more fruitful, and which he expresses by the word xatxipes, leads him to take notice of the state wherein the Apostles, the principal branches, were at that time, Hồn vμess xatapoi £5. It is hardly possible not to consider the xabarges applied to the branches as giving occasion to this remark, which immediately follows it Now, when the train of the thoughts arises in any degree from verbal allusions, it is of some consequence to preserve them, where it can be easily effected, in a translation. It is for this reason that I have translated the word xalage by a circumlocution, and said cleaneth by pruning. It is evident that xabarge, in this application, means pruneth. But to say in Eng. simply pruneth, would be to throw away the allusion, and make the thoughts appear more abrupt in the version than they do in the original; and to say cleaneth, without adding any explanation, would be ob scure, or rather improper. The word used in the E. T. does not preserve the allusion, and is, besides, in this application, antiquated. Nonnus appears to have been careful to preserve the trope; for though almost all the other words in the two verses are changed, for the sake of the measure, he has retained xadaigely and nabago. Few translators appear to have attended to this allusion: yet whatever strengthens the association in the sentences, serves to make them both better understood, and longer remembered.

6. Like the withered branches which are gathered for fuel, and burnt, ὡς το κλήμα, και εξηράνθη, καὶ συνάγεσιν αυτα, και εις πυρ бала λεσι, καὶ καιεται. E. T. As a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. Through an excessive desire of tracing the letter, a plain sentiment is here rendered indistinctly and obscurely. Knatchbull's observation is just. In the idiom of the sacred writers, the copulative often supplies the place of the relative, a branch, and is withered, for a branch which is withered, or a withered branch. See Ruth i. 11. Many other examples might be brought from scripture. The singular number is sometimes used collectively, as branch for branches. This may account for avra in the plural. Some MSS. indeed, and even some versions read avro: but the difference does not affect the sense.

8. So shall ye be my disciples, Cam. and several other MSS. have ye

for yente. Agree

ably to which the Vul. says et efficiamini mei discipuli. With this also agree the Cop. and Sax. versions.

is

6

10. Ye shall continue in my love, μeveste eV în ayaлn μs. Dod. and Wor. Ye will continue in my love. The precept continue in my love, in the preceding verse, which must determine the meaning of this declaration, is capable of being understood in two ways, as denoting either continue to love me, or continue to be loved by me; in other words, keep your place in my affection.' In my opinion the latter is the sense, and therefore I have retained the old manner ye shall in preference to ye will, as the former is frequently the sign of a promise, which I take the sentence to contain to this effect: If ye keep my commandments, ye shall continue the objects of my love. For this preference, it proper to assign my reasons: First, it is most natural to suppose, that when our Lord enjoined them to continue in a particular state, it would be in that state wherein he had signified that they then were. Now this state is manifestly that of being loved by him; of which mention is made in the words immediately preceding. As the Father loveth me, says he, so I love you; continue in my love. 'Ye possess my love at present, continue to 'possess it.' But here a doubting might arise in their minds, How shall we continue to possess it? or how shall we know ' that we continue to possess it?' To obviate all such exceptions, he adds, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall continue to 6 possess my love; as I have kept my Father's commandments, and continue to possess his love.' In the other way explained, besides that the connection is loose, the passage is not so significant. If ye keep my commandments, ye will continue to love 'me.' Better, one would think, 'If ye continue to love me, ye 'will keep my commandments;' since that is regarded as the cause, this as the effect. Accordingly a good deal is said to this purpose afterwards.

11. That I may continue to have joy in you, iva i xapa * εμπ ἐν ὑμῖν μείνη. E. T. That my joy might remain in you. It is to be observed, that ev is placed betwixt n χαρα en, and

.

I render it as immediately connected with the words preceding, our translators have rendered it as belonging to the word which follows. The former makes a clear and apposite sense, the latter is obscure, not to say mysterious.

16. It is not you, ovx iμas. Diss. XII. P. I. § 32.

2 That the Father may give you whatsoever ye shall ask him in my name, ίνα ο τι αν αιτήσητε τον πατέρα εν τω ονόματι με, δε ύμιν. It is an obvious remark, that do is equivocal, as it applies equally to the first person, and to the third. Explained in the first person, it runs thus: that I may give you shall whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name. Nonnus explains the words so in his Paraphrase; but the Vul. the Sy. and indeed the whole current of interpreters, have understood the verb as in the third perThis interpretation is also best suited to the scope of the place. I have, therefore, with the other Eng. translators, adopted it here.

son.

18. It hated me before it hated you, εμε πρωτον ύμων μεμίσηκεν. Vul. Me priorem vobis odio habuit. The other La. interpreters, if not in the same words, are to the same purpose. So are also the Sy. and other Oriental translations. The M. G. and all the other versions I know, before the present century, express the same sense. Nonnus has so understood the words, who says πρωτον εμε συγεεσκε. For, as he has not prefixed the article, and has suppressed the pronoun, his words cannot be otherwise rendered than it hated me first. Unless my memory fails me, I may affirm the same thing of ancient commentators as of interpreters. This uniformity of interpretation, where the subject is nowise abstruse, is a strong presumption in its favour. Our Lord was not discussing any sublime question of theology, but giving plain admonitions to patience and constancy, which, it would be strange to imagine, had been so expressed by the Evangelist, as to be universally misunderstood by those expositors who spoke the same language, who lived, I may say, in the neighbourhood, not long after those events; and to be at last discovered in the eighteenth century, by those who, comparatively, are strangers both to the dialect, and to the manners, of the age and country. Yet Dr. Lardner, a very respectable name, I acknowledge, is the first who has defended a different meaning, a meaning which had indeed been hinted, but not adopted, by Be. more than a century before. Lardner supposes new here to be neither adjec tive nor adverb, but a substantive, of which the proper interpretation is prince or chief. It is freely owned that the sense which results from this rendering is both good and apposite, yet not more so than the common version. Nothing serves more strongly

to fortify the soul with patience under affliction, than the remembrance of what those whom we esteem, underwent before us. Пear, as was formerly observed, (ch. i. 15. 3 N.) is often used substantively for chief; that is, first, not in time, but in excellence, rank, or dignity. Some examples of this use were given. But it ought to be remembered, that par, in this application, when it has a regimen, preserves the construction of an adjective in the superlative degree. It is commonly preceded by the article, and is always followed, either by the genitive plural of the noun expressing the subject of comparison, or, if the noun be a collective, by the genitive singular. In like manner, the noun governed includes both the thing compared, and the things to which it is compared. Thus, to say i zgwr 851 iμav, he is the chief of you, implies he is one of you ; οι πρωτοι της Γαλιλαίας can be applied to none but Galileans, and οι πρωτοι των Ιεδαίων, to none but Jews. He who is called (Acts, xxviii. 7.) ó xęwrC înç vno8, must have been one of the islanders. If then, our Lord had said εμε τον πρώτον ήμων μεμισηκεν, I should admit the interpretation to be plausible, as the construction is regular, and he himself is included in the ; but the words which the Evangelist represents him as having used, no more express this in Gr, than the words Jesus was the greatest of the apostles, would express in Eng. that he was no apostle, but the Lord and Master of the apostles. When Paul calls himself (1 Tim. i. 15.) #рwг& üμaçTaawv, chief of sinners, is he not understood by every body as calling himself a sinner? The chief of the Levites (Num. iii. 32.) was certainly a Levite, and the chief of the singers (Neh. xii. 46.) was a singer. But are there no exceptions from this rule? I acknowledge that there is hardly a rule in grammar which is not, through negligence, sometimes transgressed, even by good writers and if any think that such oversights are to be deemed exceptions, I will not dispute about the word. Only, in regard to such exceptions, it will be admitted a good rule for the expounder, never to suppose a violation of syntax, when the words, construed in a different manner, appear regular, and yield an apposite meaning. This I take to be the case in the present instance. That there are examples of such inaccuracy in the use of superlatives, perhaps in all languages, can hardly be denied. Of this I take that quoted from 2 Mac. vii. 41. to be a flagrant example;

εσχατη των υιων η μητης died last of the sons.

ετελεύτησε, which is literally, the mother This is of a piece with that of our poet:

Adam the comeliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

For my part, I think it much better, in criticising, to acknow. ledge these to be slips in writing, than to account for them by such supposed enallages, and unnatural ellipses as totally subvert the authority of Syntax, and leave every thing in language vague and indeterminate. The ellipsis of a preposition suggested in the present case is merely hypothetical; for no examples are produced to show, either that agar has the meaning ascrib ed to it, when accompanied with any of the prepositions, go,

gi, or ε, supposed to have been dropped; or that it has the meaning without a preposition, when the supposed ellipsis takes place. Yet both of these, especially the latter, appear to be necessary for removing doubt. The only thing that looks like an example of the superlative wr, with an exclusive regimen, is that expression Mt. xxvi. 17. TN TWIN TWV αGuμwv, spoken of the day of the passover, which was the fourteenth of the month; though in strictness, the fifteenth was the first of the days of unleavened bread. But for this Dr. Lardner himself has sufficiently accounted, by showing that these two successive festivals, though distinct in themselves, are often, in the Jewish idiom, confound. ed as one, and that both by the sacred writers and by the historian Josephus. Let it be further observed, that in none of the three places where the phrase in question occurs (to wit, ch. i. 15. 30. and here) is gwr accompanied with the article which, for the most part, attends the superlative, especially when used for a title of distinction, and more especially still when, as in this place, the article is necessary to remove ambiguity; for TeaToy without it, is more properly an adverb, or adverbial pre⚫position, than a noun. Add to all this, that gwr is not a title which we find any where else in the N. T. either assumed by our Lord, or given to him. This title is indeed in one place (Mt. x. 2.) given to Peter as first of the apostles. Of the propriety of this application there can be no doubt. The attentive reader will observe that the objections here offered against Lardner's interpretation of the clause under review, equally affect his interpretation of the clause us mv, ch. i. 15. 30.

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