any particular object of the kind alluded to in view, is surely a position which should shock even the conjectural credulity of the new school.

CHAP. VI.

Translation of the word Aylhos, Heb. i. Disputed books. Griesbach. Conclusion.

Although the Translators take every possible opportunity to represent a belief in the existence of fallen angels as irrational, and therefore unseriptural, they do not altogether deny the existence of angels themselves. This they seem to admit; yet, as the word ayeλos means both a messenger and an angel, they sometimes attempt, for certain theological purposes, to give it the former in preference to the latter signification, in direct opposition to the context. When St. Stephen states the law to have been received by the ministry of angels," we are informed in a note, that thunder, lightning and tempest, may be called angels, like the plague of Egppt, Psalm lxxviii. 49; and the burning wind, Isaiah xxxvii. 36;"* or that

* But the illustrations here adduced are defective in proof. The evil angels or angels inflicting evils, mentioned Psalm 1xxviii. 49. ought rather perhaps to be taken literally, in allusion to Exodus xii. 23, where the on the destroyer (sov oopsvovra in the Septuagint) is introduced as only permitted to strike the first-born of the Egyptians; and this sense, it should be remarked, is evidently given to the phrase in the Greek Version of Symmachus, who renders it ayisλwv xaxsvrwv, angels afflicting them with evils. See also 2 Sam. xxiv. 17, in which David is stated to have seen the angel who smote the people with pestilence. With respect to the passage in Isaiah, that which is termed a burning wind is expressly stated in the text to have been the angel of the Lord, who is represented as having gone out (Y) and smitten in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand. Why must we attribute to natural

these angels may only mean "Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and a succession of authorized prophets and messengers of God." But a more striking instance of their perverting the obvious import of this word occurs in several passages of the first chapter of the Hebrews, in which they uniformly translate it messenger; and it is this translation which I propose particularly to consider.

Their object is sufficiently evident. Throughout the whole of the chapter in question the superiority of Christ to the angels is too distinctly asserted to be explained away. In imitation therefore of Wakefield, they endea vour to get rid of the difficulty at once (a difficulty which might otherwise prove a stumbling-block to their creed) by rendering, ay♫ελo messengers, and by giving us at the same time to understand, that the messengers alluded to are the prophets of the Old Testament. The authority of Wakefield I admit to be respectable; a writer certainly of classical taste, and of elegant attainments, but by no means ranking high on the list of biblical critics: whose translation of the New testament is, like theirs, deeply tinctured by his creed, and whose professed attachment to truth and candour was too often biassed by prejudice, and disgraced by sarcasm. Those however who boast the habit, and experience the pride, of dissent, will not, I presume, expect others to adopt, without examination, the opinion of any man whatsoever; particularly an opinion, the credit of which, unsupported both by reasoning and precedent, solely rests upon the critical acumen of Wakefield.

In the two first chapters of this Epistle the word ayl occurs not less than nine times; in the first six of which it is translated messengers, but in the remaining three, angels. This incorrectness of style, however it is obser

causes alone what is plainly described in Scripture as effected by the agency of supernatural beings? It cannot be because we disbelieve the existence of such beings.

ved, to which the ambiguity of the word gives rise, is not uncommon in the sacred writers, but no parallel case specifically in point, or indeed any at all, is alleged in proof of the assertion. Surely this, as Mr. Nares justly remarks, "is an extraordinary mode of reconciling matters; for it is not the Apostle, but the Editors themselves, who give these different senses to the term angel, and then censure the sacred writers for an incorrectness of style."*

I shall not, I trust, be accused of mistaking their argument, if I reduce it to this simple assertion; that, as the word angel is sometimes used in the Old Testament to denote a prophet, so also is the same signification to be annexed to it in the particular passage under consideration.

The term indeed is doubtless applied to the prophets in some, but not in many passages of the Old Testament; yet ought we to remark, that it is never so applied without a pronoun, or a genitive case connected with it, indicative of him whose messengers they were. Often however it stands alone, and is then only used to designate those superior beings, of whom it is the sole characteristical appellation, to whom it is exclusively a name descriptive, specific, and appropriate. Thus, to quote one out of many instances, it is said, 1 Kings xix. 5, that, when Elijah, flying from the vengeance of Jezebel, and exhausted with fatigue, lay under a juniper tree, an angel touched him, and said, arise and eat. Here we perceive the term occurring alone, without even the prefix (or definite article) and distinctly pointing out a being, well known under that particular denomination. But the construction is wholly dissimilar when it is applied to the prophets for then we read, "The Lord sent to them by his messengers, **but they mocked the messengers of God, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16; The Lord, who performeth the counsel of his messengers, Isaiah xliv. 26;

* Remarks, p. 119.

Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger, Hag. i. 13; He is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts, Malachi ii. 7; And I will send my messenger, Malachi iii. 1:” and these are the only texts in which it is to be found in the latter signification. The reason of the difference I apprehend to be obvious, In the first case, it is sufficiently declarative of its own meaning; but in the last, not being so declarative, it requires some adjunct to determine the precise sense of its synonymous application. Had Haggai, for instance, described himself as a messenger, instead of the Lord's messenger, would not the phraseology have been incomplete, if not unintelligible?

. In opposition however to every legitimate principle of construction, these Translators contend with Wakefield, that when the Son is described, Heb. i. 4, as "being made so much better than the angels, κρείττων των αγέλων, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they," the expression, swv ayshav signifies not the angels, but "the prophets, who are mentioned in the first verse. Yet that alhos generally means angel, in the usual acceptation of the term, they seem themselves to admit, because they thus translate it sixty-three out of seventy-four times, in which it occurs unconnected with every other word capable of determining its precise sense. And of

* I have observed it in the following texts: Matt. iv. 11, xiii. 39, 49, xxvi. 53; Mark i. 13; Luke xvi. 22; John v. 4, xii. 29; Acts vi. 15, vii. 35, 38, xii. 8, 9, 10, xxiii. 8; Rom. viii. 38; 1 Cor. iv. 9, xi. 10, xiii. 1; Gal. iii. 19; Col. ii. 18; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. i. 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, ii. 2, 5, 7, 9, 16, xii. 22, xiii. 2; 1 Pet. i. 12, iii. 22; 2 Pet. ii. 4, 11; Rev. i. 20, vii. 1, 2, 11, viii. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ix. 1, 11, x. 1,5,7, 8, xi. 15, xiv. 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 17, 18, 19, xv. 1, 6, 7, 8, xvi. 1, 3, 5, xviii. 1, xix. 17, xxi. 9, 12.

It is translated messenger, 1 Cor. xi. 10; Gal. iii. 19; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. i. 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, ii. 2, xiii. 2; 1 Pet. iii. 22: and we are told that in Gal. iii. 19, the messengers mean officers, that is, Priests and Levites; in 1 Tim. iii. 16, the Apostles; and in Heb. i. 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, i. 2, the Prophets of the Old Testament.

the eleven instances, in which they render it messenger, six will be found in the very passages under consideration. This circumstance alone surely proves on which side the general presumption of its import lies.

But I maintain that the word ayo must here necessarily mean angels, a class of beings to whom it is peculiarly appropriated, because, although the prophets may be described, as I have already pointed out, under the title of the messengers of God," they cannot be correctly termed "the messengers." We readily comprehend how they are said to be the messengers of God, in common with others; but we do not well understand how they can be denominated the messengers emphatically and exclusively. I may likewise remark, that they are called the servants, as well as the messengers, of God, and even that more frequently. But should we not condemn the phraseology as strangely incorrect, which, when it is meant to assert the superiority of Christ over the prophets, should simply represent him as superior to the servants?

*

To take off, however, as much as possible from the manifest incongruity of the expression, and to introduce a sort of reference to the prophets incidentally mentioned in the first verse, as the agents by whom God had formerly revealed his will to mankind, the Translators adopt the Version of Wakefield. and render wv ayλɛ7wv, which does not occur till the fourth "those verse, messengers. It may appear too harsh to denominate this a perversion of the sacred text; but it must be admitted to be an unauthorized addition of a not insignificant pronoun,t for the express

*The phrases my, his, or thy servants the prophets, occur no less than sixteen times in the Old, and twice in the New Testament; 2 Kings ix. 7, xvii. 13, 23, xxi. 10, xxiv. 2; Ezra ix. 11; Jerem. vii. 25, xxv. 4, xxvi. 5, xxix. 19, xxxv. 15; Ezek. xxxviii. 17; Dan. ix. 6, 10; Amos iii. 7; Zech. i. 6; Revelations x. 7, xi. 18.

The Article in Greek is indeed sometimes used emphatically, as πpopηens & du, John i. 21; but so also is the English Article the as