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and 'glorious body,' are 'body of vileness,' and 'body of glory, in the Greek. 'Dear Son,' Col. i. 13, is Son of love. Mighty angels,' 2 Thess. ii. 8, is angels of his power.' 'First principles,' Heb. v. 12, is 'principles of beginning.' A similar phrase in Heb. vi. 1, is rendered merely principles:' first principles, or rudiments, is the undoubted meaning. His natural face,' James i. 23, is 'face of his nature.' 'Damnable heresies,' 2 Pet. ii. 1, is 'heresies of destruction,' that is, destructive heresies,' as the phrase should have been rendered.

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The instances of the Hebrew idiom, introduced under the present division of this article, are not so important as affecting the sense of the passages, as their beauty and perspicuity. It can not be doubted that a more liberal translation, than the common version, would, in these instances, express the sense more clearly, and be read with more ease and pleasure.

7. We will close this article by noticing some promiscuous examples, that can not be ranked under either of the foregoing divisions, and may as well be introduced without any particular order.

The Hebrews were accustomed to associate the names of God' and 'Lord' with whatever person or thing they wished to magnify or exalt, in any remarkable manner. 'He shall be great before the Lord,' Luke i. 15, may mean, he shall be very great.' Moses was 'exceedingly fair-he was 'beautiful to God' in the Greek, Acts vii. 20.Zeal of God,' Rom. x. 2, is great zeal.' See also 2 Cor. ii. 12. 'Mighty to God,' 2 Cor. x. 4, is very mighty.'

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'Children of light,' Children of disobe'Children of God,' are 'Children of hell,' or corrupt morally, as the 'Children of the devil,'

The Hebrews used the word 'children' in a sense that affects the meaning of some passages. are persons divinely enlightened. dience,' are disobedient persons. those who seek to imitate God. gehenna, are persons as foul and valley of Hinnom was physically. are devilish or wicked men. Children of the promise,' are those to whom the promise was made, or those included in its merciful provisions. 'Children of the bride-chamber,' are the friends of the bridegroom. The passages here referred to, are Luke xvi. 8, John xii. 36, 1 Thess.

v. 5,-Eph. ii. 2,-Matt. v. 45,-Matt. xxiii. 15,-Matt. xiii. 38,―John viii. 44,-Gal. iv. 28,-Matt. ix. 15.

'To be called,' often means the same as to be. Hence 'to be called the children of God,' Matt. v. 9, is the same as to be the children of God.' 'He shall be called the least in the kingdom of God,' Mat. v. 19, is the same as, ' he shall be the least in the kingdom of God.'

A very peculiar idiom occurs in Matt. xxiv. 22, and one or two other passages. No flesh shall be saved,' is the translation of all flesh shall not be saved,' So in 1 John iii. 15, 'no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him,' is, every murderer hath not eternal life abiding in him.' The translation conveys the true sense, while a strictly literal rendering would imply an untruth.

I have now gone through with the most important Hebrew idioms of the New Testament. The meaning of some important passages is affected by them, and the beauty and perspicuity of others. Whether the advantage gained by the discussion, is worth the labor of reaching it, may be a matter of doubt in some minds. We have,

however, been accustomed to think that no labor is unwisely employed that tends in the least to illucidate the teachings of that sacred book, from which we derive right views of the divine character and government, and on which we predicate our hopes of human progress here, and immortal life hereafter.

W. E. M.

ART. III.

Athanasius, and the Arian Controversy.

WHEN the last great persecution ceased, Christianity found itself in a world wholly changed. It had spread so widely, as to be in all probability far the strongest of the religious beliefs still contending for the mastery. Each successive effort to subdue it, had only served to show how deeply it was rooted, and how inevitable was the revolu

tion in men's thoughts that would at any rate supplant all the partial faiths of Paganism. The last endeavor of the old State religion to crush its aspiring rival, had turned out a total failure, and had alarmed the persecutors far more than the persecuted sect. A terrible fatality seemed to hang over all who put out their strength to stay this irre sistible tide. Of the six leagued or rival candidates for dominion, one had laid down his power, and lived, it was said, subject to fits of insanity and gloom-perhaps died by suicide. Two more had been afflicted with horrible disease, which reduced them to supplicate the prayers of those they had sought to exterminate. One, by a submissive alliance, still kept the empire of the East. One only had ended his days in peace and honor; and his son Constantine came down with the forces of the North and West, and crushed the last and worst of the tyrants, the savage old Maxentius at the very gates of Rome.

His success was the assurance, to the Christians, of security at least, if not dominion. His own imagination had been powerfully struck both with the living energy of the Christian faith, and with the terrible end of its oppres sors. And while his own great conflict lay before him, when he began the hazardous campaign that ended in victory so complete, it was said that he had yielded to its influence, and professed himself its disciple. The cause of Paganism was the cause of his bitterest personal foes. When a young man, he had barely escaped with his life, by long and hard riding, from the suspicious and cruel court of Galerius, at Milan. And while he was meditating, now, which of the rival deities should be his patron, the story was, (and is to this day very extensively received,) that a great light shone about him, and in the heaven, near noon, appeared a flaming cross, having the motto, "In this conquer." Instructed by a dream in the meaning of the vision, he hung his imperial banner on a staff in the form of a cross, richly gilt; and above was a golden crown bearing the sacred inscription of the name of Christ. This was the banner he bore when he met the brutal and superstitious tyrant who represented the old religion of Rome; and this was the sacred Labarum, kept long after as a precious relic in his own imperial city.

The world was changed; and the character of the gov

ernment was no longer what it had been. longer

"Sat on her seven hills,

Rome no

And from her throne of beauty ruled the world." She had long been only one of the rival cities of a great empire. Emperors of foreign birth, to be more free of the old institutions of the city, had made their residence elsewhere; Milan and Nicomedia were transient but successful rivals of her sovereignty. Once it was threatened to change the name of the empire itself to Dacian. At the very time that Constantine established his victory over every antagonist, the temple of fortune, in Rome, was burned; ominous that the strength and glory had departed. And when Licinius had broken the terms of his alliance, and been defeated at land and sea, and put to death, so that the Roman world was once more united under one head, then Constantine determined to found a great central city, to bear his own name, to be the capital of the East and West, and to wear that imperial crown which for five hundred years had rested on the brow of Rome.

And so Constantinople was built, where the old town of Byzantium had stood, on the narrow channel that divides Europe from Asia-the spot of all others which a farseeing ambition would fix on, for the seat of the sovereignty of the world. In magnitude it should surpass every other, as became the imperial city. "How far will you carry us?" asked the officers of Constantine, as he went on before them, marking its limits. "Till the God who goes before me stops," was his reply. In the magnificence of streets and dwellings, halls, temples, and works of art, the new capital was in every respect, if possible, to outdo the old. And though the emperor's religion was at best but questionable,-that of a man of the world and statesman, rather than convert or disciple,though he wore heathen amulets or charms, and practised, in public if not in private, the accustomed pagan sacrifice,i yet Constantinople was a Christian city-at least when

1"He was a superstitious man, and mixed up his Christianity with all kinds of absurd superstitions and opinions. When therefore certain Oriental writers call him iσarоσтóλos, they do not know what they are saying; and to speak of him as a saint is a profanation of the word." Niebuhr, Lect. lxxix.

compared with others of the Empire. The old local associations were broken up. Sacred hills and temples, fountains and consecrated groves, which made so much of the strength of heathendom among the Roman populace, no longer marked the seat of empire. It was a new city; and the new religion was as good as any there,-better, because fresher and stronger. The first act of Constantine had been to declare perfect toleration-to put Christianity on a level with other forms of faith. This was all it could ask then; and this speedily gave it an uncontested superiority. The image that stood on the great porphyry column in the public square was significant of the new order of things. The statue of Apollo, god of light, was surmounted by the emperor's head; and the gilded rays, typical of the brightness of his glory, were said to be the nails from the true cross, that had pierced the hands and feet of Jesus.

The Christian religion had now thoroughly established itself in the world, and feared no molestation or hindrances from its foes without. And now, one might think, it might go on, free and unencumbered, to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ. It might carry completely out the highest Christian idea of truth and justice. So it did to some degree. The laws against the breach of social morals became more and more severe, aiming, evidently, at a higher moral standard. The hard condition of slavery was especially lightened. The law forbade the separation of families by sale; for, it said, "it is a cruelty to part parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives." Charity towards the poor, and mercy in the punishment of crime, were more thought of. Vices, before open and unblushing, were, as far as might be, discountenanced and repressed. Constantine declared himself the father of those children whom excessive misery had driven their parents to sell as slaves; it was against the spirit of the time, he said, that any subject of his empire "should perish of starvation, or do any unworthy act by pressure of actual hunger." And, among the general blessings that resulted from the establishment of a firm, vigorous and peaceful rule after so long a period of violence and civil war, it was a real and prominent one, that the Christian standard