state the true method of harmonizing the one with the other. It contains many fruitful suggestions, and gives a promise of richer treatises yet to come from the same source. The style of the volume is elaborate, and, with here and there an exception, the sentences are well formed. The general criticism to be made upon it is, that it is not sufficiently condensed nor diversified. The first sentence of the Introduction prescribes one rule for the execution of a work like the present. The rule is: "In the treatment of a vast theme it will be necessary to sacrifice details for the sake of principles." This rule seems to be violated throughout the volume. A clear statement of principles is sacrificed to details. The index of authors whose opinions have been cited in the volume fills eight pages; the names being arranged in double columns. The opinions of this host of writers have been expressed in very few words, and no references are given to the volumes from which the statements of these opinions are derived. One result of this multiplicity of details is, that the opinions are often stated indefinitely or obscurely. It could not well have been otherwise. Another result is, that the opinions are sometimes stated incorrectly. Still another result is, that it is impossible for the reader to verify the statements. Had fewer authors been cited, their opinions might have been expressed with greater fulness and accuracy. If references had been made to the volumes in which the authors expressed their own opinions, the present work would have had more authority than it can have now. The work, however, is a meritorious one, and will tend to exalt philosophy to its proper place, and to emphasize the importance of theology. A sad mistake of theologians has been to depreciate philosophy for the sake of exalting theology, which they make either superficial or absurd. We think that Dr. Shield's estimate of science will become, in the process of his investigations, higher than it is now, and that his philosophy will become more definite.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL HANDBOOK TO THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Th. D., Oberconsistorialrath, Hannover. Translated from the Fourth Edition of the German, by Rev. Paton J. Gloag, D.D. The Translation revised and edited by William P. Dickson, D.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. Vol. II. 8vo. pp. 325. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 1877.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL HANDBOOK TO THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. By Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Th. D., Oberconsistorialrath, Hannover. Translated from the Sixth Edition of the German, by Rev. Peter Christie. The Translation revised and edited by Frederick Crombie, D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism, St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. xliv, 451. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 1877.

These two volumes of the well-known series need no commendation. The Commentary on Matthew devotes seventeen pages to a biographical

notice of Dr. Meyer, by his son, Dr. Gustav Meyer, Ph. D. Dr. H. A. W. Meyer was born January 10, 1800, in Gotha; his father was shoemaker to the ducal court. Bretschneider was his religious instructor at the Gymnasium. He entered the University of Jena in 1818. The annual expense of his education here was one hundred and twenty dollars. In January 1823, he was installed as pastor at Osthausen. In 1829 he published his "first portion of his work on the New Testament containing the Greek text and the German translation." In 1830 he published his "Libri symbolici Ecclesiae Lutheranae." He was soon after appointed pastor at Harste. In 1832 "appeared the second part of his work on the New Testament, containing the commentary." This commentary was designed to be included in two divisions. It was extended so as to include sixteen divisions. He continued to labor on the commentary about forty years. In 1837 he was called to Hoya as superintendent; and in 1844 was still farther promoted, being called to Hannover as Consistorialrath, Superintendent, and chief pastor of the Neustädter St. Johannis-kirche. In May 1861 he became Oberconsistorialrath. He died on the twenty-first of June, 1873, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. This biographical sketch by the son of the exegete details many instances which are typical of German student life, and in this view is quite interesting. ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL, Described and Explained according to its Peculiar Character. By Christoph. Ernst Luthardt, Professor of Theology at Leipzig. Translated by Caspar René Gregory, Doctor of Philosophy, Leipzig. Vol. II. 8vo. pp. x, 452. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 1877. The present volume brings the Commentary to the beginning of the twelfth chapter. In the main this Commentary, like the other works of Luthardt, is rigidly orthodox. In interpreting some passages, however, he is independent. Thus, in John iii. 13: ô ŵv ev T oupavê, Luthardt does not translate by the words "who is in heaven," but by the words "who was in heaven." Moreover, he does not regard the words as belong. ing to the text. They are not in B, L, nor in the Sinaitic manuscript. and therefore Luthardt rejects them.

COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN; with a Critical Introduc tion. Translated from the French Edition of F. Godet, D.D., Professor of Theology, Neuchatel, by M. D. Cusin and S. Taylor. Vol. II. 8vo. pp. 414. Vol. III. 8vo. pp. 366. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark; New York: Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong.

The first one hundred and ninety-eight pages of the second volume are translated by Mrs. Cusin; the remainder by Miss Taylor. The volume contains Professor Godet's Commentary from the beginning of the second to the end of the tenth chapter. Of the third volume the first two hun. dred and thirty-five pages are translated by Miss Taylor, and the remain der by Mrs. Cusin. This completes the Commentary. We have already expressed our opinion of its great excellence.

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

ARTICLE I.

ISOCRATES.

BY PROFESSOR R. D. C. ROBBINS, NEWTON HIGHLANDS, MASS.

THE EARLY YEARS OF ISOCRATES, AND THE INFLUENCES THAT MOULDED HIS CHARACTER.

THE birth of Isocrates, 436 B.C., was in the midst of the most brilliant period of the history of Athens. Eight years before, Pericles had acquired the sole direction of public affairs by the ostracism of Thucydides, the leader of the aristocratical party. At peace abroad and at home, he devoted himself to the planting of colonies dependent upon and tributary to the mother city, to the erection of magnificent and tasteful public buildings, the construction of other works, fitted to minister to the wants and contribute to the aggrandizement of Athens. The Parthenon, "the most perfect production of Grecian architecture," of the purest Doric order, with the most exquisite refinement in details, executed under the direction of Phidias, had been completed a year or two before.

The drama, which took the precedence of the other arts. in its origin and development, attained its highest perfection about this time. Aeschylus had died several years before, but Sophocles, between fifty and sixty years old, was just at the height of his popularity, and but a little past the meridian of his long life. Euripides, too, about twenty years younger, had a few years before gained the first tragic prize. It was

during Isocrates' youth and early manhood that most of the plays of Euripides and Sophocles were exhibited. Aristophanes' " Acharnians," "Knights," "Clouds," "Wasps," and "Peace" were brought out between 425-419 B.C., when Isocrates was from eleven to seventeen years old.

In philosophy Socrates, thirty-three years old, had doubtless begun to frequent the gymnasia and the public walks and the market-place, to converse with and exert an influence over all whom he might meet. Plato was born seven years later than Isocrates, and it is said was intimately associated with him as he came to years of maturity. The historian Herodotus was fifty-three years old and Thucydides forty at the birth of Isocrates. The orator Lysias, too, was then twenty-two years old.

Erchia, a deme, or borough, of Athens, the birth-place of Isocrates, was the same where Xenophon, nine years earlier, first saw the light. His father, Theodorus, was a maker of musical instruments, and seems to have carried on his trade successfully, as he is said to have had other arti sans under him, and acquired sufficient wealth to cause his election as, and to enable him to perform the duties of, Aedile1 with benefit to the state.2 From the occupation of his father, Aristophanes and other comic poets taunt the orator as a fiddle-maker, although there is no proof that his father ever intended him to follow his own trade. He, with his three brothers, seem to have been educated in a manner far superior to the youth of his own rank in that day. "My father," he says, " caused us to be so carefully educated that I was then more an object of admiration and respect among my school-fellows of my own age than I now (at eighty-two) am among my fellow-citizens. His brothers were Telesippus,

4

1 See Antid., § 161: Τῶν ὑπαρχόντων ἡμῖν ἀφ ̓ ὧν ὁ πατὴρ ἅμα τῇ τε πόλει χρήσιμον αὑτόν, κ.τ.λ.

2 See Plutarch's Life of Isocrates prefixed to Wolf's edition of Is. Orat.

3 Παῖς μὲν ὢν ἐπαιδεύετο οὐδενὸς ἧττον Αθηναίων, - Plutarch's Life, as above.

4 Antid., § 161: Ὁ πατὴρ ..... ἡμᾶς θ' οὕτως ἐπιμελῶς ἐπαίδευσεν ὥστ ̓ ἐπιφαν έστερον εἶναί, με τότε καὶ γνωριμώτερον ἐν τοῖς ἡλικιώταις καὶ συμπαιδευομένοις ή νῦν ἐν τοῖς συμπολιτευομένοις.

Theodorus, and Diomnestus. His mother was called Hedyto, and he had one sister. But little, however, is known of the course of his life until he arrived at an age to show the bent of his mind for philosophical and rhetorical studies. To aid him in these he had the best teachers of the time; Prodicus of Ceos, who was also the teacher of Socrates, Euripides, and others; Gorgias, of Leontini, the most distinguished teacher of his age, immortalized by the Dialogue of Plato; Tisias of Syracuse, and Theramenes, Protagoras, and others. He was also, doubtless, sometimes found among those who listened to the dialectics of Socrates, since his code of morals and his political teachings are decidedly tinged by the Socratic dogmas. In order that he might receive the advantages of the training of Gorgias, his father is said to have sent him. to Thessaly when about twenty years old. His studies should seem to have been pursued from a genuine love of knowledge, though doubtless youthful aspiration for influence over others as a public orator, and especially for moulding by oratory the public institutions of his own beloved Athens, were not without their effect upon his student life. Still, he soon found himself disqualified for distinction as a public speaker. His voice was too weak, and his natural timidity too strong to be overcome. Thus in his Philippus 1 he says: "I am by nature most unfit of all the citizens for political life, for I have neither sufficient voice or confidence to sway the multitude, or visit with merited rebuke those who prate before public assemblies." The disappointment felt by the young aspirant for public favor can hardly be appreciated without a knowledge of the favor in which public speakers were beginning at that time to be held at Athens. It was only the orator that could count upon a pervading influence in the councils of state; and hence not ambition only, but patriotism, incited the ingenuous youth to the best attainments in oratory." He says, too, with some asperity, that

1 Ἐγὼ γὰρ πρὸς μὲν τὸ πολιτεύεσθαι πάντων ἀφυέστατος ἐγενόμην τῶν πολιτῶν, οὔτε γάρ φωνὴν ἔσχον ἱκανὴν οὔτε τόλμαν δυναμένην ὄχλῳ χρῆσθαι καὶ μολύνεσθαι καὶ λοιδορεῖσθαι τοῖς ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος καλινδουμένοις. See also Panath. 5 10,

2 "In that country [Greece] the rhetorical art was not confined to the choice