2. Annas and Caiaphas being the high
priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the
wilderness.
[Annas and Caiaphas being high
priests.] They do constitute two high priests at one time.
True indeed: but they promoted a sagan, together with a high
priest.
The 'sagan,' as to his degree, was the
same to the high priest, as he that was next or second to the king.
They substituted, indeed, on the vespers
of the day of expiation, another priest to the high priest, that should
be in readiness to perform the office for the day, if any uncleanness
should by chance have befallen the high priest.
"It is storied of Ben Elam of Zipporim,
that when a gonorrhea had seized the high priest on the day of
expiation, he went in and performed the office for that day. And another
story of Simeon Ben Kamith, that as he was walking with the king on the
vespers of the day of expiation, his garments were touched with
another's spittle, so that Judah his brother went in and ministered. On
that day the mother of them saw her two sons high priests."
It is not without reason controverted,
whether the sagan were the same with this deputed priest: the
Jews themselves dispute it. I would be on the negative part: for the
sagan was not so much the vice high priest, as (if I may so
speak) one set over the priests. The same with the ruler of the
temple; of whom we have such frequent mention among the doctors:
upon him chiefly did the care and charge of the service of the temple
lie.
"The ruler of the temple saith to
them, Go out and see if it be time to slay the sacrifice." "The
ruler saith, Come and cast your lots who shall slay the sacrifice,
who shall sprinkle the blood," &c. The Gloss is, the ruler is the 'sagan.'
He is commonly called the 'sagan' of
the priests: which argues his supremacy among the priests, rather
than his vicegerency under the high priest.
"When the high priest stands in the
circle of those that are to comfort the mourners, the sagan and he
that is anointed for the battle, stand on his right hand, and
the head of the father's house, those that mourn, and all the
people stand on his left hand."
Mark here the order of the sagan;
he is below the high priest, but above the heads of all the courses.
2 Kings 23:4, the priests of the second order: Targum, the
'sagan' of the priests. And chapter 25:18, Zephaniah the second
priest: Targum, Zephaniah 'the sagan' of the priests.
Caiaphas therefore was the high priest,
and Annas the sagan or ruler of the temple; who, for his
independent dignity, is called high priest as well as Caiaphas;
and seems therefore to be named first, because he was the other's
father-in-law.
There was a dissension between Hanan
and the sons of the chief priests, &c. It was in a judicial cause,
about a wife requiring her dower, &c. Where the scruple is, who should
these chief priests be? whether the fathers and heads of the
courses, or the high priest only and the sagan. It was a
council of priests: which we have already spoken to at
Matthew 26:3. Now the question is, whether by the "sons of the chief
priests," be meant the sons of the fathers of courses, or the fathers of
courses themselves, or the sons of the high priest and the sagan;
where the high priest in that court was like the prince in the
Sanhedrim, and the sagan the father of the Sanhedrim.
"Moses was made a sagan to
Aaron. He put on his garments, and took them off [viz. on the day of his
consecration]. And as he was his sagan in life, so he was in
death too."
5. Every valley shall be
filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made
smooth;
[Every valley shall be filled.]
The Jews have a tradition, that some such thing was done by the cloud
that led Israel in the wilderness. Instead of many instances, take the
Targumist upon
Canticles 2:6: "There was a cloud went before them, three days'
journey, to take down the hills and raise the valleys: it slew
all fiery serpents in the wilderness, and all scorpions; and found out
for them a fit place to lodge in."
What the meaning of the prophet in this
passage was, Christians well enough understand. The Jews apply it to
levelling and making the ways plain for Israel's return out of
captivity: for this was the main thing they expected from the Messiah,
viz. to bring back the captivity of Israel.
"R. Chanan saith, Israel shall have no
need of the doctrine of Messiah the King in time to come; for it is
said, To him shall the Gentiles seek (Isa
11:10), but not Israel. If so, why then is Messiah to come? and what
is he to do when he doth come? He shall gather together the captivity of
Israel," &c.
8. Bring forth therefore fruits
worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves. We have
Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of
these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
[Of these stones to raise up
children unto Abraham.] We do not say the Baptist played with the
sound of those two words banaia and abanaia: he does
certainly, with great scorn, deride the vain confidence and glorying of
that nation (amongst whom nothing was more ready and usual in their
mouths than to boast that they were the children of Abraham), when he
tells them, That they were such children of Abraham, that God could
raise as good as they from those very stones.
11. He answereth and saith unto
them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and
he that hath meat, let him do likewise.
[He that hath two coats, let him
impart to him that hath none.] It would be no sense to say, He that
hath two coats, let him give to him that hath not two; but to him that
hath none: for it was esteemed for religion by some to wear but one
single coat or garment: of which, more elsewhere.
13. And he said unto them, Exact no
more than that which is appointed you.
[Exact no more than that which is
appointed you.] When the Rabbins saw that the publicans exacted
too much, they rejected them, as not being fit to give their
testimony in any case. Where the Gloss hath it, too much, that is
more than that which is appointed them. And the father of R.
Zeirah is commended in the same place, that he gently and honestly
executed that trust: "He discharged the office of a publican for
thirteen years: when the prince of the city came, and this publican saw
the Rabbins, he was wont to say to them, Go, my people, enter thou
into thy chambers,
Isaiah 26:20." The Gloss is, "Lest the prince of the city should see
you; and, taking notice what numbers you are, should increase his tax
yearly."
14. And the soldiers likewise
demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do
violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content
with your wages.
[Neither accuse any falsely.]
"The manner of sycophants is, first to load a person with reproaches,
and whisper some secret, that the other hearing it may, by telling
something like it, become obnoxious himself."
[With your wages.] A word used
also by the Rabbins: The king distributeth wages to his legions.
"The king is not admitted to the intercalation of the year, because
of the 'opsonia'": that is, lest he should favour himself in laying
out the years with respect to the soldiers' pay.
22. And the Holy Ghost descended in
a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which
said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
[Like a dove.] If you will
believe the Jews, there sat a golden dove upon the top of Solomon's
sceptre. "As Solomon sat in his throne, his sceptre was hung up behind
him: at the top of which there was a dove, and a golden crown in
the mouth of it."
23. And Jesus himself began to be
about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Heli,
[Being (as was supposed) the son of
Joseph.] "A parable. There was a certain orphaness brought up by a
certain epitropus, or foster-father, an honest good man. At
length he would place her in marriage. A scribe is called to write a
bill of her dower: saith he to the girl, 'What is thy name?' 'N.' saith
she. 'What the name of thy father?' She held her peace. To whom her
foster-father, 'Why dost thou not speak?' 'Because,' saith she, 'I know
no other father but thee.' He that educateth the child is called a
father, not he that begets it." Note that: Joseph, having been
taught by the angel, and well satisfied in Mary, whom he had espoused,
had owned Jesus for his son from his first birth; he had redeemed him as
his first-born, had cherished him in his childhood, educated him in his
youth: and therefore, no wonder if Joseph be called his father, and he
was supposed to be his son.
II. Let us consider what might have
been the judgment of the Sanhedrim in this case only from this story:
"There came a certain woman to Jerusalem with a child, brought thither
upon shoulders. She brought this child up; and he afterward had the
carnal knowledge of her. They are brought before the Sanhedrim, and the
Sanhedrim judged them to be stoned to death: not because he was
undoubtedly her son, but because he had wholly adhered to her."
Now suppose we that the blessed Jesus
had come to the Sanhedrim upon the decease of Joseph, requiring his
stock and goods as his heir; had he not, in all equity, obtained them as
his son? Not that he was, beyond all doubt and question, his son, but
that he had adhered to him wholly from his cradle, was brought up by him
as his son, and always so acknowledged.
III. The doctors speak of one Joseph a
carpenter: "Abnimus Gardieus asked the Rabbins of blessed memory,
whence the earth was first created: they answer him, 'There is no one
skilled in these matters; but go thou to Joseph the architect.'
He went, and found him standing upon the rafters."
It is equally obscure, who this
Joseph the carpenter, and who this Abnimus was; although, as
to this last, he is very frequently mentioned in those authors. They
say, that "Abnimus and Balaam were two the greatest philosophers in the
whole world." Only this we read of him, That there was a very great
familiarity betwixt him and R. Meir.
[Which was the son of Heli.] I.
There is neither need nor reason, nor indeed any foundation at all, for
us to frame I know not what marriages, and the taking of brothers'
wives, to remove a scruple in this place, wherein there is really no
scruple in the least. For,
1. Joseph is not here called the son
of Heli, but Jesus is so: for the word Jesus must be
understood, and must be always added in the reader's mind to every race
in this genealogy, after this manner: "Jesus (as was supposed) the son
of Joseph, and so the son of Heli, and of Matthat, yea and, at length,
the son of Adam, and the Son of God." For it was very little the
business of the evangelist either to draw Joseph's pedigree from Adam,
or, indeed, to shew that Adam was the son of God: which not only sounds
something harshly, but in this place very enormously, I may almost add,
blasphemously too. For when St. Luke, verse 22, had made a voice from
heaven, declaring that Jesus was the Son of God, do we think the same
evangelist would, in the same breath, pronounce Adam 'the son of God'
too? So that this very thing teacheth us what the evangelist propounded
to himself in the framing of this genealogy; which was to shew that this
Jesus, who had newly received that great testimony from heaven, "This is
my Son," was the very same that had been promised to Adam by the seed of
the woman. And for this reason hath he drawn his pedigree on the
mother's side, who was the daughter of Heli, and this too as high as
Adam, to whom this Jesus was promised. In the close of the genealogy, he
teacheth in what sense the former part of it should be taken; viz. that
Jesus, not Joseph, should be called the son of Heli, and consequently,
that the same Jesus, not Adam, should be called the Son of God. Indeed,
in every link of this chain this still should be understood, "Jesus
the son of Matthat, Jesus the son of Levi, Jesus the son
of Melchi"; and so of the rest...
2. Suppose it could be granted that
Joseph might be called the son of Heli (which yet ought not to be), yet
would not this be any great solecism, that his son-in-law should become
the husband of Mary, his own daughter. He was but his son by law, by the
marriage of Joseph's mother, not by nature and generation.
There is a discourse of a certain
person who in his sleep saw the punishment of the damned. Amongst the
rest which I would render thus, but shall willingly stand corrected if
under a mistake; He saw Mary the daughter of Heli amongst the shades.
R. Lazar Ben Josah saith, that she hung by the glandules of her
breasts. R. Josah Bar Haninah saith, that the great bar of hell's
gate hung at her ear.
If this be the true rendering of the
words, which I have reason to believe it is, then thus far, at least, it
agrees with our evangelist, that Mary was the daughter of Heli: and
questionless all the rest is added in reproach of the blessed Virgin,
the mother of our Lord: whom they often vilify elsewhere under the name
of Sardah.
27. Which was the son of
Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of
Zorobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was the son
of Neri.
Please see
Genealogies of the Bible: A Neglected Subject (111k) at the Arthur
Custance Doorway Papers Library site for more info.]
[The son of Rhesa, the son of
Zorobabel, the son of Salathiel, the son of Neri.] I. That Pedaiah,
the father of Zorobabel,
1 Chronicles 3:19, is omitted here, is agreeable with
Ezra 5:2;
Haggai 1:1, &c.; but why it should be omitted, either here or there,
is not so easy to guess.
II. As to the variation of the names
both here and
1 Chronicles 3, this is not unworthy our observation: that Zorobabel
and his sons were carried out of Babylon into Judea; and, possibly, they
might change their names when they changed the place of their dwelling.
It was not very safe for him to be known commonly in Babylon by the name
of Zorobabel, when the import of that name was the winnowing of Babel;
so that he was there more generally called Sheshbazzar. But he
might securely resume the name in Judea, when Cyrus and Darius had now
fanned and sifted Babylon. So his two sons, Meshullam and Hananiah,
could not properly be called, one of them Abiud, the glory of my
father, and the other Rhesa, a prince, while they were in
Babylon; but in Judea they were names fit and suitable enough.
III. Of the variation of names here,
and in
Matthew 1, I have already spoken in that place: to wit, that Neri
was indeed the father of Salathiel; though St. Matthew saith Jechoniah
(who died childless,
Jer 22:30) begat him: not that he was his son by nature, but was his
heir in succession.
36. Which was the son of
Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son
of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of
Lamech,
[The son of Cainan.] I will not
launch widely out into a controversy that hath been sufficiently bandied
already. I shall despatch, as briefly as I may, what may seem most
satisfactory in this matter:
I. There is no doubt, and indeed there
are none but will grant that St. Luke hath herein followed the Greek
version. This, in
Genesis 11:12,13, relates it in this manner: "Arphaxad lived a
hundred and five and thirty years, and begat Cainan; and Cainan
lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat Salah: and Cainan lived
after he had begot Salah three hundred and thirty years."
Consulting Theophilus about this
matter, I cannot but observe of this author, that he partly follows the
Greek version, in adding to Arphaxad a hundred years, and partly not,
when he omits Cainan: for so he; Arphaxad, when he was a hundred and
thirty-five years of age, begat Salah. Nor can I but wonder at him
that translates him, that he should of his own head insert, "Arphaxad
was a hundred and thirty-five years old, and begat a son named Cainan.
Cainan was a hundred and thirty years old, and begat Salah": when there
is not one syllable of Cainan in Theophilus. A very faithful interpreter
indeed!
1. I cannot be persuaded by any
arguments that this passage concerning Cainan was in Moses' text, or
indeed in any Hebrew copies which the Seventy used; but that it was
certainly added by the interpreters themselves, partly because no reason
can be given how it should ever come to be left out of the Hebrew text,
and partly because there may be a probable reason given why it should be
added in the Greek; especially when nothing was more usual with them
than to add of their own, according to their own will and pleasure.
I might, perhaps, acknowledge this one
slip, and be apt to believe that Cainan had once a place in the
original, but, by I know not what fate or misfortune, left now out; but
that I find a hundred such kind of additions in the Greek version, which
the Hebrew text will by no means own, nor any probable reason given to
bear with it. Let us take our instances only from proper names, because
our business at present is with a proper name.
Genesis 10:2: Elisa is added among the sons of Japhet: and,
verse 22, another Cainan among the sons of Shem.
Genesis 46:20: Five grandchildren added to the sons of Joseph;
Malachi 4:5, the Tishbite.
Exodus 1:11: the city On, is added to Pithom and Raamses.
2 Samuel 20:18: the city Dan is added to Abel. Not to
mention several other names of places in the Book of Joshua.
Now can I believe that these names ever
were in the Hebrew copy, since some of them are put there without
any reason, some of the against all reason (particularly Dan
being joined with Abel, and the grandchildren of Joseph), and all
of them with no foundation at all?
II. I question not but the
interpreters, whoever they were, engaged themselves in this undertaking
with something of a partial mind; and as they made no great conscience
of imposing upon the Gentiles, so they made it their religion to favour
their own side. And according to this ill temperament and disposition of
mind, so did they manage their version; either adding or curtailing at
pleasure, blindly, lazily, and audaciously enough: sometimes giving a
very foreign sense, sometimes a contrary, oftentimes none: and this
frequently to patronise their own traditions, or to avoid some offence
they think might be in the original, or for the credit and safety of
their own nation. The tokens of all which it would not be difficult to
instance in very great numbers, would I apply myself to it, but it is
the last only that is my business at this time.
III. It is a known story of the
thirteen places which the Talmudists tell us were altered by the LXXII
elders when they wrote out the law (I would suppose in Hebrew) for
Ptolemy. They are reckoned up, and we have the mention of them sprinkled
up and down; as also, where it is intimated as if eighteen places had
been altered.
Now if we will consult the Glossers
upon those places, they will tell us that these alterations were made,
some of them, lest the sacred text should be cavilled at; others that
the honour and peace of the nation might be secured. It is easy,
therefore, to imagine that the same things were done by those that
turned the whole Bible. The thing itself speaks it.
Let us add, for example's sake, those
five souls which they add to the family of Jacob; numbering up five
grandchildren of Joseph, who, as yet, were not in being,--nay, seven,
according to their account,
Genesis 46:27. Children that were born to Joseph in the land of
Egypt, even nine souls.
Now, which copy do we think it most
reasonable to believe, the Greek or the Hebrew? and as to the question,
whether these five added in the Greek were anciently in Moses' text, but
either since lost by the carelessness of the transcribers or rased out
by the bold hand of the Jews, let reason and the nature of the thing
judge. For if Machir, Gilead, Shuthelah, Tahan, and Eran, were with
Joseph when Jacob with his family went down into Egypt, (and if they
were not, why are they numbered amongst those that went down?) then must
Manasseh at the age of nine years, or ten at most, be a grandfather; and
Ephraim at eight or nine. Can I believe that Moses would relate such
things as these? I rather wonder with what kind of forehead the
interpreters could impose such incredible stories upon the Gentiles, as
if it were possible they should be believed.
IV. It is plain enough to any one that
diligently considers the Greek version throughout, that it was composed
by different hands, who greatly varied from one another, both in style
and wit. So that this book was more learnedly rendered than that, the
Greek reading more elegant in this book than in that, and the version in
this book comes nearer the Hebrew than in that; and yet in the whole
there is something of the Jewish craft, favouring and patronising the
affairs of that nation. There is something of this nature in the matters
now in hand, the addition of Cainan, and the five souls to the seventy
that went down into Egypt.
How mighty the Jewish nation valued
themselves beyond all the rest of mankind, esteeming those seventy souls
that went down with Jacob into Egypt beyond the seventy nations of the
world; he that is so great a stranger in the Jewish affairs and
writings, that he is yet to learn, let him take these few instances; for
it would be needless to add more:
"Seventy souls went down with Jacob
into Egypt, that they might restore the seventy families dispersed by
the confusion of tongues. For those seventy souls were equal to all the
families of the whole world. And he that would be ruling over them, is
as if he would usurp a tyranny over the whole world."
"How good is thy love towards me, O
thou congregation of Israel! It is more than that of the seventy
nations."
"The holy blessed God created seventy
nations; but he found no pleasure in any of them, save Israel only."
"Saith Abraham to God, 'Didst thou not
raise up seventy nations unto Noah?' God saith unto him, 'I will raise
up that nation unto thee of whom it is written, How great a nation is
it!'" The Gloss is: "That peculiar people, excelling all the seventy
nations, that holy nation, as the holy language excels all the
seventy languages."
There are numberless passages of that
kind. Now when this arrogant doctrine and vainglorying, if familiarly
known amongst the Gentiles, could not but stir up a great deal of
hatred, and consequently danger to the Jews, I should rather think the
interpreters might make such additions as these, through the caution and
cunning of avoiding the danger they apprehend, than that ever they were
originally in the text of Moses. To wit, by adding another Cainan, and
five souls to those seventy in Jacob's retinue, they took care that the
Gentiles should not, in the Greek Bibles, find exactly the seventy
nations in
Genesis 10, but seventy-two (or seventy-three if we reckon Elisa
also;) as also not seventy, but seventy-five souls that went down into
Egypt.
It was the same kind of craft they used
in that version,
Deuteronomy 32:8; whence that comparison between the seventy souls
and the seventy nations took its rise. Moses hath it thus; "When the
Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he
set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children
of Israel." But they render it thus; He set the bounds of the
nations, according to the number of the angels of God. A sense
indeed most foreign from that of Moses, yet which served to obscure his
meaning, so far as might avoid any danger that might arise from the
knowledge of it. Making the passage itself so unintelligible, that it
needs an Oedipus to unriddle it; unless they should allude to the Jewish
tradition (which I do a little suspect) concerning the seventy angels,
set over the seventy nations of the world.
V. But now if this version be so
uncertain, and differs so much from the original, how comes it to pass
that the evangelists and apostles should follow it so exactly, and that
even in some places where it does so widely differ from the Hebrew
fountain?
Ans. I. It pleased God to allot
the censers of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to sacred use, because they
were so ordained and designed by the first owners: so doth it please the
Holy Ghost to determine that version to his own use, being so primarily
ordained by the first authors. The minds, indeed, of the interpreters
were not perhaps very sincere in the version they made, as who designed
the defence and support of some odd things: so neither were the hearts
of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram sincere at all, but very perverse in
offering their incense: but so long as their incense had been dedicated
to sacred use, it pleased God to make their censers holy. So the Greek
version designed for sacred use, as designed for the Holy Bible, so it
was keept and made use of by the Holy Ghost.
II. Whereas the New Testament was to be
wrote in Greek, and come into the hands chiefly of the Gentiles, it was
most agreeable, I may say most necessary for them, to follow the Greek
copies, as being what the Gentiles were only capable of consulting; that
so they, examining the histories and quotations that were brought out of
the Old Testament, might find them agreeing with, and not contradicting
them. For instance; they, consulting their Greek Bibles for the names
from David backward to Adam, there find "Cainan, the son of Arphaxad."
If St. Luke should not also have inserted it, how readily they might
have called his veracity in question, as to the other part of the
genealogy, which had been extracted out of tables and registers not so
familiarly known!
III. If there be any credit to be given
to that story of the Greek version, which we meet with in Aristeas and
Josephus, then we may also believe that passage in it which we may find
in Aristeas. "When the volumes of the law had been read through, the
priests, and interpreters, and elders, and governors of the city, and
all the princes of the people standing by, said 'Forasmuch as this
interpretation is rightly, religiously, and in every thing so very
accurately finished, it is fit that all things should continue as they
are, and no alteration should be made.' When all had by acclamations
given their approbation to these things, Demetrius commanded that,
according to their custom, they should imprecate curses upon any that
should, by addition, or alteration, or diminution, ever make any change
in it. This they did well in, that all things might be kept entire and
inviolate for ever."
If this passage be true, it might be no
light matter to the Jew, when quoting any thing in Greek out of the Old
Testament, to depart in the least from the Greek version; and indeed it
is something a wonder, that after this they should ever dare to
undertake any other. But supposing there were any credit to be had to
this passage, were the sacred penmen any way concerned in these curses
and imprecations? Who saith they were? But, however, who will not say
that this was enough for them to stop the mouths of the cavilling Jews,
that they, following the Greek version, had often departed from the
truth of the original to avoid that anathema; at least, if there were
any truth in it.
Object. But the clause that is
before us (to omit many others) is absolutely false: for there was
neither any Cainan the son of Arphaxad; nor was Jesus the son of any
Cainan that was born after the flood.
Ans. I. There could be nothing
more false as to the thing itself than that of the apostle, when he
calleth the preaching of the gospel foolishness,
1 Corinthians 1:21; and yet, according to the common conceptions of
foolish men, nothing more true. So neither was this true in itself that
is asserted here; but only so in the opinion of those for whose sake the
evangelist writes. Nor yet is it the design of the Holy Ghost to indulge
them in any thing that was not true; but only would not lay a
stumblingblock at present before them: "I am made all things to all men,
that I might gain some."
II. There is some parallel with this of
St. Luke and that in the Old Testament,
1 Chronicles 1:36: "The sons of Eliphaz, Teman, and Omar, and Zephi,
and Gatam, and Timnah, and Amalek." Where it is equally false, that
Timnah was the son of Eliphaz, as it is that Cainan was the son of
Arphaxad. But far, far be it from me to say, that the Holy Ghost was
either deceived himself, or would deceive others. Timnah was not a man,
but a woman; not the son of Eliphaz, but his concubine; not Amalek's
brother, but his mother,
Genesis 36:12. Only the Holy Ghost teacheth us by this shortness of
speech, to recur to the original story from whence these things are
taken, and there consult the determinate explication of the whole
matter: which is frequently done by the same Holy Spirit, speaking very
briefly in stories well known before.
The Gentiles have no reason to cavil
with the evangelist in this mater; for he agrees well enough with their
Bibles. And if the Jews, or we ourselves, should find fault, he may
defend himself from the common usage of the Holy Ghost, in whom it is no
rare and unusual thing, in the recital of stories and passages well
enough known before, to vary from the original and yet without any
design of deceiving, or suspicion of being himself deceived; but,
according to that majesty and authority that belongs to him, dictating
and referring the reader to the primitive story, from whence he may
settle and determine the state of the matter, and inquire into the
reasons of the variation. St. Stephen imitates this very custom, while
he is speaking about the burial of the patriarchs,
Acts 7:15,16; being well enough understood by his Jewish auditory,
though giving but short hints in a story so well known.
III. It is one thing to dictate from
himself, and another thing to quote what is dictated from others, as our
evangelist in this place doth. And since he did, without all question,
write in behalf of the Gentiles, being the companion of him who was the
great apostle of the Gentiles, what should hinder his alleging according
to what had been dictated in their Bibles?
When the apostle names the magicians of
Egypt, Jannes and Jambres,
2 Timothy 3:9, he doth not deliver it for a certain thing, or upon
his credit assure them that these were their very names, but allegeth
only what had been delivered by others, what had been the common
tradition amongst them, well enough known to Timothy, a thing about
which neither he nor any other would start any controversy.
So when the apostle Jude speaks of
"Michael contending with the devil about the body of Moses," he doth not
deliver it for a certain and authentic thing; and yet is not to be
charged with any falsehood, because he doth not dictate of his own, but
only appeals to something that had been told by others, using an
argument with the Jews fetched from their own books and traditions.
IV. As it is very proper and even
necessary towards the understanding some sentences and schemes of speech
in the New Testament, to inquire in what manner they were understood by
those that heard them from the mouth of him that spoke them, or those to
whom they were written; so let us make a little search here as to the
matter now in hand. When this Gospel first appeared in public amongst
the Jews and Gentiles, the Gentiles could not complain that the
evangelist had followed their copies: and if the Jews found fault, they
had wherewithal to answer and satisfy themselves. And that particularly
as to this name of 'Cainan' being inserted, as also the five souls being
added to the retinue of Jacob; the learned amongst them knew from whence
he had it; for what reason this addition had been made in the Greek
version, and that St. Luke had faithfully transcribed it thence: so that
if there were any fault, let them lay the blame upon the first authors,
and not upon the transcriber.
V. To conclude: Before the bible had
been translated for Ptolemy (as it is supposed) into the Greek tongue,
there were an infinite number of copies in the Hebrew in Palestine,
Babylon, Egypt, even everywhere, in every synagogue: and it is a
marvellous thing, that in all antiquity there should not be the least
hint or mention of so much as one Hebrew copy amongst all these that
agrees with the Greek version. We have various editions of that version
which they call the Septuagint, and those pretty much disagreeing among
themselves: but who hath ever heard or seen one Hebrew copy that hath in
every thing agreed with any one of them? The interpreters have still
abounded in their own sense, not very strictly obliging themselves to
the Hebrew text.
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