he orally delivered was according to what others had written. So the author of the Epistle of James quotes as "Scripture" some book not belonging to the collection which we call by that name (iv. 5).

If, however, by "the Scriptures," he meant the books of the Old Testament, in what sense was it that he declared Christ to have died, to have been buried, and to have risen "again the third day, according to the Scriptures"? For whoever may suppose that he finds Christ's death and burial alluded to in the Jewish books, no one will pretend that they speak of Christ's rising, still less of his rising on the third day. My explanation of this, provided we suppose the "Scriptures" of the Old Testament to be referred to, depends on the force of the word rendered "according to " (Kará). I think that, by rules both of etymology and common sense, the accordance here indicated may be understood as merely absence of contradiction. Contrariety and consistency exhaust the relations between a fact and a written statement connected with it. When there is not contrariety, there is a sort of ac cord.

Entertaining those entirely incorrect views which the Jews of Paul's time did entertain concerning the coming Messiah, they imagined the alleged facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to be fatal to the pretensions of Jesus to be the Messiah, inasmuch as they were contradicted by the whole tenor of ancient Scripture. Paul, on the contrary, held, and here declares, that those Scriptures, when rightly estimated as to their authority, and rightly interpreted as to their sense, did not contradict his declarations respecting Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. In the sense of being reconcilable with, not contradictory to, the true original idea of the Christ, as presented in the Old Testament books, those facts were "according

to the Scriptures." The accordance here indicated is the converse of the opposition referred to by Paul in a similar connection in the words (Acts xxvi. 22, 23), "saying none other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come, that Christ should suffer," &c. (See above, pp. 20, 223.)

XV. 20.

Now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that slept.

The metaphor of "first fruits" is drawn from the Law. The word used here (aπapx?) appears to denote prime fruit, fruit first in point of excellence, while another word (πρωτογέννημα) means fruit first in point of time. So Origen says ("Opp.," Tom. IV. p. 4, edit. Delarue), "One would not err..... in calling the Law of Moses the earliest fruit (pwToyévvηua), and the Gospel the prime fruit (awapxn)." The distinction is observed in the Septuagint, though overlooked in our English version. Christ was not the "first fruits of them that slept," in the sense of having been restored to life before any other, but in the sense of being the most excellent, the chief, the leader, the head, of them that have slept and risen.

XV. 22.

As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

By the phrase "all in Adam," every one understands, all mankind, just as to speak of a person as "in Christ" (comp. Rom. xvi. 7) is to describe him as a Christian. Into such forms of expression every writer and speaker naturally slides. It would be altogether unsafe at this day to argue from a person's using the phrase "every son of Adam" in the sense

of the whole human race, that he believed in what is related of Adam in the beginning of Genesis as historical fact. Equally unjust would it be to Paul to frame such an argument from his words. By force of ancient usage, founded originally in error, we naturally speak of the rising and setting of the sun. Must every

one who uses those forms of expression be held as declaring his belief in the false natural philosophy which they imply? We speak of certain physical affections under the names of St. Vitus's dance, and St. Anthony's fire. By the use of this phraseology, do we pledge ourselves to any theory of disease?

If by the language "as in Adam all die," we see cause rather to understand "as all men die with [or, like] Adam" (comp. 1 Cor. iv. 21; Heb. ix. 25; 2 Cor. xiii. 4; Col. ii. 6), the reasoning as to the question in hand will be the same. In the mention of Adam as the person with whom that universal mortality began which was the only thing to his purpose, and which was well known by experience, Paul will be understood as employing a form of expression, or of thought, familiar to his countrymen, without proposing to vouch for the correctness of the traditionary opinion in which it had its origin.

XV. 25-27.

He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet.

In expressing his conviction of the future universal empire of his Master, Paul does but advert to the language of a writer of former days who had no higher conception of the Messiah than as a splendid earthly sovereign, at whose feet Jehovah, his patron, would

strike down all his foes. (Ps. cx. 1; comp. "Lectures," &c., Vol. IV. pp. 314-316.)

XV. 32.

If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.

Paul remembers words of an ancient writer (Is. xxii. 13) which forcibly express his thought, and adopts them accordingly.

XV. 45.

And so it is written, "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."

Where is this "written"? The first clause, or rather what is very like the first clause, in the Book of Genesis (ii. 7); the latter clause, in no book that we are acquainted with.

XV. 54, 55.

When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

There is in these verses a certain resemblance to two passages of the prophetical writings (Is. xxv. 8; Hosea xiii. 14); but no otherwise than in the way of verbal accommodation.

SECTION III.

SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Most of the references to the Old Testament in this Epistle consist of quotations such as are used by all writers to give liveliness to a discourse, and raise no question as to the construction put upon the Jewish Scriptures by the author of the book. See 2 Corinthians iv. 13 (comp. Ps. cxvi. 10); vi. 2 (comp. Is. xlix. 8); vi. 16-18 (comp. Lev. xxvi. 11, 12, Is. lii. 11, 12, 2 Sam. vii. 14); viii. 15 (comp. Exod. xvi. 18); ix. 6 (comp. Prov. xi. 24, xxii. 8); ix. 9 (comp. Ps. cxii. 9); xiii. 1 (comp. Deut. xix. 15). In most of these instances, the words quoted are applied in their original sense; in some, as in the last specified, where the Apostle speaks of his three journeys as three "witnesses" to the conduct of his Corinthian converts, the reader sees an example of the habit of the New Testament writers to accommodate Old Testament language to meanings and uses of their own.

In one chapter of this Epistle (iii. 7 – 16), a fanciful application is made, in different ways, of the relation (Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30, 33-35) that when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, after receiving the elementary Law, his face was radiant, and he covered it with a veil. Having only a rhetorical embellishment in view, Paul adopted that interpretation of this narrative which was current in his time, as it is in ours, though its correctness is by no means unquestionable. (See "Lectures," &c., Vol. I. p. 229, note.)

I. 1.

All the saints which are in all Achaia.