this and any other subject in the volume I shall most gladly receive instruction and correction; while yet, in conclusion, I will not fear to say that, with all this, the book is the result of enough of honest labour, of notices not found ready to hand in Wetstein, or Grotius, or Suicer, in German commentaries, or in lexicons (though I have availed myself of all these), but gathered one by one during many years, to make me feel confident that any who shall hereafter give a better and completer book on the subject, will yet acknowledge a certain amount of assistance derived from these preparatory labours. I cannot refrain from adding how deeply thankful I shall be to Him who can alone prosper the work of our hands, if my book, notwithstanding all its deficiencies and imperfections, shall be of service to any in leading them into a closer and more accurate investigation of His Word, and of the riches of wisdom and knowledge which are therein contained. χχχίν.- μωρολογία, αἰσχρολογία, ευτραπελία xxxvii. - θυμός, οργή, παροργισμός xxxviii.—ἔλαιον, μύρον (χρίω, ἀλείφω). SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § i.—Εκκλησία, συναγωγή, πανήγυρις. THERE are words whose history it is peculiarly interesting to watch, as they obtain a deeper meaning, and receive a new consecration in the Christian Church; which, even while it did not invent, has yet assumed them into its service, and employed them in a far loftier sense than any to which the world had ever put them before. The very word by which the Church is named is itself an example -a more illustrious one could scarcely be found— of this gradual ennobling of a word. For we have ẻκкλŋσía in three distinct stages of meaning-the heathen, the Jewish, and the Christian. In respect of the first, èêêλŋoia, as all know, was the lawful assembly in a free Greek city of all those possessed of the rights of citizenship, for the transaction of public affairs. That they were summoned is expressed in the latter part of the word; that they were summoned out of the whole population, a select portion of it, including neither the populace, nor yet strangers, neither those who had forfeited B their civic rights, this is expressed in the first. Both the calling, and the calling out, are moments to be remembered, when the word is assumed into a higher Christian sense, for in them the chief part of its peculiar adaptation to its auguster uses lies.' It is interesting to observe how, on one occasion in the New Testament, the word returns to this its earlier significance (Acts xix. 32, 39, 40). 'EKKληola did not, like some other words, pass immediately and at a single step from the heathen world to the Christian Church: but here, as so often, the Septuagint supplies the link of connexion, the point of transition, the word being there prepared for its highest meaning of all. When the Alexandrian translators undertook the rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures, they found in them two constantly recurring words, namely, and For these they employed generally, and as their most adequate Greek equivalents, ovvaywyń and ekkλnoia. The rule which they seem to have 'Both these points are well made by Flacius Illyricus, in his Clavis Scripturæ, s. v. Ecclesia: Quia Ecclesia a verbo Kaλeîv venit, hoc observetur primum; ideo conversionem hominum vocationem vocari, non tantum quia Deus eos per se suumque Verbum, quasi clamore, vocat; sed etiam quia sicut herus ex turbâ famulorum certos aliquos ad aliqua singularia munia evocat, sic Deus quoque tum totum populum suum vocat ad cultum suum (Hos. xi. 1) tum etiam singulos homines ad certas singularesque functiones. (Act. xiii. 2.) Quoniam autem non tantum vocatur Populus Dei ad cultum Dei, sed etiam vocatur ex reliquâ turbâ aut confusione generis humani, ideo dicitur Ecclesia, quasi dicas, Evocata divinitus ex reliquâ impiorum colluvie, ad cultum celebrationemque Dei, et æternam felicitatem.' |