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it must mete out the merited retribution. So also is it every where with its approbation for obedience, and disapprobation for disobedience. Though hidden from every human eye the deed of violation is not hidden from law-its pure spirit has been wounded-and an hour of reckoning must come. At that great day when all things shall be seen as they are, then will every law under which we have acted be present with its testimony. The wound given to authority even in the most secluded secretness, will then be an open wound in our own consciences, defying further concealment, and inflicting the retribution precisely proportioned to demerit.

Man may have forgotten or despised the authority which bound him, but that can never overlook the transgressions committed against itself, nor refuse to lift its voice against him when the record of his sins is to be publicly authenticated. Whether it were some smothered deed of darkness, or more deeply covered still, some foul purpose or malignant passion deep within the bosom, the eye of law was there a living witness to the guilt. Secrecy of wickedness is impossible, for the spirit of legitimate authority is every where, to see, to feel, and at the appointed time to testify.

4. Disobedience to the lowest rightful authority is as truly sin in the sight of heaven, as disobedience against the highest.

The degree of guilt is to be estimated by both the majesty of the authority and the strength of wilful rebellion. The same degree of wilful rebellion against a positive command of God, is doubtless more heinous than the same degree of rebellion against the law of man. But it is not problematical, that in the day of final reckoning when all sin shall be weighed according to its real demerit, that many transgressions of human law shall be found to involve more guilt in the sight of God, than many other transgressions of divine law. The difference in wilful and depraved rebellion may have far more than counterbalanced the difference which would accrue from the distinction of authority. The conscience may have been more wounded, the soul more defiled by the former, than the latter. It is not very unlikely that at the last day it will be seen, that the motives and feelings by which we have been actuated in disobeying some of the laws of the land, have laid a heavier weight in the balances of the judgment against us, than some other violations of the direct commands of heaven. We are not to estimate guilt solely by the nature of the law we violate. We may be greater sinners in

violating positive authority, than others are in violating intuitive right, and greater in violating human authority than others in violating God's authority. God will at the last day throw all the various circumstances of light, and knowledge, and privilege, and the temper of mind, and wilfulness of purpose, into the estimate by which the retributions of eternity are to be awarded. This makes our responsibilities most fearfully solemn. We must carry to the judgment, a character formed under the influences of every source of authority which has reached us, and it will not be the same to us in eternity in relation to any of them, whether they have been obeyed or disobeyed. All will be there to lay a burden upon the soul in proportion both to the weight of the authority, and the wilfulness of the rebellion.

ARTICLE III.

THE VERSION OF ULPhilas and the MOESO-GOTHIC
LANGUAGE.

By W. W. Greenough, Cambridge, Ms.

MODERN ethnographers have supposed that the North and Middle of Europe were settled by three successive emigrations from the East. The Celts came first, and were finally scattered throughout the western parts of Europe on the borders of the Atlantic; and also formed the population of the British Isles. The German, Teutonic, or Gothic tribes followed them, and these last were pushed into the centre and north of Europe by the Sclavonic nations. It is with the second of these emigrations, the Teutonic, that we are concerned.

The earlier information of the Greek and Roman writers with regard to the more northern nations of Europe was exceedingly meagre and unsatisfactory. When the intelligence, that Rome had been sacked by the Gauls, B. C. 392, was first received at Athens, it was said that the conquerors were the Hyperboreans, a people who had descended the icy mountains from the unknown regions of the north. Herodotus, writing about B. C. 330, calls the Celts οἱ ἔσχατοι πρὸς ἡλίου δυσμέων, and is so

*Plutarch Camill. c. 22.

uncertain about their location, that he places them beyond the pillars of Hercules. But of the Germans, though not mentioned under the name which they received in after years, be evidently had a more distinct knowledge. Among the Scythian tribes, one is called by him the Βουδίνοι, who were ἔθνος μέγα zai nollóv, a great nation with blue eyes and red hair, living in a country covered with a dense forest, in the midst of which was a great lake; and he adds that they were a nomadic race, and spoke a different language from the Scythians. Taking into account their physical character as differing from the other race of Scythians bald, with flat noses and large chins,'‡ and the relative position of the other Scythian tribes mentioned by the great historian, we can trace a part of the Germans to their first situation on the shores of the Euxine.

But, shortly after the time of Herodotus, a more certain knowledge of the great Teutonic race was attained through the boldness of Pytheas of Marseilles, celebrated equally for his learning and his maritime discoveries. He had already reached the Casseterides, and about B. C. 320 he sailed to Thule, (probably Tellemarck, Norway,) and from thence directed his course southward, and afterwards eastward to the amber coasts. There he found two nations, whom he calls Teutones and Guttones. We see no reason to doubt (as many have), the identity of the Guttones, with the Gothones, the Gothi, and the Goths, who make so distinguished a figure in the early history of the dark ages. The Gothones, dwelt near the mouth of the Vistula, and on the shores of the Baltic, A. D. 80 and 180, and if they were not the nation with whom Pytheas met, the coincidence of names is at least very striking.**

The Gothonest appear first in history as a part of the Mar

*B. II. 33. IV. 49.

† Herod. IV. 108. Mannert's Alte Geographie, Vol. III. chap. 3. Ib. IV. 23. § Strabo, I. 63. II. 114.

Adelung ält. Geschich. der Deutschen, p. 80.

Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXXVII. 2.

** Those who are interested in the controversy can consult Adelung, ält. Geschich. der Deut. p. 87 and 200. Mannert's Geog. Vol. III. p. 353. Bosworth, Pref. to Ang. Sax. Dict. p. 113.

+ Guttones, Pliny after Pytheas. Gothones and Gotones, Tacitus. I'vάves, Ptolem. Gothi and Gotthi by the writers of the third and following centuries. Cossini of Steph. of Byzantium § 490. Adelung, p. 94. They are also by mistake called by some writers Getae, Sar

*

comannic league, B. C. 19. But until they began to emigrate, little or nothing is known of them. The cause of these emigrations has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained, but it is in the highest degree probable that they were compulsory, the result of distress, perhaps pestilence, famine, or an overplus of population; or the pressure of a superior power, like movements of a similar nature in later times. The representation that their removal was in consequence of extraordinary prosperity is to be regarded as a fiction of the bards for the purpose of flattering their countrymen. Be that as it may, the Gothic nations left the eastern bank of the Vistula between the reigns of the Antonines and of Alexander Severus. A portion of these tribes. probably crossed the Baltic, and settled in Sweden and the isle of Gothland. The remainder, forming the larger part, wandered through the eastern part of Germany, and the plains of Poland and Russia, swelling their ranks with the tribes which they conquered. Then passing by the lower Danube, they overran and settled the north coasts of the Black Sea. Afterwards allured by the rich fields of Dacia, they carried their arms through that country with equal success; and from thence into Moesia. The relaxed discipline of the Roman armies was unable to withstand their fierce valor; they took by storm the city of Philippopolis, and completed their triumph by the defeat and slaughter of the Roman emperor Decius. But afterwards, about A. D. 250, they were in turn defeated; and pursued beyond the Danube by Aemilianus, the governor of Pannonia and Moesia.

When in Dacia, the Goths divided themselves into two portions, and settled at either extremity of that country: those dwelling in the west, took the name of Visigothi, Vesegothae, West-Goths, and the inhabitants of the eastern part were called.

mati, and Scythians.-The Gothoni of Tacitus, and Kotini of Dio were a Gallic race.

* Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, Vol. II. p. 387.

Jornandes asserts that the Gothic people originally issued from Scandinavia, called by the ancients vagina gentium, and describes the manner in which they came over. But no reliance is to be placed on his account, as it so evidently contradicts all historical testimony with regard to the settlement of Germany.

These were supposed by the Greeks and Romans to be Scythians. More of this hereafter.

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Ostro- or Austro-Gothi, East-Goths. There is no real foundation for the assertion of Cassiodorus, so carefully repeated by Jornandes,* that they obtained those denominations from their (supposed) original seats in Scandinavia. The work of the former historian was produced when the Goths were in power in Italy, and for the purpose of flattering the conquerors, while that of Jornandes was merely an abridgment of his predeces

sor's labors.

At the time that the Goths conquered West Dacia, they found there the Getae, a Thracian tribe, by many supposed to be identical with the Goths. This error has probably arisen from the fact that the Getae amalgamated with their conquerors. But there is no doubt of the Germanic origin of this nation; taking into consideration the circumstance that Germanic tribes were scattered through Scythia, (which will be considered more at length hereafter,) it will not add to the difficulties of the question when we find that Herodotus and Ovid speak of this people as a Scythian nation. But Ovid was evidently describing a German people when he spoke of the 'flavi Coralli,' and more particularly

Mixta sit haec (gens) quamvis inter Graiosque Getasque,

A male pacatis plus trahit ora Getis,

Vox fera, trux vultus, verissima Martis imago,

Non coma, non ulla barba resecta manu.‡

Compare this description with that of Tacitus, and it will be seen that the poet and historian had before their eyes the same people. It must likewise be borne in mind that Herodotus speaks of two races of Scythians; one with blue eyes, and red or light hair; and another, among whom are the Agrippaei bald from their birth, both males and females, with flat noses and large chins.'§

The Ostrogoths and Visigoths from the early part of the third century remained two distinct nations. When the latter people settled in Dacia, Christianity was already established there, and that it was embraced by them at an early period after their settlement, is known from the fact that the signature of Theophilus, the bishop of the West Goths, appears in the * c. 17. de Goth. sive Get. Orig.

Ovid. Trist. lib. V. Eleg. VII. 11.

Epist de Pont. lib. IV. ch. II. Wiseman's Lect. p. 98. Note.

§ Herod. IV. 23. Vide more at length Hippocrates, p. 292. Niebuhr's kleine Schriften, p. 362.

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