as we are so; the thinking truly, and because truly, therefore lowlily, of ourselves.

But it may be objected, how does this view of the Christian ταπεινοφροσύνη, as springing out of and resting on the sense and the confession of sin, agree with the fact that the sinless Lord laid claim to this grace, and said, "I am meek and lowly in heart" (TaπEIVòs Tŷ Kapdíą, Matt. xi. 29)? The answer is, that for the sinner ταπεινοφροσύνη involves the confession of sin, inasmuch as it involves the confession of his true condition; while yet for the unfallen creature the grace itself as truly exists, involving for such the acknowledgment not of sinfulness, which would be untrue, but of creatureliness, of absolute dependence, of having nothing, but receiving all things of God. And in this way the grace of humility belongs to the highest angel before the throne, being as he is a creature, yea, even to the Lord of Glory Himself. In his human nature He must be the pattern of all humility, of all creaturely dependence; nor is it otherwise than as a man that Christ thus claims to be ταπεινός : for it will be observed that He does not affirm Himself ταπεινὸς τῷ πνεύματι (contrite sinners are such, Ps. xxiii. 19), any more than He could speak of Himself as πτωχὸς τῷ πνεύματι, his πνεῦμα being divine; but He is ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ: his human life was a constant living on the fulness of his Father's love; He evermore, as man, took the place which beseemed the creature in the presence of its Creator.

Let us seek now to put this word in its relation

with paórns. The Gospel of Christ did not to so great an extent rehabilitate πpaóтns as it had done Tаπewooрooúvn, and this, because the word did not need rehabilitation in the same degree. IIpaórns did not require to be turned from a bad sense to a good, but only to be lifted up from a lower good to a higher. This indeed it did need; for no one can read Aristotle's portraiture of the πρâοs and of πраóτηs (Ethic. Nic. iv. 5), mentally comparing this with the meaning which we attach to the words, and not feel that Revelation has given to them a depth, a richness, a fulness of significance which they were very far from possessing before. The great moralist of Greece set πραότης, as the μεσότης περὶ ὀργῆς, between the two extremes, ὀργιλότης and ἀοργησία, with however so much leaning to the last that it might very easily run into this defect; and he finds the πpaórns worthy of praise, more because by it a man retains his own equanimity and composure (the word is associated by Plutarch, De Frat. Am. 18, with μετριοπάθεια), μетρioтábela), than from any nobler reason. Neither does Plutarch's own pretty little essay, Περὶ ἀοργησίας, rise anywhere to a higher pitch than this, though we might perhaps have expected something higher from him. The word is opposed by Plato to ȧypióτns (Symp. 197 d); by Aristotle to xaλeπóτns (Hist. Anim. ix. 1); by Plutarch to ȧTотоμía (De Lib. Ed. 18); all indications of a somewhat superficial view of its meaning.

Those Christian expositors who will not allow for the new forces at work in sacred Greek, who

would fain limit, for instance, the

pãos of the

N. T. to such a sense as the word, when employed by the best classical writers, would have borne, will deprive themselves and those who accept their interpretation, of very much of the deeper meaning in Scripture;' on which subject, and with reference to this very word, there are some excellent observations by F. Spanheim, Dubia Evangelica, vol. iii. p. 398. The Scriptural πpaórηs is not in a man's outward behaviour only; nor yet in his relations to his fellow-men; as little in his mere natural disposition. Rather is it an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God (Matt. xi. 29; Jam. i. 21). It is that temper of spirit in which we accept his dealings with us without disputing or resisting; and it is closely linked with the ταπεινοφροσύνη, and follows directly upon it (Eph. iv. 2; Col. iii. 12), because it is only the humble heart which is also the meek; and which, as such, does not fight against God, and more or less struggle and contend with Him.

This meekness however, which is first a meekness in respect of God, is also such in the face of men, even of evil men, out of the thought that these, with the insults and injuries which they

1 They will do this, even though they stop short of lengths to which Fritzsche, a very learned modern expositor of the Romans, has reached; who on Rom. i. 7, writes: 'Deinde considerandum est formula χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη in Ν. Τ. nihil aliud dici nisi quod Græci illo suo χαίρειν s. εὖ πράττειν enuntiare consueverint, h. e. ut aliquis fortunatus sit, sive, ut cum Horatio loquar, Ep. i. 8.1, ut gaudeat et bene rem gerat!'

may inflict, are permitted and employed by Him for the chastening and purifying of his people. This was the root of David's πρаóтηs, when on occasion of his flight from Absalom Shimei cursed and flung stones at him-the thought, namely, that the Lord had bidden him (2 Sam. xvi. 11), that it was just for him to suffer these things, however unjust it might be for the other to inflict them; and out of like convictions all true Christian πpaóτηS must spring. He that is meek indeed will know himself a sinner among sinners; or, if there was One who could not know Himself such, yet bearing a sinner's doom; and this will teach him to endure meekly the provocations with which they may provoke him, not to withdraw himself from the burdens which their sin may impose upon him (Gal. vi. 1; 2 Tim. ii. 25; Tit. iii. 2).

The πрaóτns then, if it is to be more than mere gentleness of manner, if it is to be the Christian grace of meekness of spirit, must rest on deeper foundations than its own, on those namely which the TаTeιvooрooúvŋ has laid for it, and it can only continue, while it continues to rest on these. It is a grace in advance of ταπεινοφροσύνη, not as being more precious than it, but as presupposing it, and as being unable to exist without it.

§ xliii.—πραότης, ἐπιείκεια.

Ταπεινοφροσύνη and ἐπιείκεια are in their meanings too far apart to be fit objects of synonymous

discrimination; but πрaóτηs, which stands between, holds on to them both. Its points of contact with the former have just been considered; and for this purpose its own exact force was sought to be seized. Without going over this ground anew, we may now consider its relation to the latter. Of éπieίKELA it is not too much to say, that the mere existence of such a word is itself a signal evidence of the high development of ethics among the Greeks.' Derived from elko, čoika, 'cedo,' it means properly that yieldingness which recognises the impossibility which cleaves to formal law, of anticipating and providing for all those cases that will emerge and present themselves to it for its decision; which, with this, recognises the danger that ever waits upon legal rights, lest they should be pushed into moral wrongs, lest the 'summum jus' should in practice prove the 'summa injuria;' which, therefore, urges not its own rights to the uttermost, but going back in part or in the whole from these, rectifies and redresses the injustices of justice. It is in this way more truly just than strict justice

1 No Latin word exactly and adequately renders it; 'clementia' sets forth one side of it, 'æquitas' another, and perhaps modestia' (by which the Vulgate translates it, 2 Cor. x. 1) a third; but the word is wanting which should set forth all these excellences reconciled in a single and a higher one.

2 This aspect of eπieiкeia must never be lost sight of, Seneca (De Clem. ii. 7) well brings it out: Nihil ex his facit, tanquam justo minus fecerit, sed tanquam id quod constituit, justissimum sit;' and Aquinas: 'Diminutiva est pœnarum, secundum rationem rectam ; quando scilicet oportet, et in quibus oportet.'

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