gogue and the Church (Jam. ii. 2). Occasionally also by the early Fathers, by Ignatius for instance (Ep. ad Polyc. 4), we find ovvaywyn still employed as an honorable designation of the Church, or of her places of assembly. Still there were causes at work, which could not but induce the faithful to have less and less pleasure in the application of this name to themselves; which led them in the end to leave it altogether to those, whom in the latest book of the canon the Lord had characterized for their fierce opposition to the truth even as "the synagogue of Satan" (Rev. iii. 9). Thus the greater fitness and nobleness of the title. ékkλŋola has been already noted. Add to this that the Church was ever rooting itself more predominantly in the soil of the heathen world, breaking off more entirely from its Jewish stock and stem. This of itself would have led the faithful to the letting fall of συναγωγή, a word at once of unfrequent use in classical Greek, and permanently associated with Jewish worship, and to the ever more exclusive appropriation to themselves of èñêλŋoía, so familiar already, and of so honorable a significance, in Greek ears.

It will be perceived from what has been said, that Augustine, by a piece of good fortune which he had scarcely a right to expect, was only half in the wrong, when transferring his Latin etymologies to the Greek and Hebrew, and not pausing to ask himself whether they would hold good there, as was beforehand improbable enough, he finds the reason for attributing ovvaywyn to the Jewish, and

EKKλnoia to the Christian Church, in the fact that 'convocatio' (= èkkλŋoia) is a nobler term than 'congregatio' (= ovvaywyn), the first being properly the calling together of men, the second the gathering together ('congregatio,' from 'congrego,' and that from 'grex') of cattle.'

The πανήγυρις differs from the ἐκκλησία in this, that in the exkλnoía, as has been noted already, there lay ever the sense of an assembly that had come together for the transaction of business. The Tavýyvpis, on the other hand, was a solemn assembly for purposes of festal rejoicing; and on this account it is found joined continually with coprn, as by Philo, Vit. Mos. ii. 7; Ezek. xlvi. 11; cf. Hos. ii. 11; ix. 5; the word having given us 'panegyric,' which is properly a set discourse pronounced at one of these great and festal gatherings. Business might grow out of the fact that such multitudes were assembled, since many, and for various reasons, would be glad to avail themselves of the circumstance; but only in the same way as a 'fair' grew out of a 'feria' or

1 Enarr. in Ps. lxxxi. 1. 'In synagogâ populum Israël accipimus, quia et ipsorum proprie synagoga dici solet, quamvis et Ecclesia dicta sit. Nostri vero Ecclesiam nunquam synagogam dixerunt, sed semper Ecclesiam : sive discernendi caussâ, sive quod inter congregationem, unde synagoga, et convocationem, unde Ecclesia nomen accepit, distet aliquid; quod scilicet congregari et pecora solent, atque ipsa proprie, quorum et greges proprie dicimus; convocari autem magis est utentium ratione, sicut sunt homines.' So also the author of a Commentary on the Book of Proverbs formerly ascribed to Jerome (Opp. vol. v. p. 533).

'holy-day.' Strabo (x. 5) notices the business-like aspect which the Tavηyúρeis commonly assumed (ἥ τε πανήγυρις ἐμπορικόν τι πράγμα: cf. Pausanias, x. 32. 9); which was indeed to such an extent their prominent feature, that the Romans translated Tavýуupis by the Latin 'mercatus,' and this even when the Olympic games were intended (Cicero, Tusc. v. 3; Justin, xiii. 5). These with the other solemn games were eminently, though not exclusively, the Tavηyúpeis of the Greek nation (Thucydides, i. 25; Isocrates, Paneg. 1). If we keep this festal character of the Tavnyvpis in mind, we shall find a peculiar fitness in the employment of this word at Heb. xii. 23; where only in the N. T. it occurs. The Apostle is there setting forth the communion of the Church militant on earth with the Church triumphant in heaven,—of the Church toiling and suffering here with that Church from which all weariness and toil have for ever passed away (Rev. xxi. 4); and how could he better describe this last than as a ravnyupes, than as the glad and festal assembly of heaven?

§ ii.—θειότης, θεότης.

NEITHER of these words occurs more than once in the N. T.; Oelóтns only at Rom. i. 20; eóτNS at Col. ii. 9. We have rendered both by Godhead; yet they must not be regarded as identical in meaning, nor even as two different forms of the

same word, which in process of time have separated off from one another, and acquired different shades of significance. On the contrary, there is a real distinction between them, and one which grounds itself on their different derivations; eótns being from Θεός, and θειότης, not from τὸ θεῖον, which might be said to be the same thing as Oeós, but from the adjective θεῖος.

Comparing the two passages where they severally occur, we shall at once perceive the fitness of the employment of one word in one, of the other in the other. In the first (Rom. i. 20) St. Paul is declaring how much of God may be known from the revelation of Himself which He has made in nature, from those vestiges of Himself which men may everywhere trace in the world around them. Yet it is not the personal God whom any man may learn to know by these aids; He can be known only by the revelation of Himself in his Son; but only his divine attributes, his majesty and glory. This Theophylact feels, who gives μεγαλειότης as equivalent to θειότης here ; and it is not to be doubted that St. Paul uses this vaguer, more abstract, and less personal word, just because he would affirm that men may know God's power and majesty from his works; but would not imply that they may know Himself from these, or from anything short of the revelation of his Eternal Word.1

But in the second passage (Col. ii. 9) St. Paul

1 Cicero (Tusc. i. 13): Multi de Diis prava sentiunt; omnes tamen esse vim et naturam divinam arbitrantur.'

is declaring that in the Son there dwells all the fulness of absolute Godhead; they were no mere rays of divine glory which gilded Him, lighting up his person for a season and with a splendour not his own; but He was, and is, absolute and perfect God; and the Apostle uses Оeórns to express this essential and personal Godhead of the Son. Thus Beza rightly: 'Non dicit: Tv OELÓTηTα, i. e. divinitatem, sed Tv Oeórηra, i. e. deitatem, ut magis etiam expresse loquatur; . . .

Oelóτns attributa videtur potius quam naturam ipsam declarare.' And Bengel: 'Non modo divinæ virtutes, sed ipsa divina natura.' De Wette has sought to express the distinction in his German translation, rendering betóτns by 'Gottlichkeit,' and Ocórns by 'Gottheit.'

There have not been wanting those who have denied that any such distinction was intended by St. Paul; and they rest this denial on the assumption that no such difference between the forces of the two words can be satisfactorily made out. But, even supposing that such a difference could not be shown in classical Greek, this of itself would be in no way decisive on the matter. The Gospel of Christ might for all this put into words, and again draw out from them, new forces, evolve latent distinctions, which those who hitherto employed the words may not have required, but which had become necessary now. And that this distinction between 'deity' and 'divinity,' if I may use these words to represent severally OcórnS and Oetóτns, is one which would be strongly felt,