Secondly, when it introduces some description or statement which affords a parallel to what the writer has been saying. Such a description being regarded as involving a fact of general applicability to the human race, or to certain portions of it, is thought of as being, so to speak, in a state of de ficiency until the measure of its applicability has been filled up. Each new case, therefore, which affords a parallel to that to which the description was originally applied goes so far to supply this deficiency, by affording another instance in which the description holds ; and hence the N. T. writers are in the habit of quoting such descriptions as having been fulfilled in the cases to which they are applied by them. Thus a passage from the pro phecies of Jeremiah, in which a description is given of the desolation caused by the divine judgments upon the Jews, under the beautiful personification of Rachel rising from the dead looking in vain for her children, and refusing to be comforted because they are not, is adduced by Matthew (ii. 17, 18) as fulfilled in the sorrow which was produced by the massacre of the babes in Bethlehem by order of Herod. No person who studies the context of the passage as it occurs in the O. T. can suppose for a moment that it contains a prediction of the cruelties which were pepetrated on the occasion related by the evangelist. The sole purport of the quotation seems to be to intimate, as Bishop Kidder remarks, that such another scene of sorrow appeared then (upon the murder of the innocents) as was that which Jeremy mentions upon another sad occasion' (Demonstration of the Messias, Pt. ii. p. 215 ; see also Sykes, Essay on the Truth of the Christian Religion, etc., pp. 217, 218 ; Blaney, in loc. ; Henderson, in loc., and on Hos. ii. I ; .De Wette, on Matt. ii. 17, IS ; and Marsh's Notes to Michaelis, vol. i. p. 473). Comp. Matt. xv. 7, 8, with Is. xxix. 13 ; Matt. xiii. 14 with Acts xxviii. 25 and Is. vi. 9, etc.
It appears, then, that even when a quotation is introduced by a part of the verb irXmodca, it does not necessarily follow that it is to be regarded as containing a prophecy. This is true as well of the conditional formula t'ya (b&rtor) srlowcd0f), as of the more direct rove brN7jp(17077, for these particles, as used in the N. T., frequently express nothing more than that occasion is given for a particular action or remark.
Besides the passages introduced as fulfilled, there are others referable to the same general head, which are introduced by others of the formulae above mentioned. Of these, some belong to both the classes just described—prophecies of which the N. T. announces the fulfilment, and general de scriptions to which something parallel is brought forward. Another class consists of moral and re ligious maxims, which are adduced as applicable to the state of things of which the writer or speaker is discoursing, and which, though not said to be fulfilled thereby, are quoted under essentially the same idea. Such sentences embody, as it were, certain laws of human nature and conduct, certain general facts in the human economy, of which we are to expect the verification wherever the neces sary conditions are exemplified. Like the laws of physical science, therefore, they are dependent for their verification upon the examination of the phe nomena appropriate to that region to which they belong ; and as no law of science can be said to lie absolutely beyond the possibility of refutation until every one of the phenomena which it em braces has been examined and been found to sup port it, every experiment or occurrence that favours it may be said to fill up what is wanting to its per fect and undeniable certainty. Hence the N. T. writers, in recording events or describing characters which accord with and so exemplify the truth of the moral maxims of the O. T., speak of these as
if they had contained actual pre-intimations of the occurrence to which they are applied. They con tain, in fact, the norm or rule according to which the matter in question has occurred.
The usage of the N. T. writers in the cases we have been considering is illustrated by that of the Rabbinical writers in their quotations from the O. T., as Surenhusius has largely shown in his work upon this subject (B113Xos liaraXXa-yijr, etc. etc., lib. i. ; see also Waehner, Antiguitates Hebrce orum vol. i. p. 527, ff.) Instances have also been adduced of a similar usage by the classical and ecclesiastical writers. Thus, lElian introduces Diogenes Sinopensis as saying that he fulfilled and endured the curses out of the tragedy Ors abs-Os etcsrXijpoc cal TaS EK TijI rpcc-ycoblas clpds). Olympiodorus says of Plato that a swarm of bees made honey on his lips Pa &Mins srepl afiroi)-ybordE, Tor; !Cal ChT6 'ActT0'77S ACALTOS TXSKIWP OEP ails, //., A. that it might become true concerning him, And from his tongue flowed a strain sweeter than honey,' which is what Homer says of Nestor. Epi phanius says of Ebion, But in him is fulfilled that which is written : I had nearly been in all mischief, between the church and the synagogue' VOX Is aorc3 TO -ye-ypapplpov, K. T. X. Haresis Ebion., cap. i.) So also the Latin implere is used by Jerome : Cxteruru Socraticum illud impletur in uobis, Hoc tantulum scio, quod nescio ' (Ep. 103 ad Paulin. (Cf. Clem. Rom., Ep. I. ad Coy., sec. 3.) Thirdly, the N. T. writers make quotations from the Old, for the purpose of clothing their own ideas in language already familiar to their readers, or at tractive from its beauty, force, or dignity. The writings of the O. T. were the great classics of the Jewish nation, venerable at once for their literary value and their divine authority. In these the youth of were carefully instructed from their earli est years, and with their words all their religious thoughts and feelings were identified. Hence it was natural, and nearly unavoidable, that in dis coursing of religious subjects they should express their thoughts in language borrowed from the books which had formed the almost exclusive ob jects of their study. Such quotations are made for merely literary purposes—for ornament of style, for vigour of expression, for felicity of allusion, or for impressiveness of statement. The passages thus incorporated with the writer's own thoughts and words, are not appealed to as proving what he says, or as applying to any circumstance to which he refers ; their sole use appears to be to express in appropriate language his own thoughts. Thus, when Paul, after dissuading the Roman Christians from the indulgence of vindictiveness, adds in the words of Solomon (Pray. xxv. 21, 22), There fore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head ;' the quotation evidently serves no other purpose than to express in language of an appropriate and impressive kind, the duty which the apostle would enjoin, and which would have been equally intelligible and equally binding if expressed in his own words, as when uttered in those of the inspired author of the Proverbs. On what other principle, moreover, are we to account for the quotation made by Paul, in Rom. x. IS, from the I9th Psalm, where, in speaking of the diffusion of the gospel among the Jews, he says, But I say, have they not heard ? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words into the end of the world '—a passage originally applied by the Psalmist to the heavenly bodies ? To insist upon regarding this as a prediction of the diffusion of the gospel, or as furnishing even a parallel to it, is surely to sacrifice reason and common sense to prejudice or some favourite theory.