beloved colleagues, Andrew Melvin, John Cameron, John Fabri- cius ; and not without good reason. Respecting the same read ing or the pointing of the words, I have made some slight ob servations in the Apparatus, p. 709, 710 [Ed. ii. p. 399, sq.], which I would wish to be carefully noticed ; but I have reserved further remarks for the Gnomon here. At ver. 14, 15, the apostle evidently concludes the former paragraph, which began at ver. 1, and was brought down .to this point, and he now com mences a new paragraph, which is continued in ch. iv. 1 in so close connection, that the old interpreters, according to R. Stephanus and others, reckoned a seventh chapter of this epistle from iii. 16, inclusive, to ch. iv. 7. The almost universal opinion )f interpreters in the present day, among Protestants, fixes the commencement of the period at the word <r™Xoj. I have quoted a great number of them in the Apparatus ; G. G. Zeltnerus and J. C. Herzogius are added. Certainly this clause, trvXos
edpaiupa rr\g ahq&eiag, is not at all advantageously connected with the preceding words, although Lightfoot says that the jat Sanhedrim was everywhere dignified with this title ; but this same clause is much more inconveniently separated from fhat follows. For the particle x«/, xa/ opoXoyov/Asvuc, is unsuit able at the beginning of a new paragraph. Suppose o/^oXoyoy-
z to have been written without xa/, then indeed one might acknowledge it to be a suitable commencement of the new divi sion ; corap. ver. 1 and ch. iv. 9, in which passages, for very much the same reason, the sentence is begun thus, m<srb$ 6 Xo'/oj, without xa/. Now, when xa/ is in the way (occurs), the words between which it is placed are connected by it : oruXog xa/ efyaiufAM r5j£ aX?j0£/ac xa/ ofMo^oyo^^vuc, {Asya, x.r.X. The Rab binical phrases, which are not dissimilar, are usually brought forward, in which the strength and gravity of the subject which comes to be discussed are declared ; but the phraseology of the apostle should be considered in the first place. For in this epistle, which is intended to confirm and rouse Timothy, the form of a preface is frequent, by which Paul commends some topic about to be presently discussed by him, as true and good, solid and salutary, and to be laid hold of by all the force of the understanding and the will [the desires] : niffrbg 6 j/or, x.r.X., ch. i. 15, iv. 9, 6, where