Imatges de pàgina
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this passage, are combined, with the genius of an original thinker, and with the skill of a master in composition. I will conclude this section in the words of the most elaborate writer of antiquity: the scrupulous polish of whose language, has, perhaps, prevented many from justly appreciating the purity of his moral teaching. Αλλα γαρ ουκ εν τοις λόγοις χρη περί των επιτηδευμάτων ζητειν τας καινότητας, εν όις ούτε παραδοξον, ουτ' απιςον, ουτ' εξω των νομιζομενων ουδέν εςιν εύρειν. αλλ' ἡγεῖσθαι τουτον ειναι χαριεςατον, ός αν των διεσε παρμένων εν ταις των άλλων διανοιαις άθροισαι τα πλείςα δυνηθη, και φρασαι καλλιςα περι αυτων. Isocrates. ad Nicocl. p. 55. edit. Battie. "We are not to seek novelties "in discourses on the moral duties; for these will "admit nothing paradoxical, nothing incredible, "nothing beyond the common sense of mankind : “and, on such subjects, he is the most agreeable "writer, who can accumulate the greatest num"ber of the truths dispersed through the minds of "other men; and who can express them in the "aptest and most beautiful language."

309

SECTION XV.

It will be recollected, that, in the third section of this work, I ventured to call in question Bishop Lowth's name and definition of the first kind of parallelism; that, from his Lordship's own examples, I proved the absence of strict identity between those parallel lines, which he has termed synonymous; and that I proposed to substitute, as a more appropriate epithet, the term Cognate Parallelism, in the room of the term Synonymous Parallelism.

The Cognate Parallelism, I have already said, admits of many varieties; the most remarkable of which, is an ascent or climax in the terms, clauses, or lines, which constitute the parallelism. This variety has been sufficiently exemplified from the Old Testament, in the third section; and the attentive reader cannot fail to have marked occasional exemplifications of it from the New Testament also, in the course of the foregoing pages. A few of those examples I will now repeat; and will add to them so many fresh examples, as, I conceive, may enable students to reduce for themselves like passages, to a like form, when occurring, as they must frequently occur, to every close and diligent examiner of Sacred Scripture.

μεγαλύνει η ψυχη μου τον Κύριον

και ηγαλλίασε το πνεύμα μου επι τω Θεω τω σωτηρι μου.

My soul doth magnify the Lord;

And my spirit hath exulted in God my Saviour.

πνεύμα,

S. Luke, i. 46, 47.

The second line of this couplet clearly rises above the first, in all its terms: eyakuva, is simply to magnify, to celebrate, to praise; ayaλaw denotes exultation, or ecstasy: xn, is the animal soul; wveuμa, the immortal spirit: Tov xugiov is the simplest, τον κύριον and most general expression of godhead, the Lord of all men; TW ☹EW TW owing! μov, is, in terms, a considerable amplification, and in meaning, abounds with appropriative and heart-felt comfort; the God who is My Saviour. Now, all the terms of the second line thus respectively rising above their parallel terms in the first line, the fact can surely not be questioned, that, in the lines themselves, there is an intentional gradation.

αλλ' ός εαν θελη εν ύμιν μεγας γενεσθαι,

εσαι ύμων διακονος :

και ἧς εαν θελη εν ύμιν είναι πρωτος

εσαι ύμων δουλος.

But whosoever would among you become great,

Shall be your servant:

And whosoever would among you be chief,

Shall be your slave.

S. Matt.xx. 26, 27.

The first line and the third, the second line and the fourth, are here parallel; and, in each pair of parallelisms, the gradation is manifest: wgwros,

chief, is an advance in the scale of human grandeur, upon μeyas, great; and douλos, slave, is many degrees lower in the scale of human depreciation, than diaxovos, servant. See what has been already said respecting this passage in the twelfth section; and especially the note there cited from Dr. Campbell. It may be observed also, that Eva is an advance upon yevera: those of a more limited ambition, wish to become great; thereby admitting, that they are and have been little: those, on the contrary, whose ambition is unbounded, wish to be first, or chief; not making any admission whatever of previous mediocrity. If, indeed, the variation of these verbs be not significant, it can hardly be accounted for: all the other terms in the lines respectively parallel, are, with the most significant exceptions of μεγας and πρωτος, διακονος and δουλος, as also of the particles axx and xa (a variety indispensable from the connexion with the preceding context,) identically the same. In composition so nicely balanced, the change from yever Das to vai could not have taken place without a reason: the reason just assigned is, at least, probable; by me it should not be assigned, if I did not think it much more. Some copies, it must be noticed, read yEVEσ a second time; manifestly because the transcribers of those copies looked for strict verbal parallelism. The received reading, all must feel to be the right one: it is the reading of the majority of copies; it is a departure from verbal repetition; and to depart from verbal repetition is not the common error of copyists. And finally,

the mistake of a few transcribers, arising from a natural expectation to find yever as repeated, becomes an additional reason why we should look for special significancy in the substituted verb eivai, which disappoints that expectation.

ὁν ὁ Κύριος Ιησους αναλώσει, τω πνευματι ςόματος αυτου
και καταργήσει, τη επιφάνεια της παρουσίας αυτού.

είναι,

Whom the Lord Jesus will waste away, with the breath of his mouth;

And will utterly destroy, with the bright appearance of his coming.

2 Thess. ii. 8.

The first words, ἐν ὁ Κύριος Ιησους, are common to both lines; avaλwre implies no more, in this place, than gradual decay; xaтagynoe denotes total extermination while, in terror and magnificence, no less than in the effects assigned, the breath of his mouth, must yield to the bright appearance of his coming. The first line seems to announce the ordinary diffusion, gradually to be effected, of Christian truth: the second, to foretell the extraordinary manifestation of the victorious Messiah, suddenly, and overwhelmingly, to take place in the last days. καθαρίσατε χειρας, ἁμαρτωλοι· και άγνισατε καρδιας, δίψυχοι.

Cleanse your hands, ye sinners;

And purify your hearts, ye double-minded.

S. James, iv. 8. xadagiσate, here, relates to outward cleansing; ȧynoate, to inward purification: xeigas, to outward actions; xagdias, to inward principles: pagrwλ01,

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