We must suppose that the whole of the people partook in some degree of the sanctity of person and office which properly belonged to the priests. This was certainly in some measure the case, as is evinced by the significance of the rite of circumcision. The consecratory character of this rite is often expressed and inculcated both in the law and by the prophets. We may conclude that this feast of unleavened bread, continued for seven days, was an ordinance of consecration. By this the Israelitish people were probably inaugurated every year to the sacred dignity which they bore, and were initiated into their sacred rites. The time also, at the beginning of the year, would be well adapted to such a ceremonial. Hence only the true members of the population, as purified before God, could partake of this rite. These were, 1. Males only; 2. Indigenous or homeborn; 3. Persons circumcised; 4. Persons purified (women being excluded).

The rite of the Passover, departing as it does in many respects from the nature of the rest, has given rise to more controversy than any of them. It is quite clear, however, that it was a sacrifice, as it is often called so in the Old Testament. Most later authorities consider it to have been a sacrifice of atonement, i.e., as being offered up at the beginning of the year, which is as it were rising again from the winter, to atone for the sins of the past, and to avert punishment by appeasing God, and to regenerate as it were the life of man, together with nature, and the year. But this theory, plausible as it is, seems to have no agreement with the principle of the piacular rites of the Hebrews. These had no reference to the changes of nature and of the heavenly bodies, but were concerned only with the sins of men, as well private individuals as of all the people, (for whom the expiation, the yearly rite-the "day of atonement," was instituted). In these again the eating of the flesh of the victims is denied the offerers, and allowed only to the priest, and not even to them when the whole congregation was to be expiated. Now since the flesh of this sacrifice belongs to the offerer and his family, it is clear that it may be classed rather with the peace-offerings. It is observable, however, that the priests have nothing whatever to do with it; the paterfamilias being the priest, and the door-post and lintel taking the place of an altar. The origin of the rite dates undoubtedly from ante-Mosaic antiquity, and is analogous to that mentioned in Exod. xxix. 136 (coll. xl. 1-16); Lev. viii., for the consecration of the priests, together with the holy things. This consisted of a sinoffering, a burnt-offering, and a ram of consecration, with a basket of unleavened bread. We may also compare the con

secration of the Nazarites after the fulfilment of the time of their vow. Here again there is the ram of consecration and the basket of unleavened bread, (only here the shoulder of the ram with the unleavened bread is presented to the officiating minister), Numb. vi. 13 sqq. This ram of consecration belongs to the genus of "peace-offerings," as is clear from Exod. xxix. 28 (coll. Lev. vii. 30, sqq. 35; x. 14, etc.; Numb. vi. 14, 17); and to the species "thank-offerings," since whatever of the flesh or bread was left till the morning was to be burnt, Exod. xxix. 34-a characteristic of the thank-offering. Now observe the points of similarity between this rite of consecration and the Passover, and feast of unleavened bread; 1. Nearly the same victim-a ram; 2. The sacrifice is almost entirely eaten, (the breast of the ram of consecration being given to the consecrator, Moses makes no real difference); 3. The eating of unleavened bread joined with the sacrifice; and that, 4. For seven successive days; 5. Whatever each day was left till the morning was to be burnt up; 6. The blood of the sacrifice was to be sprinkled.

Hence we may now determine what was the nature of the Paschal sacrifice and of the feast of unleavened bread. The ordinance was generically eucharistic (), and specially concerned with consecration-the consecration of the congregation of the Israelites yearly, by their separate families, to the sanctity of a sacred and sacerdotal people, and continued and completed by the eating of unleavened bread. The beginning of the year was the time selected for it. The blood sprinkled upon the doorpost and lintel of the house belongs as truly to the atonement and annual expiation of a house, as that which is sprinkled over an altar operates in its way, and which is described in Lev. xvi., with reference to the great day of Atonement on the seventh month (cf. Exod. xxix. 20, 36; Lev. iv. 6 sqq., 17 seqq.; viii. 15, 30; xiv. 14; xvi. 14). This rite employed in the consecration of the tabernacle (Exod. xl. 1, 17) was observed even at the very beginning of the year (the first day of the first month). In Ezekiel, in the consecration of the new tabernacle, the blood was sprinkled not only upon the horns of the altar, but on the pillars of the house, and of the court gate, from the first day of the year for seven days. This seems to have been derived from the consecration of Exod. xl. 1, and also from the Paschal rite. Hence then there was an expiatorial element in the sacrifice (as there was to some extent in all of them). The details may be now seen to harmonize well with this explanation. First, those permitted to partake of it must be circumcised and clean, as if invested with sacerdotal purity and sanctity; again, it was obligatory upon them all, on penalty of death. Just as circumcision

was instituted as a sign of divine favour and of communion with God, so the Paschal rite was a sign and pledge of the maintenance of the covenant implied by circumcision, and of continued communion with God. They were obligated to it, because as it concerned the expiation and consecration of the whole people and its families, and the land itself, no one could consider himself as free from its binding force. Its being eaten entire, without a bone being broken, and none of it being taken away from the house, but eaten in the same day and in the same house, flows from a double principle, 1. That God's appointed sacrifices were only to be offered and eaten in a sacred place and at a sacred time, the sacred place being, in this instance, the house purified with the blood of the sacrifice. In like manner, when the priests were consecrated, they were bound to remain in the tabernacle of the congregation, Lev. viii. 33, 35. 2. That they belonged only to sacred uses and persons, and were to be strictly dissevered from all that was common, whence this sacrifice was to be eaten whole and undivided; without any of it being left. We may also suppose the idea of a common supper, the symbol of a holy congregation of worshippers, to be attached to this custom. We thus find a theory which seems satisfactorily to account for the particulars of these feasts. Beginning in remote antiquity, and leading into the heart of the Mosaic observances, in respect of the consecration of the Israelites as a body, it approaches the threshold of Christianity. Circumcision is a type of baptism, a sign of grace and covenant with God, by which we are called to be a holy people; the Paschal lamb and rite constitute a sign and pledge of continued grace and covenant with God retained, by means of which a holy communion is renewed and strengthened with God and with the other members of the Church-apt type of the supper of the Lord!

H. F. W.

y Cf. Exod. xii. 9, with Lev. iv. 11.

ERASMUS, THE GREEK TEXT OF THE APOCALYPSE, AND THE VAUDOIS VERSION."

We do not wish here to speak of a codex, the existence of which has been hitherto unknown. We treat of one of those which Erasmus formerly used for his edition of the Greek Testament, and which has for a long time been considered wholly lost. It has been recently rediscovered, and by its means we are able to judge of the work of Erasmus much more accurately than was before possible. We do not mean at all to exaggerate the bearing of this discovery. It cannot be compared with that of the Sinaitic codex by the learned Tischendorf, which is in fact of infinitely greater importance. Yet the discovery we have in view is sufficiently interesting, considering the influence which the Greek text of Erasmus has exercised upon the text received since his time.

Let us first enter into some details respecting the work of Erasmus. While the scholars assembled at Complutum or Alcala de Henarez, in Spain, were preparing, under the auspices of Cardinal Ximenes, the celebrated Complutensian Polyglott, which was for the first time to give the Greek text of the New Testament, a bookseller of the university city of Basel conceived the idea of a similar project. This was Frobenius, a native of Suabia, who had established since 1491 his flourishing bookselling and printing establishment in that city. Frobenius was a very distinguished man in his party; endowed with a generous, enterprising spirit, profoundly convinced of the importance of his profession, he shrank from no sacrifice when the question was about publishing works fitted to inform the public. He has, moreover, the merit of having abolished in countries on this side of the Alps the heavy Gothic characters hitherto employed, and of having introduced those of the celebrated Aldus Manutius of Venice, which strongly resembled those of handwriting. This was why he was called the Aldus of the Germans; and according to many, he surpassed his model. He is also praised, and justly, because of the pains he took, and the sacrifices he made,

"The following article by Professor Herzog of Erlangen is contained in the February number of the Supplement Theologique of the Revue Chrétienne. We are not aware whether the paper has been printed elsewhere, but it contains facts of considerable interest, and information which will be new to many. To Delitzsch's own account of the Erasmian Codex we called attention in our last (p. 496), and it was our purpose to add something more about it, but the piece we have translated and printed will answer the purpose better than anything of

our own.

to procure a better sort of paper. We take these details from a work full of erudition, which two scholars of Basel published on the occasion of the commemoration of printing, celebrated in that city as elsewhere in 1860, namely, the Beiträge zur Basler Buchdruckergeschichte, by Emmanuel Stockmeyer and Balthasar Reber. In this work we find a long list of works from the presses of the indefatigable Frobenius, a list which has at its head the whole Latin Bible, corrected after the Hebrew and Greek text.

Yet Frobenius would not confine himself to a new and improved edition of the Vulgate. As his increasing fame had merited for him the confidence and friendship of Erasmus, who afterwards consented to become sponsor to one of his children, and as Erasmus was the man marked out beforehand by public opinion for such a work, Frobenius proposed to his celebrated friend the undertaking of an edition of the Greek text of the New Testament. To this end he made him very advantageous offers, which Erasmus was by no means insensible to, for he liked to say jocularly that penia (poverty) was the half of him, a mere jest of course. Moreover he foresaw the importance of such a publication, but in those times of the infancy of the art of criticism he could only have a very confused notion of the difficulties of its execution. This is why, when already encumbered with labour of different kinds, (he was among other things engaged upon an edition of St. Jerome for Frobenius), he undertook this new task in September, 1515. He saw at once that he must settle the text by collating the different MSS. he had before him. But the printing, once begun, advanced so rapidly that it was impossible to do the work with any exactness. Apart from the Apocalypse, Erasmus used especially two MSS.; one contained the gospels, and the other the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles: he modified the text of these MSS. only very little, and after two other Basel MSS. As early as March, 1516, this edition of the Greek text of the New Testament appeared with a new Latin translation and notes. Its title is sufficiently pompous, and leads to the belief that the editor used many more MSS. than he really did. He added to it the following exhortation :-"Whoever loves true theology, let him read, let him learn, and after this let him judge. But let no one take offence at the changes made in the text; let him rather examine if the changes are improvements." Evidently Frobenius had a reason for so much haste in this matter. It was known that the fifth volume of the Complutensian Polyglot, which contained the Greek text of the New Testament, had been printed since 1514, and that the papal approbation alone was waited for, in order to its publication. Frobenius wished to avoid coneur

NEW SERIES.-VOL. I., NO. I.