NOTE V.

THE SUBSTITUTION OF POISONOUS DARNEL FOR TARES.

1. Zigávia (Matt. 13: 24-30; 36-43), poisonous darnel, is rendered in the common version, tares. Tares are a species of vetches. Vetches belong to the magnificent order of leguminous plants, which contains, according to an estimate in 1845, 467 genera and 6500 species. No family of the vegetable kingdom has a higher claim to respect, both as objects of ornament and utility. The acacias, sweet pea, etc., are cultivated for their flowers; beans, peas, etc., for their fruit; and among trees which belong to this order are the rosewood, the laburnum, and the locust; in medicines, liquorice, senna, tamarind, gums Senegal and Arabic, balsams of copaiva and tolu, indigo, Brazil wood, logwood, and red sandal wood.

2. Tares belong to the first sub-order of these plants, to the 2d genus, the vetch, and is the 5th species, the common vetch. They are slender plants, found in the cultivated fields of Europe, with stems from two to three feet long, decumbent or climbing. The tare entirely fails to answer the description in the parable, and the whole order protests against such dishonorable imputations as the parable makes.

3. The gigávov is described by some as a species of bastard wheat. Bastard wheat is a grass of the 34th genus and 1st species. It is a handsome grass, resembling wheat, and often found in it. It is commonly called chess. This grass infests wheat, and is difficult to be separated entirely from it. Many suppose that wheat is deteriorated into chess, but the most eminent botanists hold the contrary, and consider chess to be propagated in all cases from its own seeds, like the other grasses. Chess agree with the design of the parable much better than tares. The gitária, however, were not tares nor chess, but a species of darnel grass called poisonous darnel. The grasses consist of 291 genera and 3800 species, diffused universally through the world to the utmost limits of vegetation, and contribute more to the support of man and beast than all other plants. To this order belong the grains wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice, etc.

4. One sub-order of the grasses is the lolium. Of this there are

two species: (1.) The perennial lolium or darnel grass, which grows from one to two feet high, naturalized in meadows and cultivated grounds. (2.) The lolium tumulentum, intoxicating lolium, or poisonous darnel. The poisonous darnel grows 2 feet high, and is distinguished from all other grasses by its poisonous seeds.

5. This grass was sometimes found among wheat and other grains in ancient times, both in the East and elsewhere, and still infests the grain fields of Palestine and other parts of Asia. It was also sometimes sown maliciously by personal enemies, after good seed, to injure the crop and make it worthless. Chess and other grasses which infest grain, could be eaten by cattle, and turned to some valuable account, but the poisonous darnel was required to be burned, and was unfit either for the use of man or beast. The injurious effects of the poison are referred to by the Latin poets, and agree with the design of the parable.

6. Poisonous darnel, when sown with wheat, or immediately after it, comes up at the same time, resembles it in its leaf and stalk, and can not be distinguished from it till it heads out. Then the poisonous darnel appears, and the work of the enemy, if it is sown by an enemy, shows itself. There are two ways of disposing of it: the first is to pull it up and throw it away before the seed ripens; but the other and more usual method is, to select it out from the wheat at the harvest, and burn it to destroy the seeds. All this is conformable to the description in the parable, and shows clearly that the poisonous darnel is meant, and not the bastard wheat or chess, and still less tares.

NOTE VI.

THE SUBSTITUTION OF ASSEMBLY FOR CHURCH IN MATTHEW.

1. IN Matt. 16: 18 it is said, And I tell you that you are Peter [a rock], and upon this rock will I build my assembly, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it. 18: 17. And if he will not hear them, tell the assembly, and if he will not hear the assembly, let him be to you as a gentile and a publican. Acts 2:47. And the Lord added the saved day by day to the assembly [church]. After the latter passage I always translate xxλnola church, when the Christian organic body is referred to. In the two instances in Matthew the common version renders the original church.

2. The same words have different meanings in different ages.

The Greek word meant assembly in our Lord's time, and his church was his assembly; ecclesia was its name, and assembly was the definition of it. The same name was transferred into Latin, and is used both in Greek and Latin still, retaining in Greek also its primitive signification of assembly.

3. The English word church, derived from kirk, which is still retained in Scotland, is derived ultimately from the Greek xvgiános, that is, Lord's, and was applied first to denote the Lord's house, the place of Christian worship; secondly, the assembly of his worshipers; and lastly, the organic Christian body worshiping in the house, in distinction from other attendants.

4. Church is in no case a perfect translation of xxλnola. It is its equivalent as a name, but has not a corresponding signification. In both passages in Matthew the word is reported as supposed to be used by our Lord, and in the sense which belonged to it in his time. It is not therefore to be interpreted in these cases by later usage, but by contemporary usage. Contemporary usage restricts it to the sense which I have given it, and the common rendering in these cases is erroneous. Christ's churches in his lifetime were his assemblies only. After his death indications appear of a separate, independent organization, and the common name of ecclesia, assembly, is still applied to denote it; but then it denotes it in a more specific sense than before. I have, therefore, translated this word according to its meaning. As long as it was a common name, though applied to a specific community, I translate it assembly; and when it became appropriated, and virtually changed from a common name of the Christian body to a proper name distinguishing it from other assemblies, then I translate it church. Several other improvements appear in these passages. My usage in this respect is not arbitrary or without reason.

NOTE VII.

THE SUBSTITUTION OF CRANIUM FOR CALVARY.

It is not an exact translation of ancient names to represent them in all cases by the modern ones which have succeeded them, and especially when the names are significant. The ancient name of the hill on which our Lord suffered, has been superseded since the time of Jerome, and perhaps still earlier, by Calvary and its Latin

original. But its ancient name was not Calvary, nor any thing like it. It was Koavlov, Cranium, head or hill top, bearing probably some fancied resemblance to the human head. Names are among the monuments of history, and are not to be changed arbitrarily. The name of this hill at a later period was not its name in our Lord's time. I have deemed it proper to give the hill its true name, as reported by all the four Evangelists. The common version gives its later name, as rendered by Jerome in the Vulgate. If I had translated from the Vulgate, I should have rendered the name of this hill Calvary, as is commonly done; but translating from the Greek, I considered myself bound to translate according to the Greek, and not according to later authorities. Even the correct reporting of a name may have some importance; and the correct rendering of it involves a principle of accuracy which is all-important.

THE SUBSTITUTION

NOTE VIII.

OF JUSTIFYING ORDINANCE FOR JUSTIFICATION AND RIGHTEOUSNESS IN ROM. 5: 16, 18.

1. THE original word in both cases is dixaloua, which neither signifies righteousness nor justification. The word for righteousness is dixαioσúvn, and the correspondence between this and its English representative is nearly perfect. Paul uses this word for righteousness as constantly as we use the corresponding English word to denote the same thing. He uses it in this paragraph, at verses 17, 21. Righteousness is the opposite of sin, and the synonym of holiness; it is a quality of moral agents and moral actions. This clearly distinguishes its meaning and that of the original both from Sinaloa, which does not signify righteousness nor any quality of moral agents or moral actions, but things done or made; and from Sinalois, justification, which signifies the doing of something not the object of an action, or a thing done.

2. 4txaloua signifies, (1.) The rectification of a wrong; (2.) An ordinance, law, or precept; both of which are not the doing of something, but things made, the object of some action pertaining to righteousness. This word is constantly used in the Septuagint in the latter of the above senses, as signifying an ordinance or statute, and in the plural, ordinances or statutes. It is the common Greek title for ordinances and statutes in Psalms and elsewhere.

The translators of the common Bible deviated from what they probably knew to be the common meaning of this word in both the instances under consideration. Commentators have followed them in this deviation, knowing that such usage is without a parallel elsewhere. They have done it, therefore, from a supposed necessity; and if there is no such necessity, they have done wrong. The whole question involves two points. (1.) Whether the common meaning of the word must be abandoned; (2.) What other meaning must be assumed. If the common meaning of the word is not required to be abandoned, it must be retained; and if it is required to be abandoned, the meanings assumed by the common version may not be the right ones; very different ones may be required. A common meaning of a word is never to be abandoned when it makes good sense, and is suitable to the context.

3. Let us try the common meaning, with no change whatever, and see what we get. Verse 16. And not as by one that sinned is the gift, for the judgment was from one to a condemnation; but the gift is from many sins to an ordinance [the ordinance of Christianity]. This certainly does not make a bad sense. Still, it is somewhat improved, perhaps, by being changed to the form in which it stands in my version. For the judgment was from one to a sentence of condemnation, but the gift is from many sins to a justifying ordinance, meaning, as before, the gospel. The common version departs from the usual meaning of dinalaua, ordinance, and takes that of its correlative, dixalwois, justification, thus confounding these two words, when the apostle clearly distinguishes them by using them both in the same paragraph. This can not be right; and whether my version is correct or not, the common version of this word must be wrong. It is not the method of Paul to use words so loosely and improperly as such a rendering assumes. But my version is not wrong; it adheres to the constant usage of the Septuagint and Greek Testament, and agrees perfectly with all the requisitions of the subject treated of and the context. It was Paul's professed object to magnify the gospel, and demonstrate its excellence and necessity; and this rendering agrees with that object. It magnifies the gospel, and asserts its excellence and necessity.

4. Let us now examine verse 18, and try the word dixɑlaua with its common signification there: Therefore, as by one sin [judgment] came on all men to condemnation, so by one ordinance, [it] comes on all men to justification of life. The word which is here rendered