where the reader will find, and particularly in the Appendix, the blunders and errors in grammar committed by Mr. Whittaker, as well as an exposure of his dogma, that the sacred inspired volume, the original Hebrew scripture, is corrupt. JOHN BELLAMY. PRIZE GREEK POEM.' College, Edinburgh, Oct. 1820. THE enclosed poem is one of four that obtained prizes in my classes during last session of College. It was written by a young man, educated at a country school, and whose knowledge of Greek was very trifling before he entered this Uuiversity. Though a severe critic might find some faults in it, yet I think I may venture to say that I have seen few productions of the kind of equal merit, whether the language, the sentiment, or the versification be considered; and it may perhaps undeceive some, who have no opportunities of judging, but who have been led by malicious and false statements to suppose that students at this University acquire but a scanty knowledge of Greek literature. By giving it a place in your next Number of the Classical Journal you will oblige, GEORGE DUNBAR. ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΤΩΝ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΩΝ ΝΙΚΗΝ ΕΝ ΜΑΡΑΘΩΝΙ. Ω πόποι, ἦ Μαραθῶνι παραὶ κόσμηθεν ὁρῶμαι 66 We have thought it due to the Master and the Scholar to leave the Poem exactly as sent to us. ED. “ Καὶ πρόγονων ὑμῖν ἀρετῆς μνήσασθε παλαιῶν “ Καὶ σθένος Εκτορος οὐκ ἐφοβοῦντ ̓ ἵνα κῦδος ἕλοιντο. 66 9 Αξέμεναι δεσμοῖσι φίλης ἀπὸ πατρίδος αἴας. “Αλλ' ἄγετ', ἄνδρες, νῦν πειρησόμεν εἴτε κε δοίη Ως δ' ὅτ' ἐρευγομένη, δεινῷ πατάγῳ, φλογὰς Αἰτνὴ BIBLICAL CRITICISM. READING some time ago the xviith chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, my attention was arrested by the word ὑπεριδὼν (v. 30.), which in the authorised English version is rendered "winked at." The purport of the following observations is to show that the word ought to have been otherwise translated, and that St. Paul not only does not attribute to Jehovah any thing like connivance at the cruelties and superstitions of the preceding generations of idolaters, but actually signifies the abhorrence and contempt with which, as a holy and " a jealous God," he could not fail to view them. It is indeed an easy way of solving the difficulty which appears to clog this passage, to say that "the word being derived from Unèp and eidéo means simply to look over or to overlook," and to offer this etymology as a defence of the commonly received interpretation. But, in the same way it might be said, that because eidéw means to see, therefore repedéw must mean to oversee, or supervise, or superintend; more especially, as eidéw, being a transitive verb, generally signifies to see (or know), and can never be rendered by the verb to look, because the latter is a neuter verb. Allowing, however, that uregeidéw does mean to look over, (though it were more correctly rendered to look above or beyond) it still remains a question, whether it means to look over “in mercy," or in contempt and anger; and, for an answer to this question we must refer of course to other passages in the Scriptures and elsewhere, in which the same word is to be found. As the word does not occur in any other passage of the New Testament, we must direct our research to the Septuagint version of the Old, in which we find it very frequently employed, corresponding to one or other of the following עזב מעל מאס זעם התעלם התעבר and הסכין ;Hebrew words Of these words the first, third, and fourth directly favor the signification for which I would contend, being commonly rendered by the Latin words indignatus est, contemsit, and excanduit, respectively; and being also the words for which úzegedéw is most commonly employed. The same may be said of y, reliquit, which in the only passage cited by Trommius (Job vi. 14.) is rendered in our English version by the word forsaken. Of the remaining words that which seems most favorable to the authorised translation is hyn, se occultavit, and in Levit. xx. 4, it is particularly favorable to it; but in the four remaining passages in which the LXX have rendered it by Tegedéw, it evidently means, he despised, or was angry with. It is therefore rendered accordingly in those passages by one or more of the versions. In the same manner the word repedé might very safely be translated in all the passages where it corresponds to D, prævaricatus est; and indeed in every place where it occurs in the Old Testament excepting only Levit. xx. 4, which weighs but little against so many contrary authorities, and Num. xxii. 30, (in which place it answers to ,מעל I Vide Trommii Concord. 2 Vide Biblia Polyglotta. solitus est) where its signification seems rather problematical.1 On the whole therefore, the authority of the LXX almost directly contradicts the interpretation commonly given to the particular passage in question, and instead of leading us to suppose that Godwinked at" the times of ignorance, teaches us rather to infer from the language of St. Paul that he looked upon these times with anger and abhorrence. From the LXX we turn to the great body of Greek writers. But here, as in the New Testament, unfortunately, authorities for the word in question seem to be particularly scarce; so much so, that by some Lexicographers the word is omitted altogether. Thus, as there is a Greek concordance of the New Testament, bearing the name of Henry Stephens, (supposed, by the way, to have been the compilation of some meaner author,') so also there is the general Lexicon of Scapula (Basileæ, 1620), in neither of which is it to be found. Schrevelius indeed mentions the word, but gives it no other signification than conniventiâ dissimulo; a signification evidently taken from the supposed meaning of the very passage under consideration, and which he has not thought fit to confirm by the citation of any classical authority, though on other words of rare occurrence he is generally accustomed so to do. Hederic, on the contrary, assigns to the word no meaning but despicio, quoting for authority Act. xvii. 17, and Ælian. V. H. ii. SO, and xii. 17, where the word evidently bears that meaning. Schleusner, however, is very copious on the word, giving, besides some of the passages cited in Trommius, one authority from Plato, four from Ælian (two of them the same as those in Hederic), and one from Marcus Antoninus; in all which the word means either to despise or to be angry with, a signification which is allowed by Hesychius and Suidas 4 whereas for the signification connivendo dissimulo, though he (Schleusner) thinks, for a reason which shall be mentioned presently, the word may bear that meaning, he offers no direct authority at all. To the authorities given by Hederic and Schleusner may be added one given by Pooles from Flutarch, and one which I have lately met with in Herodotus, in both of which the word has the same meaning as in all those which they ! This is conceding rather too much; for Poole translates the Septuagint version of the passage thus: Numquid despectione despiciens feci sic tibi? Vide Synopsin Criticorum in loc. citat. 2 Vide Bibliographical Dictionary. 3 Vide Schleusneri Lexicon, sub voc. (Edinb. 1814.) 4 Hesych. ὑπερορᾷ. Suid. καταφρονεῖ. 5 Vide Synop. Crit. in Act. xvii. 17. have cited. The passage in Herodotus is as follows: ouro, (Κλεισθένης) υπεριδών Ιωνας, ἵνα μή σφισι (Αθηναίοις) αἱ αὐται ἔωσι φυλαὶ καὶ Ιωσι. . . . τὰς φυλὰς μετωνόμασε, καὶ ἐποίησε πλεῦνας ἐξ ἐλασσόνων. The signification thus established by the authority of the LXX, and other writers, is farther confirmed by the signification which all the Lexicographers agree in giving to the synonymous words ὑπερόπτομαι and ὑπεροράω, and to their numerous co-derivatives, in all which without exception is implied an idea either of anger or contempt, but chiefly of the latter. In addition to all this, and even supposing that repedéw may sometimes correspond in meaning to conniveo or condono, yet, by the analogy of Greek construction and the general usage of translation, such an interpretation is, in the passage in question, altogether inadmissible. It is well known that when a participle and a verb in Greek are rendered by two verbs in English, those verbs must be connected by a conjunction cOPULATIVE; whereas in the present instance, in which ὑπεριδών and ἀπαγγέλλει are so rendered, our translators have made use of a conjunction disjunctive. This they obliged themselves to do by interpreting inspidav “winked at," because, in consequence of this translation, there is evidently an "opposition of meaning" implied in the two clauses in which the words respectively occur. But in so doing, they have both violated the structure of the sentence, and gone contrary to their own general usage, according to I mention this passage more particularly, because M. Rollin in his Ancient History has fallen into an error with respect to the circumstance here mentioned, which an attention to the meaning of the word repidav, in connexion with that of the words immediately following, would certainly have prevented. Herodotus is speaking of the change made by Clisthenes (the rival of Isagoras) in the number and denomination of the Athenian tribes. On this subject (vi. 66.) he says: TETρapuλους ἐόντας 'Αθηναίους, δεκαφύλους ἐποίησε, τῶν Ἴωνος παίδων, Γελέοντος, καὶ Αἰγικό. ρεος, καὶ ̓Αργάδεω, καὶ Ὅπλητος, ἀπαλλάξας τὰς ἐπωνυμίας· ἐπιχωρίων δ' ἑτέρων ἡρώων ἐπωνυμίας ἐξευρών, κ. τ. λ. ; and then, after one of those digressions for which he is remarkable, adds the passage above quoted. From these sentences (for he refers in this part of his History to Herodotus) M. Rollin, misled perhaps by the involution of the former sentence, and certainly overlooking the signification of repid in the latter, has gathered, that Clisthenes made an "alteration in the form of their (the Athenian) establishment, and instead of 4 tribes, whereof they consisted before, divided that body into 10 tribes, to which he gave the names of the 10 sons of Ion!" (Engl. Transl. Book v. art. 8.) Now it does not appear that Ion ever had more than 4 sons, viz. those whose names are here mentioned, and to whom Euripides refers in a passage of his Ion quoted in Potter's Archæologia Græca: and it is manifest from this very passage in Herodotus, that Clisthenes was so far from giving their names to the Athenian tribes, that he even-vπeρidшv Ievas (i. e. in Ionum contemtum, as Schweighæuser has expressed it)—abolished them, and substituted others in their stead, introducing among the rest the name of Ajax (son of Telamon). |