logical sequence, and unity which are so marked in this Epistle.

Critics of the same school point to the many parallel passages in the Epistle to the Ephesians and that to the Colossians, and ask how these can be explained, except on the hypothesis we have mentioned, supplemented by the following. The supposed writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians, after having amplified Paul's original letter to the Colossians into what we call the Epistle to the Ephesians, afterwards manipulated also the original letter, using his own Epistle to the Ephesians in the process. In this way the mystery of the resemblance between the two canonical Epistles is explained.

It seems to us that the problem can be solved in a much simpler way. It is not impossible that two completely independent and original writings may coincide on certain points, both in substance and in form of expression. If they treat of two very similar subjects, if they are both by the same author, if both were written at about the same time of his life, and under the influence of the same feelings, it cannot be wondered at if there are strong resemblances, both of form and substance, between them. All these conditions are fulfilled in the two letters to which we are referring. It is not difficult for us to picture to ourselves what was taking place at the very time when they were written.

Epaphras has just come from Colosse to Rome. There he finds Paul and Timothy. He tells them of the new doctrine-a fusion of Essenism and Christianity—which is threatening his Church. Paul meditates a while. Then he says to Epaphras: "The best way to cut the roots of this false speculation with its ascetic tendencies, is to remind the Church of Colosse of the supreme dignity of Christ as the Head of the Church, in the presence of which all the glory of the angels vanishes away. Then to show

them that the work of Christ for the salvation of men is complete, that nothing is to be added to it; that baptism into His death is the true circumcision, that the law is henceforth like a cancelled charge, that the cross is the triumphant chariot to which the powers of darkness are bound and led captive. All the legal ordinances and practices enjoined by these false teachers will then be seen to be vain. The Colossians will understand that the true death and the true resurrection are to be found, not in their useless ascetic practices, but in sharing the death and resurrection of Jesus; and that all that remains is to consummate these two spiritual facts by the daily mortification of the old man, and the constant growth of the new."

Epaphras gives his joyful assent to this plan of campaign. Then Paul asks what tidings there are from the other Churches in the district. Epaphras tells him that they are walking in faith and in love (Eph. i. 15). Though they are not exposed to the same dangers as the Church at Colosse, it would be good for them nevertheless to be brought into direct personal relation with the Apostle, and to receive from him some words of encouragement. It would be especially useful to urge upon them the holiness which ought to characterise all the family relations, upon which the heretics were trying to bring discredit by a semblance of higher spirituality in their mode of living.

Paul at once sets himself to his task, with the help of Timothy (Col. i. 1). He first dictates to him the letter which has the most direct aim-the letter to the Colossians. Then, as Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul writes, in his own name only, the more general letter, with no polemical bearing, to the neighbouring Churches, to stir them up to adore the boundless grace bestowed upon them, and to urge them to a life becoming those so highly favoured.

Hence it comes to pass that the central idea of the Epistle to the Colossians is this: Christ the Head, from whom the

body derives all its nourishment; while the central idea of what we call the Epistle to the Ephesians is the Church, the body which Christ fills with His Divine fulness, and raises to sit with Him in the heavenly places. Of these two thoughts, which supplement each other, the second was certainly suggested by the first. The first note struck woke the vibrations of the next; then followed a pan of Divine harmonies. What could be more natural than that two strains thus suggested, should have many tones in common, though each set in a different key?

But it has been said again: The style of the Epistle to the Ephesians is wholly unlike that of the Epistle to the Colossians, or of Paul's other letters. Instead of the close, argumentative strain to which we are accustomed, we find here the full, swelling notes of a hymn. This rich and abundant phraseology has nothing in common with the broken, concise, uniformly sober style of the Apostle.

Yet there are passages in other epistles, such as the close of the 8th and 11th chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, which show that Paul knew, not only how to teach and to discuss, but how to sing. He says himself to the Corinthians that he thanks God he can speak with tongues more than they all. Now the speaking with tongues was rather song than speech; it was the language of ecstasy. Can we be surprised if, in addressing Churches to whom he had no special teaching to impart or rebuke to administer, Paul should have for once risen to the exalted tones of a hymn, to magnify the grace which had wrought such great things for them?

The Epistle to the Ephesians is indeed a tongue, a tongue interpreted by Paul himself, and changed by this interpretation into a prophecy intelligible to all (1 Cor. xiv. 18, 19). The more I read and re-read this admirable letter, the more it strikes me that Paul himself tried to sum it all up in the words of his prayer (iii. 18), in which he asks God to

give his readers to understand the dimensions of the Divine salvation, of that edifice of which God is Himself the builder, "that ye may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height." The length: he describes it in chap. i., where he shows how the salvation of the world proceeds from an eternal decree, which was before all the ages, and the purport of which is to give the sovereignty to Christ in the dispensation of the fulness of the times. The breadth: he shows how the kingdom of God is gradually to embrace all intelligent beings: first, Jews and Gentiles-that is, all believers; finally men and angels, the sovereignty of Christ being thus co-extensive with the intelligent universe. The depth: he points to Christ going down into the dark abyss of death, to be set again on the highest throne by His resurrection and ascension. The height: he bids his readers look upon themselves as henceforth risen in Him, and seated with Him in the heavenly places.

Even Paul never wrote in grander strains than these, and to imagine that after his death another might have penned them in his name is to suppose that somewhere and somewhen there arose a second Paul, unknown to the Church, and who has left no other trace of his existence but this single letter. It is far easier to believe that once in his life the Apostle of the Gentiles beheld in raptured contemplation, and magnified in this sublime language, the glorious work committed to him-the work of restoring the unity of the body of mankind, which from the time of Abraham had been divided into two great branches, thus heralding and preluding the time when all things in heaven and earth should be gathered together in Christ.

This is the keynote of the Epistle to the Ephesians, as of the Gospel of John. The two great Apostles thus meet on the topmost height of the Christian revelation.

F. GODET.

392

RECENT AMERICAN LITERATURE ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.

THE last summary of the American literature on the New Testament closed with March, 1885. Since that time a considerable body of literature has appeared, and the present summary aims at little more than furnishing an index to it. It is fair to warn the reader that the space at disposal has not been distributed among the works noticed in any nice adjustment to their comparative values; it has rather been our plan to say little even of the most important books where little seemed needed to bring out their essential character, and to say much where explanation seemed necessary or desirable.

The most notable book of the year is undoubtedly Prof. J. H. Thayer's Lexicon of New Testament Greek. It is primarily a translation of Grimm's Clavis, which has been long recognised as not only the best lexicon to the New Testament, but no less than indispensable to every careful student. But Prof. Thayer's work has been far more than merely to translate Grimm's precise Latin into equally satisfactory English-though this in itself would have been a useful work. In translating he has revised, and in revising he has enlarged, until (although all of Prof. Grimm's work is scrupulously retained) the book is practically a new work, which "antiquates and abrogates" all other New Testament hand-lexicons-even Grimm itself and Robinson, the latter of which, for English-speaking students, has held the ground heretofore. The labour which Prof. Thayer has expended on his work is enormous, and has been directed not only towards perfecting the book as a handbook for scholars and making it a treasury of references to discussions of difficult points, but also towards fitting it for the use of beginners and making it the indispensable companion of the average student. The completed result worthily caps the long historical development of New Testament lexicography, which may be said to have begun with Schleusner (1792-1819) and to have flowed down to our time in an ever-growing and ever-clearing stream, through Wahl (18191843), Bretschneider (1824-1840), Wilke (1844-1851), and Grimm

1A Greek-English Lexicon to the N. T., being Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti, translated, revised and enlarged. By Joseph Henry Thayer, Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in Harvard University. (New York: Harper & Bros. 1886. 4to.)