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modifying influence upon it, the French manier,' as distinguished from 'toucher,' the German betasten,' as distinguished from 'berühren,' would be either ἅπτεσθαι οι θιγγάνειν. Of these the first is stronger than the second; äπтeσ0αι (= 'contrectare), than Oryɣávei (Ps. civ. 15; 1 John v. 18), as appears plainly in a passage of Xenophon (Cyr. i. 3. 5), where the child Cyrus, rebuking his grandfather's delicacies, says: őτɩ σe ópŵ, ὅταν μὲν τοῦ ἄρτου ἅψῃ, εἰς οὐδὲν τὴν χεῖρα ἀποψώμενον, ὅταν δὲ τούτων τινὸς θίγῃς, εὐθὺς ἀποκαθαίρῃ τὴν χεῖρα εἰς τὰ χειρόμακτρα, ὡς πάνυ axoóuevos. Our Version, then, has just reversed ἀχθόμενος. the true order of the words, when, at Col. ii. 21, it translates μὴ ἅψῃ, μηδὲ γεύσῃ, μηδὲ θύγῃς, “Touch not, taste not, handle not." The first and last prohibitions ought just to have changed their places, and the passage should stand, "Handle not, taste not, touch not." How much more strongly will then come out the ever ascending scale of superstitious prohibition among the false teachers at Colosse. 'Handle not' is not sufficient; they forbid to 'taste,' and, lastly, even to 'touch,' those things from which, according to their notions, uncleanness might be derived. Beza has noted this well: Verbum θίγειν a verbo ἅπτεσθαι sic est distinguendum, ut decrescente semper oratione intelligatur crescere superstitio.'

а

1 In the passage alluded to already, Ps. civ. 32, the words of the Septuagint are, ὁ ἁπτόμενος τῶν ὀρέων, καὶ καπνίζονται.

§ xviii.—παλιγγενεσία, ἀνακαίνωσις.

'Avayévvnois, a word frequent enough in the Greek Fathers (see Suicer, Thes. s. v.), no where occurs in the N. T.; although the verb avayevváw twice (1 Pet. i. 13, 23). Did we meet ȧvayévvnois there, it would furnish a still closer synonym to παλιγγενεσία than the ἀνακαίνωσις, which I propose to bring into comparison with it; yet that also is sufficiently close to justify the attempt at once to compare and distinguish them. It will be no small gain to the practical theologian, to the minister of God's word, to be clear in his own mind in respect of the relation between the two.

Παλιγγενεσία naturally demands first to be considered. This is one of the many words which the Gospel found, and, so to speak, glorified; enlarged the borders of its meaning; lifted it up into a higher sphere; made it the expression of far deeper thoughts, of far greater truths, than any of which. it had been the vehicle before. It was, indeed, already in use; but as the Christian new-birth was not till after Christ's birth; as men were not new-born, till Christ was born (John i. 12); as their regeneration did not go before, but only followed his generation; so the word could not be used in this its highest, most mysterious sense, till that great mystery of the birth of the Son of God into our world had actually found place. And yet it is exceedingly interesting to trace these its subordinate, and, as they proved, preparatory uses. Thus,.

by the Pythagoreans, as is well known, the word was employed to express the transmigration of souls; their reappearance in new bodies being called their waλıyyeveσía: (Plutarch, De Esu Car. i. 7; ii. 6; De Is. et Os. 35: 'Ooípidos ai avaßiώσεις καὶ παλιγγενεσίαί: De Ei ap. Delp. 9: ἀποβιώσεις καὶ παλιγγενεσιαί). Among the Stoics the word set forth the periodic renovation of the earth, when, budding and blossoming in the springtime, it woke up from its winter sleep, nay, might be said even to have revived from its winter death; which therefore Marcus Antoninus calls (ii. 1) tǹv περιοδικὴν παλιγγενεσίαν τῶν ὅλων. Philo also uses constantly the word to express the phoenixlike resurrection of the material world out of fire, which the Stoics taught (De Incorr. Mun. 17, 21; De Mun. 15). Cicero (Ad Attic. vi. 6) calls his restoration to his dignities and honors, after his return from exile, hanc παλιγγενεσίαν nostram ;' with which compare Philo, Leg. ad Cai. 41. Josephus (Antt. xi. 3. 9) characterizes the restoration of the Jewish nation after the Captivity, as τὴν ἀνάκτησιν καὶ παλιγγενεσίαν τῆς πατρίδος. And, to cite one passage more, Olympiodorus, a later Platonist, styles recollection or reminiscence1

Not memory,' as I very erroneously had it in the first edition of this book. The very point of the passage in Olympiodorus is to bring out the old Aristotelian and Platonic distinction between 'memory' (μvýμn) and 'recollection' or 'reminiscence' (áváμvnois), the first being instinctive and common to beasts with men, the second being the reviving of faded impressions by a distinct act of the will, the reflux, at the bidding of the mind, of knowledge which has once ebbed

a revival or παλιγγενεσία of knowledge (Journal des Savans, 1834, p. 488): #aλıyyeveola TŶs γνώσεώς ἐστιν ἡ ἀνάμνησις.

No one who has carefully watched and weighed the uses of waliyyeveo la just adduced, and similar ones which might be added, but will note that while it has in them all the meaning of a recovery, a change for the better, a revival, yet it never reaches, or even approaches, the depth of meaning which it has acquired in Christian language, and which will now claim a little to be considered. The word occurs never in the O. Τ. (πάλιν γίνεσθαι at Job xiv. 14), and only twice in the N. (Matt. xix. 28; Tit. iii. 5), but there (which is most remarkable) apparently in different meanings. In St. Matthew it seems clearly to refer to the newbirth of the whole creation, the άπокатáσтaσIS πáντшν (Acts iii. 21), which shall be when the Son of Man hereafter comes in his glory; while in St. Paul's use of the word the allusion is plainly to the new-birth of the single soul, which is now evermore finding place in the waters of baptism. Shall we then acquiesce in the conclusion that it is used in diverse meanings; that there is no common bond which binds the two uses of it together? By no means; all laws of language are violated by any such supposition. The fact is, rather, that the word by our Lord is used in a wider, by his

(Plato, Legg. v. 732 6: ἀνάμνησις δ ̓ ἐστὶν ἐπιῤῥοὴ φρονήσεως άлоλоúσns), and as such proper only to man. It will at once be seen that of this only it can be said, as of this only Olympiodorus does say, that it is παλιγγενεσία τῆς γνώσεως.

Apostle in a narrower, meaning. They are two circles of meaning, one more comprehensive than the other, but their centre is the same. The παλιγγενεσία of which Scripture speaks, begins with the μupóкоσμos of single souls; but it does not end there; it does not cease its effectual working till it has embraced the whole μακρόκοσμος of the universe. The first seat of the παλιγγενεσία is the soul of man; but, beginning there, and establishing its centre there, it extends in ever widening circles. And, first, to his body; the day of resurrection will be the day of παλιγγενεσία for it; from which it follows that those Fathers had a certain, though only a partial, right, as many as interpreted the word at Matt. xix. 28, as though it had been equivalent, and only equivalent, to áváσTaois, and who, as a consequence, themselves continually used it as a synonym for resurrection' (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 1. 58; Suicer, Thes. s. v.). Doubtless the word there includes, or presupposes, the resurrection, but it also embraces much more. Beyond the day of resurrection, or it may be contemporaneous with it, a day will come when all nature shall put off its soiled work-day garments, and clothe itself in its holy-day attire, the day of the "restitution of all things" (Acts iii. 21); of the new heaven and the new earth (Rev. xxi. 1); the day of which Paul speaks, as one in expectation of which all creation is groaning and travailing until now (Rom. viii. 21-23). Man is the present subject of the παλιγγενεσία, and of the wondrous transformation which it implies; but in that day