It has cost her twenty millions, but it has preserved her power and raised her fame among the nations of the earth. It has cost her twenty millions, but, I trust, it has saved her from the anger of that Deity, who could not but have looked on her in wrath and indignation, had this evil not been removed." The authorities which we have consulted in writing the preceding article are Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, three series, about 20 volumes in each. Evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords in 1831, two volumes folio, Martin's History of the British Colonies, etc. On a subsequent page we shall insert a tabular view of the British West Indies. ARTICLE VII. EXPOSITION OF THE LORD'S PRAYER, MATT. 6: 9-13 and, AS APPENDIX, 14, 15. From Tholuck's Commentary on the Sermon upon the Mount. Translated by J. Torrey, Professor of Languages in the University of Vermont. I. Works relating to the Lord's Prayer. THE various writings which have a bearing on the introduction to the prayer, or on particular passages in it, will be noticed in their place: those interpreters only will be mentioned here, to whom the merit is due of having gone through with the exposition of the whole passage; and none but the most important of these, as the number of expositions, particularly of a devotional character, is uncommonly great. In the ancient church, the prayer was commented upon by most of the distinguished teachers. From the Greek church, the following may be noticed: 1. ORIGEN in his treatise nepi turns c. 18. Opp. T. I. p. 126 ff.-a full and highly spiritual commentary. We meet here and there it is true, with wide digressions, such as mark the over-abundant stream, and with certain fancies pecu A considerable number of these are referred to in Lienthal's biblische Archivarius, Königsb. 1745, p. 39. liar to the author; but, contrasted with the poverty of our more recent commentators in all that relates to spirituality of meaning, what fullness of true theological knowledge, what exuberance of soul and of thought! He who can speak of this work of the great father in such language as that of M. von Matthaei : quo libello equidem nihil usquam unquam inveni absurdius, be'trays surely the barrenness of his own mind. 2. CHRYSOSTOM, once in his Homilies on Matt. hom. XIX. T. VII. p. 149, and again in the homily de instituenda secundum Deum vita T. II. ed. Montf. There is also in T. VIII. another commentary on the Lord's prayer which is not genuine. His exposition is simple, popular, coming from the heart, and he takes pains to trace the connection between the several petitions. 3. ISIDORE OF PELUSIUM epist. 1. IV. ep. 24. The exposition is short, and of no great value. 4. CYRILL OF JERUSALEM, in Cateches. 23. 11-18. Opp. ed. Touttée, p. 329. The exposition is short, and distinguished for no peculiar merit. 5. GREGORY OF NYSSA, five discourses de oratione, in which, commencing from the second, the Lord's prayer is explained T. I. ed. Paris, p. 723 ff. The exposition is diffuse, yet spiritual and beautiful. 6. The ANONYMOUS WRITER in Steph. le Moyne's Varia Sacra, Lugd. B. 1685, I. 66.; his explanation of novoos is particularly to be noticed. The fragments, which are published by Alex. Morus from a cod. of Athanasius in the Medicean library,' belong to the same author. Out of the Latin church we may name: 1. TERTULLIAN in his book de oratione T. III. ed. Paris, p. 501. The exposition is short and not without solidity. 2. CYPRIAN in his treatise de oratione dominica, Opp. ed. Par. p. 317. The exposition is fuller, and contains much that is excellent and that enters deeply into the christian spirit. 3. Pseudo-AMBROSIUS in the treatise de sacramentis 1. V. c. 4.2 Notae in N. T. p. 26. 2 Respecting the want of authenticity, see Oudinus T. I. 651. I know not upon what the assertion of Wetstein is grounded, that Ambrosius was not acquainted with the Doxology. In his Comm. on Luke that writer passes the Lord's prayer entirely by, and elsewhere I have not been able to find any passage, where he would be likely to speak of the Doxology. But that the book de sacramentis did not proceed from Ambrosius, but belongs perhaps to no earlier period than the seventh century, appears evident also from the circumstance that this exposition contains the doxology, and that too with allusion to the Father, Son and Spirit, as became common in the later catholic church. See the exposition of v. 13. His exposition is short and of little importance. 4. JEROME in his commentary on Matthew, and in his dialogue contra Pelagianos 1. III. c. 15. T. II. ed. Venice. The exposition is short, but important particularly in reference to the history of interpretation. 5. AUGUSTIN in his exposition of the sermon upon the mount, and in his sermons upon Matt. 6. de oratione domin. sermo LVI-LX. T. V. ed. Bened. His expositions contain valuable matter, but are remarkably wanting in decision. 6. AUCTOR OPERIS IMP. His exposition contains much that is worthy of attention.-The interpretations of the Greek fathers have been compiled with great erudition by Suicer in his Observationes sacrae, Tiguri 1665. c. VII-XI. Belonging to the time of the reformation, the expositions which were adopted into the catechisms of the two protestant churches have maintained the highest consequence; that in the great and that in the small catechisms of Luther, and that in the Heidelberg Catechism of Ursinus and Olevianus. These expositions as well as the catechisms to which they respectively belong are models of a popular style combined with theological depth. Besides the two expositions of Luther contained in the catechisms, there are also three others of his. The first, from his sermons taken down by J. Schneider, appeared in 1518, and was followed in the same year by an edition from Luther himself with the title: Exposition of the Lord's Prayer for simple laymen. To this are joined as a sort of appendix the two very short treatises entitled: A brief summary and arrangement of all the prescribed petitions, and a brief exposition of the Lord's prayer in the right and in the wrong way (vor und hinter sich). After this followed in 1529 the exposition in the catechisms, and last of all, some additional remarks in explanation of the Lord's prayer in the course of sermons upon Matt. 6., which he began in 1530. The first and more copious exposition for laymen shows less of clearness and perfect command of the subject than the later performances. Among the great number of expositions which are to be found in the more recent commentaries of the different churches, no one deserves to be distinguished so much as that of Chemnitz Harmonia Evangel. T. I, c. 51. It is especially rich in profound christian views, penetrating into the connection of the truths of Scripture. The exposition of Socinus also is very full and elaborate. Among the works which have been separately written on the Lord's prayer, the exercitationes in orationem do minicam of the learned Herm. Witsius' are most deserving of notice. With all the writer's want of precision and of the power of classifying individual facts, this work contains much that is very useful in explaining the sense, particularly learned references to the fathers. Next to this in importance is the acute and in some respects original commentary of Gottfr. Olearius.2 Nor should we overlook the work of Nics. Brunner de praestantia et perfectione orationis dominicae, which follow, it is true, in form, the rigid school of Lampe, but yet enters well into the sense. Finally, the later productions most deserving of notice are the following: that of Noesselt in his exercitatt. Hal. 1803, which however, enters in no respect more deeply into the subject than the earlier treatises; next, the exposition of the prayer by my honoured colleague Dr Weber in the program of 1828, under the title: Eclogae exegetico-crit. in nonnullos libror. N. T. locos. II. and III., a work well worthy of being read; and Gebser's Dissertation de oratione dom. comment. I. Regiom. 1830, which is written with industry. 4 11. Time, place, and object of the Prayer. We are informed Luke 11: 2 ff., at a later period of the life of Christ, that after concluding one of his prayers, a certain disciple applied to him for a form of prayer, and that Jesus gave at that time the same prayer which we find here in the sermon upon the mount. This occasion of communicating the prayer appeared to many so appropriate, and the connection, in which it is introduced in Matthew, on the other hand, so improbable, that-especially as Luke elsewhere adheres more strictly to In the Exercitationes sacrae. Amst. 3. ed. 1697. 2 In the Observatt. sacr. Lips. 1713, p. 176 ff. 4 In this same collection of disputations in the 1st vol. p. 351, there is a dissertation of Stapfer de nexu et sensu orationis dominicae prophetico, which shows, that it is not the philosophy of Hegel alone, that leads to that more profound view of the Lord's prayer, which discovers in each petition a period of the developement of states and nations, as Prof. Sietze has represented it in his Grundbegriffe preussischer Rechts-und Staats geschichte, Berl. 1829; the theologian Stapfer also traces in the six petitions the periods of the history of the christian church. chronological order-a principal argument has been drawn from this circumstance by most of the modern commentators since the time of Pott, including last of all Olshausen and Gebser, to prove that Matthew in the sermon upon the mount has embodied together several distinct discourses delivered by Christ on different occasions. The latest theory, however, has in this instance reposed as little confidence in the chronological order of Luke as in that of Matthew. Sieffert thinks "there is very good reason to conjecture, that the disciple, as he alludes to the similar practice of the Baptist, must have found an earlier occasion for his request;" and that generally "many things might have been incorporated into Luke's account, which did not happen precisely on this last journey." Such we must necessarily suppose to have been the case with those unconnected remarks upon prayer contained in the 5th and following verses. In other respects Sieffert is also of the opinion that Luke has stated the true and only occasion of communicating the prayer, and proceeds to say, that whoever agrees with Olshausen in conceding this, will scarcely prevail upon himself to believe, that the Evangelist, who has introduced the prayer in so different a connection, was an apostle, and eye-witness of the facts he relates. We may now inquire what judgment has been formed respecting this different account in earlier times. Among the ancients Origen has taken special pains to compare the two accounts together. He was chiefly interested, however, in the question, whether it followed from the narrower compass of the prayer in Luke, that Christ himself gave it on that occasion its abbreviated form. From 6. 30. de orat. at the beginning of the explanation of the sixth petition, we see it was his opinion that Jesus afterwards gave it to his disciples in an abbreviated form, because amplification was less necessary for them than for the people. The circumstance that after the communication of the prayer in the sermon upon the mount, the disciples should still want a form of prayer, is explained by the earlier commentators either by supposing that the disciple, who in Luke asks for the form, was absent during this part of the discourse, or no longer remembered this particular passage-an opinion which Origen himself alludes to or that μants, as in other passages, does not denote here one of the twelve, but another disciple, perhaps one of the seventy (Euthymius, Heumann), or finally that the Ueber den Ursprung des ersten kanonischen Evangel. p. 79. |