Only the O. T.

quotations in special herme

the N. T. call for

neutical treatment.

or apostle as part of a common heritage. With this understanding, there is little in the matter or style of the Scripture quotations in the Scriptures to give any trouble to the interpreter. The comparison of parallel passages is, as we have seen (pp. 119-128), a great help in exposition, and some passages become clear and forcible only when read in the light of their parallels. The alleged discrepancies between these different Scriptures will be noticed in a separate chapter; it is only the Old Testament citations in the New Testament which call for special treatment here. These, as we have said, are so manifold in character and form that we should examine (1) the sources of quotation, (2) the formulas and methods of quotation, and (3) the purposes of the several quotations.

I. It is now generally conceded that the sources from which the Sources of N.T. New Testament writers quote are the Hebrew text of quotation. the Old Testament, and the Septuagint translation of it. Formerly it was maintained by some that the Septuagint only was used; others, feeling that such a position was disparaging to the Hebrew Scriptures, maintained as strenuously that the apostles and evangelists must have always cited from the Hebrew, and though the quotations were in the exact words of the Septuagint, it was thought that two translators might have used the same language. But calmer study has made all such discussions obsolete. It is well known that the Septuagint version was in current use among the Hellenistic Jews. The New Testament writers follow it in some passages where it differs widely from the Hebrew. A critical comparison of all the New Testament citations from the Old shows beyond a question that in the great majority of cases the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew text was the source from which the writers quoted.1

No uniform

tation.

But it is noticeable that the New Testament writers do not uniformly follow either source. The Septuagint version method of quo- of Mal. iii, 1, is an accurate translation of the Hebrew, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree literally in a rendering which is noticeably different. In short, it is impossible to discover any rule that will account for all the variations between the citations and the Hebrew and Septuagint texts. Sometimes the

2

1 See Horne's Introduction, vol. ii, pp. 114-178, where the Hebrew, the Septuagint version, and the New Testament citation of all the Old Testament quotations in the New, are given in the original texts, arranged in parallel columns, and each accompanied by an English version.

2 Matt. xi, 10; Mark i, 10; Luke vii, 27. Matthew inserts yw, and Mark omits ἔμπροσθέν σου.

Inaccurate quo

variation is merely a change of person, number, or tense; sometimes it consists of a transposition of words; sometimes in the omission or addition of words and phrases. In many cases only the general sense is given, and often the citation is but an allusion or reference, not a formal quotation at all. In view of all these facts it seems best to understand that the sacred writers followed no uniform method in quoting the older Scriptures. They were familiar both with the Hebrew text and the Septuagint. But textual accuracy had no special weight with them. From childhood the contents of the sacred writings had been publicly and privately made known to them (2 Tim. iii, 15), and they were wont to cite them in familiar discourse without any attempt at verbal accuracy. With them as with us an inaccurate quotation might become common and current on the lips of the people, and, tations may bewhile known by many to differ from the ancient text, was nevertheless sufficiently correct for all practical purposes. How few of us now recite the Lord's prayer accurately? So, doubtless, the inspired writers made use of Scripture, in many instances, without care to conform the quotation with the exact letter of the Hebrew text, or of the common Septuagint version. They quoted probably in most cases from memory, and the Holy Spirit preserved them from any vital error (John xiv, 26). The idea that divine inspiration must necessitate verbal uniformity among the sacred writers is an unnecessary and untenable assumption.' Variety marked both the portions and manner of the successive revelations of God (Heb. i, 1).

come current.

II. The introductory formulas by which quotations from the Old Testament are adduced are many and various, and have Formulas and been thought by some to be a sort of index or key to methods of the particular purpose of each citation. But we find quotation. different formulas used by different writers to introduce one and the

1 "In examining cited passages, we perceive," says Davidson, "that every mode of quotation has been employed, from the exactest to the most loose, from the strictest verbal method to the widest paraphrase. But in no case is violence done to the meaning of the original. A sentiment expressed in one connexion in the Old Testament is frequently in the New interwoven with another train of argument; but this is allowable and natural. . . . Let it be remembered, then, that the sacred writers were not bound in all cases to cite the very words of the originals; it was usually sufficient for them to exhibit the sense perspicuously. The same meaning may be conveyed by different terms. It is unreasonable to expect that the apostles should scrupulously abide by the precise words of the passage they quote. . . . In every instance we suppose them to have been directed by the superintending Spirit, who infallibly kept them from error, and guided them in selecting the most appropriate terms where their own judgments would have failed.”—Sacred Hermeneutics, pp. 469, 470.

same passage, so that we cannot suppose that in all cases the formu. la used will direct us to the special purpose of the quotation. The more common formulas are, "It is written," "Thus it is written," "According as it is written," "The Scripture says," "It was said,” "According as it is said; " but many other forms are used. The same formulas are used by the Rabbinical writers.' Occasionally the place of a citation is indicated, as in Mark xii, 26; Acts xiii, 33; and Rom. xi, 2; but more frequently Moses, the Law, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or some other prophet is mentioned as writing or saying what is quoted. It is assumed that the persons addressed were so familiar "with the holy writings that they needed no more specific reference.

"Besides the quotations introduced by these formulas there are a considerable number scattered through the writings of the apostles which are inserted in the train of their own remarks without any announcement whatever of their being cited from others. To the cursory reader the passages thus quoted appear to form a part of the apostle's own words, and it is only by intimate acquaintance with the Old Testament Scriptures, and a careful comparison of these with those of the New Testament, that the fact of their being quotations can be detected. In the common version every trace of quotation is in many of these passages lost, from the circumstance that the writer has closely followed the Septuagint, while our version of the Old Testament is made from the Hebrew. Thus, for instance, in 2 Cor. viii, 21, Paul says, πρоvооvμεv yàp каλà оỶ μόνον ἐνώπιον Κυρίου, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐνώπιον ἀνθρώπων, which, with a change in the mood of the verb, is a citation of the Septuagint version of Prov. iii, 4. Hardly any trace of this, however, appears in the common version, where the one passage reads, 'Providing for honest things not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men;' and the other, 'So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.' So, also in 1 Peter iv, 18, the apostle quotes word for word from the Septuagint version of Prov. xi, 31, the clause εἰ ὁ δίκαιος μόλις σώζεται, ὁ ἀσεβὴς καὶ ἁμαρτωλὸς ποῦ φανεῖται; a quotation which we should in vain endeavour to trace in the common version of the Proverbs, where the passage in question is rendered 'Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; much more the wicked and the sinner.' Such quotations evidently show how much the minds of the New Testament writers were imbued with the sentiments and expressions of the Old Testament as exhibited in the Alexandrine version."

1 Many examples are given by Surenhusius, pp. 1-36; and by Döpke, Hermeneutik, pp. 60-69.

DD, sive Bíẞhos Karaλλayñs,

9 Alexander, in Kitto's New Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, article Quotations.

The New Testament writers were necessarily familiar with the current Rabbinical methods of interpreting the Old Tes- Furnish no law tament, and they sometimes employed arguments and of general herillustrations derived from the Holy Scripture which are

meneutics.

not adapted to convince persons who have not been trained in the same way of thinking. A careful study, for example, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, will discover numerous instances in which the use made of Old Testament citations is not of a nature to influence the judgment of one unfamiliar with the discipline of the Hebrew cultus. Hence we should not study the methods of New Testament citation from the Old Testament for principles of general hermeneutics, but should always remember that the writers were acting under special conditions of mental and religious training. We recognize their profound reverence for the written word, and their divinely inspired use of it for a specific end, and yet maintain that, in many passages, the particular citation, and the argument built upon it, furnish no law of biblical exegesis suitable for universal application.

Not designed

to decide questions of literary

criticism.

Such an

There appears no sufficient reason for maintaining that the reference to an Old Testament book by the name of its commonly supposed author commits the apostles, the evangelists, or Christ himself to an authoritative judgment concerning the authenticity and genuineness of the book. inference is unnecessary unless it appears that the purpose of the reference was to express a judgment on that subject. If it can be shown by valid exegesis that the manner of quoting, or the use made of the quotation itself, necessarily involves a personal opinion touching the authorship of the passage, then, of course, the character of the quotation itself determines the question. But the mere allusion to a well-known book, or the mention of its supposed author according to the current opinions of the time, is obviously neither an affirmation nor a denial of the correctness of the common opinion.

There is one formula, peculiar to Matthew and John, which deserves more that a passing notice. It first occurs in The formula Matt. i, 22: "All this has come to pass in order that iva hnpwdy.what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfiled." This is its fullest form; elsewhere it is only iva λnowdy, in order that it might be fulfiled (Matt. ii, 15; iv, 14; xxi, 4; John xii, 38; xiii, 18; xv, 25; xvii, 12; xviii, 9, 32; xix, 24, 36), but in John's Gospel these words vary in their connexion, as, “in order that the word of Isaiah might be fulfiled;" "in order that the Scripture might be fulfiled;" in order that the word of Jesus

might be fulfilled." Sometimes it is written on пλŋowdỹ (Matt. ii, 23; viii, 17; xii, 17), and occasionally Tórε Eπλnpwon, then was fulfilled. The great question with interpreters has been to determine the force of the conjunction iva (and öπws) in these formulas. Is it telic, that is, expressive of final cause, purpose, or design; or is it ecbatic, denoting merely the outcome or result of something? If telic, it should be translated in order that; if ecbatic, it should be rendered so that.

Views of Ben- serves:

1.

Bengel, commenting on the words iva πλŋwdy in Matt. i, 22, ob"Wherever this phrase occurs we are bound to gel and Meyer. recognise the authority of the evangelists, and (however dull our own perception may be) to believe that the event they mention does not merely chance to correspond with some ancient form of speech, but was one which had been predicted, and which the divine truth was pledged to bring to pass at the commencement of the new dispensation." Meyer, commenting on the same passage, observes: "iva is never ecbatic, so that, but always telic, in order that; it presupposes here that what was done stood in the connexion of purpose with the Old Testament declaration, and consequently in the connexion of the divine necessity as an actual fact by which the prophecy was destined to be fulfilled. The divine decree, expressed in the latter, must be accomplished, and to that end this, namely, which is related from verse 18 onward, came to pass, and that, according to the whole of its contents (öλov).”

ally to be main

tained.

This view of the telic force of iva, especially in the words iva The telic force Tλnown in connexion with prophetic statements, is of iva gener- maintained by many of the most eminent critics and scholars, as Fritzsche, De Wette, Olshausen, Alford, and Winer. Others, as Tittmann, Stuart, and Robinson, contend for the ecbatic use of iva in this phrase as well as in many other passages. The question can be determined only by a critical examination of the passages where the alleged ecbatic use of the particle occurs. In most of these cases we believe the ordinary telic sense of iva has been misapprehended by a superficial view of the real import of the passage. Thus Tittmann cites Mark xi, 25, as a clear instance of the ecbatic use of iva: "Whenever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one, in order that your Father also who is in the heavens may forgive you your trespasses.'

2

1 Gnomon of the New Testament, in loco.

See Tittmann's essay on the "Use of the particle iva in the New Testament," translated into English with introductory remarks by M. Stuart in the Biblical Repository of Jan., 1885. Also Robinson's Lexicon of the New Testament under the words ἵνα and ὅπως.