the provinces which consist of many tribes, king of this great earth, even to remote parts, son of king Darius, the Achæmenid. Thus says Xerxes the great king: Through the grace of Auramazda, I have erected this edifice. May Auramazda with the gods protect me and my kingdom, and what I have made."

One of the earliest and perhaps one of the most important results to biblical interpretation of the deciphering of the Persian inscriptions was the identification of the king Ahasuerus of the book of Esther. The old Greek translators and Josephus are both at fault in confounding him with Artaxerxes. Grote fend pointed out the identity of the name with Xerxes as that is spelled upon the monuments, and the correctness of his conclusion is now generally conceded. The native form of Xerxes is KHSHaYaRSHa; this was differently vocalized by the Jews but with only a slight modification of a single consonant, aKHASHVEROSH. If Xerxes is the name of the monarch, it cannot be the son of Artaxerxes, who is intended in the book of Esther, for he was murdered after a brief reign of two months; it must be the son of Darius Hystaspes. And then the statements of the book find a ready explanation. Thus the grand assembly of all the princes and nobles of the realm in the third year of his reign, is at once accounted for.

Herodotus informs us that Xerxes having subjugated Egypt in the second year of his reign, subsequently gathered his nobles to deliberate and decide upon his project of invading Greece. This is the convocation described in the first chapter of the book of Esther; and it is observable that the word used for nobles, ver. 3, (D) is the native Persian term, which is found in this same sense in the Behistun inscription. This gathering of dignitaries from all parts, and their remaining together at the capitol for six months, points to something more than a mere banquet for carousal and luxurious display. It was in preparation for what Xerxes was resolved to make the grand event of his reign.

And the interval between the first and second chapters is then naturally accounted for. This assembly was held and Vashti was disgraced in the third year of Xerxes. But Esther was not taken into the palace of the king as her successor, ii. 16, until the tenth month of his seventh year. As twelve months had been spent in preparation ii., 8--12, it appears that the first steps toward supplying Vashti's place were taken in the sixth year of

his reign, three years and more after her banishment from court. The monarch was meanwhile absorbed with the expedition into Greece, the extensive preparations made for it in advance and the actual conduct of the campaign. It was only when he returned to Persia after his inglorious defeat, that domestic matters again engaged his thoughts.

India is mentioned, Esth. i. 1, as one of the provinces of Xerxes' empire and it is spoken of in a manner implying that its possession marked the most flourishing period and the utmost extent of Persian sway. Corresponding with this are the data afforded by the monuments. The Behistun inscription enumerates the countries then subject to Darius Hystaspes, the father of Xerxes, and the name of India is not among them. But in two subsequent inscriptions, one at Persepolis and one at Nakshi Rustam belonging to the later years of his reign, India is expressly named as one of the lands over which he ruled by the grace of Auramazda, and which feared before him and brought him tribute.

Possibly also, as suggested by Prof. Oppert, the term "Agagite' applied to Haman, Esth. iii., 1, and which the Septuagint converts into "Macedonian," may find its solution in the "Agag" of the monuments, a district of Media.

These inscriptions further silence an objection which has been brought against the truthfulness of the book of Esther, that the facts which it records are not mentioned by any profane author. The monuments erected by the Persian monarchs themselves likewise record facts, no mention of which has been preserved by any ancient author whose writings have come down to us. Herodotus speaks of Babylon having been once captured by Darius; but he gives no intimation of the fact assured to us by the Behistun inscription that he took this city at two successive times, nor that this was in consequence of two different impostors having given themselves out as the true Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonned. Nor does he tell us that several years after the accession of Darius a fresh impostor, under the name of Smerdis the son of Cyrus, excited a rebellion against Darius which was with difficulty suppressed. Several other revolts of greater or less magnitude also broke out in different provinces, which are vouched by the same monumental authority, but which histo

rians have passed over in silence. If facts like these, evidenced by the royal monuments, must be accepted though they have been passed over without mention by ancient historians, why should it be esteemed any disparagement to the credit of the book of Esther, that the abortive decree against the Jews and the fall of the king's favorite are not mentioned by Herodotus for whom they were of no particular interest and who had no occasion to record them; especially since they are confirmed by the regular observance of the feast of Purim among the Jews, which was established to commemorate these very events and has been perpetuated ever since?

ART. VI. AN OBITUARY OF DR. LIEBNER BY DR.

DORNER.*

THE printing of the present number had hardly begun when the Editors received the intelligence, as surprising as it was painful, of the departure of our dear and honored friend, our associate in founding and publishing the Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, Dr. Karl Theodor Albert Liebner, Chief CourtPreacher, Ecclesiastical Privy-Counsellor, and Vice-President of the Royal Consistory of Saxony at Dresden, who died June 24, John the Baptist's day, at Meran, in the Tyrol.

The Editors regard it as a precious duty to give expression to the feeling of gratitude which German theology, but especially this Review, owes to the departed. The writer of these lines has for many years enjoyed the intimate friendship and confidence of the deceased, and had the happiness two years since, on the shore of the lake of Lucerne, in familiar intercourse with him, with Dr. Martensen, Bishop of Seeland, and other friends, to hold a reunion which had been previously arranged, and to pass with him hours of higher spiritual refreshment. The sad though honorable duty of devoting to the deceased a memorial Article has therefore been laid upon him. It does not claim to

*The above obituary Sketch of the life and works of Dr. Liebner is translated from the "Jahrbücher fur deutsche Theologie," No. 2, 1871, at the request of the editor of this Review, by Prof. W. A. Packard, Princeton, N. J.

give a complete picture of the rich life and personality of the departed, but such a one as may aid in keeping his dear form alive, and operative, through grateful recollection, even upon earth, after he has himself passed on to better regions. Not being in possession of sufficient materials for a comprehensive view of the life and work of this superior man, I shall have particularly to enter into that side of it which relates to his theological and ecclesiastical position.

I begin with the words with which a daily journal, published at his last home, has spoken of his departure, and which reflect the immediate impression which the deeply lamented man has left behind in his more immediate neighborhood. "One of the most admirable and noble men," it says, "has departed; and what he has been by the wealth and depth of his knowledge, as well as by the loveliness and mildness of his character for theological science and the Evangelical church, as well as for the circle of his friends, and of his family, will never be forgotten. He belonged to the small number of those theologians, who through investigation, profound, truly creative, and such as extends the bounds of knowledge, have given a decisive impulse and direction to their age. It was ever that which is central and fundamental which he held in his eye, in order to set forth clearly the depths of the gospel, and therefore with him, that which gives unity stood above that which divides, the eternal import above the changing form, immediate piety above unfruitful knowledge. His entire theological activity was sustained and permeated by a rich, inwardly fixed and clearly arranged view of the world, which knew nothing dismembered, but beheld everything in the whole, and therefore also in God. For this reason, however, his mind, directed to the ideal and to the objects of contemplation-the supremely Ideal is also always the supremely Practical-has left behind enduring fruit for theology and for the church."

Liebner was born March 3d, 1806, in Schköten, near Naumburg. His father, late pastor in Altenroda in Thuringia, an earnest and severe, and a very well informed man, kept him under the parental roof until his own death; at which time the son, who had early lost his mother, was just thirteen years old. Since he was an orphan left without resources, (his step-mother helped him indeed, according to her ability, but was herself in

narrow circumstances) he passed no easy period of youth; and it is all the more a proof of his sturdy strength of mind, that he lost thereby nothing of energy, freshness and cheerfulness. Music, for which he had gifts in an unusual degree, was early his refreshment, and by the help of friends a support for his outward life, which was early accustomed to regularity and economy, and remained simple in its demands.

From his fathers's house he came well prepared to the Thomas school in Leipsic. Unusual talent and early maturity allowed him when only in his seventeenth year, to exchange the Gymnasium for the University of Leipsic, at which he also completed his academical studies. After a theological examination, brilliantly passed, he was, however, attracted to the University of Berlin, where, at that time, Schleiermacher, Neander, and Marheinecke were teaching. While his education in Leipsic had been, after the older Saxon style, preponderatingly philological, and historico-critical, there opened now to the youthful spirit new and higher views. Questions of speculation and the philosophy of religion employed him henceforth more and more, and he allowed no relaxation in studies which were fitted to inform him upon the present position of questions, and the problems of the time.

He had thankfully received from supernaturalism, a spirit of exegetical research, culture, and reverence for the holy Scriptures; from rationalism the striving for something beyond mere faith in authority. But the lifeless method of reflection, common to both, which taught one to speak of but not out from the subject, was in the deepest contradiction to the character of his mind, which impelled him to go back to principles, to grasp them in the centre, and, from the attained point of unity, to observe the multiplicity of things. His was in a word a speculatively endowed nature. On the other side, however, pure intellectualism had no attractiveness for him. The ethical characteristic which was developed in him by his actual education, and also by the Saxon rationalism and supernaturalism opposed this. United with this moral characteristic there was also in him a powerful tendency to mysticism, to immediateness in religion; and hence to him the displacement of the moral by that hostile pair of brethren seemed as he afterwards expressed himself, "Ethicismus." In so far now as he felt in