"might be fulfilled." It seems to be placed beyond a doubt by this instance alone, that the fulfilment so often pointed out in connection with quotations in the New Testament means simply the suitableness of an accommodation to one event, of language originally applied to some other event. Jesus at this time (xviii. 8) interposed to protect his disciples, agreeably to that superintendence of them which in another sense he had spoken of at another time (xvii. 12).

XIX. 7.

The Jews answered him : "We have a Law, and by our Law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God."

In this text I find further proof that the title Son of God is simply equivalent to Messiah. Nowhere in the Law is death made the penalty of professing one's self the Son of God in those terms, but it is expressly denounced against the false assumption of the character of the prophet like unto Moses, afterwards called the Messiah. (Deut. xviii. 18, 20.)

XIX. 24.

That the Scripture might be fulfilled which saith, "They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots."

The Scripture here quoted is from a Psalm (xxii. 18), in which, if there is any meaning in language, the writer is setting forth his own wrongs and sorrows, and by no means bewailing those of any future sufferer. (See "Lectures," &c., Vol. IV. p. 322.) He says in effect: So confident are my enemies of my ruin and my fall, that even now they are planning for the distribution of my effects among themselves. The Evangelist, when he said that the soldiers made a partition of the garments of Jesus, "that the Scripture might

be fulfilled," meant simply that the incident might be described in the same language as had been used by an ancient sufferer. So plain is this, that it seems quite superfluous to add, that John is the only one of the Evangelists who has pointed out the correspondence, though all four (comp. Matt. xxvii. 35; Mark xv. 24; Luke xxiii. 34) have related the occurrence ; a fact scarcely to be reconciled with the supposition of a supernatural prediction fulfilled by it.

XIX. 28.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, "I thirst."

66

Under a wrong impression, as I conceive, of the true construction of this sentence, commentators have searched for the words "I thirst" in Jewish Scripture, and have found, not those words, but the words "in my thirst" (Ps. lxix. 21). I understand the meaning of the Evangelist to be that which to a careful reader is disclosed by the following punctuation, corresponding to what is exhibited in Griesbach's manual edition of the original Greek; viz. "Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, “I thirst.” That is, Jesus, knowing that he had now acquitted himself of his whole task in establishing his kingdom, - that every thing to the last had now been done by him that was to be done for the accomplishment of his work as Messiah, and accordingly for the fulfilment of Scripture, which had spoken of that work, -now permitted his mind for the first time to turn to his own sufferings, and to breathe out in a single word the agony of his mortal fever. He did not say, "I thirst," for the purpose of fulfilling any Scripture. But, knowing that nothing was left to be done of that work by which he

was to fulfil Scripture, he was at liberty to spend one thought upon himself.

XIX. 36.

These things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled: "A bone of him shall not be broken."

Nothing can be more express than this language, if we insist on interpreting it without regard to idiom and usage. The words of the Old Testament, “Neither shall ye break a bone thereof," were "fulfilled" by the forbearance of the soldiers to break the legs of Jesus; and not only so, but the forbearance of the soldiers to break the legs of Jesus was to the very end "that the Scripture should be fulfilled." If ever there was a case in which the reductio ad absurdum was conclusive, it is so in the present instance to show that the popular interpretation of the phraseology relating to a fulfilment of Scripture cannot be sustained. The ceremony of the Paschal Feast was designed to commemorate the hasty departure of the Israelites from Egypt. It was accordingly full of indications and symbols of haste. "Thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste." (Ex. xii. 11.) They were not even to stop to break the bones of the lamb, so as to taste the marrow. (Ibid. 46; comp. Numb. ix. 12; "Lectures," &c., Vol. I. p. 138.) And this direction, relating to a subject so entirely different, is said by the Evangelist to be "fulfilled" in the omission of the guard to break the legs of Jesus as he hung dead upon the cross. It is palpable to sense that his only meaning was, that the words, transferred from their original signification, might be applied to what he was relating.

XIX. 37.

And again another Scripture saith, "They shall look on him whom they pierced."

In the prophecy of Zechariah, God is represented as declaring that his unmerited clemency will melt his people to repentance and contrition. Self-condemned and abased, he says, they will turn back to the Divine Benefactor whom they have grieved and wounded by their impieties; "they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced." (Zech. xii. 10; comp. "Lectures," &c., Vol. III. p. 493.) This had nothing whatever to do, nor did the Evangelist imagine it to have any thing to do, with the stabbing of the side of Jesus by the spear of a Roman soldier. But the words occurred to his memory as he wrote, and he set them down, as a rhetorical accommodation, not as a mystical criticism.

XX. 9.

As yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

No wonder if they did not understand the Scripture as declaring that the Messiah was to rise again from the dead. For nowhere had the Old Testament Scripture so declared. But this was not the Apostle's meaning. What he meant was, that they hitherto so interpreted the Scriptures, as to make it incredible to them that the Messiah should suffer and die, which death was indispensable to his rising again. Like others of the most religious part of their countrymen at that period, they erroneously ascribed to the later writers of their nation, the Psalmists and the Prophets, an authority similar to that of the original revelation embodied in the Law of Moses. The Psalmists and Prophets had erroneously spoken of the Messiah as a

magnificent, and sometimes, perhaps, as an immortal prince, in such terms as to misguide the opinions of simple men, of the class to which John and Peter belonged. Possessed with these views of the authority and interpretation of the national writings later than Moses, their minds occupied with incorrect conceptions of the Messiah drawn from those writings,

"as

yet they knew not the Scripture" in such a manner as to allow them to entertain the idea that he must rise again from the dead." They had not learned to reconcile the Scripture with that idea. It was not that Scripture had declared that he would so rise. It had declared nothing of the kind. But they supposed that it had authoritatively declared the contrary. And this confounded them. (Comp. Mark ix. 32.) Afterwards they knew better. (Also with ypapn comp. yeypaμμévov, as explained above, p. 117.)

SECTION V.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

I. 15-22.

In those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, . . . . .“ Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. .... . For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein; and His bishopric let another take.' Wherefore of these men..... must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection."

Peter quoted on this occasion from two of the vituperative Psalms (lxix., cix.). Nothing more is necessary