The parable of the washing would receive its interpretation, and would stand to them as the Lord's own assurance. They would feel no need of a narrative from the lips of any one, but could declare (after the manner of the Samaritan people to the woman who had brought them her report of the Christ), "We believe not because of any saying of others; we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world."

In the washing of their feet Jesus gave His disciples a sacrament, an outward sign of what His love and grace had effected for man's redemption. The symbolical action figured for them the wondrous humiliation of the Divine Son, and supplied, when unfolded, a spiritual conviction of its truth. And it is set down for all time, the Lord's own testimony to the verity of the Incarnation. It is veiled, as so many of His lessons were, but it is so delivered that it may stimulate the penetration and awaken the spiritual discernment of those who have eyes and desire to see, who have ears and desire to hear.

But in the sequel of this acted parable the Divine Instructor has gone farther, and supplied lessons full of comfort and help, first to His disciples, then to all those who hereafter shall believe on Him through their word. For the condition and attitude of St. Peter is constantly reproduced in Christian lives. The Apostle and his companions had confessed that they saw in Jesus the Son of the living God. But yet how halting that faith was had been shown as soon as the Master began to speak of His coming sufferings. "Be it far from thee. This shall not be unto Thee" (Matt. xvi. 22) was an utterance which betrayed that the whole mission of Christ, all the purpose of the coming of God to man, had neither been accepted nor understood. And they manifested, through their spokesman, the same imperfect faith still "Lord, dost Thou, my Lord and Master, wash the feet of me, a man so sinful?" and in that passionate

rejection of the lowly aspect of Divine condescension, "Lord, Thou shalt never wash my feet."

It is ever the same struggle. It has to be faced and mastered in the experience of every Christian age, nay, in every Christian life. Till it be mastered the fulness of faith is never attained. Men know of Christ in some sort, they make a confession of Him, and hold it for very real. But when the test comes, which asks for obedient submission, for the acceptance of things which are not known as yet, but only dimly shadowed forth in sacramental figure, when the steps must go forward in faith, there is opposition awakened in various wise. It seems impossible to accept Christ's grace manifested in His humiliation and suffering as a free gift. Men feel at one time as if the washing of Christ were far more than they are meet to receive, and withal there arises a longing to do something of themselves for their own purification. They would have their part in the cleansing process, and cannot leave it to the Lord, cannot be assured that He knows, while they are in ignorance.

But the love of the Master endures to the uttermost; He helps the imperfect rudimentary faith by a lesson that makes clear to men their own helplessness. "Unless I

wash thee," were His words to St. Peter, "thou hast no part with Me." And here again the Lord's words show us that we are moving in the realm of parable; that it is a spiritual cleansing of which He speaks, a purification such as will unite men to Himself, and of which the washing of the body is but a figure. The terrible alternative came as a shock to the Apostle. To have no part in his Master's love, in his Master's service; at such a prospect, he, who with his eager frailty was soon about to profess, "Though I die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee," was overwhelmed with dismay; and, impulsive as ever, he rushes to the opposite extreme and begs, "Lord, wash not my feet only, but also my hands and my head."

In the answer to His Apostle's change of mind, we come upon another word of Jesus, which was intended to wait for the Spirit's unfolding, but which, since the day when St. Peter preached, "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins," Christians can hardly hesitate to refer to the sacrament of Baptism, that institution of Christ by which believers are received into His family, brought to have a part in Him. "He that hath been washed” (λeλovμévos), are His words, "needeth not save to wash (vi↓aodaı) his feet, but is clean altogether." The altered word at once suggests another sense of washing, even that to which the Apostle to the Hebrews (x. 22) alludes as having for its accompaniment the sprinkling of the heart from an evil conscience, and which is the outward sign of the loosing from sins by Christ's own blood (Rev. i. 5). He that hath been thus washed, who has accepted in faith that washing which is an assurance of the cleansing of the heart by the sacrifice of Jesus, he will need, it is true, the constant purification from those sins by which he is beset in his daily life, but yet he will be clean. He will feel as long

as he is in the world that sin lives in him and needs to be resisted, but his desire and constant effort will be not to live in sin. And such a one God for Christ's sake will accept, even as Peter and his fellows were accepted and sent forth to be the witnesses for Jesus.

"Ye are clean," says He, and afterwards (John xv. 3) enlarges on the saying: "Ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me." They were in Him as branches in the vine, a part of Himself, but still dependent on His support and sustenance. But that support was certain. And so He says, "Ye are clean"; and the spirit of His words has been repeated in that constant expression of the apostolic writers, when they speak of those who have been received into Christ's Church as

already "saints," "called to be saints," because in spite of many infirmities they call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Like the Apostles, their spirit is willing though their flesh be weak. And though in their lives there is many a spot and stain, the laver of repentance washes these away, and with thankful hearts they recognise the mercy which says of them too, "Ye are clean through the word."

In this way the parable and its sequel, left to the disciples, that through the illumination of the Spirit they might draw from it confirmation and assurance, becomes luminous to every succeeding age. In new generations there arise new aims and new trials, but they who humbly seek to have their part in Christ know (with St. Paul) whom they have believed, and that knowledge and faith makes them clean, clean through the word, and they learn ever more and more of the love of Christ which passeth all learning and is an ever-opening prospect of help and grace; and in joys and trials alike they find the words of the Divine Master a strong stay: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

J. RAWSON LUMBY.

26

FORMS OF CLASSIFICATION IN ACTS.

THE author of Acts speaks of the pair of missionary travellers, Paul and Barnabas (or of the other pair, Paul and Silas) sometimes as ỏ Пaûλos kai Baрváßas (e.g., xiii. 2, 50; χν. 22; xvi. 29), sometimes as ὁ Παῦλος καὶ ὁ Βαρνάβας (e.g., xiii. 43, 46; xv. 2; xvi. 19; xvii. 10), and sometimes as Παῦλος καὶ Βαρνάβας (xv. 2, 12, 35). The question suggests itself whether any difference of sense is intended in this variation, or whether it is purely accidental, or whether any difference of style, implying either variety of authorship or the use of different authorities by one author, has been the cause of the variety of expression. The purpose of this paper is to show that a difference of sense between ὁ Παῦλος καὶ Βαρνάβας and the other two is intended, and that the same adaptation of grammatical form to express difference of meaning runs throughout Acts as a whole or in great part. The subject is slippery, and involves too much of mere subjective opinion to be trustworthy except as subsidiary to other investigations;1 but it seems worthy of consideration, if only to give to others the opportunity of refuting or of modifying the tentative opinion here stated.

Two persons may be clothed with joint authority, and form really a board of two officials created by a definite act of authority. In that case they constitute a duumvirate, a collegium or committee of two, able to act with united

2

1 Especially there is always a danger of mixing up the use of the article to indicate previous mention with the use suggested here. I quite acknowledge this and other possibilities. Every person with grammatical interests begins by trying to find rules or at least tendencies to rule in the use of the article by any single writer; and almost every one ends by recognising the impossibility of discovering any rule. My old master in grammar, Prof. Theodor Benfey, of Göttingen, always urged that there is never any rule in such subjects, but only a tendency (often modified by circumstances) towards a rule.

? I use this term roughly: strictly each collega possesses individually the