presence, to distinguish it from a merely representative or figurative presence; it is called substantial presence, to distinguish it from the merely efficacious presence of the body and blood of Christ; it is called the mysterious, supernatural, incomprehensible presence, because it is not according to any mode of this world; but mysteriously, supernaturally, incomprehensibly, the body and blood of Christ are present in the Holy Supper and are distributed to the communicants.

What the Lutherans principally contend for is, 1) the reality of the presence in the eucharist of the whole Christ as against the Zwinglians, special mention being made of the body and blood because they especially were the subject of dispute; 2) the reality of the bread and wine as against transubstantiation, which maintains only the semblance of bread and wine. Hence, when in the sacramental act the bread and body, the wine and blood are brought together, neither enters on a new form or mode of being, neither is swallowed up by the other, neither is changed or converted into the other. Hence CONSUBSTANTIATION, as that word has been used and understood for three hundred years, and as it is defined by Hooker, Buck's Theological Dictionary, Schaff-Herzog, and other nonLutheran authorities, does not and cannot represent the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence; and hence both that word and every other word which attempts to define or describe the nature or the mode of that presence, or the nature or the mode of the sacramental union; or which involves any change in the earthly element of the sacrament; or implies the existence of union aside from the sacramental use, is now, and without a single exception has always been, rejected by the Lutheran theologians.*

The design of the Lord's Supper is thus stated by Melanchthon in the Apology:

*Is it not remarkable that the whole Protestant Church except the Lutherans should, for three hundred years, with the whole case laid open before them, have entertained the same mistake, and that the Lutherans themselves, in their exposition of the subject, should seem to all but themselves to concede by necessary implication what they formally deny? Lutherans say that the two substances, the body and blood of Christ, and the bread and wine, stand together in the sacrament, and that fact seems, to all but themselves, to be not infelicitously expressed by the Latinized noun, CONSUBSTANTIATION. It is, as to all appearances, the same rose, though called by another name. Why then should that name be offensive?-EDITOR.

The sacrament was instituted by Christ to console the alarmed conscience, to strengthen our faith when we believe that the flesh of Christ was given for the life of the world, and that by this nourishment we are united with Christ and obtain grace and life. -Art. X.

CATHOLICITY.

While the Evangelical Lutheran Church believes that she holds in their purity all the catholic doctrines of the Church of Christ, yet she does not affirm that she is the one only Church. The Augsburg Confession, Article VII, defines the Church as "the congregation of all believers, among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity, and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel." The Apology says:

*

We affirm and know of a truth that there are children of God scattered throughout all the world.

And Dr. Carpzov, a zealous Lutheran theologian, affirms:

No particular Church can boast itself that it is The Church; for it is one thing to be The Church and another thing to be of The Church. . . . We admit that our Church is a particular Church, but that she is the only true Church we do not say.

This article, having already transcended the generous limits prescribed by the editor of the periodical in which it appears, is now brought to a close without reflections or deductions. The reader has the facts, and can make his own reflections. The writer has striven to the best of his ability to act the part of the historian, and not that of the apologist or of the panegyrist. If he has spoken tenderly of the Lutheran Church, it is because she is his mother; if feebly, it is because of his own weakness. What he desires to say of himself is best expressed in the words of another: "If I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto."

*Under this second sign of a true churchly character, since all other administrations but its own may be adjudged to be not according to the Gospel, it is quite possible that the Lutheran Church shall be as uncatholic and exclusive as is the Anglican or the Roman Church, and such, it is well known, it often is in fact.— EDITOR.

ART. V.-OLD TESTAMENT REVISION.

THE first and most important pre-requisite for the translator of an ancient document, if he does not possess the autograph, is to ascertain the best text of that document. If he has but a single copy of the document, his textual criticism lies within a very small compass, and must be confined to the consideration of possible interpolations and to the suggestion of emendations of the text depending upon his subjective judgment, and is likely to be very unsatisfactory.

For the translators of the books of the Old Testament, the first thing to be determined is, What text shall be adopted? And this leads us to consider briefly the sources for settling the text of the Old Testament. And here, first of all, we must remark, what is well known, that not only have we no autographs of the books of the Old Testament, but we have not even copies of the Hebrew Scriptures a thousand years old. The books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew (some Chaldee portions excepted) between B. C. 1452 and about B. C. 400. About five hundred manuscripts of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament were collected by Kennicott in the last part of the last century; but the most ancient of these manuscripts were less than a thousand years old. The most celebrated manuscript of the Old Testament is that which takes its name from Rabbi Aaron ben Asher ben Moses, who lived at Tiberias in the tenth century. This manuscript is regarded both by the Karaïtes and the rabbies as a model Codex of the Hebrew Scriptures, and it is the one from which the common Masoretic text is printed.

But we have versions of the Old Testament far older than the oldest extant Hebrew MS. The Five Books of Moses were translated from the original Hebrew into Greek about B. C. 280; the other books were translated into the same language within the following century and a half. This is the version called the Septuagint. We have also the Syriac Versim of the Old Testament, made from the original Hebrew, executed about A. D. 150. We have also the Chaldee translation of the Pentateuch made by Onkelos about A. D. 20,

* We have no autograph of the great classical writings of Greece and Rome.

if not earlier. About the same time, a translation of the Prophets was made into Chaldee by Jonathan ben Uzziel. Both of these translations, called Targums, are extant. Besides these we have the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch, taken from the Hebrew not later than B. C. 330; and also an Aramean translation of the same made about the time of Christ. In the last part of the fourth century, the celebrated Christian scholar Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin, which is also extant, and the great authority with the Church of Rome. A critical edition of the text of the Old Testament based on the oldest versions as well as on the oldest Hebrew manuscripts does not exist.

The revisers of the English version of the Old Testament have closely followed the Masoretic Hebrew text, though they sometimes refer to the readings of the ancient versions when they differ from the Hebrew. Thus on the margin of Gen. iv, 8, it is stated: "Many ancient authorities have, said unto Abel his brother, Let us go into the field." These ancient authorities are the Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Peshito Syriac, and Latin Vulgate, which make it probable that the addition, "Let us go into the field," once belonged to the Hebrew text. On the margin of Gen. vi, 3, we have: "Or, according to many ancient versions, abide in."

On the margin of Gen. xv, 2, it is stated: "The Chaldee and Syriac have, Eliezer the Damascene." On the margin of Gen. xxii, 13, the revisers remark: "Or, according to many ancient authorities, behold a ram caught." These authorities are the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, the Targum of Onkelos, and the Peshito Syriac. On the margin of Gen. xxxii, 28, the revisers give the reading of the Septuagint and the Vulgate; and on the margin of Gen. xxxvi, 2, it is stated: "Some ancient authorities have, son," and on the margin of verse 39, Hadad is given as the reading of some ancient authorities. Again, on the margin of Gen. xlvii, 21, the reading of the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate is given; and also on the margin of Gen. xlix, in several places ancient readings are referred to.

In a similar manner throughout the Old Testament the revisers refer to the different readings of the ancient versions, the last of which we find in Mal. ii, 3. The revisers, however, ex

press no opinion respecting the value of these different readings, and the reader is left to form his own judgment upon the matter. But to proceed to the revision itself. If our revisers possessed no remarkable advantages over the scholars who made King James's translation in the means of fixing the text of the Old Testament, they enjoyed far greater resources for giving us an exact translation of the Hebrew text. For the critical study of the Hebrew language and its sister dialects, Syriac, Chaldee, Ethiopic, and Arabic (to say nothing of Assyrian), has been prosecuted with the greatest zeal and success in the long interval since 1611, the date of King James's version. The present century, especially, has been distinguished by the publication of the great Hebrew lexicons of Gesenius and Fürst, and the Hebrew grammars of Ewald, Gesenius, Nordheimer, Green, Böttcher, and of the Hebrew tenses of Diver. Philology, which investigates the common laws of thought and the affinities of languages, is of modern growth. The dialects of the Shemitic family have been made to illustrate the Hebrew, their venerable sister, and to help her out of difficulties. To all these advantages, which a translator of the Old Testament now possesses, must be added our vastly increased knowledge of the geography, topography, the animals, plants, manners, and customs of Palestine and its contiguous lands, furnished within the last fifty years by numerous Oriental travelers and explorers. Besides all these advantages, our revisers had the assistance of the excellent German translation of the Bible made by the distinguished scholar Dr. De Wette, if they wished to avail themselves of it.

A translator of the Old Testament should have a critical knowledge of Hebrew and Chaldee, and a considerable acquaintance with Syriac and Arabic, and be familiar with the natural history of Palestine. He should, at the same time, possess a most thorough knowledge of all the idioms and niceties of the language into which the version is to be made. He should also have excellent taste and judgment, not too conservative, on the one hand, nor too fond of novelties on the other. The poetic faculty would likewise be of advantage to him. The excellency of a translation consists in its reproducing faithfully all the spirit and force of the original in the best and tersest idiomatic language.