lieu of terms not strictly consistent with decency, they pronounce others less indelicate or more agreeable to our ideas of propriety.1 The invention of these marginal corrections has been ascribed to the Masorites.

The age when the Masorites lived has been much controverted. Some ascribe the Masoretic notes to Moses; others attribute them to Ezra and the members of the great synagogue, and their successors after the restoration of the temple worship, on the death of Antiochus Epiphanes. Archbishop Usher places the Masorites before the time of Jerome; Cappel, at the end of the fifth century; Bishop Marsh is of opinion, that they cannot be dated higher than the fourth or fifth century; Bishop Walton, Basnage, Jahn, and others, refer them to the rabbins of Tiberias in the sixth century, and suppose that they commenced the Masora, which was augmented and continued at different times by various authors; so that it was not the work of one man, or of one age. In proof of this opinion, which we think the most probable, we may remark, that the notes which relate to the variations in the pointing of particular words, must have been made after the introduction of the points, and consequently after the Talmud; other notes must have been made before the Talmud was finished, because it is from these notes that it speaks of the points over the letters, and of the variations in their size and position. Hence it is evident, that the whole was not the work of the Masorites of Tiberias; further, no good reason can be assigned to prove the Masora the work of Ezra, or his contemporaries; much appears to show it was not for, in the first place, most of the notes relate to the vowel points, which, we have seen, were not introduced until upwards of fifteen hundred years after his time, and the remarks made about the shape and position of the letters are unworthy of an inspired writer, being more adapted to the superstition of the Rabbins, than to the gravity of a divine teacher. Secondly, No one can suppose that the prophets collected various readings of their own prophecies, though we find this has been done, and makes part of what is called the Masora. Thirdly, The Rabbins have never scrupled to abridge, alter, or reject any part of these notes, and to intermix their own observations, or those of others, which is a proof that they did not believe them to be the work of the prophets; for in that case they would possess equal authority with the text, and should be treated with the same regard. Lastly, Since all that is useful in the Masora appears to have been written since Ezra's time, it is impossible to ascribe to him what is useless and trifling; and from these different reasons it may be concluded, that no part of the Masora was written by Ezra. And even though we were to admit that he began it, that would not lead us to receive the present system in the manner the Jews do, because, since we cannot now distinguish

The reader will find a learned and elaborate elucidation of the Keri in the Rev. John Whittaker's Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, pp. 114-178. 2 See pp. 6-9, of the present volume.

what he wrote, and since we find many things in it plainly unworthy of an inspired writer, we may justly refuse it the credit due to inspi- ration, unless his part were actually separated from what is the work of others. On the whole then it appears, that what is called the Masora is entitled to no greater reverence or attention than may be claimed by any other human compilation.1

Concerning the value of the Masoretic system of notation, the learned are greatly divided in opinion. Some have highly commended the undertaking, and have considered the work of the Masorites as a monument of stupendous labour and unwearied assiduity, and as an admirable invention for delivering the sacred text from a multitude of equivocations and perplexities to which it was liable, and for putting a stop to the unbounded licentiousness and rashness of transcribers and critics, who often made alterations in the text on their own private authority. Others however, have altogether censured the design, suspecting that the Masorites corrupted the purity of the text by substituting, for the antient and true reading of their forefathers, another reading more favourable to their prejudices, and more opposite to Christianity, whose testimonies and proofs they were desirous of weakening as much as possible.

Without adopting either of these extremes, Bishop Marsh observes, that "the text itself, as regulated by the learned Jews of Tiberias, was probably the result of a collation of manuscripts. But as those Hebrew critics were cautious of introducing too many corrections into the text, they noted in the margins of their manuscripts, or in their critical collections, such various readings, derived from other manuscripts, either by themselves or by their predecessors, as appeared to be worthy of attention. This is the real origin of those marginal or Masoretic readings which we find in many editions of the Hebrew Bible. But the propensity of the later Jews to seek mystical meanings in the plainest facts gradually induced the belief, that both textual and marginal readings proceeded from the sacred writers themselves; and that the latter were transmitted to posterity by oral tradition, as conveying some mysterious application of the written words. They were regarded therefore, as materials, not of criticism, but of interpretation." The same eminent critic elsewhere remarks, that notwithstanding all the care of the Masorites to preserve the sacred text without variations, "if their success has not been complete, either in establishing or preserving the Hebrew text, they have been guilty of the only fault which is common to every human effort."

V. The divisions of the Old Testament, which now generally obtain, are four in number: namely, 1. The Pentateuch, or five books of Moses;-2. The Historical Books, comprising Joshua to Esther inclusive; 3. The Doctrinal or Poetical Books of Job, Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon;- and 4. The Prophetic Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah with his Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. These are seve

1 Waehner's Antiquitates Hebræorum, vol. i. pp.
2 Lectures on Divinity, part ii. p. 84,

93-137.
3 Ibid. p. 98.

rally divided into chapters and verses, to facilitate reference, and not primarily with a view to any natural division of the multifarious subjects which they embrace: but by whom these divisions were originally made is a question, concerning which there exists a considerable difference of opinion.

That it is comparatively a modern invention is evident from its being utterly unknown to the antient Christians, whose Greek Bibles, indeed, had then Trλo and Kepaλaia (Titles and Heads); but the intent of these was, rather to point out the sum or contents of the text, than to divide the various books. They also differed greatly from the present chapters, many of them containing only a few verses, and some of them not more than one. The invention of chapters has by some been ascribed to Lanfranc, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of William the Conqueror and William II. ; while others attribute it to Stephen Langton, who was Archbishop of the same see in the reigns of John and Henry III. But the real author of this very useful division was Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro, who flourished about the middle of the 13th century, and wrote a celebrated commentary on the Scriptures. Having projected a concordance to the Latin Vulgate version, by which any passage might be found, he divided both the Old and New Testaments into chapters, which are the same we now have these chapters he subdivided into smaller portions, which he distinguished by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G, which are placed in the margin at equal distances from each other, according to the length of the chapters.1 The facility of reference thus afforded by Hugo's divisions, having become known to Rabbi Mordecai Nathan (or Isaac Nathan, as he is sometimes called), a celebrated Jewish teacher in the fifteenth century, he undertook a similar concordance for the Hebrew Scriptures; but instead of adopting the marginal letters of Hugo, he marked every fifth verse with a Hebrew numeral, thus, 1.5., &c., retaining, however, the cardinal's divisions into chapters. This concordance of Rabbi Nathan was commenced A. D. 1438, and finished in 1445. The introduction of verses into the Hebrew Bible, was made by Athias, a Jew of Amsterdam, in his celebrated edition of the Hebrew Bible, printed in 1661, and reprinted in 1667. He marked every verse with the figures in common use, except those which had been previously marked by Nathan with Hebrew letters, in the manner in which they at present appear in Hebrew Bibles. By rejecting these Hebrew numerals, and substituting for them the corresponding figures, all the copies of the Bible in other

1 These Divisions of Cardinal Hugo may be seen in any of the older editions of the Vulgate, and in the earlier English translations of the Bible, which were made from that version, particularly in that usually called Taverner's Bible, folio, London, 1539. The precise year, in which Hugo divided the text of the Latin Vulgate into its present chapters, is not known. But as it appears from the preface to the Cologne edition of his works, that he composed his Concordance about the year 1248, and as his division of the Vulgate into its present chapters was connected with that Concordance, it could not have been done many years before the middle of the thirteenth century, Bp. Marsh's Lectures, Part V. p. 25. note 15.

languages have since been marked.1 As, however, these modern divisions and sub-divisions are not always made with the strictest regard to the connection of parts, it is greatly to be wished that all future editions of the Scriptures might be printed after the judicious manner adopted by Mr. Reeves in his equally beautiful and correct editions of the entire Bible; in which the numbers of the verses and chapters are thrown into the margin, and the metrical parts of Scripture are distinguished from the rest by being printed in verses in the usual manner.

SECTION II.

ON THE DIVISION AND MARKS OF DISTINCTION OCCURRING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I. Antient Divisions of Trλo and Kspaλaia. Ammonian, Eusebian, and Euthalian Sections. Modern Division of Chapters. -II. Account of the Antient and Modern Punctuation of the New Tesment. -Antient Error and Modern Verses. III. Of the titles to each Book. — IV. Subscriptions to the different Books. IT is evident on inspecting the most antient manuscripts of the New Testament, that the several books were originally written in one continued series without any blank spaces between the words; but in progress of time, when Christianity was established, and frequent appeals were made to the sacred writers, in consequence of the heresies that disturbed the peace of the church, it became necessary to contrive some mode by which to facilitate references to their productions.

I. The Jews, we have already seen,3 divided their law into paraschioth and siderim, or larger and smaller sections, and the prophets into haphtoroth or sections; and it has been conjectured that this division suggested to the early Christians the idea of dividing the Books of the New Testament into similar sections; but by whom such division was first made, is a question that is by no means easy to determine. Some vestiges of it are supposed to be found in Justin Martyr's second apology for the Christians, and in the writings of Ter

4

1 Buxtorf, Præf. ad Concordant. Bibliorum Hebræorum. Prideaux's Connection, vol. i. pp. 332-342. Carpzov. Introd. ad Libros Biblicos Vet. Test. pp. 27, 28. Leusden, Philol. Hebr. Diss. iii. pp. 23-31.

2 This is evident from the strange manner in which the early fathers of the christian church have sometimes separated the passages which they have quoted. Thus instead of dogacare in apa Te Tov Ocov, therefore glorify God (1 Cor. vi. 20.), Chry. sostom read doğacare dn åpāre rov Ocov, glorify and carry God; and in this erroneous reading he has been followed by the Latin translator, who has glorificate et portate Deum. In like manner, in Phil. ii. 4., instead of ikaCTOL GKOHOUTes, looking every man, the Codex Boernerianus reads exacros KOTOVVTES toiling for every one. Cellerier, Essai d'une Introduction critique au Nouveau Testament, p. 112. Genève, 1823. 8vo.

3 See p. 143. supra.

487. Ernesti seems to countenance this hypothesis. Inst. Interp. Nov. Test. P. 156.

tullian.' But Dr. Lardner is of opinion, that these passages scarcely amount to a full proof that any sections or chapters were marked in the copies of the New Testament so early as the second century. It is however certain that the antients divided the New Testament into two kinds of chapters, some longer and others shorter, the former were called in Greek Tλ and in Latin breves; and the table of contents of each brevis, which was prefixed to the copies of the New Testament was called breviarium. The shorter chapters were called xspaλaia, capitula, and the list of them capitulatio.

This method of dividing is of very great antiquity, certainly prior to the fourth century: for Jerome, who flourished towards the close of that century, expunged a passage from Saint Matthew's gospel which forms an entire chapter, as being an interpolation.2 These divisions were formerly very numerous; but, not being established by any ecclesiastical authority, none of them were ever received by the whole church. Saint Matthew's gospel, for instance, according to the old breviaria, contained twenty-eight breves; but, according to Jerome, sixty-eight. The same author divides his gospel into 355 capitula; others, into 74; others, into 88; others, into 117; the Syriac version, into 76; and Erpenius's edition of the Arabic, into 101. The most antient, and it appears the most approved of these divisions, was that of Tatian (A. D. 172.) in his Harmony of the four Gospels, for the λ or breves: and that of Ammonius, a learned Christian of Alexandria in the third century, in his Harmony of the Gospels, for the xspaλaia or capitula. From him they were termed the Ammonian Sections. As these divisions were subsequently adopted, and the use of them was recommended, by Eusebius the celebrated ecclesiastical historian, they are frequently called by his name. According to this division, Saint Matthew contains 68 breves, and 355 capitula; Saint Mark, 48 breves, and 234 capitula; Saint Luke, 83 breves, and 342 capitula; and St. John, 18 breves, and 231 capitula. All the evangelists together form 216 breves, and 1126 capitula. In antient Greek manuscripts the rλ or larger portions are written on the upper or lower margin, and the xspaλaia or smaller portions are numbered on the side of the margin. They are clearly represented in Erasmus's editions of the Greek Testament, and in Robert Stephens's edition of 1550.

The division of the Acts of the Apostles, and of the Catholic Epistles, into chapters, was made by Euthalius Bishop of Sulca in Egypt, in the fifth century; who published an edition of Saint Paul's Epistles, that had been divided into chapters, in one continued series, by some unknown person in the fourth century, who had considered them as one book. This arrangement of the Pauline Epistles is to be found

1 Ad Ux. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 187. D. De Pudicitiâ, cap. 16. sub finem. De Monogam. c. 11. p. 683. The passages are given at length by Dr. Lardner, Works, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 283; 4to. vol. i. p. 433.

The paragraph in question is to be found in the Codex Beze, immediately after the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. Michaelis has printed it, together with two Latin translations of it, in his Introduction to the New Test. vol. i. pp. 293–295.