given to the expression in chapter iii. 11: "Hither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord." Although Ewald and others refer "the mighty ones" to the men of Judah, Pusey, Driver, Orelli, Delitzsch, Keil, and most commentators interpret "Thy mighty ones," or "warriors,' to mean the angels of the Lord. "The mighty ones of God," says Dr. Pusey, "whom He is prayed to cause to come down, i.e. from heaven, can be no other than the mighty angels, of whom it is said, they are mighty in strength (Ps. ciii. 20, still the same word), to whom God gives charge over His own to keep them in all their ways" (Ps. xci. 1). So also Dr. Driver: "The mighty ones are no doubt the angelic hosts (Ps. lxviii. 17; Zech. xiv. 5) whom Joel pictures as the agents of Jehovah's will."

The concluding words of this incident: "But all this is come to pass that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled" (St. Matt. xxvi. 56), are almost without a doubt the words of Christ, and not a comment by the Evangelist. As such they are an instructive guide in the interpretation of prophecy. To the disciples at that moment the intervention of the heavenly host would have seemed an exact fulfilment of an ancient and cherished prediction, and a realization of the Messianic hope. The Lord Jesus, on the contrary, affirms that prophecy, which is the interpretation from age to age of the eternal purpose of God, could not at that moment be fulfilled by any startling intervention of Divine force, but by the passion and death of the Son of man, the first stage in which was submission to arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.

ARTHUR CARR.

218

THE CHRISTIAN "NIL DESPERANDUM": A STUDY OF ST. LUKE VI. 35.

A COMPARISON of the rendering here of the A.V., "hoping for nothing again," with that of the R.V., "never despairing," indicates an agreement as to the variant, and a difference as to the translation of the participle. Both points deserve notice. First, are we to read undév or μndéva? The canon as to the brevior lectio would predispose the student in favour of the neuter; and though the masculine is not without support, it is slender in comparison with that given to μŋdév,2 which may be with good reason accepted as the true reading. More hesitation will be felt as to the rendering of the participle. One feels a reluctance to part with the familiar translation "hoping again." It fits in with the sense of the passage, and supplies the expected antithesis to "doing good and lending," but it must be abandoned in favour of "despairing," for the idea of expecting repayment has been already condemned as sinful. The verb åπeλπíčew is used here only in the New Testament. Some light may be thrown upon its meaning by St. Paul's famous passage in praise of love in the phrase Η ἀγάπη πάντα ἐλπίζει. Both the Master and the Apostle are drawing pictures of a loving heart. Christ sees its outcome in conduct and action, and here negatively warns His own against pessimism. St. Paul marks one of its tenderest and most characteristic features, and declares positively that "love hopeth all things." The conclusion, however, that the preposition in ȧπeλπíçe is a negative is much strengthened by references outside the New Testament. The verb is not in use by the best authors. It belongs to Greek of the transitional period between the

3

1 R.V. margin "despairing of no man."

2 So ABDLA.

3 The variant άяηλπкóтes, Eph. iv. 19, has no good support.
4 1 Cor. xiii. 7.

classical and the so-called Hellenistic. Polybius not only uses the verb not unfrequently but also the noun àπελπισμós in the sense of "despair." It may be added that the classical equivalent to the later areλice is one which resembles it in prefix, viz. Aπоуivάσкw = to give up as useless, to abandon; and it is singular in this context to note that this verb is found linked with rηv èλπída as with τὴν σωτηρίαν in Aristotle.1

From these considerations the pregnant meaning of the formula comes out more fully. The presence of the variant is not doctrinally significant, it scarcely affects the thought. Here then is perceived a weighty caution from the lips of the Master against despair either of circumstance or of persons. He will not allow a pessimistic attitude in His followers. For every enterprise upon which His Name can be invoked, for every individual on whom His love rests, there is Hope. In His hands hope does not merely lie at the bottom of every cup-rather it fills the cup.

It is sometimes urged in depreciation of the Christian ethic that undue prominence is given to the merely passive virtues. The objection may hold good if the student only glances hastily at the catalogues of Christian graces given in the New Testament. But from the nature of the case it was imperative that the members of the Early Church should be taught the duty of a wise passiveness. On the other hand, the characteristic hope with which the Gospel message was and is charged prevented and still prevents those who accept it from that pessimism which spells inaction and sterility.

The hope which is so pathetically expressed by prophet and psalmist in the Old Testament is confidently and exuberantly proclaimed in the New. The Incarnation, Resurrection and Ascension are enough for Christians; they "cannot be disappointed of their hope." The promi

1 Arist. Nic. Eth. iii. 6,¡11.

nence of hope in the literature of the New Testament is striking in regard to frequency of employment, the limits of its localization, and its spiritual and ethical significance. The noun, and verb èxπis, èλπileiv occur just a hundred times in the New Testament. The noun never occurs in the Gospels; and though the verb is found five times in the Evangelic record, it is never employed in a religious reference. Both verb and noun are absent from the Apocalypse; and while the verb is used twice in St. John's letters, it is the noun only which is employed in a religious sense. Neither is found in the Epistle of St. Jude. The noun is used but six times by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Hence the employment of verb and noun in a spiritual application is nearly confined to Pauline or Petrine literature, for it is a singular fact that when met with in the Acts it is St. Paul who is the speaker. These facts-not uninteresting in themselves-point to the conclusion that hope received a new birth at the new dispensation. The Hope which Israel shared was at once purified and intensified by the whole action of human redemption. St. Paul and St. Peter taught an unquenchable hope in God manifest in the flesh, crucified, risen, triumphant, pleading for men in heaven. With them our Lord's sentence against despair became a passionate plea for waiting still on Him. He was their Hope; they scarcely needed words from Him to tell them it was so. Through Him and His completed work lay other happy expectations, their calling, their righteousness, their salvation, and life eternal. This hope was characterized by security of possession, by happiness, and by joy.

3

That which was forecasted dimly in the Psalter, as St. Peter declared, was in a true sense applicable to Chris

1 1 John iii. 3.

8 1 Tim. i. 1.

2 Acts xxviii. 20.

4 Acts ii. 26.

The

tian believers on earth, they tabernacled in hope. figure of hope in its spiritual aspect, as pourtrayed in the New Testament, is a splendid and exhilarating one. Like Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous design in the window of the ante-chapel at New College, Oxford, it has the Excelsior look about it; but while it looks to the things that are above, all that lies on the earthly plane appears transmuted -transfigured.

For those that are possessed of this radiant expectancy, no cause and no individual can be reckoned as lost. For the Christian, despair is impossible because it must be a mistrust of the Omnipotent.

Much then is directly revealed as to the nature and strength of Christian hope in the New Testament; but if we pass from the letter to the spirit of its pages, the devout student will see its rays everywhere. Hope as well as joy penetrates such a letter as that to the Philippians. Hope was the great sustaining power of the Church under persecution, hope made the expectant proto-martyr's face beam like that of an angel. And ever since that age the Church has been in herself, and to the world, precisely what she is through this eternal hope.

Yet the question arises, Is despair as a mind and temper plainly pagan? With these words of the Master before His disciples the unswer must surely be in the affirmative; for not only here are the purest morals taught, but He shows how opposite ideas and contrary actions are base and sinful, and thus that to despair, whether of a situation. or of an individual, is an attitude not of His own but of the Gentile world. And what wondrous knowledge in Him does this reveal of the tendency of pagan sentiment before and since His Incarnation. Any careful and competent student of Greek or Latin literature will have but one answer to give as to the testimony which each furnishes on the issue.