כי אין עם יהוה אלהינו עולה ומשא פנים ומקח 19,701 or משפט

כי מעלת ולא לך לכבוד,(or 26, 18 (priests to Uzziah,שחר are sentences such as would be penned by the מיהוה אלהיך

writers of Samuel or Kings?

2

I might continue: but I have perhaps written enough for my purpose. Dr. French has taken a position which he will find it impossible to maintain. He disputes, be it observed, not only my inference from the style of the speeches peculiar to the Chronicles, that they are the composition of a much later hand than those in Samuel or Kings, but the facts upon which that inference is based: he denies that there are any differences whatever between the two classes of speeches: "the alleged differences are non-existent. The speeches for which there are parallels exhibit the compiler's hand as much as those for which there is no voucher, while the latter bear no stronger impress of his individuality than the former." Even Keil, however, owns frankly that this is not the case. Of the four speeches in 1 Chr. 22, 7-16. 28, 2-10. 12-22 [sic: ? 19-21]. 29, 1-5 he remarks that "in contents and form, in thought and language, the individuality of the Chronicler is so prominent in them that we must regard them as free expansions of the thoughts which at the time stirred the soul of the aged king." Delitzsch speaks yet more distinctly. "The speeches which the Chronicles have in common with the Kings read almost

3

4

(b) the resemblance in expression (by) with v. 10. 24, 18. 29, 8 (speech). 32, 25. 26, and especially 1 Chr. 27, 24.

1 With clause a, comp. 14, 13. 17, 10. 20, 29. In this speech, consisting of two verses, each clause has thus a noticeable point of contact, with either the style or the thought of the Chronicler (on v. 6a, see above, p. 290). To prevent misunderstanding, I should explain that this and the preceding notes are not intended to comment upon all the peculiarities of the Chronicler's style occurring in the passages quoted.

2 I had noted, for instance, some suggestive instances of dependence upon Deuteronomy, but I have no space for developing them. Perhaps I may revert to the subject on a future occasion.

8 Lex. M., p. 165; repeated, EXPOSITOR, p. 145 89.

4 Comm, on Chron., p. 28.

verbally the same; the others have an entirely different physiognomy." ." According to Dr. French the physiognomy is entirely the same !2 The alleged differences are "nonexistent"! And when we come to the further question, and ask how Delitzsch supposes this different physiognomy to have arisen, we find that he adopts the same explanation that I do the speeches peculiar to the Chronicles display, namely, similarities of thought and expression, which are evidence that they cannot be referred to the original authors, but that they are imbued with the individuality of a later compiler. Whether the form of these speeches is due entirely to the Chronicler himself, or whether it had in part, or even principally, been already assumed in the Chronicler's main authority, the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, which (in Delitzsch's words) "must in tone and style have resembled his own," does not affect the present question: the differences are there, and it is extraordinary that any one capable of forming literary judgments should be found to deny them. For my own part I have propounded no novel or precarious theory, and nothing which does not rest upon a wide and secure induction of facts. In my former article I simply exemplified, by concrete instances, that entirely different physiognomy" of which Delitzsch speaks; while in the inferences which I based upon it I have maintained nothing which is not abundantly warranted by the facts, and at the same time supported by the best and most independent authorities who have written on the subject.

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S. R. DRIVER.

1 Comm. on Isaiah, p. xvi. (ed. 3), p. 11 (ed. 4).

2 I presume that this is no unjust paraphrase of the judgment quoted a few lines above from Lex Mosaica.

3 Similarly Dillmann, in Herzog's Encyclopädie, s.v. Chronik (p. 224, ed. 2). 4 The latter alternative is preferred by Bertheau (p. xxxvii.): comp. Introd., pp. 498, 499.

309

A FRAGMENT OF THE ORIGINAL HEBREW

GOSPEL.

"AFTER all that has been written upon the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews,' it requires some courage to reopen the discussion of the question; but it seems to be indispensable." With these words Theodore Zahn begins the chapter on this Gospel in his great work, The History of the Canon of the New Testament (vol. ii., 1892, p. 642). Not much more than a dozen short passages from this Gospel, or as many references, have been handed down to us; yet in the work just mentioned more than eighty pages are devoted to it. It is not the intention of the present article to enter into a full discussion of the questions relating to this Gospel. English readers may consult Nicholson's The Gospel according to the Hebrews, or any work dealing with the introduction to the New Testament, especially Westcott's Introduction to the Study of the Gospels. Suffice it to say that this Gospel "according to the Hebrews," or "as used among the Hebrews"—for this will be the better translation of its title, καθ' ̔Εβραίους, secundum Hebraeos-is quoted by the earliest fathers of the Greek Church, by Hegesippus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origenes, and Eusebius; while others, as Irenæus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, know of it only by hearsay. Our knowledge of it, however, depends chiefly upon St. Jerome, the famous author of the Latin Bible. At two different periods of his life this ȧvǹp TρíyλWTTоs had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with this book. The first time was when for several years (A.D. 374–379) he was leading an ascetic life in the desert of Chalcis (Kinnesrin), a short day's journey from Beroa (Aleppo), where a Christian Jew, or Jewish Christian, first imbued him with the knowledge of Hebrew. Then he obtained from the Nazaræans-that

is, the Judæo-Christian community of Bercea-Aleppo-a copy of their Gospel, and as early as that time, if we may believe him, made a transcript of it. Afterwards he again saw a copy of it in the famous library of Cæsarea, which belonged formerly to Origen, the greatest Biblical scholar of Christian antiquity. It may have been about the year 390, and at Bethlehem, that he translated it into Greek and Latin.1

But no copies of this translation have come down to us; we are restricted to the few quotations of Jerome himself. Only two of these quotations shall be discussed in the present article.

The first relates to Matthew xxvii. 51, where we read, And behold, the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," a passage, certainly, about which any reasonable explanation will be welcome. At three different periods of his life Jerome alludes to this passage.

As early as A.D. 381, in a letter to Pope Damasus (Epist. 18, 9), he writes in connection with Is. 6, 4: "Nonnulli superliminare sublatum illo tempore praedicant, quando velum templi scissum est, et universa domus Israel erroris nube confusa."

vero

Again, in the year 398, in his commentary on Matthew, when he comes to this chapter, he says: "In evangelio cuius saepe facimus mentionem "-thus "facimus" in the present tense of the verb, not "fecimus," as is often quoted, according to the best edition of his works: that of Vallarsisuperliminare templi infinitae magnitudinis fractum esse atque divisum legimus."

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Finally, about the year 406 or 407, he writes again in a

1 "Porro ipsum hebraicum (sc. evangelium Matthaei) habetur usque hodie in Caesariensi bibliotheca, quam Pamphilus martyr studiosissime confecit. Mihi quoque a Nazaraeis qui in Beroea urbe Syriae hoc volumine utuntur describendi facultas fuit. . . . Evangelium quoque quod appellatur secundum Hebraeos et a me nuper in Graecum Latinumque sermonem translatum est, quo et Origenes saepe utitur."

letter, ad Hedibiam (Epist. 120, 8): “In evangelio autem, quod hebraicis literis scriptum est, legimus, non 'velum templi scissum,' sed' superliminare templi mirae magnitudinis corruisse.'

We need not discuss every word of these references. According to the principle variatio delectat, Jerome is rather free in his expressions: sublatum, fractum atque divisum, corruere, infinita, mira magnitudo. Neither must we assume that when he says: "In evangelio legimus, non ' velum scissum,' sed," the former reading was directly refuted in the Gospel. We are only concerned with the veil, and its alternative, the superliminare. Our Gospel of Matthew is Greek, and has κатаπéтаoμa, but the general tradition is, that Matthew wrote originally in Hebrew; Jerome says of his Gospel that it was Hebrew and had superliminare. Strange to say, no scholar as yet, as far as I know, seems to have asked earnestly enough what may have been the exact Hebrew word which Jerome read there. Else he would have long ago arrived at the solution of the riddle: that kатажéтаσμа, veil, of our present Matthew is the translation of the very same Hebrew word which by Jerome is rendered "superliminare," only influenced by a little misreading. The Greek κатаTéтаoμа corresponds, as every Hebrew scholar will know by heart, and a glance at any concordance proves, to a very common Hebrew word: л, prkt (pronounced paroket); superliminare, again, stands for a rather rare word, spelt with the very same letters, but in a little different order: л, kptr (pronounced kaftor). This Hebrew word stands in the Old Testament: Amos ix. 1; Zephaniah ii. 14. By a very happy accident-which may serve to convince every one how easily such transpositions of letters occur, especially where liquidae are concernedthe Septuagint, the old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, has read at the very passage (Amos ix. 1) a third possible grouping of these letters; for it has "ixaστýρiov, id ἱλαστήριον,