internal excellencies of a more decidedly unequivocal value, namely, a considerable number of new, and undoubtedly authentic readings, great typographical accuracy, and an ample profusion of commentary, it has still no pretensions to be considered as a standard edition, which may be suitable and satisfactory for general use, or even as calculated to remove many of the defects of those which have preceded it,—but rather, from its minute and copious collation of Mss. and early editions, and from Mr. Bothe's own annotations, which are occasionally learned and valuable, as a rich mine, from which an editor may draw a large supply of critical materials for the formation of a future edition. We hope, indeed, that the day is not far distant when some highly gifted English scholar, possessed of considerable facilities for the collation of Mss. and the early editions,--facilities which this country is capable of holding out beyond all others,-may be induced to undertake a new edition of Plautus, and no longer to allow this field of literary labor to be monopolised by the critics of the German school. We shall then, and not till then, expect to have a new and better æra established in the literary history of this poet.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

Remarks on 1 Corinth. xv. 29.

In the last Number of the Classical Journal my attention was called to this difficult text by your correspondent, who favored us with the criticism of Scheller. I beg leave to propose a new rendering of the passage for the consideration of your learned readers. Ver. 25, &c. For he must reign till he put all enemies under his feet (John iii. 35, 26.) "The last enemy Death is paralyzed. For he hath put all things under his feet; but when he saith that all things have been put under, it is clear that it is with the exception of him that put all things under him. But when all things be put under him, then shall the Son himself put himself under him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Otherwise what shall they effect who are baptized above the dead, and with what intention are they baptized above the dead?"

The answer seems to be. They are baptized above the dead, (signified by the water out of which they rise, Romans x. 7.) as a sure pledge that death is put under him into whom they

are baptized. (Romans vi. 4, 13.) As the wind moved in the beginning over the waters, and the first man, who is of the earth earthy, rose thereby above the deep, even so in the restitution of all things, the second Adam into whom believers are baptized, ascends in the spirit above the dark deep of death; and they being born of his spirit live in a higher element than the dead. 'Trip may refer likewise to the ark floating on the great deep, and to the ascent of the children of Israel, just before said to have been baptized in the cloud and in the sea to Moses; and to which there is a plain allusion in ver. 54, where the casting of Death into the Lake is compared to the drowning of Pharaoh. It is a dangerous thing to follow the true Church in baptism, as Pharaoh followed the Israelites through the sea, if our intention be not friendly to it. For as all animals were subjected to the first Adam, so is all Creation, Death and Hell subjected to his antitype, the Lord from heaven, Mediator between God and Man; who as God, is God by generation and genus, as much as the Son of man is by generation and genus, man; but who as Son of God is a person as subordinate to God the Father, as the Son of Man is subordinate to Man the Father; and who, as Mediator, shall finally complete his great and glorious work, which being completed, he shall reign as God, and not as Mediator.

I. M. B.

THE MASORA.

THE corruption of the Hebrew text has been as strongly asserted as denied in modern times. (See Dr. Kennicott's Dissertations, 1753, and Classical Journal for March, 1826. p. 103.) This question relates both to the integrity of the present consonants and to the claims of vowel points. The computation of the ages of the Patriarchs depends on the consonants; for the numerals are given at full length. It should however be noticed that the Mss. vary in respect to these very numerals. "There is," says Mr. Jackson, difference of a hundred years between the Eastern and Western Hebrew copies;" to which he adds, "since likewise the variation in the Hebrew copies from the Greek is uniform, so that this variation must have been made designedly, either in the Greek version or in the Hebrew text, it must be evident to every intelligent and judicious person, that the variation was made by the Jews, and that the

a

Hebrew copies have been purposely altered by them." (Jackson's Chronol. vol. 1. p. 54.)

After all that Mr. Jackson, whom I most highly respect, has to say, I think that neither he nor any one else, has hitherto cleared up this question by a sufficient induction of circumstances; and I do not hesitate to maintain that the argument in favor of the Hebrew chronology still preponderates, however the Hebrew in itself may vary, and however strong a case in favor of Josephus may be made out by one eminent divine, and another as strong in favor of the Septuagint, by a second.

I shall now endeavor to open the subject of the Masora, as it has struck myself. By the Masora I mean, the right and full interpretation of the Law of Moses. Some derive this word Masora from DS vincivit, ligavit, coercuit. So Simon explains D contracte pro nos Vinculum quo ligatur, Ezek. xx. 37. If this derivation of the word be admitted, may not the English word MEASURE be the very Hebrew word Masora, and the reason of the derivation be, either because Measures, as bushels, &c. are in their very make and form casks bound together? or because casks limit and confine that which is measured by them? See 2 Tim. iii. 7-10, 15, 20, 21, 26.

אסר itself is derived probably from כסף

The other derivation of the word Masora is from Tradidit, (Buxtorf,) who, however, hesitates between D and D. But It is therefore consistent to understand by Masora, a measure or limitation in interpretation handed traditionally from father to son.

That such a measure did exist among the Jews before the Babylonish captivity is certain to those who regard the vowel points as having been added after the captivity. And it is indeed most probable that while the Hebrew was a living language, it was written without vowels, and at the same time without any more danger of misinterpretation, than there would now be of misinterpreting what short-hand writers compose in English, with the omission of vowels. But suppose the English to become a dead language, the first thing that would be necessary in order to preserve most securely the sense of our authors, if it had been committed simply to consonants, would be to supply vowels; because, in future ages, remote from the time of the common use of the language, USUS, norma loquendi, would be entirely forgotten, and the consonants would frequently be liable to different interpretations, according to the vowels supplied.

By the Masora then I intend that meaning of the law of Moses to which it was limited by tradition or use, before the subsequent Masoretic apparatus of vowels, &c. was formed after the captivity, for the purpose of preserving the true meaning of the law as it had been spoken, while the Jews were not yet led captive.

It were superfluous to observe, that when it was thought necessary to supply such vowels, &c. the enemies of the restoration and reformation of the Jewish church, (those Jews especially who preferred to remain in Babylon,) would, if they could, have supplied another measure, and persecuted the prophets who were raised up to assert the true Masora. In the Jewish Expositor for May 1826, we have a neat specimen of the kind of corruption which may be expected. The author is a Jew, and his commentary on a passage in scripture, to which I call all attention, is as follows:

"The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool." Ps. cx.

"The Lord said unto my Lord." The first word that shall be noticed is la-do-ni; the (5) prefix signifies to, of, for. The word is applied to man, also to an angel; but never to God; but when this word means God, it is written thus 78, Lord, or God."

Ex pede Herculem. This is not pointing, but piercing. I proceed to trace the line of the genuine Masora, as opposed to such narrow-minded trifling and folly, by the prophets.

In Isaiah ix. 6. we read

ותהי הכשרה על-שבמו

And the Masora shall be upon his shoulder.

That is, the Masora shall be taken from the Assyrian and Babylonian, and laid on the shoulders of the son of David and those of the sons of Isaiah. Compare ch. vi. 9, 10. Mark iv. 11, 12. Isaiah viii. 11-20. li. 16. lix. 21.

The meaning is, as our Lord himself declares in St. Mark, that the unbelieving Jews should by their Masora mistake the shadows of the law for the substance, and the exoteric for the esoteric sense; but nevertheless should not prevail against Isaiah; and that the bearers of the true Masora should finally prevail over both Assyria and Babylon, which united against them in binding and confining the law.

And this was well understood by Jonathan, as may be seen in his sublime and decisive Targum on this passage.

The following is the Latin version of the Targum to which I allude, as given in Walton's Polyglott, to which I refer the reader for most important information respecting the faith of the ancient Jewish church. Isaiah ix. 6. Targum Jonathan. Dicit Propheta Domui David, quoniam parvulus natus est nobis, filius datus est nobis, et suscepit legem super se ut servaret, &c. The Chaldee for ut servaret, is no. no signifies puλáoow, to keep, preserve, &c. and is nearly allied in meaning to w from (Kircheri Concordantia Heb.) See 1 Tim. v. 21. vi. 20.

This passage of Isaiah in its primary and typical intention un

questionably relates to the birth of Hezekiah, who should restore the law complete to the Jews, and subdue Assyria and Babylon, and their Jewish accomplices in Judea.

See article Dial in Dr. Robinson's theological dictionary, where he most satisfactorily reconciles the chronology of the Bible, in respect to the birth of Hezekiah, both with common sense and with this place in Isaiah; and for which I render him my thanks, as I never could satisfy myself on the first intention of this place till I read his article Hezekiah, and Dial: I had previously observed that the prophecy in its first intention related expressly to signs, and not to things signified; to the wrepirà and not to the lowrepika, as is confirmed by our Lord himself in the passage in St. Mark before mentioned. Compare also ch. viii. 18. with Hebrews ii. 13.

Hezekiah then as king, and Isaiah as prophet, were the great types of the deliverance of the true Israel, called by Isaiah himself, the tenth part, from the Assyrian Euphratian deluge; by which deliverance the great river Euphrates was dried up after the manner of Egypt, and the law and the testimony, or Masorah, in fact the very gospel, or New Testament, rescued from BABYLON. Compare Isaiah v. 26. to the end of ch. vii. with Revel. ix. 14. to the end of ch. xii. Hezekiah signifies according to etymology the mighty God.

The natural object of the Jews, it may well be supposed, was to confine the law to such an exoteric and narrow intention, as should exclude all other nations from the privileges intended for them according to the spirit. And in order to effect this purpose, seeing the exoteric intention, they did not themselves choose to see, or allow others to see the primitive and spiritual comprehensiveness of the Old Testament, which by ISRAEL most properly means -, The Lord, the righteousness and rectitude of man, who should finally overcome the Serpent in his last Assyrian and Babylonian heads; as also app signifies the crooked mortal state of Man, which 712- God virile should assume, and bear unto death, being put to death in the flesh. That this same veil which Isaiah, as type of the Messiah, casts on them, (according to the invariable rule that the words and actions of the prophet are typical, and which is applied by St. Paul in the second chapter of the Hebrews, ver. 13.) should continue over the Jews till they should turn to the Lord, or as Isaiah has it, to God virile, (ch. x. 20, 21.) is declared in 2 Cor. iii. 15. "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that SPIRIT; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY."-" Without this distinction a man wanders in the dark; and by mistaking the signs for the things signified, is in the very bondage of the soul," (St. Augustin quoted by Bishop