of the article before Sialnans, γράμματος, πνεύματος.

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The connexion of the ideas of "life" and "spirit," as expressed in the words twoTOLεî and TVεûμa is obvious, and is to be found in John, vi. 63. "The words that I speak they are spirit and life." 1 Cor. xv. 45.: "A quickening ((woToLovv) spirit." Rom. viii. 11.: "He shall quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit." Gal. vi. 8. "He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life." But the connexion between the ideas of "death" and the "letter" is less clear. In most of the previous passages just quoted, the "Spirit" is opposed, not to "the letter," but to "the flesh;" and though we now frequently contrast "the letter" and the "spirit," yet it is this very passage which has made that contrast familiar to us. The difficulty of the connexion is proved by the forced interpretations which have been given, and which are worth preserving as historical illustrations of the character of their authors. Chrysostom, and most of the Greek Fathers, take the words," the letter killeth," to refer to the capital punishments inflicted by the Law. Origen makes the contrast consist in the uselessness of the grammatical and historical sense of Scripture,

compared with the use of the allegorical sense.

In the first place, it is clear that by γράμμα, « the letter," is meant the sacred books of the Old Testament. That this was a common phrase for them, at the time of the Christian era, is evident not only from the cognate word, ypán, "the Scripture" (which occurs passim in the N. Test.), and the derived word ypaμμátevs ("scribe" or "interpreter of the sacred books"), but from this use, though less frequently, of the word ypáμμa itself. “Ye believe not the writings (Toîs yрáμμaoi) of Moses," John v. 47. "the sacred writings. (тà lɛρа yрáμμата (2 Tim. iii. ἵερα γράμματα 15.; Joseph. Ant. x. 10. 4.) How these expressions came to be so applied is not clear. Although all three occur in the LXX., they are never used for the sacred books. Probably, the nomenclature arose from the fact, that to the Jews the Old Testament stood in the relation of "literature" generally, and hence was called by the name which the Greeks applied to their own literature. (Compare the use of тà рáμμатα in this general sense, John, vii. 15.; Acts, xxvi. 24.) And the expression would be still further fixed by the increasing attention of the

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Jews to the actual writing of the words or syllables of the sacred books as distinguished from their contents. It is this tendency of the Jewish people which justified the Apostle in bringing out prominently to the surface of the word, the meaning which thus lay latent, within it; and hence the use of it (wherever it occurs in the singular number), not simply for the Hebrew Scriptures, but (in a bad sense) for the mere outward book or ordinance, as contrasted with the living power of the Gospel. "Circumcision in spirit and not in letter" (Rom. ii. 27.29.). “ The oldness of the letter and newness of the spirit" (Rom. vii. 6.).

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Having so used the word, he transfers to it the same qualities as he ascribes to the Law. Of these one of the most remarkable is the introduction of death into the world through sin, without the power of alleviating or averting it. See Rom. v. 12.; vii. 9. viii. 2. 3.; 1 Cor. xv. 56.; Gal. iii. 10. 21. And so here the reflection that the testimony borne to his authority in the Corinthian Church, was in many cases a living witness, suggests strongly the contrast of the dreary death-like atmosphere which

surrounded the old graven characters on which his opponents rested their claims.

The thought of the tables of stone now carries the Apostle more fully into the Mosaic account of their descent from Sinai; and from the glory which (as described in Exod. xxxiv.) then environed them, he argues that his mission must be more glorious still. All the words—τοῦ θανάτου, ἐν γράμματι, ἐντετυπωμένη, ἐν λίθοις — are meant to express the inferiority of the Mosaic covenant, "bringing not life but death, carved mechanically, in precise characters, on hard stones." With the same view, τὴν καταργουμένην is added at the end of the sentence, to leave this as the final and emphatic expression. For the point in the Mosaic narrative to which it alludes see on verse 14.

7. The Received Text with A. C. D3. E. J. K. and almost all the Versions, read ἐν γράμμασιν. Lachmann, with B. D. F. G., εν γράμματι, There is hardly any difference in the sense, and each is well supported. The first would refer to the actual letters; the second, to the general fact of the writing.

ἐγενήθη, "came into existence."

The whole transaction in Exod. xxxiv. 33. 34., is allegorized. There is, first, the simple contrast of the openness of the Apostle with the veil of Moses. From this he passes to the ideas represented; and thus instead of the reason given in Exod. xxxiv. 30. for the wearing of the veil, viz., because the people were afraid of the glory on his face, there is substituted a reason which belongs, not to the literal story, but to that which the story is conceived to represent, viz., the concealment of the true end of the Mosaic Law, foretold in the glory which lay on his countenance, behind the tables of the Law which he carried in his hands. From this explanation of the glory, he naturally proceeds to explain the other parts of the story in a similar manner. By a process of thought, similar to that by which in iii. 2. 3. he had identified himself with the Corinthians, and represented the Epistle of Christ as written indifferently on his heart or on theirs, so here he identifies Moses with the Jewish people, and transfers the veil from the face of Moses to their hearts; as though the veil in the original narrative had not only prevented the people from seeing the face of Moses, but had prevented

Moses, with the people, from receiving the full vision of the glory of God, so long as the veil was upon him. This is the general sense; for which, as constructed on the same principles of resolving the historical into the spiritual meaning, we may compare Gal. iv. 25.; 1 Cor. x. 2.-4.; in each of which cases it is introduced by a reference, direct or indirect, to the especially Jewish portion of the Christians whom he addresses. In this passage, however, as well as in Gal. iv. 21. 31., it is to be observed how completely he regards the Jewish people of his own time as separate from himself and from Christians.

13. καὶ οὐ, i. e. τίθεμεν κάτ λυμμα ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον ἡμῶν.

πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι, κ. τ. λ. As before in verse 10. so here the Apostle is following the LXX. version of Exod. xxxiv. 33. 35. The most natural view of the passage is that which represents the veil as worn by Moses during his speech to the people, in order to hide the glory of his countenance, as in the English version by inserting the word "till" before the sentence in verse 33., or as in other versions by understanding in in a pluperfect sense "he had put the veil."

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But the Hebrew words of Exod. xxxiv. 33., most readily agree with the LXX., and Vulgate version: Kai Ten κατέπαυσε λαλῶν πρὸς αὐτοὺς, ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ κάλυμμα. "Impletisque sermonibus posuit velamen super faciem suam.' "And he made an end of speaking with them, and put a veil on his face." With this agrees Exod. xxxiv. 34. 35., translated both by the LXX. and by modern versions, which imply that the veil was not put on till the close of his speaking with the people, when he resumed it until the moment of his again returning to the Divine presence; the Vulgate, however, giving another version, founded apparently on a different reading (D for in), ("with them," for "with him") "sed operiebat

ille rursus faciem suam, si quando loquebatur ad eos.'

Whether or not the LXX. be a correct reading of the exact words of the original, the close resemblance of the words in verses 10. and 16. to the LXX. of Exod. xxxiv. 30. 34., leaves but little doubt that this was the version which St. Paul had before him; and, if so, the meaning which the LXX. affixed to the passage in question, was that which furnished the basis of the Apostle's alle

gory. That meaning, must be that the veil was put on, not to conceal the glory, but to conceal the fact that the glory vanished away, as soon as he had ceased to speak to them; being rekindled by the light of the Divine presence, but again fading away when he had ceased to speak the Divine message. It is to this sense of the transitory character of the glory that the frequent repetition of the word KaтaрyouμEvos refers, in verses καταργούμενος 7. 11. 12. 14. With this also will best agree the explanation of the words πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου. Ι the Apostle is supposed to adopt what is now the usual mode of regarding the transaction in Exod. xxxiv., then the sense of

these words must be "in order that the sons of Israel might not gaze on the end of that which is passing away, i. e. on Christ as the fulfilment of the Mosaic Law." But in that case he is made to ascribe directly to Moses an intention which

only could be conceived as existing in the order of Providence, besides the abruptness of thus introducing the antitype at once into the type. If, however, it be taken according to the LXX. version, then the sense will be: "We put no veil on teaching, as Moses did on the

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