Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/76



Heb. ii. 6, (a mere translation of Ps. viii. 4,) Eph. iii. 5, Rev. i. 13, xiv. 14. In the peculiar emphatic limitation to which this note refers, it is applied by Jesus Christ to himself about eighty times in the gospels, but is never used by any other person in the New Testament, as a name of the Savior, except by Stephen, in Acts, vii. 56. It never occurs in this sense in the apostolic epistles. (Bretschneider.) For this use of the word, I should not think it necessary to seek any mystical or important reason, as so many have done, nor can I see that in its application to Jesus, it has any very direct reference to the circumstance of his having, though divine, put on a human nature, but simply a nobly modest and strikingly emphatic form of expression used by him, in speaking of his own exalted character and mighty plans, and partly to avoid the too frequent repetition of the personal pronoun. It is at once evident that this indirect form, in the third person, is both more dignified and modest in solemn address, than the use of the first person singular of the pronoun. Exactly similar to this are many forms of circumlocution with which we are familiar. The presiding officer of any great deliberative assembly, for instance, in announcing his own decision on points of order, by a similar periphrasis, says "The chair decides," &c. In fashionable forms of intercourse, such instances are still more frequent. In many books, where the writer has occasion to speak of himself, he speaks in the third person, "the author," &c.; as in an instance close at hand, in this book it will be noticed, that where it is necessary for me to allude to myself in the text of the work, which, of course, is more elevated in its tone than the notes, I speak, according to standard forms of scriptorial propriety, in the third person, as "the author," &c.; while here, in these small discussions, which break in on the more dignified narrative, I find it at once more convenient and proper, to use the more familiar and simple forms of expresssion.

This periphrasis ("son of") is not peculiar to oriental languages, as every Greek scholar knows, who is familiar with Homer's common expression [Greek: uies Achaiôn], (uies Akhaion,) "sons of Grecians," instead of "Grecians" simply, which by a striking coincidence, occurs in Joel iii. 6, in the same sense. Other instances might be needlessly multipled.

Thou art a Rock, &c.—This is the just translation of Peter's name, and the force of the declaration is best understood by this rendering. As it stands in the original, it is "Thou art [Greek: Petros], (Petros, "a rock,") and on this [Greek: Petra] (Petra, "a rock") I will build my church,"—a play on the words so palpable, that great injustice is done to its force by a common tame, unexplained translation. The variation of the words in the Greek, from the masculine to the feminine termination, makes no difference in the expression. In the Greek Testament, the feminine [Greek: petra] (petra) is the only form of the word used as the common noun for "rock," but the masculine [Greek: petros] (petros) is used in the most finished classic writers of the ancient Greek, of the Ionic, Doric and Attic, as Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, Xenophon, and, in the later order of writers, Diodorus Siculus.

H. Stephens gives the masculine form as the primitive, but Schneider derives it from the feminine.

After this distinct profession of faith in him, by his disciples, through Peter, Jesus particularly and solemnly charged them all, that they should not, then, assert their belief to others, lest they should thereby be drawn into useless and unfortunate contests about their Master, with those who entertained a very different opinion of him. For Jesus knew that his disciples, shackled and possessed as they were with their fantasies about the earthly reign of a Messiah, were not, as yet, sufficiently prepared to preach this doctrine: and wisely foresaw that the mass of the Jewish people would either put no faith at all in such an announcement, or that the ill disposed and ambitious would abuse it, to the purposes of effecting a political revolution, by raising a rebellion against the Roman rulers of Palestine, and oversetting foreign power. He