there would be proper persons, indebted to the head of the family for these, or for similar articles of subsistence, as much as for the former; with each of whom the steward must be supposed to deal, and for the same end or purpose, as with the other two. In other words, the fact of his conduct towards each of these persons, being in general the same, and the end which he had in view by it in each instance, the same also; it was not necessary to specify the

would entail a certain consumption of oil and bread corn: Tŵv δωρεῶν ὅσα μέν σοι πρὸς τὴν γυμνασιαρχίαν ἀνήκουσι πεπόμφαμεν, ἐλαίου μετρητὰς διακοσίους, καὶ πυρῶν μεδίμνους τετρακοσίους. Τwo hundred metretæ would be about 2500 gallons of our measure, and four hundred medimni nearly 2000 pecks. So that the proportion of oil was very much on a par with that of corn.

Solomon's daily provision, among other things, included thirty cori or measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal: 1 Kings iv. 22. Cf. Jos. Ant. viii. ii. 4: and, 2 Chron. ii. 10. (Cf. 1 Kings v. 11.) we read of his engaging to supply the hewers of wood in Mount Lebanon, furnished by Hiram king of Tyre, with 20,000 measures of wheat, 20,000 of barley, 20,000 baths of wine, and 20,000 baths of oil. Josephus, viii. ii. 9. expresses one of these measures by cori, and the other by Bádot, which are the two measures respectively in the parable; and understands the contract of a supply from year to year. The number of hewers in the mountain, as we may infer from 2 Chron. ii. 2. 18. was not less than 80,000. If the above supplies were intended for their support, one thousand of each of the measures in question were wanted for every four thousand persons; nor would this be out of proportion to the number; for on that principle, a thousand cori of wheat and as many of barley, would be wanted yearly for every four thousand persons; that is, according to Arbuthnot, about 62,000 pecks of both together; which would be only about 5000 pecks every month, among four thousand persons, or at the rate of one peck and one quarter per man. Yet 2 Chron. ii. 15, 1 Kings v. 11. Solomon also engaged to furnish corn and wine to the people of Tyre in general.

particulars of the fact, except in one or two cases. What he did with any of the debtors, and why he did it, being declared in a single instance, it was a sufficient intimation of what he must be supposed to have done, and why, in every other.

We observe too, that in each of these instances, the steward deals with the debtors, and transacts the business which passes between them, by virtue of his office; as the person to whom the debts acknowledged to be due to his master, are to be paid in his stead. Laying these circumstances together, I think we may come to the conclusion, that whatever the original word, rendered debtors, may denote in its proper sense, there are but two meanings which it can have in the present parable. Either it describes the farmers of the estates of the master, under the steward, who must be supposed to pay their rents in kind, or it denotes the persons who had engaged to supply his household with the necessary articles of subsistence; whether all with the same in general, or each with a separate item in particular, yet in such and such an amount, and on such and such terms respectively.

Of these two constructions, the latter is much the more probable: first, because, though the owners of landed property anciently sometimes let out their estates to be cultivated by coloni or husbandmen, at such and such rents, yet it was the more usual practice to farm them for themselves, by means of their own servants. Secondly, because we do not know that even such owners of lands as let out their estates to others, were paid their rents in kind, and not in money. Thirdly, because the care and management

of the res rustica of their masters, that is, the superintendence of their estates in the country, belonged to that description of servant who is known by the name of villicus or bailiff, rather than to him who is called dispensator, oikovóμos, or steward, in the limited sense of the word. Fourthly and chiefly, because, of the debtors in the parable, distinct persons are seen to stand engaged to the contribution of a distinct item among these productions of the ground, but no one of the number to all: which we may presume, could not have been the case, if the debtors were merely the farmers of the master's estates-and the articles of subsistence which they were bound to render him, were his rents, paid and received in kind: for the estates which produced one of these commodities, would produce the rest; and the same tenant who was indebted to his landlord for one of them, it might be presumed would be indebted for the rest.

But with respect to the other construction of the meaning of the term-it is clear that every ancient family, whether larger or smaller in itself, would require a constant supply of such necessaries as corn, and oil, or wine; and it is equally evident, from what has been premised in relation to the office and duties of a steward of antiquity, that it would belong to him to provide this supply. We perceive that the commodities in which the debtors acknowledge themselves bound respectively to the master, are of this description; and as to the particular amount of the supply of each to which they were indebted, it has but to be stated to shew that it could be required for the use only of a numerous household. An hundred baths of liquid measure, according to

the Jewish mode of reckoning, would be more than a thousand gallons; and an hundred cors of dry measure, more than three thousand two hundred pecks. It is more probable too, with a view to the

c Of the content of the corus and the bath respectively, very different accounts are given by such ancient authorities as mention these measures: though that the former was properly a dry, and the latter a liquid measure, they all concur to attest. Upon the whole, however, there is sufficient reason to acquiesce in the results of the calculation of the content of each, made by Arbuthnot, in his Tables of Ancient Weights and Measures; where the corus is reckoned at thirty-two pecks, one pint, and a certain number of solid inches of another pint of our measure, and the bath or epha, at seven gallons, four pints, and a similar fraction.

Ant.

The following examples will shew the inconsistency of Josephus with himself on this subject. Ant. Jud. ii. xv. 3, he reckons seventy cori equal to thirty-one Sicilian medimni, or forty-one Attic, which makes one corus nearly half an Attic medimnus. Yet Ant. Jud. xv. ix. 2, he estimates the corus to equal ten Attic medimni; which is quite out of all proportion to the other statement, though nearer to the truth in itself. Jud. viii. ii. 9, the bath is said to be equal to seventy-two xesta which may not very much exceed the exact proportion. Theodoret, i. 466, in iii. Reg. Interrogatio xxi. professing to quote from Josephus, says the bath = seventy-four choes ; a measure which Arbuthnot estimates at six pints of ours. This consequently is much beyond the truth. Eupolemus, apud Eusebium, Præp. Evang. ix. 33. 449. A. reckons the corus = six artabæ. The apráßn, according to Aristotle, as quoted by Suidas, in voce ȧxávn, was = forty-five Attic medimni. But Herodotus, i. 192, estimates the Persian artaba at one medimnus and three chanixes. If Eupolemus meant this artaba, his calculation of the content of the corus, is not much in defect. Jerome, however, iii. 49. ad calc. in Isaiæ v. observes, Et pro triginta modiis quos nos pro coro posuimus, qui Hebraice dicitur omer, lxx verterunt artabas sex: quæ mensura Ægyptiaca est et facit modios viginti. That this means the six artaba collectively may be inferred from 1122 ad calc. in Dan. xi. where

daily supply of the daily wants of a numerous household, that different persons would be engaged for the provision of different articles of subsistence, than any one for the supply of all.

We may conclude, then, that the true description of the debtors in the parable, is that of the parties with whom the steward by virtue of his proper office, and

the artaba is put at three modi and one third. Six of such artaba would just be equal to twenty modii. Epiphanius, ii. 177. De mensuris et ponderibus, xxi. the cor or corus is put at thirty modii, and said to be equivalent to a camel's burden and generally speaking this is the content which in most instances we find assigned to it: see Hieronym. iii. 1255, ad princip. in Osee iii: 1039. ad med. in Ezech. xlv.

:

Theodoret. ii. 1035: in Ezek. xlv. reckons the corus = ten homers, and the homer = ten choenixes, which makes the corus = an hundred choenixes; a proportion much too small for its legitimate content, and, as it is, founded on the proportions of these measures to each other, specified at Ezek. xlv. 11, which make the ephah the tenth part of the homer, instead of vice versa, the homer the tenth part of the ephah: see Exod. xvi. 36. From Exod. xvi. 16. 22, the homer, it appears, was as much of the manna as one adult could eat in a day; which, in Attic measure, would answer probably to a choenix and an half, or at the utmost to two chonixes. In the next page, however, Theodoret calls the corus to thirty medimni.

The corus, says Jerome, iii. 1039, ad med. in Ezech. xlv: in utraque mensura, hoc est, tam aridarum quam liquentium, tenet principatum. On this principle he estimates the bath in terms of the corus, as = one tenth of a corus, or three amphora; answering to the ephi in dry measure, which equalled the tenth of the corus, or three modii, also. Eupolemus, too, apud Eus. Evang. Præp. loc. cit. says the corus of wine was equal to ten μérpa. Epiphanius, ii. 178. De Mensuris et Ponderibus, xxi. reckons the bath = fifty resta, which is something less than Arbuthnot's estimate. Jerome's usual estimate for the bath is three amphora: whereas Arbuthnot makes it only = one amphora.