master. He outdoes the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, by the way, Tertullian ("De Pudicitia, 20") ascribes to Barnabas.

He prides himself upon his exegesis of Scripture, which he does not hesitate to ascribe to divine inspiration. "Blessed be our Lord," he exclaims, "who has placed in us wisdom and understanding of secret things" (c. vi., p. 110, vol. i., "Ante-Nicene Christian Library"); and, further on, he boldly avows inspiration on behalf of what Osburn calls "a tissue of obscenity and absurdity which would disgrace the Hindoo Mythology" ("Doctrinal Errors of the Apostolic and Early Fathers," p. 25, 1835).

According to Barnabas, the Mosaic legislation had Christ in view rather than the sanitary condition of the Jews. He even manufactures a law of Moses in order to make out a type of Christ having vinegar to drink. He says (c. vii., pp. 112, 113) r "Moreover, when fixed to the cross, he had given him to drink vinegar and gall. Hearken how the priests of the people gave previous indication of this. His commandment having been written, the Lord enjoined, that whosoever did not keep the fast should be put to death, because He also Himself was to offer in sacrifice for our sins the vessel of the Spirit, in order that the type established in Isaac, when he was offered upon the altar, might be fully accomplished. What, then, says He in the prophet? 'And let them eat of the goat, which is offered with fasting, for all their sins.' Attend carefully: 'And let all the priests alone eat the inwards, unwashed with vinegar.' Wherefore? Because to me, who am to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, ye are to give gall with vinegar to drink: eat ye alone, while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes."

Some have supposed these spurious regulations were taken from traditions, but the Rev. J. Jones says: "I rather look upon it as a pious forgery and fraud, there being nothing of the sort known to have been among the Jewish customs, and this book having several such frauds in it" ("A New and Full Method of Settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament," vol. ii., p. 377, 1827). If it is not either of these it is very clear that we have lost some important portions of God's inspired word in the Pentateuch. Barnabas also has a chapter on the red-heifer, which was sacred to Typhon among the Egyptians, as a type of Christ, and says (chap, viii., p. 115) "The calf is Jesus."

It appears, too, that Abraham was a Greek scholar some time before the Greek language was known, and that he circumcised his servants as a type of Christianity. Barnabas knew, probably by inspiration, the exact number who were circumcised, and tells us (chap, ix., p. 116): "Learn, then, my children, concerning all things richly, that Abraham, the first who enjoined circumcision, looking forward in spirit to Jesus, practised that rite, having received the mysteries of the three letters. For [the Scriptures] saith, 'And Abraham circumcised ten, and eight, and three hundred men of his household." "What, then, was the knowledge given to him in this? Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The ten and eight are thus denoted—Ten by I, and Eight by H, you have [the initials of the name of] Jesus. And because the cross was to express the grace [of our redemption] by the letter T, he says also 'Three Hundred.' He signifies, therefore, Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one. He knows this, who has put within us the engrafted gift of His doctrine. No one has been admitted by me to a more excellent piece of knowledge than this, but I know that ye are worthy."

Verily Barnabas must have been full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. No wonder he was "expressly set apart and sent forth to the work of an apostle by the order of the Holy Ghost" (Acts xiii., 2—4). The importance which he places upon numbers may be compared with that assigned by the author of the book of Revelation. Barney tells us that the world will last 6,000 years because it was made in six days, and the inference is doubtless as true as the fact (?) on which it is based. His system of finding types in the Old Testament has lasted in the Christian Church to our own time, and derives countenance from several passages of Paul. This most excellent piece of knowledge concerning Abraham is hardly more far-fetched than saying that Levi paid tithes to Mel-chisedek because he was potentially in the loins of his forefather Abraham when he met him (Heb. vii., 9,10), or that Agar was a type of Jerusalem (Gal. iv., 25).

Barney applies to Jesus the passage, Isaiah xlv., 1, "Thus saith the Lord to his annointed, to Cyrus." This the Rev. J. Jones (p. 384) calls "a wilful and designed mistake." But his reference to prophecies are scarcely more disingenuously ingenious than Matthew's making Jesus go to Egypt, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt have I called my son;" he dwelt at Nazareth, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene" (ii., 23); or, saying that Jesus spoke in parables, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world" (xiii., 35). His loose system of quotation may also be paralleled from the sacred volume. In Matt, xxvii., 9, the passage from Zechariah xi., 12, 13, is attributed to Jeremiah; in Mark i., 2, a quotation from Malachi iii., 1, is ascribed to Isaiah; in 1 Corinth, ii., 9, a passage is quoted as Holy Scriptures which is not found in the Old Testament, but is taken, as Origen and Jerome state, from an apocryphal work, "The Revelation of Elias."

One more specimen of this Apostolical Father will suffice. It occurs chap, xi., p. 118, and is as remarkable for the Levite's understanding of the laws of Moses as for his information upon natural history: "'And thou shalt not eat,' he says, 'the lamprey or the polypus, or the cuttle fish.' He means, 'Thou shalt not join thyself to be like to such men as are ungodly to the end and are condemned to death.' In like manner as those fishes above accursed, float in the deep, not swimming like the rest, but make their abode in the mud at the bottom. Moreover, 'Thou shalt not,' he says, 'eat the hare.' Wherefore? 'Thou shalt not be a corrupter of boys, nor like unto such.' Because the hare multiplies, year by year, the places of its conception; for as many years as it lives so many [——Gr.——] it has. Moreover, 'Thou shalt not eat the hyena.' He means, 'Thou shalt not be an adulterer, nor corrupter, nor like them that are such.' Wherefore? Because that animal annually changes its sex, and is at one time male and at another female. Moreover, he has rightly detested the weasel. For he means, 'Thou shalt not be like to those whom we hear of as committing wickedness with the mouth, on account of their uncleanness; nor shalt thou be joined to those impure women who commit iniquity with the mouth. For this animal conceives by the mouth.'" We will leave this shocking old Father with a very serious question, as to the value of his testimony to the truth of Christianity.

ST. IGNATIUS.

This Apostolic saint need not detain us long. He is alleged to have been the identical babe taken up in the arms of Jesus as an example of innocence and humility to his none too innocent or humble disciples. But in truth his history is as untrustworthy and fabulous as that of the other heroes of the early Christian Church. St. Chrysostom tells us that Ignatius never saw the Lord Jesus Christ, and he might have added neither did any of the other early Christian writers, with the possible exception of the author of the Revelation; unless, like Paul, they saw him in a trance. He is said to have been a Syrian Bishop of Antioch, but, like the Galilean fishermen, to have written in Greek. Fifteen epistles are ascribed to him, but of