kadeσovσw, they will call, where the Hebrew expression is, she will call or thou wilt call, is of no consequence, since it does not matter whether the prophet said that the name would be given to the child by his mother, the king, or some indefinite person or persons. The other case is that of Taрlevos, by which the Evangelist renders the Hebrew word 'almah. The word Tapevos is correctly translated in our version, for, though it is sometimes found in the sense of young woman, it here, and almost always elsewhere, has the signification virgin. This, however, is not the meaning of 'almah, which, as already explained, is applied to a virgin only as a species of young woman, and which must give way to bethulah (na) when a virgin as such is meant. It must therefore be admitted that the quotation is incorrect, and that the error is a serious one, since it makes all the difference between a natural and a miraculous conception.

It does not help matters to say that, as is probably the case, the Seventy are responsible for the form of the quotation. The fact that Taрberos is found in their rendering of Isaiah vii. 14 does not prove that it is correct; it only shows that Matthew was not the first to use this incorrect translation.

I have thus far said nothing about the connection in which Matthew quotes the prophecy concerning Immanuel. He introduces it, as by Isaiah, into his account of the birth of Jesus, claiming that it was fulfilled when He was conceived by the Virgin Mary. But Isaiah did not use the words attributed to him, and those which he did use referred to the birth of a child in the near future. How, then, can the miraculous conception of Jesus be regarded as the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah?

A recent writer on the prophecies called Messianic replies as follows:

"Matthew applies to the conception and birth of Jesus a prophecy recorded in Isaiah vii. 14, which, as he quotes it, reads as follows: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us.' (Matt. i. 22, 23.) The primary application of this language, as it occurs in Isaiah, does not appear to have been to the birth of Christ, and yet this does not exclude its application to that event, as declared by Matthew. It is well to bear in mind that Matthew was one of the apostles, to whom Jesus had pledged the plenary guidance of the Holy Ghost, and that, as such, he is good authority for this application of the language which he quotes from Isaiah. As between the critics who find fault with him for making the application and Matthew himself, it will be safe, at least for the unlearned, to follow the latter."

This

The writer is evidently a convert to the theory of a double sense. theory is a pure invention, devised to support the assumption that the Biblical authors, because they are inspired, are virtually omniscient. Moreover, it robs prophecy of its reality, and debauches the conscience of the interpreter. Skepticism is better than a faith with such a foundation.

Must we, then, confess that the Evangelist both misquoted and misapplied the words of Isaiah? Shall we not thus destroy confidence in his ability if not in his integrity, and finally overthrow the doctrines of our religion?

This is not the only alternative. We must own that Matthew does not reproduce the words of Isaiah, but the fact that he does substantially reproduce the rendering of the Septuagint relieves him from the charge of tampering with the Scriptures. Does he not, however, apply the prophecy to an event of which the prophet could not have been thinking when it was uttered? Yes, and if one of us should do the same thing he

would justly be suspected of ignorance or dishonesty. A charge of this sort cannot be brought against Matthew. He was a Jew of the first Christian century. When he wrote, philosophy had not made much progress among his people. Consequently they were not accustomed to nice distinctions. They said, for example, that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and many other things which we find it necessary to qualify. In the matter of prophecy they evidently neglected to distinguish between fulfillment and coincidence. When, therefore, they said that a given event fulfilled a given passage in their scriptures, they did not always mean that the passage quoted primarily referred to the event described. It made no difference to them whether it did or not. It was sufficient in their eyes if the event suggested the quotation. In any such case they applied the formula, "This came to pass that," etc. Jewish literature abounds in examples of this practice. That Matthew followed the custom of his time, one who has studied his quotations can hardly doubt. Take, for example, the one found ii. 15. It is from Hosea xi. 1. The prophet used the words quoted of the Exodus, and Matthew must have known that they could not originally have referred to anything else; yet he says that Jesus was carried into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt called I my son. A still better illustration is his statement (ii. 23) that Jesus' home was fixed at Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets that he should be called a Nazarene. In this case probably the only warrant for a reference to the prophets was the similarity in sound between the name Nazareth and neser (→), Branch, one of the words applied to the Messiah in Isaiah xi. 1. If, now, Matthew, like his contemporaries, made no distinction between fulfillment and coincidence, the use which he made of Isaiah vii. 14 was perfectly legitimate; for any one who was familiar with the prophecy in its Greek rendering could not but be reminded of it by his account of the birth of our Saviour, and those for whom he wrote would say, as he said, all this has come to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.

What then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? Briefly this: that Isaiah's prophecy refers to the immediate future; that therefore, if it was fulfilled in any proper sense, it must have been fulfilled toward the beginning of the reign of Ahaz; and that the birth of Jesus fulfilled it only in the Jewish sense.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY.

H. G. Mitchell.

SOCIAL ECONOMICS.

THE OUTLINE OF AN ELECTIVE COURSE OF STUDY IN THREE

PARTS.

PART III. PAUPERISM.

TOPIC II. METHODS OF RELIEF UNDER THE ANCIENT CIVILIZA

TIONS.

NOTE. The distinction is to be observed, throughout the discussion, between Poverty and Pauperism.

Poverty is incidental to every social condition. It is inevitable. There is a constant truth in the saying of Christ: " The poor ye have with you always." Poverty is the necessary sequence, in many cases, of the death or disablement of the bread-winner of the family, and it follows in the wake of many calamities which are in themselves unavoidable. The "invalid corps," under the Socialistic régime, is none the less made up of the poor because of its formal classification in the social body.

Pauperism, on the other hand, is the product of certain types of civilization, or of false economic conditions, or, as is most frequently the case, of unwise and extravagant methods of relief. People may become poor, they do not become paupers: they are pauperized. There is no word to express the active side of poverty. It has no active side. Pauperism is a more active and personal term. We can draw from it immediately the verb, to pauperize.

The art of pauperization was first developed in connection with the later history of the Roman people. It was carried to its highest development in modern times in the Poor Laws of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

1. THE HEBREW METHOD OF RELIEF.

The Hebrew people represent in many ways the simplest problem in which poverty can present itself. They were homogeneous, intensely national, restricted in their intercourse with other nations, and were by derivation first a pastoral and then an agricultural people.

(1.) The system of land tenure, a system of private holdings, modified by the national sentiment that the land was Jehovah's land (Lev. xxv. 23), and by the equally strong national sentiment that the people were Jehovah's people (Lev. xxv. 35–55).

See Ewald's Jewish Antiquities," chapter on Property.

Kalisch's "Com. on Leviticus," chap. xxv.

For proof of operation in later times of Sabbatic law for relief of land, see Josephus's "Jewish War," book i., chap. 2, sec. 4; book ii., chap. 10, sec. 5; also, Schürer's "The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ," div. i., vol. i., pp. 40–43.

(2.) The general Sabbatic system, which stood in its intention, and in the adjustment of some of its parts, to the economic life of the people as a means of protection against oppression and enslavement. Deut. v. 12-15; xv. 1-2; Lev. xxv. 10.

(3.) Special statutes enjoining consideration of the poor or helpless, or providing against possible abuses of laborers.

1 For Parts I. and II. see "Review" for 1889, 1890. alternate numbers of the "Review" for 1891.

Part III. appears in

The statute of the gleanings. Lev. xix. 9, 10.

The statute of the second or poor tithes. Deut. xxvi. 12.

Statute providing for daily payment of wages. Deut. xxiv. 14, 15. Statute in regard to pledges. Deut. xxiv. 6, 10.

Statute against usury.

Ex. xxii. 25.

Note that the call for usury, or interest, did not represent, as now, a method of doing business, a business convenience, - but rather the necessity of the poor and distressed.

(4.) The system of almsgiving, to be estimated in its later development by the stress laid upon the doctrine in the Apocrypha. Book of Tobit, iv. 7-12; xii. 8, 9; xiv. 10, 11.

(5.) The ameliorating enactments relating to slaves are to be noted, but slavery was not a sufficient factor in the Hebrew economic life to require particular attention.

2. THE GREEK METHOD OF RELIEF.

(1.) Colonization.

Colonization was the characteristic and sufficient method of the Greek, and, though it was an indirect preventive of pauperism, it was more effective than any direct method could have been. The colonizing instinct of the Greek race is set forth by Seneca, in these words:

"Greek towns have raised themselves in the borders of the most barbarous countries the language of the Macedonian flourishes on the banks of the Indus, and in the extreme provinces of Persia. Scythia and its immense plains covered with hordes of savages behold Achæan cities rule along the coasts of the Pontus Euxinus. Neither the severity of the climate, where eternal frosts reign, nor the ferocious manner of foreign nations, can place any check on their distant migrations. Asia is filled with Athenian colonies. Miletus alone has produced sixty-five. All the coast of Italy, which is washed by the Tuscan Sea, bears the name of Magna Græcia, and the people have found their way even into Gaul."

(2.) Checks upon population.

See Malthus on "Population," book i., chap. 13, on "The Checks to Population in Greece." Compare Mosaic legislation with laws of Solon. (3.) The remarkable cheapness of comfortable living.

Boeckh calculates that a family of adults could have lived in the time of Socrates for $65 a year, in the time of Demosthenes for $80. The family of Demosthenes, including himself, sister, and mother, cost about $120 a year, exclusive of rent, which could not have been large, as houses ranged from $50 to $2,000 in original cost. See Grote's "History of Greece;" Felton's "Lectures on Ancient and Modern Greece,' The Public Economy of the Athenians," by Augustus Boeckh, reviewed by Professor Harkness in Bibliotheca Sacra," vol. xv. pp. 179–202. (4.) The number of citizens under the pay of the state for attendance upon the Public Assembly, or for jury duty.

(5.) State support of the orphaned children of soldiers, and aid for all disabled classes, to which is to be added the relief afforded by private societies.

Ulhorn affirms "that in Athens we have the nearest approach to the relief of the poor which was to be found in the world at the coming of Christianity." Ulhorn's "Charity in the Ancient Church," chap. i. VOL. XV. - NO. 88.

29

(6.) The pauperizing effect of slavery was largely relieved by coloni

zation.

3. THE ROMAN METHOD OF RELIEF.

The study of Roman poverty introduces us to pauperism. The history of the Roman Plebs is the history of the self-pauperization of a class. As the plebeian class rose to political power, it became a great political proletariat, living upon the subsidies of the state, and relying upon the state for amusement no less than for bread.

For the understanding of pauperism under the Empire, the study of the origin, growth, and rise to political power of the plebeian class is indispensable. The authorities are, any reliable history of early Rome, like Niebuhr's or Arnold's or Mommsen's, supplemented by De Coulanges's "The Ancient City." De Coulanges is invaluable in the study of the subject. See chapters on "The Plebeians," and on "The Plebs enter the City."

With the accession of the plebeian class to political power, its demands upon the state as a proletariat began, reaching in the time of Augustus the following proportion: The social analysis of the city at that period gives (exclusive of slaves) 10,000 senators, very rich; 20,000 soldiers, paid; 60,000 foreigners, chiefly traders; and 320,000 to whom Augustus presented a constant bounty. The causes which at once allowed and necessitated this subsidy of so large a proportion of the population of the city were—

(1.) The succession of brilliant conquests under the late Republic. Wealth poured in upon the city from all directions. Each successful general enriched the city with the spoils of his victories. Immense largesses were bestowed upon favorites, and equally large bounties in the aggregate upon the populace.

(2.) The civil wars of the Republic, which enlarged the range of public bribery, as each party made its bid for the favor of the masses.

(3.) The growth of the city, through the retirement of veterans, and through the influx of strangers, especially farmers from the neighboring country. Colonization never succeeded at Rome. Even war colonies failed. The farms apportioned to the veterans of the wars were bought up by the rich, and the amount of arable land around the city was gradually reduced.

(4.) Slavery. The Roman slave, who might be a man of more character, skill, or learning than his master, carried on all the industries of the city, many of the trades, and took part in the professions. Free labor was pauperized. The citizen without inherited or acquired wealth could gain his living only by his vote. We have seen the use which he made

of this power.

The process of pauperization once thoroughly established, there was no release from it. A zealous effort was made under the Antonines to return to the simplicity of the earlier life of the state, but it was futile. The economic problem which the Roman state left to the Christian church was the relief of its pauperized poor, and the recovery of its debased and demoralized citizenship to character and industry. William Jewett Tucker.

ANDOVER.