MS. authority. And as to the sense, though this is "a harsh method of expression" (Alf.) yet we have a very simple interpretation put upon the words by the Peshito Syriac and Arabic versions, which Alford quotes thus: “ αδελφου κ. του adeλpou, Syr. arr." And if that passage may be thus taken as elliptical, and rendered, “be able to judge between his brother (and his brother);" this in the Rev. seems to be closely parallel, and to admit as easily the rendering "the Lamb which is between the throne (and us) "—or "between (where we are and) the throne❞—for it is one of the four and twenty elders who is speaking; and thus it harmonizes perfectly with v. 6. Possibly the év μéow of iv. 6 bears a similar sense-" between the throne (and where I stood):" the expression becomes thus more readily intelligible. Evidently the argument would be more complete if I could conclusively show that with the terminus ad quem is sometimes similarly omitted. But there is at least one passage (to which my learned friend Dr Tregelles has kindly called my attention) in which it may possibly be so, viz. Dan. viii. 16; "and I heard a man's voice between (where I stood and) Ulai." That there is some ellipse is obvious. Our translators take it as "between (the banks of) Ulai ;" and this is supported by the vision of xii. 6, 7; but grammatical analogy in its favour seems to be wholly wanting. There is, so far as I am aware, no similar instance of a singular noun so used. But rare as the omission of one of the termini with a word signifying "between" must be in any language, in our own early literature I have met with one such passage. In Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne (ed. Furnivall, p. 181) we read, pe clerk lokede euery where, And at pe laste he knew where ; That is to say, "between whom (and the clerk) there had ever been special intimacy.” Now I have above remarked that ' and avà μloov are sometimes used as the English between, and followed only by Journal of Philology. VOL. II. 21 and. Do we ever find similar instances in the New Testament? I think so, at least in one place, Rev. xxii. 2, where I believe the true rendering to be, "Between its broadway and the river on both sides was the tree of life." But is the avà μéσov of vii. 17 fully and exactly synonymous with év μéow of v. 6? In the LXX. indeed avà μéoov appears continually used just in the sense of the classical ev μέσῳ: compare for instance, Num. xvi. 48, καὶ ἔστη ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν τεθνηκότων καὶ τῶν ζώντων, with Xenophon's πῦρ ἐν μέσῳ ἑαυτῶν καὶ τῶν πολεμίων ποιησάμενοι. Yet strictly ἀνὰ μέσον signifies throughout the intervening space (or spaces, as in Matt. xiii. 25)-much as κaтà péσov is used in Il. E. 8 and I. 87-év μéow pointing to some point in that space. And it may be that that distinction is intended in these two passages of the Apocalypse; the Lamb in the former appearing simply as in this intervening space, while the avà of the latter intimates moreover that all that space is appropriated to Him. Briefly in conclusion, as to the significance of this position of the Lamb. On the one hand is the infinite Majesty of the Father, around whose throne and closely connected with it are the four living creatures, symbolically representing perhaps the manifested attributes of Deity—His power (the lion), His longsuffering (the calf), His wisdom (the man), and the terror and the swiftness of His justice (the flying eagle),-attributes whose ceaseless manifestation in both creation and providence proclaims the glory of the Almighty (c. iv. 8), and has rendered, and ever will render homage to the divine Son (c. v. 8). On the other hand are the four and twenty elders, the interpretation of this twice twelve being aided by the mention in xxi. 12, 14 of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles of the Lamb; so that it is reasonable to conclude, with the majority of commentators, that these twenty-four represent the entire "church of the first-born;" which is yet clearer when we consider the responsive' song (for the change in the pronouns 1 Affirmabant autem [Christiani] hanc fuisse summam vel culpæ suæ vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere SECUM INVICEM, &c. Pliny to Trajan, circ. A.D. 108. shows it to be such) in v. 9, 10: thus-rà &., "Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof;”—oi d пр., πp., "For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation;"-rà &, "And thou hast made them unto our God a kingdom, priests; and they shall reign on the earth." And between the throne with the four living creatures which encircle it, and the twenty-four elders, between the Godhead and the redeemed, appears the Lamb-the "one Mediator between God and man." R. F. WEYMOUTH. ON THE PHOENICIAN PASSAGE IN THE PENULUS OF PLAUTUS. ACT V. Sc. I. THE study of the Punic passages in the Pœnulus has not been resumed since Movers' pamphlet Die punischen Texte (Breslau, 18451), yet they are certainly of no less interest for Phoenician philology than the inscription of Eshmou-ezer, the explanation of which called forth fourteen treatises. Even one of our best scholars in this department, Professor Levy, has no mention of them in his excellent work Phönizische Studien. But although the same degree of certainty cannot be attained here, which we have in the Phoenician inscriptions, partly on account of the foreign transcription, and partly owing to the condition of the text of Plautus, which, as Movers says, is hopelessly bad, ought we, for such reasons, to shrink from offering an explanation, which may correspond better to the Semitic spirit than previous attempts? We think not. If even a single word is correctly ascertained by our conjectures, it will be a step towards the deciphering of these obscure passages. We submit here, as an attempt only, our own reading of the passage in the first scene of the fifth act, and though we do not pretend to have found the true interpretation of every line, we may perhaps have divined some words in it. It will be a great satisfaction to us if, by the present essay, we can again direct the attention of scholars to this subject. We shall not give here a full account of all the various readings of the MSS. This has been done by Movers in the 1 Gesenius published an interpretation in his celebrated work Scripturæ linguæque Phæniciæ monumenta. Professor Ewald, too, gave a highly in genious one in the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes for 1842. For other attempts, see Movers, pp. 6—15. above-mentioned pamphlet, and by Ritschl in his edition of Plautus. Still, a few words may not be amiss to describe the three, or more strictly, the two different texts which we possess of the Pœnulus. The first, and less corrupt, is the more recent text, contained in ten lines, and printed in our editions of Plautus. We shall chiefly explain the Punic from this text, for, as we shall see, it agrees best with the Latin translation. The second text (lines 11-16) is the older one; the earliest copy of it exists in a palimpsest at Milan. It is very corrupt, and the copyists, in order to furnish more amusement than Plautus himself intended, changed the Punic words into Latin. Hence it would, in our opinion, be a useless trouble to attempt the deciphering of this text. A few words may still be recognised as Punic, and occasionally agree with the more recent text: this is important, because we learn from it that the Punic text is at any rate not a pure invention. The reading of some lines, as we shall see, is quite certain, and proves that we have pure Phoenician in the first scene at least, from which we may conclude that the colony of Carthage, at least in the better classes, spoke the language of the mother country. As M. Renan1 well observes, 'Quand on voit l'espagnol qui se parle en Amérique parfaitement identique de nos jours à celui de la mère patrie, on se persuade que les colonies formées à des époques historiques exercent peu d'influence sur les révolutions du langage.' Besides, when we consider how little difference there is between the Arabic of Egypt, of Syria, and Morocco, and how rarely foreign words are introduced, it will not be an exaggeration to assert that a Semitic language, as long as those who spoke it retained their nationality, could not suffer any great alteration. Before going further, it may be as well to state that the vowels are of no great consequence in our text. And this for two reasons. First, because in Semitic languages the vowels do not play a prominent part, the proof of which is that the signs for them were invented very late, and chiefly for the reading of the sacred books. In Algeria, indeed, the words are pronounced as if they had no vowels. Secondly, 1 Histoire des langues Sémitiques, 3rd ed., p. 197. |