30 APRIL 1887, Page 23

Chrsj000tomt a Study ill the History of Biblical Interpretation. By

Frederick Henry Chase, MA. (Heighten, Bell, and Co., Cambridge; Bell and Sons, London.)—This volume contains an expansion of an essay which gained the Kaye Prize three years ago. The time which has been spent on elaborating and completing it has been well bestowed, and we have a valuable contribution to Biblical exegesis. Most of es have some more or less definite conception of Cluysostom as a preacher and as a champion of the faith ; few have formed any definite opinion of his merits and defects as a commentator. To examine these is a more laborious task than to give graphic accounts of the eloquence with which he thrilled or terrified his audiences at Antioch, and, at the same time, more useful. To the Biblical student this volume will be most suggestive. We may instance the chapter on "Criticism and Scholarship," which any scholar will find full of interest. Here is given an excellent example of the way in which the critio and the rhetorician sometimes contended, so to speak, in the great preacher. On Romans ix., 3, ii/x6polv 7hp arcieepa drat v.T.A. ("I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake.") Chrysostom does not fail to note the tentative force of the imperfect by his gloss ay, avvarbv iv, but in referring to the passage, he uses the aorist, heightening the effect of the state- ment,by representing the wish as possible. Would it not be better, by-the-way, to translate it by," I could have wished"? We commend this valuable and interesting volume very heartily to our readers.