order to watch the time when a sufficiency of birds would be collected in the net. There are no perceptible traces of the use of bait in this kind of net; and it is probable that the simple clearance of the water from its reeds and lilies would be sufficient to entice the aquatic birds of Egypt, as it still is the river-fowl on the streams of Western Africa and India.

Our second wood-cut exhibits a different kind of

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NETTLES. This name is assigned, in our version, to two different words in the original. The first is hharul. (Job 30. 7; Prov. 24. 31; and Zeph. 2. 9.) Celsius says it is the thorn-bush, and from the passage in Job it is evident the nettle could not be intended, for a plant is referred to large enough for people to take shelter under. It may very probably refer to the Cactus ficus Indicus, or prickly pear. This plant in Syria grows to the size of a large shrub, the stem of which is as thick as a man's body. A few of these planted together constitute an impervious hedge, universally adopted in the plain of the coast, in which, and in Galilee, it chiefly grows. The leaf is studded with thorns, and is of an oval shape, about ten inches long, six wide, and threefourths of an inch thick; the stem and branches are formed by the amalgamation of a certain number of these succulent leaves that grow together the year after their first appearance, when each is laden with fifteen or twenty yellow blossoms, which are rapidly matured into a sweet and refreshing fruit of the size and shape of a hen's egg.

Nets, No. 2. From the Egyptian Monuments.

trap-net which was requisite for birds frequenting the districts bordering on the desert, such as the partridge, the quail, and the bustard. This was usually a net stretched over a frame, which closed with a spring when the bait was touched; the mechanism of the contrivance appears to be equally simple and ingenious.

The Prophet Ezekiel says, "Thus saith the Lord God, I will therefore spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my tent." (32. 3.) Roberts observes, that in India, "When a person has been caught by the stratagem of another, it is said, 'He is caught in his net.' 'He is like a deer caught in the net.' Has a man escaped: The fellow has broken the net.' 'Catch him in your net! will you catch the lightning?"

NETHINIM, On Sept. Nalivaioi, were servants dedicated to the service of the Tabernacle and Temple to perform the most laborious offices, as carrying of wood and of water. As the Levites were subordinate to the priests, so they, the Levites, had others under them called Nethinim. They were not originally of Hebrew descent, but are supposed to have been chiefly the posterity of the Gibeonites, who for their fraudulent stratagem whereby they imposed upon Joshua and the Hebrew princes, (Josh. 9.3-27,) were condemned to this employment, which was a sort of honourable servitude. We read in Ezra, that the Nethinim were devoted by David and the other princes to the service of the Temple, (Ezra 8. 20,) and they are called the children of Solomon's servants, (Ezra 2. 58,) being probably a mixture of the race of the Gibeonites, and some of the remains of the Canaanites, whom Solomon constrained to various servitudes. (1Kings 9. 20,21.) The Nethinim were carried into captivity with the tribe of Judah, and great numbers were placed not far from the Caspian Sea, whence Ezra brought two hundred and twenty of them into Judæa. (ch. 8. 17.) Those who followed Zerubbabel made up three hundred and ninety-two. (Nehem. 3. 26.) This number was but small in regard to their offices; so that we find afterwards a solemnity called by Josephus xylophoria, in which the people carried wood to the Temple, with great ceremony, to keep up the fire of the altar of burnt sacrifices. They had a particular place in Jerusalem, where they dwelt, called Ophel, in order to be near to the service of the Temple.

Cactus Opuntia.

The second word is op kemosh. (Prov. 24. 31; Isai. 34. 13; Hosea 9. 6.) This is by the Vulgate rendered urtica, and may probably mean the nettle. Hasselquist, when at Jerusalem in April, noticed the Roman nettle, (Urtica pilulifera,) but Palestine abounds in thorny plants, several of which are slightly noticed by Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke.

rashi ראשי חדשים ,NEW MOON, FEAST OF

hhadashim; veoμnviai. (Numb. 10.10; 28. 11-15.) In order to exclude any opportunity for the exercise of the superstitious practices of the Gentiles who sacrificed to the moon, Moses commands that, on the new moons, in addition to the daily sacrifices, two bullocks should be offered to God, a ram, and seven sheep of a year old, together with a meal offering, and a libation. These were to constitute the burnt-offering, and a goat the sinoffering. The return of the new moons was announced by the sounding of the silver trumpets, ni ha-tsotseroth, and in this way provision was made for keeping up a knowledge of the end and commencement of each month. The kings, it appears, after the introduction of the monarchical form of government, were in the habit of offering up sacrifices at the return of the new moons, (1Sam. 20. 5; 24-27,) and those persons whose piety led them to seek for religious instruction, visited, on those occasions, the prophets. (2Kings 4. 23.) Labour was not interdicted on the day of the new moon. the new moon, however, of the seventh month, or Tisri

As

(October), was the commencement of the civil year, it was observed as a festival. Hence it is called the day of "trumpet-blowing," yn o yom taruah, and also "the memorial of blowing of trumpets." (Levit. 23. 24; Numb. 29. 1-6.) Beside the sacrifices common to other new moons, a bullock was then offered, a ram, seven lambs of a year old, a meal-offering of flour and oil, and a libation of wine for the burnt-offering. (Numb. 29. 2-9.)

It does not appear that the days of the new moon were ascertained by astronomical calculation, as the Rabbins assert, but the days so called were the days on which the new moon first made its appearance, as is maintained by the Caraites. This is evident from the fact that Moses did not regulate his chronology on astronomical principles, but by the aspect of the earth, the return of the seasons, &c. The Talmudists likewise speak of the signs of the appearance of the new moon, and it is clear that neither Philo nor Josephus knew anything of the distinction between the astronomical and the apparent new moon. Still the author of the Book of Kings appears to have made use of the astronomical calculation, as he speaks of the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month in Babylon, while Jeremiah, who was in Palestine, calls the same day the twenty-fifth. (2Kings 25. 27; Jerem. 52. 31.) The modern Jews, in reference to the escape of David from the meditated vengeance of Saul, (1Sam. 20. 27,) observe the return of the new moon for two days in succession. See MONTH; MOON.

NEW TESTAMENT. The sacred books of the New Testament, which were written after the ascension of Christ into heaven, are calledý kaivŋ Alaðŋêŋ, the New Covenant, a title adopted at a very early age. Our Saviour, in the institution of the Holy Supper, as related by the Evangelist Matthew, took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the New Testament [or covenant], which is shed for many," for the remission of sins. (Matt. 26. 27,28.) The prophet Jeremiah foretels, in distinct terms, the forming of this new covenant: "Behold, the days are come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." (Jerem. 31. 31.) The Apostle Paul has likewise sanctioned this name in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, (3. 14,) when speaking of the Jews, "For until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament," παλαια Διαθηκη, the old covenant, in opposition to ἡ καινη Διαθηκη, the New Testament or covenant; and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, (9. 15,) “For this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament [or covenant]." The first instance in which the term kan Διαθηκη occurs in the sense of writings of the new covenant is in the treatise by Origen, Пept Apxwv, lib. 4, c. 1. The primitive Church gave this name to the writings of all the Apostles, and the first Christian writers used it in the sense of a testament, as the Latin version gives it of the passage in Matthew, Hic enim est sanguis meus Novi Testamente, which version is of great antiquity, and of acknowledged importance as an authority.

The sacred writers make use of no title to denote the collective books of the New Testament; waσa yрaon, "all Scripture," mentioned by St. Paul in the Second Epistle to Timothy 3. 16, could not mean the writings of the Apostles, as Timothy had not learned these from a child; it must, therefore, refer to the same as in verse 15, тa iepа ypaμμaтa, "the Holy Scriptures," which τα ἱερα γραμματα, means the writings of the Old Testament Scriptures

only. The whole collection of their writings was not then formed; they were handed about singly amongst the early Christians, and it was natural to defer the collection of them into one volume until after the decease of those holy men, from whom the Church had, whilst they lived, still reason to expect more inspired writings. Neither the names of the persons concerned in making this collection, nor the exact time when it was undertaken, can now be ascertained with certainty, but the most general opinion seems to be, that they were first collected by St. John, as appears from the testimony of Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., lib. iii., c. 24; Mosheim, however, considers his remarks only to refer to St. John having approved of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and added his own to them by way of supplement. Concerning any other books of the New Testament, Eusebius is totally silent. The volume called the New Testament consists of several pieces, which are ascribed to eight persons; the style of the Apostles is different, so that the Epistles could not have been written by the same hand. The better we are acquainted with Jewish and heathen antiquities, with the history of the Romans, and the ancient geography of Palestine, the face of which has been totally changed by repeated conquests, the more clearly we shall be able to discern their agreement with the New Testament, even in some circumstances so minute that probably they would have escaped the most artful and most circumspect imposture. The books of the New Testament are quoted or alluded to by a series of the most ancient Fathers, and even those who were contemporary with the Apostles, such as Barnabas, Clemens Romanus, Hermes, Ignatius and Polycarp; they are also quoted by the adversaries of the Christian faith. This sort of evidence, Dr. Paley remarks, is of all others the most unquestionable, the least liable to any practices of fraud, and is not diminished by the lapse of ages.

Tertullian, a presbyter of the church of Carthage, who was born in the year 160, affirms that, when he wrote, the Christian Scriptures were open to the inspection of all the world, and, in his time, there was already a Latin version of some part of the New Testament, if not of the whole of it; for, in one instance, he expressly. appeals from the language of such version to the authority of the authentic copies in Greek: "Sciamus planè non sic esse in Græco authentico." The five apostolical Fathers above-mentioned supply an important link in the unbroken chain of evidence which was intended for the conviction of the latest ages.

Barnabas was the fellow-labourer of St. Paul: "Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and Simeon, that was called Niger," &c. (Acts 13. 1.) "Or I only and Barnabas, have we not power to forbear working?” (1 Cor. 9. 6.) Barnabas is the author of an epistle that was held in the greatest esteem by the ancients, and is still extant. This epistle contains the exact words of several texts in the New Testament, and many phrases and reasonings used by the Apostle Paul, whom he resembles, as his fellow-labourer, without copying him.

Clemens Romanus, bishop of Rome, and fellowlabourer of the Apostle Paul, as mentioned in the 4th chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians,-"I entreat thee, also, true yoke-fellow, help these women which laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life,”-wrote an epistle which has not been preserved to us entire, in the name of the Church at Rome, to the Church at Corinth, in order to compose certain differences that prevailed there. In this epistle there are several passages which exhibit the words of Christ

as they stand in the Gospel, without mentioning them as quotations, agreeably to the usage which then generally prevailed. He also quotes most of the Epistles. It is supposed that Clement was ordained Bishop of Rome, A.D. 91, and that he died in the third year of the reign of Trajan, A.D. 100.

Hermes also was contemporary with St. Paul, by whom he is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, ch. 16. 14: "Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes," &c. Hermes wrote a book towards the close of the first century, entitled The Pastor, or Shepherd, which was highly esteemed by the early Fathers. It was originally written in Greek, though now extant in a Latin version only, and contains numerous allusions to the New Testament. Ignatius was bishop of Antioch, A.D. 70; and suffered martyrdom, A.D. 107. If he was not (as some have supposed,) one of the little children whom Jesus took up in his arms and blessed, it is at least certain that he conversed familiarly with the Apostles, and was perfectly acquainted with their doctrine. He has left several epistles that are still extant, in which he distinctly quotes the Gospels of Matthew and John, and cites or alludes to the Acts, and most of the Epistles. Polycarp was an immediate disciple of the Apostle John, by whom he was appointed Bishop of Smyrna, and had conversed with many who had seen Jesus Christ. He is supposed to have been the angel of the church of Smyrna, to whom the epistle in the Apocalypse is addressed. He suffered martyrdom, A.D. 166. Of his various writings only one epistle remains; in this nearly forty allusions are made to the different books of the New Testament.

The adversaries and heretics of the first three centuries also furnish testimony still more important than even that of the orthodox Fathers. Cerinthus, who was contemporary with the Apostle John, maintains the necessity of circumcision, and the observances of the Mosaic law; and because St. Paul delivered a contrary doctrine in his Epistles, Cerinthus and his followers denied that he was a Divine Apostle. St. Paul's Epistles are, therefore, the very same that we now have, were extant in the first century, and were acknowledged to be his by the Cerinthians; and as this sect received and approved the Gospel of St. Matthew because it did not contradict their tenets, it is consequently evident that his Gospel likewise was extant in the first century.

In the same age the Ebionites rejected all the Epistles of St. Paul, and called him an apostate because he departed from the Levitical law; and they adopted the Gospel of St. Matthew, which, however, they corrupted by various alterations and additions. This must also prove that the Gospel of St. Matthew was then published, and that St. Paul's Epistles were known.

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many texts, in a better manner than we otherwise could have done.

From a very early period of Christianity, writers can be produced who considered the New Testament as the work of the Apostles and the Evangelists. Chrysostom remarks, with great force and justice, that Celsus and Porphyry, two enemies of the Christian religion, are powerful witnesses for the antiquity of the New Testament, since they could not have argued against the tenets of the Gospel, if it had not existed in that early period.

Celsus flourished towards the close of the second century. He not only mentions by name, but also quotes passages from the books of the New Testament. In no one instance did he question the Gospels as books of history. He, however, accuses the Christians of altering the Gospels, which refers to the alterations made by the Marcionites, Valentinians, and other heretics. Porphyry was born A.D. 233, and was of Tyrian origin. Unfortunately for the present age, the mistaken zeal of Constantine and other Christian emperors in causing his writings against Christianity to be destroyed, has deprived us of the means of knowing the full extent of his objections against the Christian faith. Enabled by his birth to study the Greek as well as the Syriac, he was, of all the adversaries of the Christian religion, the best qualified for inquiring into the authenticity of the sacred writings. He possessed every advantage which natural abilities or political situation could afford, to discover whether the New Testament was the genuine work of the Apostles and Evangelists, or whether it was imposed upon the world after the decease of its pretended authors; but no trace of this suspicion is to be found, and it must be allowed that it never occurred to Porphyry to suppose that it was spurious.

Julian the Apostate flourished A.D. 350-364, surnamed thus, from his renunciation of Christianity after he mounted the imperial throne. He resorted to the most artful political means for undermining Christianity, but from various extracts of his work against the Christians, transcribed by Jerome and Cyril, it is evident that he did not deny the truth of the Gospel history, as a history, though he denied the deity of Jesus Christ. He quotes from the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles; he states the early date of these records; he calls them by the names which they now bear; he nowhere attempts to question their genuineness or authenticity, nor does he give the slightest intimation that he suspected the whole or any part of them to be forgeries.

Towards the end of the second, or in the third century of the Christian era, certain pieces were published, written by heretics and false teachers, in order to support their errors; they succeeded only among sects whose interest it was to defend them as genuine and authentic; or if they sometimes imposed on the simplicity of Christian believers, these soon recovered from the imposition. These pretended sacred books had nothing Apostolic in their character: their origin was obscure, and their publication modern; the doctrines they professed to support were different from those of the Apostles; indeed, a design to support some doctrine or practice which arose subsequently to the Apostolic age is apparent throughout.

tion of hands, and to have been conferred by God, in confirmation of the oral and written doctrines of the Apostles.

St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians is addressed to a church which was hardly formed, to which he had not preached the Gospel more than three Sabbath days. (Acts 17. 2.) He had been obliged to quit this church abruptly on account of an impending persecution, (v. 10,) and being apprehensive lest the persecution should cause some to waver in the faith, he lays before them, in the first three chapters, arguments to prove the truth of his Gospel. The first of these arguments is that which confirmed his doctrine at Thessalonica, (1. 5,) "For our Gospel," says he, “ came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost." Power, is an expression used elsewhere in the New Testament, to signify miraculous acts. Admit him only to be a rational man, and we cannot suppose him to write thus to an infant church, if no member thereof had ever seen a miracle of his, or received a miraculous gift of the Holy Ghost by the imposition of his hands. If these miracles be true, then the doctrine and the book in confirmation of which they were wrought are Divine; and the more certainly so, as there is no room for deception. A juggler may persuade some persons that he performs miracles, but he can never persuade a body of men of sound intellect that he has communicated to them the gift of working miracles and speaking foreign languages, unless they can work the miracles and speak the languages.

The works of the Apostles which have been transmitted to us were all written by them in Greek, except the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews. These were first published in the Hebrew dialect in use at Jerusalem; but the Hebrew text being lost, the Greek translation has the authority of the original. The Greek language was at that time known to almost half the world, throughout the Roman empire, and in that part of Asia which had been formerly conquered by the Greeks. It was, therefore, the proper language for those books which were to be read, as far as possible, by the whole race of mankind. It was then a kind of universal language, just as the French is at present: it was understood and spoken by Greeks, by Romans, and by Jews. The Greek in which the New Testament is written is not pure and elegant Greek, such as was written by Plato, Aristotle, and other eminent Grecian authors, but Greek intermixed with many peculiarities, exclusively belonging to the East Aramæan, that is, the Hebrew or Chaldee, and the West Aramæan, or Syriac tongues, which were at that time spoken in common life by the Jews of Palestine.

With respect to the Jews, from whom the first converts to Christianity were taken, the Greek was more suitable than the Latin; because it was already known to them by the Greek version of the Old Testament. Hence St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, and St. Mark his Gospel, which was designed more immediately for the use of the Italians, not in Latin, but in Greek; and this language having been already consecrated by the version just mentioned of the Old Testament, that is, the words and phrases of it having by use obtained that determinate and peculiar signification which they were to bear in theology, the Greek was therefore better adapted to express Divine truths clearly and precisely than any other Western language. Since we find the Greek of the New Testament perpetually intermixed with Oriental idioms, it is evident from this circumstance that the writers were Jews by birth, some of them unlearned men in humble stations, who never sought to avoid the dialect they had once

acquired. One of them, it is true, was a man of great erudition, and born at Tarsus; but he was educated at Jerusalem, and his erudition was that of a Jewish not a Grecian school; and all those Jews who spoke Greek corrupted it; from which arose that dialect called the Hellenistic.

The first Christian Churches, for whom more immediately the Apostolical writings were drawn up, consisted of Jews. St. Paul himself preached the Gospel only in those places where Jews resided, and made use of them to pave the way for him to the Gentiles. As, therefore, the Apostles wrote to people whose native language was the Jewish-Greek, it was natural for them to write in that language. They could not, indeed, without a frequent miracle, avoid a mixture of Hebrew and Greek in their style; such a miracle would have been not only useless, but pernicious; for any one who was not firmly persuaded of the Divine inspiration of these books, would raise a doubt of their authenticity from the circumstance that they were not written in the style that might be expected from their pretended authors. As the Greek version of the Old Testament abounded in Hebraisms, it was necessary for them either to give up writing in the Scripture style, or to be less concerned about a barbarism than the fastidiousness of the Grecian schools would allow.

As a large proportion of the phrases and constructions of the New Testament is pure Greek,-that is to say, of the same degree of purity as the Greek which was spoken in Macedonia, and that in which Polybius and Appian wrote their histories,-the language of the Apostles and Evangelists will derive considerable illustration from consulting the works of classic writers, and especially from diligently collating the Septuagint version of the Old Testament; the collections, also, of Raphelius, Palairet, Bos, Ernesti, and other writers, whose works will be more particularly mentioned in the Bibliographical List in the APPENDIX, will afford the Biblical student every essential assistance in explaining the pure Greek expressions of the New Testament according to the usage of classic authors. It must not be overlooked, however, that there occur in the New Testament words that express both doctrines and practices which were utterly unknown to the Greeks; and also words bearing widely different interpretations from those which are ordinarily found in Greek writers.

"In Macedonia," Professor Stuart observes, "the Attic dialect received many and peculiar modifications. Moreover, the successors of Alexander in Egypt cultivated literature with greater ardour than any other of the Grecian princes. Hence Alexandria became the place where this peculiar dialect (sometimes called Macedonian, and sometimes Alexandrine,) particularly developed itself. A great number of the later Greek works proceeded from this source, and they exhibit the dialect in question.

"The Jews who left Palestine and settled in Alexandria during the reign of the Ptolemies learned this dialect; and when the Old Testament was translated by them into Greek, for the use of their synagogues, the translators exhibited a specimen of the Alexandrine Greek, modified by their own dialect, that is, by the Hebrew. For substance, this same dialect, thus modified, appears in the New Testament, and in the early Christian Fathers, yet not without many variations. Rost, the grammarian, calls this ecclesiastical Greek; it has usually been called the Hellenistic language; but might more appropriately and significantly be called Hebrew Greek, which appellation would designate the cause and manner of its modifications.” . . . .

"The peculiarities of the New Testament diction may