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Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1839, by JAMES MUNROE & COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBRIDGE PRESS :

METCALF, TORRY, AND BALLOU.

PREFACE.

THE treatise, of which a translation is here given, is taken from the Commentary on the New Testament, by Doct. Hermann Olshausen, of the University of Konigsberg, Prussia. It constitutes the second division of the second volume of that singularly interesting work.

As a commentator, Olshausen unites excellencies, that are rarely found together in the same mind. He is remarkable for fidelity of verbal criticism, and also for power and beauty of moral portraiture. Those, who may differ from him in opinion, cannot but admire the graphic vividness of his descriptions, and his success in bringing out the spiritual sense of the text. Although, for

instance, many may think he insists too much upon his favorite doctrine of the

peculiar and glorified body of our Lord, yet even these will read the passages, in which this doctrine is most urged, with interest, and will find pleasure and profit in his interpretation of the facts of the resurrection.

The translator differs from the author in some doctrinal points, but he has received so much instruction from his pages, that he gladly makes an humble effort to unfold them to the English reader. He has not, of course, thought proper to alter or omit any of the author's doctrinal views. He has taken the liberty, however, to abridge several passages, and to omit some verbal criticisms, which seemed too minute or technical to add to the interest or usefulness of the work. To fill the following pages with criticisms of Greek and Hebrew words,

would harm the object, which the translator has in view. Perhaps the present undertaking might be called a selection, rather than a translation, although nothing essential in the author has been omitted.

Those, who are disposed to admire the deep religious feeling, so characteristic of the German mind, will find in this little work much, that is to their taste, while those, who are ready to start at the bug-bear, Neology, that word so indiscriminately applied, will find nothing here to alarm them.

That this volume may do something to aid the unlearned Christian, and may not be without use to the biblical scholar, in their attempts to understand more fully the most important of all passages in the history of the Church and the world, is the sincere prayer of the translator.

Nashua, N. H., 1839.