signification of the word in the passage under examination, it is necessary to refer to other passages in which the same word occurs, and to ascertain its meaning in them in the manner we have pointed out. Having found what appears to be its signification in one or more passages, we then infer that it has the same signification

in any other. This reasoning is more or less conclusive, according as the passages from which the meaning of the word is drawn differ from those to which it is applied. If, for instance, a word is found to bear a certain sense in several places in Homer's Iliad, then it is very probable that the same meaning belongs to the word in other places of that work. It is less probable that the same signification belongs to the word in the history of Herodotus; and it is still less probable that it belongs to the word in the writings of Xenophon and Plutarch. So, if a word has a certain signification in many places of St. Paul's epistles, it is highly probable that it bears the same signification in other parts of his writings; it is less probable that it has exactly the same meaning in the Septuagint; and it is much less probable that it has this sense in the works of Thucydides and Demosthenes. Just in proportion as differences have been found, must differences be expected in the signification of words when used by various authors. If the context first examined should give indication of some meaning as probably belonging to the word, it is still, if not necessary, most desirable, to refer to other passages. Where the meaning which suits the first passage suits also the second and the third, and so on, then the amount of proof thus afforded increases with great rapidity: a wrong signification might suit a few passages, but that which suits many is very likely to be the right. The seeming appropriateness, in one place, of the meaning assigned to the word might be accidental, but its appropriateness to a large number of places would be next to impossible if it were not the true meaning. It may not be the only signification, but it must be one of the significations of the word.

Besides looking to parallel passages in the same and in other works, we may also search for the radical meaning of this and of cognate words. The radical signification can only be gained in the same way that we gain the signification of any derived word; and when it is ascertained, we can only infer that the word under examination has a meaning directly or indirectly connected with that of the root. Deviations are so frequent and so various that more than this cannot be justly inferred. The statements of Seiler in his Biblical Hermeneutics cannot be disputed: "But with the aid of etymology alone no more can be proved than the possibility of a word having such signification. And etymology is a less certain criterion of the actual sense of a word in the New Testament, as the books contained therein were written at a time when the Greek language had widely diverged from its origin and first formation.". p. 367. Passages of similar import are to be found in the writings of the best critics. If there are other languages nearly related to that of the word we are investigating, we should look also to the corresponding words which are found in them, where several of these possess similar significations; then, on these coincidences, a strong argument may be founded, the coincidence clearly indicating the operation of some com

N. S. VOL. V.

mon cause. If the language of the word to be examined was used by people who had another language with which they were equally or more familiar, then it is of the greatest importance to ascertain the various meanings of its corresponding words; since, whether it were proper or not, if the words of the language first known agreed in one of their significations with the words of the second language, the latter would naturally be used as though it had all the significations of the former. Aramean, and not Greek, was the vernacular language of the Jews, of those by whom the New Testament was written, and of those for whom it was primarily designed. It is therefore to be expected that many words in Hebraistic Greek, should, by copying the signification of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac words, deviate widely from their classical sense. This is found to be the fact, and is acknowledged by all modern critics. Most of the deviations from the classic Greek signification which have been adduced, may be referred to as proofs of the influence exerted by these languages on the meaning of words in Hebraistic Greek. The difference between the use of Greek words in the lips of the Jewish people, and the usage found in Grecian writers, may have originated in mistake; but when the practice of thus speaking became common, it would thereby be made right. It would have been as much a violation of grammatical propriety, and as much opposed to the ends of language, to talk or write Attic Greek to Jews in Judea and its settlements, as it I would have been to talk or write Hebraistic Greek to native Greeks at Athens or Corinth. The persons for whose use the Scriptures of the New Testament were originally intended, were to a large extent in some degree familiar with Hebraistic Greek, being either Jews or Greeks accustomed to hold intercourse with Jews, and acquainted with the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. This was therefore the language most proper to be used by the apostles of Christianity. "They thought and spoke in the Syro-Chaldaic tongue, which was mixed with Hebrew phraseology. Hence it follows that the sense contained in the Greek words will be with most certainty discovered by a comparison of the Greek with the Hebrew and Syro-Chaldaic." Seiler's Herm. p. 368. Lastly, we may refer to dictionaries and lexicons, which exhibit the judgment of learned men concerning the general meaning of words, and their sense in particular passages.

It should be observed that this evidence is fundamentally the same with the direct evidence before described: it differs from it in being indirect, and so far less conclusive in regard to any doubtful passage. By reference, first, to other passages and other books where the word occurs; second, to the radical signification; third, to the meaning of similar words in cognate and otherwise connected languages, we only gain evidence in respect to what may be a frequent or ordinary signification of the word. Having ascertained this, it still remains for further consideration, how far it is likely that what we have found to be the

meaning of the word in one age or in one book, is its meaning in another age and in another book; how far it is likely that the meaning of the root is also the meaning of every derivative; and how far it is likely that the meaning of a word in one language should agree with all the meanings of similar words in the languages to which it is in any way allied. The evidence from-first, context; second, subject; third, scope; fourth, versions, is direct to the signification of the word in some particular passage; but that derived from, fifth, parallel passages; sixth, radical signification; seventh, associated languages, is direct evidence to a general usage, and only indirect evidence to the meaning of a word in any given place.

It appears sufficiently clear from the nature of the case, that direct evidence, where it can be obtained, should be preferred to indirect ; and that, of the latter kind, that which is near should be preferred to that which is remote. The indirect evidence afforded by parallel passages, &c. may often be much greater than the direct, but it can never be so great but that it can be entirely overthrown by direct evidence of a contrary tendency. Such we believe to be the principles universally acknowledged and observed by those who are most practised in the study of languages. The context, the subject, the scope of a writer, viewed in connexion with his known modes of writing, his character, and circumstances, together with parallel passages from the works of the same author, or of those whose language most closely agrees with his, furnish the best, the only satisfactory proof of the meaning of a word. The usage of men who wrote the same language in other countries and ages is of very much less value, and is not unfrequently inferior, as evidence, to the usage of those who, though employing another language, were accustomed to the same modes of thought and expression. The evidence drawn from classic Greek authors, and that drawn from the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac languages may make it probable that a word in Hebraistic Greek was sometimes used in a certain sense, but neither can furnish proof that it was always so employed. Both are valuable as auxiliary means of proof, and neither are of much worth if they stand alone, since the want of all direct evidence for a supposed meaning, in the case of a word of frequent occurrence is obviously a strong argument against it. The signification of roots is now regarded by philologists as matter of curious speculation, rather than as means of solid proof. Etymology may serve much to facilitate the application of other evidence, but one would as easily conjecture the forms and colours of flowers and trees by meditating on the seeds and roots from which they spring, as find out the meaning of half the language of the world by the study of radical significations. What is the radical signification of ẞáт, and what the classical signification of Barriga can only be known by an examination of the passages in which these and similar terms occur. The light which

words, propositions, objects, and events associated with them, cast on these terms, is the light that must guide us to their meaning. But the words, propositions, objects, and events, associated with the term Banrico in the Septuagint, and in the Testament, will, with equal clearness and certainty, indicate its meaning there. If we were to ascertain its radical and its classic signification, yet, as we have seen that not a few words bear in the New Testament a peculiar sense, and that this is especially the case with the class of words to which Barrig belongs, it will still remain uncertain what is its meaning in Hebraistic Greek. But if we go to the writings of the Old Testament, of the Apocrypha, and of the New Testament, and consider the various relations in which the word is there presented, we obtain our evidence from the highest and purest source; we have proof which bears immediately on the subject to be investigated; and which will conduct us to a conclusion having all the certainty which the nature of the subject renders attainable.

The value of this evidence is not likely to be fully appreciated except by those who have some familiarity with such investigations. Were it not common, nothing would seem more preposterous than the practice of many who attempt to reason or dogmatically decide on the Scriptural signification of Barrio, although perhaps they have never tried to discover the meaning of any other doubtful word in their own or in a foreign language. It is only by exercise in similar discussions, where we are safe from bias and can verify our conclusions, that we become capable of judging rightly what is proper evidence on this subject, and what is its comparative value. On this latter point it should be observed, that the evidence afforded by the suitableness of a signification in one passage will obviously depend on the number of particulars in which this fitness may appear, and on the existence of other significations having the same or nearly the same suitableness; and, as before-mentioned, that the evidence afforded by the suitableness of a signification to many passages is more than the sum of the probabilities belonging to each separately. That a signification agrees with all the circumstances of a word in one passage may be no sufficient proof that it is the true meaning; but if there are many particulars of agreement, and it suits not merely one but ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred passages, the combined force of such evidence amounts to demonstration. Whether we can obtain this cumulative proof in reference to the word in question from an examination of the sacred writings, remains to be seen. We ought, however, to be satisfied with much less. The probability, that Barri has, in the New Testament, exactly the sense which it bears in the classics is, in itself, but small, and is balanced by the probability that it has taken the sense of corresponding words in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. A little evidence, something far short of demonstration, should therefore suffice with regard to a signification, which if opposed by the