concluding certain dates to be "obviously false," or in coming forward to correct others with the view of making them tally, or in holding that in their general lines they are adapted, they are alike astray.

By far the most important service, however, that the Inscriptions have rendered in connexion with this period, lies in their having furnished a clue to the arrangement of the history. When dates which agree are assumed to be discrepant, it is manifest that not only will the chronology which is founded on them be at fault, but that the representation of the bearing which the events have upon each other will also be perverted. As might have been expected, there has been much divergence in the order in which the dates are arranged by different writers. When, on the other hand, we apply the principle of the different styles of Jewish and Babylonian computation to the original documents, the dates fall into a fixed line. The following table, I believe, will be found to satisfy all the scriptural statements :

MARK xiii. 31, 32.

THIS passage is generally adduced as proof of the limitation of our Lord's knowledge, even in regard to a matter so closely touching His special work and mission as the time of His Second Coming. And the inference is drawn: If ignorant then, how much more in regard to the authorship and dates of the books of the Old Testament! But whatever may be the nature of that limitation, which, in any case, was self-imposed and voluntary; however difficult the Catholic doctrine of the Kévwσis in some respects may be, yet here, at all events, the premise is wrong, and so must be the conclusion drawn from it. Three facts in connexion with the passage in St. Mark have to be taken into account: First, The parallel passage in St. Matthew does not include "the Son" in the limitation in question; and the passage in St. Luke makes no limitation whatever, having nothing

answering to the statement at all. This is highly significant and monitory, if Mark be taken here as the earliest of the Synoptists. It warns us that the expression there made was soon felt to be open to misunderstanding. And that some qualification is necessary will at once be obvious, when it is mentioned, secondly, that the disciples of our Lord, and indeed all the early Christians, and, presumably, "the angels," and, certainly, our Lord Himself, "the Son" did know the time of His Second Coming. The assertion is made over and over again in the Synoptics that His coming would be in that generation. The following references to one of them will suffice: Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28, xxiv. 34. In this faith the first generation of Christians, the contemporaries of our Lord and His disciples, lived and died. If in this faith they were not mistaken, if the prediction and hope was realised by them, then the emphasis in St. Mark's statement will fall upon the words, "of that day and hour": i.e., as we should say, upon the date in the calendar and the hour of the clock. It is of such definite chronological statement that

it is said the Father alone is cognisant. But this, while relieving the difficulty, does not remove it altogether. It has, thirdly, to be remembered that in point of fact His Second Coming was not an event of a day or of an hour. It was not a point of time within the four-and-twenty hours of a day, nor a single day within the month or year. It was, indeed, an event which was to come with startling suddenness upon the ungodly and unbelieving of that generation, but was to be seen far off, and its gradual progress noted, by those who lived in watchfulness and prayer. And, surely this is true, if His coming did take place in that generation; true, if the salient external manifestation of His advent was the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the guilty nation.

We are now in a position to see that the expression in St. Mark was not at all what it has generally been taken to mean. It was not intended to be an acknowledgment of ignorance, in a special instance, on the part of our Lord; but was simply a devout ascription to His Father of an omniscience which transcended the conditions of time. What was known to the Son, in His temporal and relative condition, as an event occupying a considerable space of time, could be viewed by the Father as a day, an hour, a moment, or instant of time. It was a prompting of the same devout and reverential feeling in the Lord's mind, as that to which He gave expression when He said, "Why callest thou me good? One is good, God." Our Lord no more denied His own goodness in the latter, than He asserted His own ignorance in the former. If men will ask, What day, and at what moment, an aeonian change is to be accomplished, then the only answer is, God only knows, unto whom a thousand years are as one day. They want an answer in terms which are inapplicable to the case. The Master Himself, as Son of God as well as Son of Man, was then under the conditions of time; lived, thought, spoke under such relations.

Only the Father, as absolute and unconditioned, could speak as the disciples asked; and, if answered, they could not understand. Truly our Lord came under conditions and limitations on our behalf; but in this case, at any rate, those limitations did not connote ignorance. His answer simply showed, in terms of religion, the irrelevance of the question that had been put to Him. W. C. SHEARER.

United College, Bradford.

Rahab and another.

I THINK it is now generally conceded by the most competent critics that "Rahab the harlot," who occupies such a conspicuous place in the narrative of the capture of Jericho by Joshua, and the proceedings of the two spies antecedent to that event, is identical with the "Rachab" mentioned in Matt. i. 5, in connexion with the genealogy of Jesus. In an interesting note Keil asserts (Commentary on Joshua, chap. vi. 5) that "the identity of the two names cannot be doubted, especially when we take into account that the only women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus are such as were renowned in the history of Israel, and that, whilst the harlot Rahab was undoubtedly one of these, no other woman of the same name is anywhere spoken of in the Old Testament." Granted, then, that the identity of the two names is successfully established, and that Rahab the harlot is one and the same with Rahab the wife of Salmon and mother of Boaz; does not the circumstance that a woman of impure life occupied a prominent place in Christ's ancestry lend an additional interest to His treatment of the "unfortunate" in the house of Simon the Pharisee? Certainly, Christ's conspicuous tenderness upon that memorable occasion, His absolute disregard of the trammels imposed by exclusive Mosaic ritual, His large-hearted charity and generosity, are sufficiently explicable, from the divine standpoint, on the ground that Mary was a woman of notoriously immoral life, who came to Him deeply sorrowful and repentant, and thus had a great claim upon His forgiveness and regard. But it lends an additional element of human interest to the beautiful narrative of Luke to think that Christ's thought travelled back to the stormy times of Joshua, and recalled the stained life of Rahab, His own ancestress, in connexion with the impure being who stood at His feet, and who, woman-like, so affectionately testified to the warm impulses that moved her devotion and esteem. That the annals of His own ancestral life were not without the record of, at least, one name, deeply dyed with the marks of shameful living, would establish in His heart a double bond of sympathy and pity for poor, outcast Mary. He would recall to mind the coldly ceremonious treatment of His own kith and kin, when "the young men, the spies, went in and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all

that she had, all her kindred also they brought out; and they set them without the camp of Israel." He would be more noble than they of the camp, more generous and grandly human; He would be wholly regardless of trifling questions of external defilement, and receive this immoral woman, loving and repentant, within the circle of that greater camp, the host that no man can number, whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. H. H. MOOre.

Hilltown, Ireland.

Nicodemus.

I AM deeply interested in the conversation of our Lord and Nicodemus. It has seemed to me that the popular interpretations of this conversation on all sides fail to interpret. Since I have become acquainted with the Greek text of Westcott and Hort, I believe that I see a way out of the difficulties I had always before found here. And the question I have to submit is this, What did Nicodemus naturally understand by veîua in ver. 5?

In order to get a reasonable answer to this question, it must be considered who and what Nicodemus was; what were the ideas of his class concerning the meaning and use of this word, and also concerning the Spirit of God. I am so situated that I cannot look into this for want of If some one else, better able to do this, will kindly do it, and supply an answer to my question, I, personally, shall be glad and grateful, and I am sure it will be a contribution to the general good. HENRY FORRESTER.

books.

City of Mexico, Mexico.

The Standard of the Christian
Religion.

IN the palmy days of systematic theology, a Christian apologist might, without provoking any serious protest, treat the religion of the Bible as a unity, or at least identify the Christian religion with the religion of the New Testament. Nowadays all that is changed. Our attention is called rather to the variety than to the unity of the doctrinal systems that are found within the compass even of the New Testament. Biblical has in many quarters displaced Systematic Theology, and a sharp

distinction is recognised between the biblical theology of the Old and that of the New Testament. Systematic theology is indeed far from superseded; notable attempts are still made to systematise all the various materials collected by a careful sifting of the utterances of the many authors of the Bible. But "Art is long and Time is fleeting," and we cannot wonder if many are eager to find a shorter way, to discover what is of central importance in Scripture, to answer, above all, the questions, What are the essential contents of the Christian religion? To such inquirers, a small work by Professor Wendt of Heidelberg ought to be welcome and helpful (Die Norm des echten Christenthums; Leipzig, Grunow, Pf. 50). While the impression produced by the notices in THE EXPOSITORY TIMES of the same author's great work, Die Lehre Jesu, is still fresh, it may be interesting to call attention to the main conclusions of the above tractate. There will probably be little that is new to the readers of the larger work; but even for them it will be an advantage to have the attention concentrated in the tractate on the single thesis that, The teaching of Jesus Himself is the sole standard whereby to determine the real contents of the Christian Religion.

Holding as he does that through Jesus the perfect revelation of God has been given to man, Wendt concludes that all that can be authenticated as teaching of Jesus is normative, and that the teaching of the rest of Scripture must be judged by that standard. It is hardly conceivable that any one should take exception to this theory in the abstract, least of all those whose doctrine of inspiration ensures that an apostle can never contradict his Master. A more serious difficulty will be felt by some in regard to what is to be accepted as authentic teaching of Jesus. How far is this coloured in the Synoptic Gospels? what value, if any, is to be attached to the discourses of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel? Readers of Professor Wendt do not need to be told how he answers these questions. It may suffice to say that, like Professor Bruce, he holds that the first critical examination of the Gospels leaves ample materials for constructing a comprehensive scheme of Jesus' teaching.

A feature of the little work before us is, that the author closes with a recapitulation of the chief points he has sought to establish. There are ten of these, which we shall summarise even more briefly than Wendt, preferring to give a paraphrase rather than a literal translation of his words :

1. The teaching of Jesus is the sole standard whereby to determine the real contents of the Christian religion.

2. The exclusively normative value thus assigned to the teaching of Jesus is the necessary consequence of the absolutely unique position which the universal voice of Christians ascribes to Jesus as an organ of revelation.

3. The conceding of this normative value only to His own teaching does not deny or narrow the Christian conception of the redemptive work of Jesus, but only subordinates it like other doctrines to the supreme standard.

4. The teaching of Jesus has been transmitted to us through sources sufficiently reliable to supply us with the requisite standard of the Christian religion. In a scrupulously exact historical criticism of these sources will be found the way to a settlement of the question that still remains open as to the compass and meaning of the teaching of Jesus.

5. The principle that only the teaching of Jesus Himself possesses supreme authority, does not set aside the Reformation doctrine of Scripture, but merely gives to that doctrine the explanation and degree of precision which experience has proved to be needed.

6. The specific worth of Scripture, as compared with all other kinds of Christian literature, is not invalidated by the above doctrine, for Holy Scripture, as a collection of fontal authorities, supplies us with the indispensable means for ascertaining and explaining the supreme standard of Christianity.

7. Every one should be recognised as a true member of the Christian Church in general, and of the Evangelical Church in particular, who accepts the gospel proclaimed by Jesus Himself.

8. Assent to any confessional formula should neither be exacted nor given in the Evangelical Church, except with the reservation, silent or expressed, that such formula must approve itself as in harmony with the original gospel of Jesus Christ.

9. No infallible authority can determine what doctrine or confession is in harmony with the teaching of Jesus; this is a matter which must ever be tested anew by scrupulous examination of the original sources.

10. Any deviation from traditional church dogma which finds its motive in a conscientious endeavour to attain to a closer agreement with the teaching of Jesus, corresponds to the essential principles of the Evangelical Church, and is therefore within. her pale not only justifiable but obligatory.

The adherents of the traditional theory of inspiration will of course be unable to assent to some of our author's conclusions; but the ever-increasing number upon whom that theory has lost all hold may perhaps find in Professor Wendt's essay not a little to help their faith. Now that the elaborate and, shall we dare to say it, somewhat obscurantist articles of Bishop Ellicott are ended, possibly a good many would welcome in these pages a series of articles, or at least one thorough discussion by a competent progressive theologian, of the points raised by Dr. Wendt.

Birsay.

J. A. SELBIE.

EXPOSITION.

"Jesus came to them."-Purvey gives it, “came nigh," the Rheims version has "coming near"; the word means "approached." He advanced toward them till He stood beside them.-MORISON. He may have been seen first at a distance.SCHAFF.

"Spake unto them;" or, "and talked with them." -So the word is rendered in Mark vi. 50; Luke xxiv. 32; John iv. 27, xiv. 30. There is a fine feeling of familiarity in the word.-MORISON.

"All authority hath been given unto me."-The English language contains no adequate equivalent for the word rendered "authority" ("power" in the A.V.). It embraces the ideas of both power and authority-power coupled with right. It here. indicates Christ as the true Lord and King both of nature and of life, human and angelic.-ABBOTT.

"Hath been given "-literally, "was given. That is, the fulness of power to govern the universe was imparted to Christ at His resurrection; not as a new gift, but a confirmation and practical realisation of the power over all things which had been delivered unto Him by the Father (see Matt. xi. 27). -Cook.

"In heaven and on earth."—"In heaven," that is, over all principalities and powers of the spiritual world. Angels were to be henceforth "ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation." The true sphere of the Church as a spiritual body is "in heavenly places," and there all things are subject to the Lord. "And on earth" that is, the sphere of the Church as a visible body, where it would have to struggle, and by virtue of this charter to prevail, until the end.-Cook.

"Make disciples."-The Greek word is one, and is formed from the noun for "disciples." The "teach" of the Authorised Version is the correct translation in the next verse, where the word is different, but not here.-PLUMPTRE.

Observe how here every one who becomes a believer is conceived of as standing to Christ in the personal relation of a disciple, in accordance with which view the term came to be applied to Christians generally.—MEYER.

"All the nations."-This cannot mean "make disciples from among all the nations." It brings into view a much wider aim.-MORISON.

With regard to the difficulty which has been raised on these words, that if they had been thus spoken by the Lord, the apostles would never have. had any doubt about the admission of the Gentiles into the Church, we answer that the apostles never had any doubt whatever about admitting Gentiles, only whether they should not be circumcised first. -ALFORD.

"Baptizing them into the name."-The Authorised Version has "in the name"; the difference is considerable. "In the name" might imply that baptism was to be administered by church ministers acting in the name of the Almighty. "Into the name" means that converts are pledged

by baptism to a faith which has for its object the Being designated by that name, and which brings them into union with Him.-Cook.

"The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."-Jewish proselytes were baptized into the name of the Father; Jesus adds the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. In the instances of baptism recorded in the Acts (ii. 38, viii. 16, x. 48, xix. 5), the name of Jesus Christ (or the Lord Jesus) alone occurs in the baptismal formula; but the promise of the Holy Ghost is given (ii. 38), or the gift of the Holy Ghost follows the rite (viii. 17, xix. 6), or precedes it (x. 44, 47). -CARR.

"Teaching."-Contrast this command with that given to the Twelve in Matt. x. 7. Then they were simply to go as heralds to announce that the kingdom of God was drawing nigh; henceforth they are to become instructors in the whole system of truth taught by Jesus Christ.-ABBOTT.

"All things whatsoever I commanded you."-The words obviously point, in the first instance, to the teaching of our Lord recorded in the Gospels-the new laws of life, exceeding broad and deep, of the Sermon on the Mount, the new commandment of love for the inner life (John xiii. 34), the new outward ordinances of Baptism and the Supper. we may well believe that they went further than this, and that the words may cover much unrecorded teaching which they had heard in the darkness and were to reproduce in light.-PLUMPTRE.

But

"Alway," literally, "all the days."-Never absent a single day, however dark, until the last when He shall come again.-SCHAFF.

"Unto the end of the world."-This does not set a term to Christ's presence, but to His invisible and temporal presence, which will be exchanged for His visible and eternal presence at His coming. -SCHAFF.

METHODS OF TREATMENT. I.

THE WORLD FOR CHRIST.

By the Rev. A. Mackennal, D.D.

The earliest symbol of the Saviour is the picture of the Good Shepherd. Then, in the course of time, that beautiful symbol gave way to that of Jesus Christ as Judge of the world.

one thing that painters never have painted, and