III. THE NATURE AND MORAL INFLUENCE OF HEATHEN- ISM, ESPECIALLY among the GREEKS AND ROMANS, Two original articles in a state of preparation for this Number, are necessarily deferred. THE BIBLICAL REPOSITORY. No. V. JANUARY, 1832. ART. I. THE GREAT MYSTERY OF GODLINESS INCONTROVERA CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE VARIOUS READ TIBLE. INGS IN 1 TIM. III. 16. By Ebenezer Henderson, D. D. Prof. of Divinity and the Oriental Languages at PRELIMINARY NOTICE. THE public are much indebted to Dr Henderson for the able and candid investigations exhibited in the following pages. They were undertaken originally without any view to publication. The author was led, in preparing a course of Theological Lectures, to investigate the different passages of Scripture to which an appeal is usually made on the subject of our Lord's Divinity, and to decide on the legitimacy and amount of the proof furnished by each, according to approved principles of biblical criticism and exegesis. While prosecuting this inquiry, he came, in order, to the important text which forms the subject of the present discussion, and entered at some length into an examination of the authorities for and against its various readings; the result of which was a decided conviction, that the reading of the Textus Receptus is fully borne out by the testimonics to which it is proper to refer in questions of this nature. The occasion which led to the publication of these researches, is stated by Dr Henderson himself in his letter to Prof. Stuart, printed in the first volume of this work, p. 777. The temporary VOL. II. No. 5. 1 exigencies of the case induced him to prefix a few paragraphs of a local and controversial nature, having no immediate bearing on the question under discussion. These have been omitted, as not falling within the plan and direct object of the Biblical Repository. The work was first published in July, 1830. EDITOR. CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE READINGS IN 1 TIM. III. 16. SECTION I. Introductory Remarks. THE passage, to the examination of which the following pages are devoted, has ever been regarded as one of the most interesting and beautiful to be met with in the New Testament. While the truths which it predicates are confessedly of the highest importance, and justly entitle it to a prominent place in the minds of all who receive the Christian revelation, the language in which they are announced is so measured and terse, that the place has been considered by some as exhibiting a stanza of one of the primitive hymns. Divided into lines, according to the several propositions of which it consists, it appears thus: Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκὶ, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ. God Was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit, Seen by the angels, Proclaimed among the heathen, Believed on in the world, Received up into glory. Considering the circumstances, that Timothy was resident at Ephesus at the time the epistle was addressed to him; that this |