that the latter quotes it to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost. If we descend to a later period, we shall find that in the fifth and sixth century the reading Deos would be likely to be looked on with suspicion as favoring the heresies of Nestorians. It would not be regarded as the orthodox reading, for it distinguishes most clearly between the divine and the human natures: God is not confounded with the flesh, but said to have been manifested in it. It was only after a long controversy that the Eastern and North African churches. settled to a general opposition to the doctrine of the single nature of Christ. The conflict waged so bitterly by Cyril and his supporters against Nestorius and Theodoret had the effect of leading his successors into the opposite Monophysite heresy. For a season there was scarcely any middle ground. allowed between the Nestorians and the Eutychians. All who opposed the blind and intolerant zeal of the Monophysites were branded by them as Nestorians. The whole Eastern church seemed falling into this extreme. At this time it will be seen that those who regarded themselves as the orthodox party, and the devoted followers of Cyril, would have looked with great suspicion on the reading. "God was manifested in the flesh," a reading so apparently opposed to their Monophysite rendering of John's text: "The Word was made flesh.' Accordingly we find that Liberatus distinctly speaks of the reading with 9eós as Nestorian and heretical. If there had been at an earlier time a temptation to the orthodox to alter os to Deós, the temptation was now equally strong to change Deós to ős.

Editors of the New Testament, have according to their different principles of criticism or means of information, varied in their reading of this passage. In favor of Jeos may be mentioned Stephens, Mill, Matthaei, Scholz, and others of less note; Griesbach, Lachman, Tischendorf, and Tregelles prefer ős, while Wetstein's choice seems to favor o. We do not propose to balance against each other the various arguments for either reading, with the purpose of defending

one or the other. It has been our aim simply to give a more complete, accurate, and impartial statement of the facts in the case than has heretofore been accessible, that each one who studies them may have all the materials necessary for the satisfaction of his own judgment, and that something may thus be done for perfecting the purity of the original text of the scriptures.

It is gratifying to discover that none of the early Christian writers, whether called orthodox or heritic by the general councils of the church, have ventured to tamper with the sacred text. Epiphanius, Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory Nazianzen, all active opponents of Arianism, either read ős distinctly, or else do not quote the passage, although it would seem that with the reading eós it might have been used with effect against their opponents. On the other hand, when, a century later, Deós seemed the less orthodox reading, we find Theodorus and Nestorius, though treated as heretics, employing the relative. Again the tide has turned, and Deós has been called the more orthodox reading, and the identical alteration for which the Constantinopolitan bishop was deposed as a heretic has of late years been charged upon the defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity as an orthodox trick. There is no proof on either side of any intentional corruption of the sacred text.

ARTICLE II.

THE SON OF MAN.

BY REV. WILLIAM S. TYLER, PROFESSOR IN AMHERST COLLEGE.

THERE is something very remarkable about this name. Doubtless there is in it, also, some deep significance. It is the chosen, and, if we may so say, the favorite name of the Redeemer of mankind-the name by which he loves to designate himself, and by which he does call himself more . frequently than any other. And yet, with the exception of a single instance, this name is never applied to him by any one but himself. The name occurs twenty-two times in the Gospel of Matthew, and, besides the parallel passages in the other Gospels, five times in Mark, twelve times in Luke, and eleven times in John-about eighty times in all, counting all the repetitions and parallel passages;1 and in every instance of its use in the Gospels, it occurs in discourses or remarks made by our Lord himself, and is applied exclusively to himself.

It is also found once in the Acts (vii. 56), and therea solitary exception to the otherwise unvarying usage of the New Testament - the expression is put into the mouth of the Martyr Stephen, who, "being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God"; and (apparently because he saw him in human form, and manifestly full of human sympathy, standing as if he had risen up to sustain. the first Christian martyr and to receive his spirit when he should resign it to his keeping), he said: "Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God."

This name does not appear in any of the Epistles. The

1 We take this number (80) on the authority of Cruden. Bloomfield states the number at 61; but that is certainly too small. We have not taken the trouble to verify the accuracy of Cruden.

evangelists ordinarily call him by the simple name of Jesus, which, as explained by the angel at whose bidding the name was given to him at his birth, expresses his most characteristic work, as "The Saviour of his people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21). The writers of the epistles usually call him the Lord, the Lord Jesus, or the Lord Jesus Christ, thus denoting him (as the evangelists also begin to call him after bis resurrection) as their risen Lord, the anointed King of the spiritual Israel, and the divinely appointed Ruler as well as Saviour of men. He calls himself" the Son of Man" and "the Son of God," or simply "THE SON," thus signifying his peculiarly intimate and endearing relations to man on the one hand, and to God on the other. It is also a significant fact that, while neither name is absolutely peculiar to either of the Gospels, the Saviour calls himself "the Son of Man" more frequently in the first three Gospels, where his outward life is particularly narrated and his human nature and relations are emphasized, and "the Son of God" or "the Son" more frequently in the fourth Gospel, which reveals especially his inward being and asserts his divine nature in the face of unbelieving "Jews."

This name is, therefore, entirely peculiar to the language of our Lord; appropriated by himself, and applied, as a distinctive name, to himself alone. There is, however, in the language of the Old Testament a manifest, and doubtless intentional, preparation for our Saviour's peculiar application and appropriation of the name to himself. By an idiom somewhat peculiar to the language of the Hebrews and the Hellenists, or Greek-speaking Jews, though there are not wanting some analogous usages in our own and other languages, the phrase "son of" is very often used to express likeness to, or participation with, some person or thing, or the possession of some character or quality, as in the expressions, sons of Belial, son of perdition, son of the devil,1 son of hell, sons of thunder, son of peace, sons of light,1 son

1 Child in our English version, son in the Greek: viè diaßóλov (Acts xiii. 10); vidy yeévvns (Mat. xxiii. 15); viol parós (John. xii. 36).

of consolation, etc., meaning persons partaking of the nature, character, image, etc., of the devil, Belial, and hell on the one hand, or of light, peace, and consolation on the other.. After the analogy of this idiom, son of man is another name for child of humanity, or, as we often say, child of mortality; that is, a human being, possessed of the attributes and characteristics of humanity. Accordingly it is very often used as a synonyme with man in the synonymous parallelisms of the Psalms and Prophets. Thus, in the book of Numbers, "God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent"; in the book of Job: "How much less man that is a worm, and the son of man that is a worm"; and in the book of Psalms: "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him." In these and many similar passages, son of man is obviously another name for one who is possessed of the attributes of humanity -any child of Adam who, like his father, is subject to human frailties and infirmities. And the name directs attention particularly to these characteristic attributes; it emphasizes them as the natural characteristics which distinguish the race, and to which every child of the race is born - is, as it were, a son and heir. By way of reminding him that, though now commissioned to speak in the name of God, he is still a frail, imperfect, dying man, like those to whom he is sent, the prophet Ezekiel, when God speaks to him, is constantly addressed by the title, son of man. Still in all these passages no one person is singled out as exclusively, or even pre-eminently, the son of man. On the contrary, it is the very design of the phrase, either to comprise under one comprehensive and expressive name every child of Adam, or, if applied to an individual, as in the case of the prophet Ezekiel, not to distinguish him from other men, but rather to reduce him to just the same level with other mortals.

The nearest approach to our Lord's appropriation of this title to himself is in the prophecy of Daniel (vii. 13): “I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of

1 Repeated some eighty-nine times.